Corrections Sentencing

Up and Running Again!!!

2012-01-10T07:58:00.002-06:00

For those of you who still kindly return here on a regular basis for information and those of get here through some wild accident of Google space-time warping, I want to let you know that some colleagues and I have started a new blog with many of the same topics and features as this blog. Check us out at Corrections Sentencing 2020 as we build our corrections and sentencing network to work through the demanding challenges the next several years will bring fiscally and environmentally.

As always, thanks for visiting here. Hope to see you there.--Mike

Corrections Sentencing Blogroll

2008-02-01T16:36:00.000-06:00

In my adios post yesterday, I promised to put up my usual sources as a blogroll for you to use to keep up with areas and topics that you used to come here for. Here it is. Be sure to look at all of them when you have time, just to see what they have to offer if you don't already know. And some of them will have their own blogrolls that can extend your searches. I hope you get as much from them as I have.

Corrections Sentencing Blogs
a public defender
BlackProf Blog
Crime and Consequences
Crime and Justice News
CrimProf Blog
Court-o-rama
Deliberations
EvidenceProf Blog
Gavel Grab
Governing Through Crime
Grits for Breakfast
Juvienation
Made2Measure
Prevention Works
Sentencing Law and Policy
Sex Crimes Blog
Texas Prison Bidness
The Real Cost of Prisons
Think Outside the Cage

Cognitive Science Sites
All in the Mind
Mind Hacks
Neuroethics & Law
Psychology and Crime News
Science Blogs (Mind and Behavior)
Science Daily (Mind)

General Science and Health Sites
Health Central
Reuters Health
Science Daily
Scientific American

Other Discipline Sites
Climate Progress (well, what it sounds like)
Empirical Legal Studies (law)
Governing (state and local government)
Governing's Blog--the 13th Floor
Prawfsblawg (law)
The Agonist (econ)
The Monkey Cage (poli sci)
The Situationist (social psych)
Voir Dire (law and politics)

Research Report Sites
Justice Research and Statistics Association
National Center for State Courts
National Institute of Corrections
NCJRS Weekly Accessions
NIC Correctional Research Roundtable
Pew Trusts Corrections and Public Safety
Reentry Policy Council
The Sentencing Project
The Vera Institute of Justice
Washington State Institute for Public Policy

General and State Specific News Sites
BBC News
Boston Globe
Christian Science Monitor
CNN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MSNBC
Newsweek
Reuters News
Stateline
The Guardian
US News & World Report
USA Today
WTOP

Turn Out the Lights

2008-01-31T17:43:00.002-06:00

This will be my last substantive post on this blog, for reasons described here. As I considered the kind responses I received to my wondering how to deal with this blog taking up so much of my non-work life, I realized that cutting back or focusing on more specific topics really wouldn’t get it done. It would still just be saying the same things I’ve already said again and again over and over, and I couldn’t justify that use of time compared to the other things I can be doing. If only People or someone had come through to subsidize my Jamie Lynn Spears coverage so I could quit the day job . . . . So I’m setting a monthly post record and then taking off before I start looking like Willie Mays his last year with the Mets or that last season of “Friends.”

I don’t have words good enough to tell you how much I appreciate the generous response to what we’ve done here and the people I wouldn’t know to look at them but whom I consider friends as a result of contacts here. For those of you interested in specific topics or blogs that I have cited here, tomorrow I will post the sites and their links that I hit each evening to find things to write about. I’ll leave it up for you to use that post as your blog roll to those topics if you’d like. Feel free to pass around the "So You Want . . ." readings on the right if someone sounds like they could use them. I’ll be posting occasionally on books, movies, tv (mainly telenovelas . . . seriously) at my son’s blog, and I plan to keep trying to help NIC’s Corrections Community Correctional Research Roundtable get off the ground now and then if you’d like to stay in touch.

Thank you again for coming here. I hope that it has never been too aggravating. If I can ever help in any way (short of lending money), please let me know. Just because I’m moving on from sentencing doesn’t mean I don’t want the best things to happen. If/when the day comes when we move corrections sentencing from the early 1990s rhetoric and ideas that all sides here are still glued to and that technology and other countries are moving on from, maybe I’ll be able to contribute something substantive and we can start this again when there may be an actual payoff I can justify. As it is now, though, it’s time to pay off other things. This weekend my wife and I will start reading a novel together.

It's been real and it's been fun. I truly do wish you the best.

Can This Be Our New National Motto, Please?

2008-01-31T17:43:00.001-06:00

“You can’t live in fear. Stuff happens.”

Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff Myron Freeman, saying he isn't uneasy about the south Fulton neighborhood where he lives despite burglars' theft from his home of his personal cellphone and his department-issued handgun

Water, Water Nowhere

2008-01-31T17:36:00.000-06:00

When I talk about the coming additional costs to state and local govs from the transitional expenses related to global warming and its scary cousins, peak oil and declining water supplies, and the impact of those costs on all current programs and spending, like corrections sentencing, I usually focus on the weather elements. But here's a great story on what I'm talking about from the H2O side, in case you don't believe me:

Human activity such as driving and powering air conditioners is responsible for up to 60 percent of changes contributing to dwindling water supplies in the arid and growing West, a new study finds.

Those changes are likely to accelerate, says the study published Thursday in Science magazine, portending "a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States."

The study is likely to add to urgent calls for action already coming from Western states competing for the precious resource to irrigate farms and quench the thirst of growing populations. Devastating wildfires, avalanches and drought have also underscored the need.

Researchers led by climate expert Tim P. Barnett at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, studied climate changes in the West between 1950-1999. They noted that winter precipitation falls increasingly as rain rather than snow, snow melts faster, river flows decrease in summer months, and overall warming is exacerbating dry summer conditions.
.................................
"The picture painted is quite grim so it's time to collectively sit down and get our act together," Barnett added, suggesting the need for conservation, more water storage, and a slowdown on development in the desert Southwest.

"The building is just going crazy, so it would be a pretty good idea to put a curb on that unless they can figure out how to get more water," he said.

The study also included researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of Washington, Seattle, and the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan.

"Our results are not good news for those living in the western United States," they conclude. The research "foretells of water shortages, lack of storage capability to meet seasonally changing river flow, transfers of water from agricultural to urban uses and other critical impacts."

And, since NM's governor has already been asking why those Great Lakes shouldn't be funneled southwest, this isn't just a Western problem. Welcome to your 21st Century, folks.

Boy, Do I Sympathize

2008-01-31T17:35:00.000-06:00

If you want to live a moment in the life of people trying to get chicken salad out of chicken data from crim just agencies, read this story from ID on (possible) mixups in the state’s report on child sex abuse prosecutions and why they (might have) happened. You would be making a safe bet if you bet this story is repeated all over the country in various agencies every day. As I’ve said before, after about a decade and a half of working with them, I warn people not to see laws, sausages, or criminal justice data being made.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 31, 2007

2008-01-31T17:33:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 221056
Patricia Gonzalez; Tony Romero; Christine B. Cerbana
Parent Education Program for Incarcerated Mothers in Colorado
Journal of Correctional Education Volume:58 Issue:4 Dated:December 2007 Pages:357 to 373

This study examined the short-term impact on 219 incarcerated mothers of the Partners in Parenting (PIP) curriculum, a skill-based program that focuses on strengthening family relationships and promoting positive behaviors. This study found that the differences in testing before and after participation in PIP showed that the mothers experienced an increase in their sense of parenting proficiency, improved their parenting skills, and increased their knowledge about parenting. The PIP education curriculum contains material on reintegration issues after release that tend to confront families. Issues discussed include establishing positive social support networks, the school system, and high-risk behaviors by children. All participants in the PIP program were administered a test before and after program participation in order to assess their parenting attitudes before and after program participation. The first section of the test consisted of 10 items that asked the mothers to report on how their parents treated them as they were growing up, with attention to perceptions of whether their parents helped them with their problems and made them feel wanted. The second section of the test contained 10 items that asked the mothers how they parent their children. The questions dealt with such parenting behaviors as respecting their children's opinions and giving their children help with problems. The last section of the test focused on the mothers' feelings about how they have performed as a parent and how parents should treat their children. 3 figures, 2 tables, 9 references, and appended test administered before and after program participation

NCJ 221007
Rita Haverkamp
Implementing Electronic Monitoring
Max-Planck-Institute Fur Auslandisches und Internationales Strafrecht [!!!]

This study compared attitudes of criminal justice professionals toward the electronic monitoring of offenders among criminal justice professionals in Lower Saxony/Germany (n=541) and Sweden (n=440), so as to gain insight into a number of key issues associated with the debate on electronic monitoring. The comparison of the findings in the two countries shows similarities and differences in criminal justice professionals' attitudes toward electronic monitoring. Respondents in both countries hold a positive view of electronic monitoring in principle; however, support among the Swedish criminal justice practitioners is stronger than among their German colleagues. The professionals in both countries want to integrate electronic monitoring as a form of enforcement in the sentencing and correctional system. They also agree on the goal of the measure, i.e., reduction in the use of imprisonment and a reduction in the time spent in prison. During and after prison, the majority of respondents in both Germany and Sweden want the use of electronic monitoring; however, in Sweden the use of electronic monitoring is preferred in the context of parole. Respondents in both countries favor electronic monitoring as an alternative to imprisonment for offenders who are elderly, physically handicapped, chronically sick, or pregnant. In both countries, significantly less support exists for its use with substance abusers, violent offenders, repeat offenders, and sex offenders. In a statement based on these findings, the author suggests a change in the criminal proceedings toward a policy that uses electronic monitoring as an alternative to imprisonment and to shorten time in prison. An appropriate use would be to apply the measure in cases of minor probation or parole violations. Suggestions are offered for when to use electronic monitoring to shorten sentences of various lengths. 4 figures, 30 notes, and 52 references

Why I Miss Wisconsin

2008-01-30T17:05:00.001-06:00

A friend from WI sent me this, knowing all the levels that this is a remarkable story, even for WI. You have to read the whole thing, but here are a few teasers:

Heavy drinking only seems to make everyone better looking, and it sure doesn't improve judgment.

Pat Dykstra is living, breathing, drunk-dialing proof of that.

She's the Dodge County woman who called 911 from her pickup truck early Sunday to report that she just might be intoxicated enough to need a sheriff's squad to follow her home. Wonder if she would have expected warm milk and a tuck-in once they got there.

And why did she make such a call? Because her boyfriend, who admitted to downing twice as much beer as Dykstra did at the tavern, told her to.

"He wanted me to call 911 'cause he thinks I'm too drunk to drive," Dykstra, 51, of Fox Lake, told the surprised-sounding dispatcher. . . .

. . . Dykstra agreed to a TV news interview that did little to re-establish her solid judgment. She was asked what she thought would happen when she called 911 to report a drunk on the road - herself.

"I really wasn't sure. Like I said, I don't think I was really thinking that much at the time either," she told Channel 4. . . .

The sheriff compared Dykstra's actions to a burglar who suffers remorse and turns himself in later. But to me it seems more like a burglar who calls police during the break-in and says come and get me. Very odd. . . .

The most ironic moment in Dykstra's call comes at the end when she says she must hang up because it's really not safe to drive and talk on her cell at the same time. . . .

Want Proof?

2008-01-30T17:04:00.000-06:00

Of what brainless and scared stupid people we’ve become? Check out Gideon’s catch at “a public defender” blog of a guy in trouble now because one of his MySpace friends linked to a porn site, meaning a kid on the first guy’s page could click and then click and find porn. Generations of Americans have fought and died for us?

[Warning: Some of the language in the post may be offensive. If Americans were grown ups, I wouldn’t have to warn you, but see above.]

The Dangers of Recidivism

2008-01-30T17:02:00.000-06:00

Aren’t limited to the act by offenders itself. We also run into serious problems with its definition, as Corey Rayburn Yung discusses and links to in this post at Sex Crimes Blog. If we insist that public safety is the central focus of corrections sentencing (and leave aside whether it’s best attained through prevention, deterrence, incapacitation, all of the above, none, whatever), then recidivism is the central number we have to address. But as Corey notes, reports disagree and looking at aggregate or general numbers to the exclusion of sub-populations is dangerous when determining public policy. Some sex offenders, for instance, are horrendous recidivists while others do so so infrequently that they’re the ones responsible in part for the low overall rates that Corey discusses. And this doesn’t even get into the time frames you choose to look at (12 months, 36, lifetime?) or the act that makes you a recidivist (rearrest, technical violation of parole, reconviction). Depending on how you put these together, states and offender types can have multiple recidivism rates being thrown around at policymaking time. And, in my experience, the policymakers are not real thrilled with that. So Corey is right, as usual, in praising any effort to bring more light to the subject. The problem is, the lights need to equal what we’ll see on Sunday during the Big Game.

[Doug Berman adds some typically thoughtful commentary on Corey’s post here at Sentencing Law and Policy.]

A More Direct Tie?

2008-01-30T17:01:00.002-06:00

Between the home mortgage crisis and corrections sentencing?

Broke homeowners linked to arsons

Beaten to the Draw Again

2008-01-30T17:01:00.001-06:00

Looks like business schools are going to be the first to combine games, agent-based modeling, and simulation of real-life situations to test and train students on possible applications of their academic learning. Am I concerned that I’ve been begging the criminology and foundation types to get into this for a couple of years now and still no one is noticing? No, because I’m a mature person. Naa, naa, naa.

Addiction and Genetic Risk

2008-01-30T16:59:00.000-06:00

For several decades, scientists have known that most of the risk for habitual heavy smoking (smoking a pack each day) is largely influenced by genetics. This conclusion comes from the study of identical and fraternal twins from Scandinavia, North America, Australia and (more recently) China. It has been estimated that ~ 2/3 of the risk to become a heavy habitual smoker is genetic. This does not imply that this genetic risk is due to a single gene. It is known that many genes are involved, each one contributing a small amount of risk.

Finding the individual genes is a considerable challenge, but worth the effort, because it is hoped that the genes conveying risk for heavy smoking could be used to develop new medicines to help people quit. The development of new medicines to help people quit is particularly important, because the existing medications, including nicotine replacement ('the patch' or gum), bupropion and varenicline are effective in the short-term (several months) for a minority of heavy smokers.

First nicotine, then other abused substances? Bioengineering and TECHNOCORRECTIONS? I’d say so.

And here’s a possible technique for making those genetic changes if you want to prove yourself really interesting at parties:

New Method Exploits Ancient Mechanism To Switch Genes On And Off At Will

When You Don't Have to Worry about Heating Costs

2008-01-30T16:57:00.000-06:00

"Tents" will house up to 448 prison inmates

So Little Kids Could Do Coke?

2008-01-30T16:56:00.000-06:00

In young children, psychostimulants relieve symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder, yet in adolescents and adults, those same medications can cause euphoria and are often abused.

What is behind these differing drug responses?

Temple University scientists have identified a potential molecular mechanism, the neurotrophin system comprised of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor TrkB, as the cause of age differences in stimulant response. Their findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

"Our findings suggest that the rapidly developing young brain is able to adapt and protect itself against the rewarding effects of stimulants due to the input of the TrkB system," said Ellen Unterwald, PhD, lead investigator and professor of pharmacology at Temple University's School of Medicine and Center for Substance Abuse Research.

Most preclinical studies have found that susceptibility to the addictive properties of stimulants is age-dependent. This is the first study to link the TrkB neurotrophin system to those age-specific responses. The hope is that BDNF/TrkB might someday be used as a target for the development of new treatments for childhood neuropsychiatric disorders or addiction.

Employability Certificates and Budget Cuts

2008-01-30T16:54:00.000-06:00

IA may be joining the small group of states which try to improve offender reentry chances with “certificates of employability” under a gov proposal this year. The state is also looking at “racial impact statements,” a concept that could have a big impact (sorry) on the behavior of a lot of agents in state crim just, pushed strongly by the Sentencing Project folks. IA’s one of the states with corrections sentencing issues on front burner this year and what happens there may affect a lot more down the line. Meanwhile, KY is another state with issues, a GIANT budget decrease on the horizon, sweeping prosecutors and PDs in as well. And yes, we’ve mentioned KY as one of the state’s with mega-prison pop probs looming, although, with fewer DAs and PDs, fewer prosecutions will be likely, making crime much more attractive even if penalties are higher. Here’s how one state paper accurately and succinctly put it:

Kentucky would keep packing felons into its prisons and jails, and the Corrections Department would suck money from the rest of the justice system -- including Kentucky State Police, prosecutors and public defenders -- in Gov. Steve Beshear's two-year budget proposal.

Interesting experiment.

One Reason Relapse Is Easy

2008-01-30T16:52:00.000-06:00

Using a brain imaging technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists have discovered that cocaine-related images trigger the emotional centers of the brains of patients addicted to drugs -- even when the subjects are unaware they've seen anything.

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr. Anna Rose Childress and Dr. Charles O'Brien, showed cocaine patients photos of drug-related cues like crack pipes and chunks of cocaine. The images flashed by in just 33 milliseconds -- so quickly that the patients were not consciously aware of seeing them. Nonetheless, the unseen images stimulated activity in the limbic system, a brain network involved in emotion and reward, which has been implicated in drug-seeking and craving.

"This is the first evidence that cues outside one's awareness can trigger rapid activation of the circuits driving drug-seeking behavior," said NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow. "Patients often can't pinpoint when or why they start craving drugs. Understanding how the brain initiates that overwhelming desire for drugs is essential to treating addiction."
……………………………….
Childress and her colleagues also found that the regions of the brain activated by drug images overlapped substantially with those activated by sexual images. This finding supports the scientific consensus that addictive drugs usurp brain regions that recognize natural rewards needed for survival, like food and sex.

According to Childress, these results could improve drug treatment strategies. "We have a brain hard-wired to appreciate rewards, and cocaine and other drugs of abuse latch onto this system. We are looking at the potential for new medications that reduce the brain's sensitivity to these conditioned drug cues and would give patients a fighting chance to manage their urges."

Die, You Gravy Sucking Pigs

2008-01-29T17:38:00.001-06:00

This post gives you the latest blogosphere reaction to the brainiac quote we cited yesterday from the deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, with a tip of the hat to Steve Martin for the post title, which I copied. All of them are good and splat-perfect, but this is my favorite:

Hey, here's another suggestion: let's stop teaching people the Heimlich maneuver. Not only does it put a medical procedure in the hands of mere non-medical professionals, watching a few fat people in your local McDonalds choke and die, turning purple, thrashing on the floor, and clawing their throats, would be an excellent salutary lesson in the dangers of gluttony and poor dietary habits.

I'd Love to Hear What Juno Would Say

2008-01-29T17:37:00.001-06:00

Mental Health Screenings, Risk Behavior Interventions Needed In Juvenile Justice System

Another TECHNOCORRECTIONS Breakthrough

2008-01-29T17:35:00.000-06:00

A new chemical synthesis method based on a catalyst worth many times the price of gold and providing a far more efficient and economical method than traditional ones for designing and manufacturing extremely novel pharmaceutical compounds is described by its University at Buffalo developers in a review article in the journal Nature.

Why is that important to us in corrections sentencing?

So far, the new synthesis strategy has generated compounds that have potential activity against a broad range of disease states, from cancer to central nervous system disorders, such as depression, to inflammatory and microbial diseases and medications for treating cocaine addiction. (emphasis mine)

It should be even more important as the bioengineering side of TECHNO develops better abilities to pinpoint precise pharmaceutical remedies for individual addicts and others whose behavior can be affected by directed pharmaceuticals, like maybe sex offenders or violent types. The biggest news will be when the researchers involved on both sides start doing the same car pool.

[Here’s how it could be applied. Researchers have apparently discovered the means to block morphine addiction in mice. (How the mice got hooked on morphine is not disclosed.) The researchers think they may be able to induce the same effect pharmaceutically. And, if they can do it for morphine, that opens up possibilities for other addictive substances, even though not all of them act the same as morphine or its derivatives like oxycontin in the body. Good news for mice, for sure, but combine it with the findings above and maybe we can see ways to get a giant chunk of our prison pop out of those beds needed for the violent and sex folks. Then we can turn the TECHNO on for them, too, maybe.]

Can a State Go Bankrupt?

2008-01-29T17:32:00.000-06:00

Treatment is sought for addicts
STATE BANKRUPTING ITSELF BY JAILING THEM, PANEL TOLD

State officials are asking Gov. Steve Beshear and the legislature to consider steering criminal suspects with addiction problems into intensive treatment rather than a jail cell.
Kentucky is bankrupting itself by imprisoning drug addicts and alcoholics, lawmakers were told Thursday.

"We have too many people in jails, too many people in prisons," state Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Our capacity to care for them has been strained to the limit."

The state is poorly served by locking up street-level addicts, Brown added.

"I don't think we're getting the worst drug lords into the prisons. We're just getting the people who went out and got caught," he said. "It's the low-hanging fruit." . . .

More than 80 percent of the state's criminal suspects get into trouble because of substance abuse, Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, told the committee.

Kelly and Senate Minority Leader Ed Worley, D-Richmond, are pushing Senate Bill 72, which would establish an intensive three-month to six-month addiction treatment program for people charged with felonies. The committee unanimously approved the bill Thursday and sent it to the full Senate.

"This is one of the most sensible solutions to dealing with this problem in the real world," said Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville.

Under the bill, court officials would screen less-serious felony suspects within days of their arrests to determine who has a relevant addiction problem that could be resolved with treatment. Participants would agree to live in a secured 200-bed facility or, if it's considered safe, other residential drug-treatment programs identified by the state.

Successful participants later could have their records expunged and avoid a prison sentence, although follow-up treatment would be assigned. People who quit or are booted from the program would return to the justice system to stand trial. (h/t Crime and Justice News)

Don’t worry. In reality, a state will start furloughing staff with unpaid work days each month, maybe cut pay, reduce services to the bare bones before it will actually go bankrupt. No big deal.

Four Years to Probation

2008-01-29T17:31:00.000-06:00

In case you were wondering what cell in your sentencing grid to put “faking having sextuplets and taking money for them” if it ever comes up in your state.

So the Deterrence Thing Isn't Working

2008-01-29T17:29:00.000-06:00

Important story in USA Today today on multigenerational crime, how it runs in families who show how to do time, and how we brainiacs in corr sent are only now starting to glom onto the problem. Excerpts:

Nearly half of the 2 million inmates in state prisons across the USA — 48% — say they have relatives who also have been incarcerated, according to a Justice Department report in 2004, the most recent comprehensive survey of state prison populations. . . .

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says an estimated 2 million children with one or both parents incarcerated face the greatest risk of perpetuating the cycle of crime across generations. As part of a pilot project this year, the department will try to link 3,000 of those children with "mentors" to assist with counseling and other social needs, says Curtis Porter, an administrator in the department's Family and Youth Services Bureau.

Porter says the number of children with incarcerated parents is a conservative estimate that may not capture the entire population. He suggests generational problems associated with such families are more serious.

"There is a replication and a recycling of crime across generations," University of Maryland criminologist John Laub says. "It's a huge problem."

Family ties are ingrained in just about every part of the nation's criminal justice system. On California's death row, prison spokeswoman Terry Thornton says, there are six sets of brothers among the 667 condemned prisoners awaiting death by lethal injection.

In Texas, which has executed six sets of siblings, there are two sets of cousins on death row. An additional dozen or so death row inmates have relatives serving time in other parts of the state prison system, spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says.

And, of course, there’s the prototypical DA’s office rep denying that upbringing and circumstances have any impact at all on how people turn out. She needs a strong dose of The Situationist. There’s lead paint missing from a house somewhere.

I'm Not the Only One Profiting

2008-01-29T17:27:00.000-06:00

An Economy Grows Around Britney Spears

Now if I could just see some actual dollars . . . .

Will this get it done?

Jamie Lynn Spears' TV show, 'Zoey 101,' returns

Looking for a Job?

2008-01-29T17:24:00.000-06:00

How DOCs can do EBP and reentry, from Corrections Community:

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) solicits proposals from organizations or individuals for a 12-month cooperative agreement to provide coaching on executive leadership and complex project management to achieve the implementation of evidence based practices (EBP) on offender risk reduction for the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) Community Corrections Act oversight unit and a limited number of local community corrections agencies. The project is jointly supported by NIC and the JEHT Foundation.

This Request For Proposals seeks a Technical Resource Person or Persons (TRP) to facilitate the strategic change process at both the KDOC oversight and selected local community corrections agencies levels. The coaching will include evidence based policy and practice related to decision making by criminal justice officials and stakeholders; organizational development knowledge and strategies; and assessment, case management and behavioral interventions for the state’s adult felony probation population. The selected TRP will need to be available for on site facilitation and off site coaching beginning early April, 2008, and continuing for twelve months thereafter. An initial site visit including NIC and JEHT representation will be scheduled upon award of the cooperative agreement.

The full announcement and resource documents can be found here. (I know, Eileen, but better late than never.) Maybe these sorts of initiatives are the reasons why KS is having these kinds of results.

More Phishing

2008-01-29T17:20:00.000-06:00

Matthew Bowen follows up on Prevention Works' recent warning and help regarding phishing. This time he brings in the concept of the phishing criminal ecosystem to describe the, well, less than stellar individuals who get involved in this malodorous vandalism. As always, he always brings it back around to how we can use the knowledge of these general losers to protect and prevent. Worth your time, as always.

Big Dufus Brother

2008-01-29T17:13:00.001-06:00

One of the interesting things about talking to inmates about their prior criminal histories if you work for a DOC is that they will almost inevitably tell you about more offenses than you have a record of, in part usually because they've bought into the notion that the government really has this wonderful and all inclusive data system with them in it. LOL. Those of us who work with sentencing or corrections data, especially those coming from old legacy systems or dependent on local jurisdictions to supply, may be among the most skeptical (but not completely) about the data warehousing fears and how they may be used. We're not that good and neither are our systems, even if they have a bunch of stuff in them. We're getting better, but Big Brother is still a year or two off.

Want some proof? Well, our friend from AK (Alaska, not Arkansas) Teri Carns sends along this piece on the really "Cloverfield" nature of many of the city surveillance cameras out there and their, oh, maintenance problems. I do believe we need to be wary, trust me, but never count out Murphy and his Law. It's alive and well in crim just generally and corr sent specifically.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 29, 2007

2008-01-29T17:11:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 221130
Scott Vollum; Dennis R. Longmire
Covictims of Capital Murder: Statements of Victims' Family Members and Friends Made at the Time of Execution
Violence and Victims Volume:22 Issue:5 Dated:2007 Pages:601 to 619

This study attempts to examine whether the needs of healing, closure, and psychological adjustment are met with the sentencing of an offender to death, and it attempts to shed light on the experiences and perspectives of covictims regarding the death penalty process and the execution of the individual responsible for their loss. The grief of covictims in the aftermath of murder is especially acute given the extraordinary traumatic nature of the loss. The needs of covictims in the weeks, months, and years following the murder are many and diverse but often revolve around notions of closure and healing, of moving on with one’s life in the wake of the tragedy one has experienced at the hands of a murderer. The statements of covictims in this article reinforce the importance of these elements for covictims. In an overwhelming majority of cases, covictims bring up factors related to healing and closure. However, there is some ambivalence in regard to whether the execution or death penalty assists or hinders the meeting of these needs. It appears that meeting these needs in the context of the retributive punishment of death is elusive. In many cases, victims report finding little solace in the fact that the condemned inmate who killed their loved one will be or was killed. The most common specific themes were expressions of dissatisfaction with the execution and/or death penalty more generally. There was dissatisfaction with the length of time it took before the execution was finally carried out, and dissatisfaction with something the condemned said or did at the time of execution. This study builds from previous studies and examines the breadth and depth of covictim statements. Covictim statements were obtained through articles reporting on executions. Using content analysis, 10 major thematic categories of statements were identified and examined. Table, notes, references

NCJ 221060
Kristina Murphy; Nathan Harris
Shaming, Shame and Recidivism: A Test of Reintegrative Shaming Theory in the White-Collar Crime Context
British Journal of Criminology Volume:47 Issue:6 Dated:November 2007 Pages:900 to 917

Based on survey data collected from 652 tax offenders, this Australian study tested Braithwaite's theory of reintegrative shaming in the context of white-collar crime. The study found that those tax offenders who perceived the handling of their case as more reintegrative (designed to develop law-abiding behavior) than stigmatizing (impose negative labels and punitive sanctions) were less likely to report that they had evaded their taxes in the years following their enforcement experience. Reintegration predicted slightly less shame acknowledgement, not more. A desire to "put things right" was more influential in reducing reoffending than having a feeling of shame regarding the offense. The findings lend general support to the reintegrative shaming theory in the white-collar crime context. Braithwaite's theory argues that disapproval that is reintegrative is conducted in a respectful and healing manner. It makes a special effort to avoid stigmatizing labeling and ends disapproval with rituals of forgiveness or reconciliation. The findings of this study suggest that in order to prevent possible reoffending after an enforcement experience, regulators should adopt enforcement procedures that emphasize the reintegration of offenders back into society under the assumption that they have learned their lesson and will adopt law-abiding behavior. The 652 tax offenders who participated in the study had all been caught and punished for investing in illegal tax avoidance schemes. The survey to which the participants responded contained over 200 questions designed to test respondents' attitudes toward the Australian tax system, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), and paying taxes. A number of questions were also designed to assess respondents' self-reported tax compliance behavior and their views about their enforcement experience. The study focused on ATO reintegration/stigmatization variables, shame-related emotion variables, and self-reported noncompliance with tax laws. 3 tables, 1 figure, 59 references, and appended survey items used in the study's analysis

Things You Never Thought You'd See

2008-01-28T16:58:00.000-06:00

Marijuana vending machines in US

Was the Goin' Up Worth the Comin' Down?

2008-01-28T16:56:00.000-06:00

(With apologies to Kristofferson’s unforgettable “The Pilgrim”)

Those of us watching the prison buildups of the last couple of decades, especially those of us living in states where communities were competing for new prisons on the unsubstantiated grounds that they help econ development of small towns, could see the vested interests and political power being placed solidly behind the continued growth and maintenance of those prisons. Crime and victims were a growth industry that many communities welcomed, as long as they weren’t in their community. Now that one state, NY, is looking at closing some of its prisons down, more people are beginning to understand the costs associated with the buildup and now the closedown. Juvienation and Sentencing Law and Policy both have notes on a NY Times article that gets at what everyone should be considering as they continue to build up and watch to see if a builddown is even possible.

Policy to Law?

2008-01-28T16:50:00.000-06:00

Empirical Legal Studies continues an interesting discussion on whether law schools should be more interdisciplinary, incorporating more social science in particular, and provides a great historical perspective on the debate (while highlighting one of my legal scholar heroes, Edward Levi). After years of watching legal types stumble through or be completely ignorant of the findings and methodological warnings provided by policy analysts, I’ve been a proponent of more public policy perspective in legal training or a legal/policy degree, but not having the perfidious influence of economists, law’s incestuous cousin, more extended. But I’m just an outsider looking in. Maybe the insiders will get more people’s attention in the legal academy, although that historical perspective I mentioned certainly doesn’t give anyone optimism.

Quick Hits

2008-01-28T16:49:00.000-06:00

If you want some thought provoked, drop by these blogs today and get pummeled: Pam Clifton at Think Outside the Cage has good stuff up on law enforcement’s salutary role in offender reentry if they’ll take it on and on the damage to incarcerated parents when their kids go through a corrupt foster care system; CrimProf Blog has a statistically rich and depressing post up on OH’s problems with DNA evidence care and efforts by the gov there to upgrade their system; All in the Mind lets us know that Australia is having the same problem with political interference with science and evidence-based research that we find in our country; and Psychology and Crime News has a post linking you to two good stories once again calling into question the entire enterprise of eyewitness testimony, either through the witness’ inability to deal errors or through their susceptibility to peer influence.

Hate to Go All Fuddy on You

2008-01-28T16:48:00.000-06:00

But, seriously, what does this say about our senses of citizenship and mutual responsibility?

States hooked on slots revenues

Don't Drop the Soap

2008-01-28T16:47:00.000-06:00

The name of a new board game developed by the son of KS’s governor.

"Fight your way through 6 different exciting locations in hopes of being granted parole," the site says. "Escape prison riots in The Yard, slip glass into a mob boss' lasagna in the Cafeteria, steal painkillers from the nurse's desk in the Infirmary."

The game includes five tokens representing a bag of cocaine, a handgun and three characters: wheelchair-using 'Wheelz," muscle-flexing "Anferny" and business suit-clad "Sal 'the Butcher.'"

Will this deter crime? Foster appreciation of what inmates actually have to deal with? Become the new “Trivial Pursuit”? You gunna start the neighborhood game night?

Actually, it seems sort of fitting for where we are as a nation right now.

TECHNOCORRECTIONS and DUI

2008-01-28T16:46:00.000-06:00

NE becomes the latest state to bust down on DUI, putting mandatory ignition interlocks in even first-timers’ cars. NM says it has the stats to support the move, which it pioneered. What’s good about it is the fact that you don’t get mulligans like so many states provide before they start cracking down. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m pretty hard-core on this, even though I was young and stupid myself in the past. I can’t remember the last time I got anything to drink when my wife’s been quaffing sangria like it’s water and . . . sorry. This really does mark me as a fuddy-duddy, doesn’t it?

We're from the Government and . . .

2008-01-28T16:45:00.000-06:00

Add the Feds to that list of fiscal problems facing the states as the economy recedes.

Stimulus plan could ravage state budgets

Meth Use Down in UT

2008-01-28T16:44:00.000-06:00

So say the latest stats. Let’s wait and watch to see if ID, with its new Meth Project effort, has a similar decline to UT, without a Meth Project, and attributes the decrease to the Project, hmm? It would be a nice example of a point we make here frequently regarding our tendency to mistake our rain dances for effectiveness when it rains even though other states that don’t do the dances get rain, too.

Twitching, Screaming Deaths Can Be a Great Deterrent

2008-01-28T16:42:00.000-06:00

There’s an antidote to heroin overdose that costs less than $10, can be administered by nonprofessionals, and has been successful in saving lives and maybe even in deterring further use according to the one study that’s been done. So what’s the problem? Much of the science blogosphere is howling over this statement about that antidote by the deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, who opposes the antdote’s use:

"First of all, I don't agree with giving an opioid antidote to non-medical professionals. That's No. 1," she says. "I just don't think that's good public health policy."

Madras says drug users aren't likely to be competent to deal with an overdose emergency. More importantly, she says, Narcan kits may actually encourage drug abusers to keep using heroin because they know overdosing isn't as likely.

Madras says the rescue programs might take away the drug user's motivation to get into detoxification and drug treatment.

"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says.

Forget that research sensibly indicating that it’s the “almost kicking it” thing that gets their attention rather than the extra time “going to the emergency room” so they can learn a lesson (aka die) thing. So there you go, saving more addicted villagers by letting them die. Modern American history.

Arbitrary Justice

2008-01-27T18:11:00.000-06:00

I taught the basic American government freshman survey course for 17 years, did all the usual topics you find in the textbooks, espoused wisely on the intricacies that I could add from personal experience as a former budget analyst, practicing school board member, campaign consultant. Yes, indeed, everything a student could ever want in learning about their government.

Never talked about prosecutors.

The most powerful people in our government, people who can threaten more President’s futures than anyone else on the planet, people who, if they target you, can do more harm to you and your family than any other government official, pound for pound. Never mentioned them. Which tells you basically everything you need to know about poli sci and US gov’t education in this country, but that’s a different topic for a different blog.

My point here, instead, is to note how important Angela J. Davis’ (not THAT Angela Davis) new book, Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor is in terms of its coverage of and questions about the power and practice of our DAs and about our general and determined ignorance about them as citizens and potential suspects. I’ve never bought the whole “power corrupts, absolute power yada, yada” thing because I’ve seen too many people whom power ennobled, made better, made society better because they had it. That’s true of many of the prosecutors I’ve been fortunate to work with in my life, including a couple of the recognized best of the 20th century, Andrew Sonner and Michael McCann. You have to know from his posts here that Ben Barlyn is one of those with whom that power can be entrusted. They epitomize what we talk about here as “good” prosecutors.

But we also talk here about the “bad” prosecutors, primarily because of the harm they do not just to us and our free society but also because of how they undermine the work and reputations of the good ones. And the invisibility of most prosecutorial work and the questions that arise in its practice means that it’s not until the bad ones go so over the top that they can’t be ignored, well after their misuse of power could have limited the damage. Any book that pulls back the curtain is to be valued. A book that does that with good writing and thorough analysis like what Davis, a long-time public defender, pulls off here is even more important.

She covers all the basic topics—prosecutorial discretion, charging power and plea bargains, relationship for good or bad with victims, the death penalty choice, US attorneys and the Attorney General as a species all their own, prosecutorial misconduct, ethics, and accountability, and, best, possible reforms. Here are a few quotes to direct your interest:

All of the reasons in support of prosecutorial discretion explain why it is so essential, but they do not address the problems that have resulted from the failure to monitor how that freedom and independence to enforce the law, the judicial and legislative branches of government have failed to perform the kind of checks and balances essential to fair and effective democracy. . . .

Consequently, prosecutors, unlike judges, parole boards, and even other entities within the executive branch such as police, presidents, and governors, have escaped the kind of scrutiny and accountability that we demand of public officials in a democratic society. Prosecutors have been left to regulate themselves and, not surprisingly, such self-regulation has been either nonexistent or woefully inadequate. . . .

Much of what passes for legal behavior might in fact be illegal, but because prosecutorial practices are so rarely challenged, it is difficult to define the universe of prosecutorial misconduct. Because it is so difficult to discover, much prosecutorial misconduct goes unchallenged, suggesting that the problem is much more widespread than the many reported cases of prosecutorial misconduct would indicate. As one editorial described the problem, “[i]t would be like trying to count drivers who speed; the problem is larger than the number of tickets would indicate.” . . .

Prosecutors are rarely punished for misconduct, even when the misconduct causes tremendous harm to its victims. Of the eleven thousand cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct examined by the Center for Public Integrity, the appellate courts reversed convictions, dismissed charges, or reduced sentences in just over two thousand. However, in these cases, most of the prosecutors suffered no consequences and were not held accountable or even reprimanded for their behavior. . . .

It is difficult to strike the appropriate balance between independence and accountability in the prosecution function. Independence is extremely important to the appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion and power. Thus, prosecutors should perform their duties and responsibilities independently, on the basis of all of the appropriate considerations that promote the effective and efficient enforcement of defendants in particular cases. On the other hand, prosecutors should be accountable to the constituents they serve without allowing the prospect of reelection to improperly influence their decisions in individual cases. Prosecutors should be accountable to their constituents as they formulate policies on general issues such as charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing. However, ultimately they must make decisions in individual cases independently, taking into account all of the relevant considerations and ignoring inappropriate factors such as class, race, ethnicity, or politics, with the goal of achieving a fair and just result in all cases. All prosecutors face the difficult challenge of effectively implementing these conflicting goals. . . .

Davis finishes her overview and analysis with recommendations for improving prosecutorial transparency and accountability, such as greater oversight by the legal profession itself, strengthening disciplinary processes, shoring up the current and basically ignorant (my words, not hers) electoral and appointments processes, and use of public information campaigns, prosecution review boards, and racial disparity studies. She particularly praises the Vera Institute of Justice’s Prosecution and Racial Justice Project for its work with prosecutors seeking to reduce racial disparity, without noting that the list of those DAs involved is almost a Hall of Fame of “good” prosecutors, not “bad” ones, who somehow are missing. She makes the strange assertion that prosecutorial support is necessary for the review boards or the studies when, in fact, enough data exist in a range of other sources to shine enough light on practice to force the prosecutors to open up their own data to fight the charges.

It’s true that DA data are the black hole of criminal justice, deliberately so so that the problems outlined here are so hard to address. Judge Sonner told me more than once how he had supported an original move to develop an “evidence-based” approach to study prosecution and its decisions, although it probably wasn’t being called that in those days, but the effort got shanghaied by hard-liners. As I said, however, our data from courts, corrections, victims, law enforcement, and other state/local agencies are good enough to paint a general portrait that only a truly obstinate prosecutor would ignore once public debate were started. The data track would be the best way to start shining the much needed light described by this study. I would also support moving toward a voucher system for counties to make limited claims on state resources and correctional facilities, which would force more local attention to how prosecutors are deciding to use the capped funds. Finally, here’s an idea only a public defender would love—hire as many PDs as ADAs and switch them out every three years, making each side have to deal with the realities of the others. Of course, in a world in which defendants can already be a little suspicious of who their PD works for, they might not be thrilled with having a former ADA recommending that they take that plea bargain.

Is Davis’ the best that can be done to stir investigation and discussion of the most powerful public officials in America? It’s a short book, easily digested, so those requiring the usual legal tome will likely say "no" or point to omissions as crippling. She only spends one chapter discussing the abuse of prosecutorial power and misconduct, any case of which can be and has been a book in itself (just ask John Grisham). But it’s a fair, objective account from someone whose own profession could have been expected to go a different way. Whatever. The point is moot. It’s the book out there right now and it gets the job done well. Let’s hope anyone wanting her to do more will be out with their better book quickly.

Black Lung Drug

2008-01-27T18:01:00.000-06:00

Although I'm critical of our drug policies regarding pot, it's because I see them as so hypocritical (and thus legitimacy-draining) and wasteful given the opportunity costs for other areas of corr sent and crim just that they supplant, not because I think pot is a good thing for anyone not using it for (real) medicinal purposes. I've made the point before that I've never smoked, not even faked inhaling, anything first hand (although my lungs probably will never recover from a childhood of smokers). I don't see the point, and I used to get aggravated in the good old hippie days when pot advocates would downplay charges that marijuana smoke was just as bad for you or worse than tobacco. How could it not be?

Well, actually, appears it's worse.

A new study finds that the development of bullous lung disease occurs in marijuana smokers approximately 20 years earlier than tobacco smokers.

A condition often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke, bullous lung disease (also known as bullae) is a condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the lungs.

At present, about 10% of young adults and 1% of the adult population smoke marijuana regularly. Researchers find that the mean age of marijuana-smoking patients with lung problems was 41, as opposed to the average age of 65 years for tobacco-smoking patients.

[The lead author] added, "Marijuana is inhaled as extremely hot fumes to the peak inspiration and held for as long as possible before slow exhalation. This predisposes to greater damage to the lungs and makes marijuana smokers are more prone to bullous disease as compared to cigarette smokers."

Patients who smoke marijuana inhale more and hold their breath four times longer than cigarette smokers. It is the breathing manoeuvres of marijuana smokers that serve to increase the concentration and pulmonary deposition of inhaled particulate matter – resulting in greater and more rapid lung destruction.

But before you drug warrior types lay claim to this as proof that users should be imprisoned for their recklessness and stupidity, just remember that we'll be the ones paying for those damaged lungs if they're in our prisons and those dollars could be used to prevent real crimes and victims, or maybe even treat and solve some of the use. And you potheads who deny you're hurting yourselves? The 60s are over, man.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 27, 2007

2008-01-27T08:30:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 221005
Rebecca L. Jackson; Derek T. Hess
Evaluation for Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders: A Survey of Experts
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume:19 Issue:4 December 2007 Pages:425 to 448

This study surveyed 41 experts who conduct sex offender civil commitment evaluations, in order to identify the features of their evaluations. There was significant agreement among the experts regarding how evaluations were conducted in determining whether sex offenders should be civilly committed for treatment. The majority of evaluators reported the assessment of paraphilias, substance abuse, other Axis I disorders, Axis II disorders, and psychopathy as essential to their assessment for civil commitment. Virtually all of the responding evaluators used actuarial risk assessment measures, primarily the Static-99, in assessing risk for future sexual violence. Although several approaches to the assessment of volitional impairment were described, the majority of respondents reported that a history of sex offending combined with a personality disorder or a paraphilia established the necessary link between mental abnormality and the risk for future sexual violence. An overwhelming majority of respondents reported that it was essential for evaluators to indicate their clear opinion as to whether criteria had been met for civil commitment. Future research should examine whether evaluators' heavy reliance on documentation in their evaluations is unique to evaluations for sex offender civil commitment or is also commonly used in other forensic evaluations. At the time of this study, 17 States had enacted sex offender civil commitment legislation. Although State-to-State variation exists in the exact language of these laws, they share four common elements: a past act of sexually harmful conduct, a current mental disorder or abnormality, a finding of risk of future sexually harmful conduct, and some link between the mental abnormality and the likelihood of sexual violence. 9 tables, 35 references, and appended questionnaire

NCJ 221020
Jason S. Carroll; Laura M. Padilla-Walker; Larry J. Nelson; Chad D. Olson; Carolyn McNamara Barry; Stephanie D. Madsen
Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults
Journal of Adolescent Research Volume:23 Issue:1 January 2008 Pages:6 to 30

The purpose of this study was to examine levels of pornography use and acceptance among emerging adults in the United States. Results reveal that roughly two-thirds (67 percent) of young men and one-half (49 percent) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable, whereas nearly 9 out of 10 (87 percent) young men and nearly one-third (31 percent) of young women reported using pornography. In addition, associations were revealed between pornography acceptance and use and emerging adults’ risky sexual attitudes and behaviors, substance use patterns, and nonmarital cohabitation values. Implications of pornography use during the transition to adulthood were discussed. Pornography is becoming a prevalent part of life in the United States and many countries around the world. Existing studies provide some insight into the pornography patterns of emerging adults and some of the reasons behind their use of pornography, however, there continues to be unanswered questions. This study examined correlates of pornography acceptance and use within a normative population of emerging adults (individuals aged 18 to 26). Participants included 813 university students, both men and women, recruited from 6 college sites across the United States. Participants completed an online questionnaire regarding their acceptance and use of pornography, as well as their sexual values and activity, substance use, and family formation values. Tables, references

NCJ 221004
Therese Skubic Kemper; Janet A. Kistner
Offense History and Recidivism in Three Victim-Age-Based Groups of Juvenile Sex Offenders
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume:19 Issue:4 December 2007 Pages:409 to 424

This study compared the sexual and nonsexual offense histories of subgroups of juvenile sex offenders who victimized children (child offenders; n=198), peers (peer offenders; n=77), or both children and peers (mixed offenders; n=21), in order to determine whether they constituted distinct and valid subgroups. Finding show that juvenile sex offenders whose victims were children tended to target male and female relatives, and juvenile sex offenders whose victims were peers tended to target girls unrelated to them. Peer offenders had a more extensive criminal history than child offenders, which is consistent with previous research that shows this group generally engages in more disruptive behavior than child offenders. Although the mixed offender subgroup accounted for only 7 percent of the total sample of juvenile sex offenders, the findings show they differed from the child and peer offenders in several important ways. They exhibited more diverse and physically intrusive sexual offense histories than the other subgroups and were less likely to complete treatment. The findings show the importance of including mixed offenders in future research, in order to examine the varying etiology of sexual offending, treatment, and reoffending among juvenile sex offenders. All of the study participants had been committed to a North Florida residential training school between 1995 and 2001. Commitment to this facility was limited to serious and/or chronic sexual and nonsexual offenders between the ages of 12 and 19. The majority were required by the court to complete a 12-month sex offender treatment program. Data were obtained on their sex offenses, nonsexual offenses, progress in treatment, and reoffending for nonsexual and sexual offenses following release from the facility. 2 tables and 33 references

Game On for TECHNOCORRECTIONS

2008-01-26T15:18:00.000-06:00

And remember how I said the other day that it might not start here?

"Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.

"Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.

"But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.

The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons.

A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. "All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," the source added.

"The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools.

"We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said last night. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come."

The Government has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. The crisis meant the number of prisoners held in police cells rose 13-fold last year, with police stations housing offenders more than 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 the previous year.

The UK has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, and the Government is planning for an extra 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8bn – including three gigantic new "superjails" – in the next six years.

More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off.

(h/t Corrente)

Man, What Ladder Did This Guy Walk Under?

2008-01-26T08:05:00.000-06:00

His lottery ticket was a $1,000 winner, but police have seized it saying it was bought with proceeds from an illegal drug sale.

Michael David, who had been staying at an Ellsworth motel, sold four 10-milligram methadone pills for $15 each last week, Police Chief John Deleo said.

He then went to a convenience store and bought lottery tickets and other merchandise and went back to his motel room, where he was busted.

"I guess it will be up to a judge to decide, but it's in our possession right now as proceeds from a drug transaction," Deleo said of the winning ticket.

David, 46, remained in custody Monday in the Hancock County Jail on drug trafficking charges. An official at the jail said David was not available for comment.

Oh, I think we know what the comment would be.

Where's the Call for Prisons for This?

2008-01-26T07:59:00.000-06:00

Not to mention that the effects described are what we use to justify all the condemnation and punishment for other drugs and their users. A great example of the inconsistency and double standards we apply depending on the stories we tell about the drugs and the people who frequent them. Let's see, how do you spell h-y-p-o-c-r- . . . ?

World Health Organization (WHO) experts will recommend ways to fight dangers linked to alcohol, including heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides and sexually-transmitted infections, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

The United Nations agency's executive board this week endorsed efforts to raise awareness about the risks of injury, violence and illness from the harmful use of alcohol, especially by young people and pregnant women, Fadela Chaib said.

The 34-member board agreed the WHO should draft a global strategy to reduce those threats. It may include guidance on the marketing, pricing and distribution of alcoholic drinks, as well as health worker training and public awareness campaigns.

The strategy, to be completed in two years, would aim particularly to protect "all at-risk populations such as young people and those affected by the harmful drinking of others," Chaib told a news briefing.
.........................................
In 2003, the WHO clinched an international treaty aimed at curbing tobacco use through stronger warnings on cigarette packages and limits on advertising and sponsorship.

Nordic countries raised concerns about the public health hazards from alcohol to the WHO more than three years ago.

A report presented to the executive board found that harmful drinking caused 2.3 million premature deaths worldwide each year, accounting for nearly 4 percent of global deaths.

They're Called Opportunity Costs

2008-01-26T07:40:00.000-06:00

The NY Times discovers the fiscal future facing the states as they begin to deal with the deferred maintenance. And it's not just roads and bridges. You have major public buildings, especially schools, that have been playing the same game as families that put off those dental appointments because they just don't have the money right now or because they want to spend on trinket after trinket instead. As my mouth of porcelain will proof, eventually you have to pay the piper, which is even worse when the dollars are dropping. But infrastructure isn't the only concern, maybe they'll learn. Because of developing results of weather changes, states are seeing new costs come online, like lack of funding to pay for firefighting in CA or the deferred water systems in the South that now have that region sucking air for their nuke plants as well as their farms and cities.

I was on a school board for nine years and started my career as a state budget analyst for the state colleges and universities. You learn the concept of "opportunity costs" quickly, even if you've never had an econ class. You also learn how stove-piped every public interest is, their advocates either unaware or uncaring about how their demands, if met, would mean less for other interests. I saw it with educators in both instances, and it's a mantra for way too many people in corrections sentencing. Judges and others denying that costs are a factor when punishing when EVERY sentence is a BUDGET DECISION. You can't put a price on justice? Fine. Find some other way to get across that river. Tell that poor kid with great talent and intelligence that s/he has no chance to advance. Eat that hamburger or sprouts knowing there's only one guy available to check the safety. Look forward to not being able to pay for your medicine when that day comes. THOSE are the prices of that justice. Maybe that justice is worth the tradeoff, but don't pretend you're not cutting into other people who have legit claims and needs as well. What makes you better than them? Don't want to go there? Then start thinking before you speak.

These kinds of stories are going to be more and more the norm over the next several years. If we're going to avoid going too far in the other direction, diverting too many resources away from what we do, we need to start planning, to start developing those more cost-effective and victim-effective alternatives for the people who can be stopped from committing more crime better than prisons do, to recognize that opportunity costs exist and we might not always have the highest priority. Waiting just risks decisions that will truly jeopardize public safety. Those potential victims deserve better.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 26, 2007

2008-01-26T07:35:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 221001
Yolanda Nicole Brannon; Jill S. Levenson; Timothy Fortney; Juanita N. Baker
Attitudes About Community Notification: A Comparison of Sexual Offenders and the Non-Offending Public
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume:19 Issue:4 December 2007 Pages:369 to 379

This study compared sex offenders' and the general public's perceptions of the fairness of Florida 's sex offender notification law, the necessity and effectiveness of this law, and awareness of vigilantism and other consequences of the law as reported by sex offenders. The study found that sex offenders viewed community notification as more unfair than did members of the general public, and sex offenders viewed the law as less effective than did the general public. There were also significant differences between sex offenders and the public in awareness of the negative consequences of the law. Specifically, sex offenders experienced more vigilantism than was known to the public. The finding suggests that community notification about the identity and location of sex offenders may fuel negative attitudes and behaviors toward sex offenders that make it more difficult for them to reintegrate into society, thus increasing their risk for reoffending. When an offender is isolated or alienated from positive social interactions and bonding, the desire and support for normative behavior is undermined. The authors suggest a more discriminating approach to notification based on empirically derived risk assessment, which will benefit the public by increasing their awareness of the most dangerous offenders while not unnecessarily creating reentry barriers for those sex offenders who are least likely to pose a threat to the public. The study included 125 adult sex offenders who were receiving outpatient treatment in Central Brevard County, FL, and 193 adult members of the nonoffending public in Melbourne, FL. The sex offenders resided throughout Brevard County and were recruited through sex offender outpatient treatment facilities. The Sex Offender and Public Questionnaires used identical questions in collecting information about perceptions of the current community notification law and its ability to prevent further sexual abuse of children. 4 tables, 1 figure, and 38 references

NCJ 221029
Paul Gendreau; Paula Smith
Influencing the "People Who Count": Some Perspectives on the Reporting of Meta-Analytic Results for Prediction and Treatment Outcomes With Offenders
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume:34 Issue:12 December 2007 Pages:1536 to 1559

This article examines several effective approaches in ensuring that meta-analytic results for the prediction and treatment outcomes with offenders are attended to by policymakers and practitioners. It is recommended that easily understandable metrics such as Pearson’s r be employed. Correctional audiences have been found to quickly grasp the practical meaning of treatment and prediction results when presented in the form of Pearson’s r values. Pearson’s r is a very flexible statistic. In addition, it is suggested that null-hypothesis significance testing be abandoned and replaced by confidence intervals and common language statistics that clearly describe the preciseness and magnitude of results. In summary, graphs, along with the plain language statistics described, are essential for describing applied results, and they are most helpful when communicating with the “people who count.” Brief comments are offered on three issues arising in meta-analysis that should be of interest to policymakers; they include: (1) meta-analysis of qualitative reviews, (2) the width of confidence intervals (CIs), and (3) the quality of research design. How is it possible to get influential policymakers and practitioners to attend to the importance of the findings from meta-analyses? Several approaches that will help to ensure that meta-analytic results will have maximum impact are prescribed in this article. Notes, references

NCJ 221017
Marian R. Williams
How Coverage of Death Sentences Vary: A Study of Two Ohio Newspapers
Journal of Crime and Justice Volume:30 Issue:2 2007 Pages:53 to 78

This study examined how two different urban newspapers covered death sentence cases that took place in the State of Ohio over a 24-year time period.
The study hoped to provide another dimension in the literature that focuses on media coverage of crime and justice issues, particularly the death penalty. While it is supported that television and particularly the newspaper coverage of these issues is plentiful and, in most cases, sensationalistic, it cannot be assumed that all coverage is equal, especially newspaper coverage. Results indicate that there are differences in the way local newspapers cover death sentences. Cincinnati’s Enquirer provides coverage that is overwhelmingly local, tending to overlook death sentence cases occurring outside the local coverage area. In addition, both newspapers had no coverage of a handful of local death sentence cases. It is argued that conclusions about public attitudes toward crime and justice issues must be tempered by the fact that media coverage of crime, even specific types of crime, is not created equal. Research on media coverage of crime and justice issues tends to examine the effects of this coverage on public opinion, fear of crime, and other attitudes. Coverage of the death penalty, particularly executions, is a popular topic among researchers, who wish to examine whether deterrence is achieved when media outlets cover executions in the news. This study examined an underlying, and perhaps overlooked, aspect of this previous research, how consistent media coverage was of these issues. It examined newspaper coverage of death sentences in two urban newspapers in Ohio, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer and Cincinnati’s Enquirer. Tables and references

Creative Sentencing Alert

2008-01-25T17:58:00.000-06:00

A judge on Thursday ordered a Salvation Army worker who stole a holiday kettle containing about $250 to spend the night homeless.

Nathen Smith, 28, was to spend the night anywhere but a house, said Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti. Smith was fitted with a GPS device to track his moves.

"My initial reaction was, 'Wow.' But I don't think the sentence is too harsh," said Smith, who expected to spend Thursday night in a homeless shelter. "I can see the judge's point because what I did, I shouldn't have done. Now I've got to pay the consequences."

This Might Affect Corr Sent Resources a Bit

2008-01-25T17:56:00.002-06:00

Not to mention whether TECHNOCORRECTIONS will happen here first or somewhere else.

A new study of worldwide technological competitiveness suggests China may soon rival the United States as the principal driver of the world's economy - a position the U.S. has held since the end of World War II. If that happens, it will mark the first time in nearly a century that two nations have competed for leadership as equals.

The study's indicators predict that China will soon pass the United States in the critical ability to develop basic science and technology, turn those developments into products and services - and then market them to the world. Though China is often seen as just a low-cost producer of manufactured goods, the new "High Tech Indicators" study done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology clearly shows that the Asian powerhouse has much bigger aspirations.

"For the first time in nearly a century, we see leadership in basic research and the economic ability to pursue the benefits of that research - to create and market products based on research - in more than one place on the planet," said Nils Newman, co-author of the National Science Foundation-supported study. "Since World War II, the United States has been the main driver of the global economy. Now we have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the marketplace that were not developed or commercialized here. We won't have had any involvement with them and may not even know they are coming."
………………………………….
Georgia Tech's "High Tech Indicators" study ranks 33 nations relative to one another on "technological standing," an output factor that indicates each nation's recent success in exporting high technology products. Four major input factors help build future technological standing: national orientation toward technological competitiveness, socioeconomic infrastructure, technological infrastructure and productive capacity. Each of the indicators is based on a combination of statistical data and expert opinions.

A chart showing change in the technological standing of the 33 nations is dominated by one feature - a long and continuous upward line that shows China moving from "in the weeds" to world technological leadership over the past 15 years.

The 2007 statistics show China with a technological standing of 82.8, compared to 76.1 for the United States, 66.8 for Germany and 66.0 for Japan. Just 11 years ago, China's score was only 22.5. The United States peaked in 1999 with a score of 95.4.
…………………………………….
"It's like being 40 years old and playing basketball against a competitor who's only 12 years old - but is already at your height," Newman said. "You are a little better right now and have more experience, but you're not going to squeeze much more performance out. The future clearly doesn't look good for the United States."

Don't Go Phish

2008-01-25T17:56:00.001-06:00

Matthew Bowen at Prevention Works has a typically informative and useful post up on the dangers of phishing and how to protect yourself from this at best annoying practice, including other resources you can click on . . . uhh. Well, since it’s Matthew, go ahead.

How Corrupt Is Your State?

2008-01-25T17:54:00.003-06:00

Well, find out here. You folks in LA? Be proud. Or upset. Or something. Of course, if you’re in the 15 least populous state, you apparently don’t have enough people to be corrupt. Which is kind of cool if you think about it. (h/t The Monkey Cage)

Pot Kills

2008-01-25T17:54:00.001-06:00

No, wait. That’s alcohol.

Heavy drinking in youth tied to heart risks later

One Reason I Never Did Pot

2008-01-25T17:53:00.000-06:00

Or cigarettes.

Research by a group of scientists studying the effects of heavy marijuana use suggests that withdrawal from the use of marijuana is similar to what is experienced by people when they quit smoking cigarettes. Abstinence from each of these drugs appears to cause several common symptoms, such as irritability, anger and trouble sleeping - based on self reporting in a recent study of 12 heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes.
…………………….
Interestingly, the study also revealed that half of the participants found it easier to abstain from both substances than it was to stop marijuana or tobacco individually, whereas the remaining half had the opposite response.

"Given the general consensus among clinicians that it is harder to quit more than one substance at the same time, these results suggest the need for more research on treatment planning for people who concurrently use more than one drug on a regular basis," says Vandrey.

ID as Microcosm

2008-01-25T17:50:00.000-06:00

Lately ID has seemed to be a miniature of the range of corrections sentencing concerns facing all the states, and here they have run into the old “prevention is better than treatment is better than incarceration” problem when their money is going into the incarceration and undermining the first two.

More than 1,000 struggling addicts who have asked for help are falling through the cracks. Meanwhile competent counselors are unable to treat them because of a shortfall in government funding, according to a legislative budget analysis.

That's been the trend since last summer.

The problem was so dire last year that local treatment programs were forced to shed staff. Today, the waiting list in Idaho is 809 people long, including 103 names from the Magic Valley. Poor addicts who asked for government treatment face a waiting list that can last up to a year, local treatment counselors say.

"There is not even close to enough money for everybody," said Sherri Molina, executive and clinical director of Sitman Inc., in Twin Falls. "I have had people drop off the backlog because they have been on it so long."

But Idahoans who used to believe in incarceration are now favoring programs that focus on addiction treatment. As the $2.7 million Idaho Meth Project advertising campaign begins and prisons bulge at great cost to taxpayers, treatment providers are forced to usher addicts into a long waiting list.

The problem, state reports show, is that after 90–days–of waiting for services, a large number of addicts–drop off the list–and regress into addiction.

That pretty well sums it up for most states.

[Here’s KY’s version, if you haven’t had enough.]

Washing Their Hands

2008-01-25T17:49:00.000-06:00

Those of us who advocate evidence-based practice (EBP) in sentencing and corrections usually point to the successes after decades of development of EBP in medicine. So imagine how excited we are about the prospects for adoption of EBP in our realm when we read stories like this:

It’s a question no hospital patient should have to ask: “Hey, doc, did you wash your hands?”

But in an era of rising rates of drug-resistant infections and overburdened medical staffs, hygiene experts say the best-protected patients are those willing to take safety into their own hands — by asking health workers to wash theirs.

Doctors, nurses and other hospital staffer too busy, too distracted — or, sometimes, too arrogant — to wash up are the target of a growing movement aimed at cutting rates of hospital-acquired infections that kill nearly 100,000 people in the U.S. each year, according to federal estimates.

One Way Global Warming Will Hit Corr Sent Costs

2008-01-25T17:47:00.000-06:00

The folks blogging and reporting on global warming and its implications have generally done a good job keeping the remaining Cliff Clavins from being able to say “nobody told me” or “I didn’t understand” when hooey engages fan full-blast. But they’ve been horrific in ignoring the impacts that the effects will have on social and public infrastructure and programs as resources are diverted and needs rise. (My favorite one remains how everyone will just change over to hybrids or retrofitted cars as needed without subsidies or tax breaks.) Here’s an example of how warming will affect a social policy area with ginormous implications for the resources government will have to provide its other social policy areas, like corrections sentencing.

Climate change will have potentially devastating consequences for human health, outweighing global economic impacts, researchers said on Friday, calling for urgent action to protect the world's population.

"While we embark on more rapid reduction of emissions to avert future climate change, we must also manage the now unavoidable health risks from current and pending climate change," said Australian researcher Tony McMichael, who co-authored a study in the British Medical Journal.

"This will have adverse health effects in all populations, particularly in geographically vulnerable and resource-poor regions," he said.

McMichael, from Australia's Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, said increased wildfires, droughts, flooding and disease stemming from climate change posed a much more fundamental threat to human well-being than economic impacts.

A 2006 report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said climate change had the potential to shrink the global economy by between 5 and 20 percent, causing a similar impact to the Great Depression.

But McMichael said climate shift would bring changes to the pattern of infectious diseases, the effect of worsening food yields and loss of people's livelihoods. While it was unlikely to spawn entirely new types of diseases, it would impact on the frequency, range and season patterns of many existing disorders, with between 20 and 70 million more people living in malarial regions by 2080, he said.

[BTW, if the head of Royal Dutch Shell says peak oil hits in 2015, will you believe it then? (h/t Climate Progress, which also has a Tom Tomorrow cartoon that applies to everything we’re doing in this country from global warming to corrections sentencing.]]

Crime in Virtual World

2008-01-25T17:45:00.000-06:00

This Mind Hacks post about the anti-social “griefers” finding kindred spirits in virtual worlds led me to this Wikipedia piece about the famous cyberspace rape a few years back that thrust the virtual community into real-life considerations of crime and punishment. Again, I emphasize how great an opportunity virtual reality gives us to explore and simulate criminological theories or at least see how new social networks develop and evolve rules, sanctions, and enforcement in a virgin environment. Somebody? Anybody? Bueller?

(Although, after hearing some of the players’ trauma about the actions during the rapes, I’m not sure we can get away without an IRB. Maybe a virtual one. That would be cool.)

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 25, 2007

2008-01-25T17:41:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 220969
Claudia Dalbert; Eva Filke
Belief in a Personal Just World, Justice Judgement, and Their Functions for Prisoners
Criminal Justice and Behavior: An International Journal Volume:34 Issue:11 November 2007 Pages:1516 to 1527

This study focused on the relationship between the experience of justice, belief in a just world (BJW), and the feelings of adult male prisoners.
The pattern of results is in line with the notion that belief in a just world (BJW) is a personal resource that helps adult prisoners to reduce anger arousal and anger expression in the form of outburst behavior and that strengthens feelings of social inclusion. The stronger the adult prisoner’s BJW, the more they evaluated the legal proceedings leading to their conviction, their corrections officers’ behavior towards them, and decisions on prison affairs to be just. BJW seems to impact the evaluation of social experiences as just, and these justice judgments, especially interpersonal justice, are positively associated with mood state. The experience of being treated in a fair and respectful manner contributes to the sense of being a valued member of a group who deserves just treatment. The sense of belonging to a group has been found to reinforce the personal obligation to behave in accordance with the group’s rules. Being treated justly during imprisonment may signal belongingness to society and thereby, strengthen prisoners’ intrinsic motivation to obey the law in the future. This study examined prisoners’ justice judgments of their treatment during imprisonment, particularly of corrections officers’ behavior toward them and of decisions on prison affairs. The belief in a personal just world was expected to be an essential condition for positive justice judgments. The study sample consisted of 100 adult male prisoners from a German prison. Tables, figure, appendix and references

NCJ 220999
Bernadette Pelissier
Treatment Retention in a Prison-Based Residential Sex Offender Treatment Program
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume:19 Issue:4 December 2007 Pages:333 to 346

This study assessed the role of static factors (e.g., history of violence, type of offense, and various demographic factors), a dynamic factor (motivation to change sexually deviant behavior), and an administrative factor (time between initial commitment to prison and admission to the treatment program) in predicting treatment retention within a prison-based sex offender treatment program.
The study found that higher scores on motivation to change sexually deviant behavior upon entering treatment was associated with retention in treatment. Other factors significantly related to retention in treatment were higher levels of education and admission to treatment within 3 months of initial commitment to prison. The importance of initial motivation to change suggests the value of having motivational enhancement interventions. Also, individuals discharged from the treatment program for disciplinary reasons could be sent to a program that addresses their motivational issues and prepares them for reentry into treatment. The fact that individuals with higher educational levels showed better retention in treatment suggests that attention be given to the reading and comprehension levels of program materials. More rapid involvement in sex offender treatment programs after prison admission could be facilitated by placing those on the waiting list into an outpatient program before admission to the residential program when it is anticipated that admission to the residential program will take longer than 3 months. The study sample consisted of 251 individuals who were admitted to a residential prison-based sex offender treatment program, 46 percent of whom completed the program. Treatment was voluntary. The Stages of Change Questionnaire was used to measure motivation for change. The instructions and some items of the motivation survey were adapted to refer to sexual problems. 3 tables and 40 references

NCJ 221002
Robert J. McGrath; Georgia F. Cumming; Stephen E. Hoke; Marcel O. Bonn-Miller
Outcomes in a Community Sex Offender Treatment Program: A Comparison Between Polygraphed and Matched Non-Polygraphed Offenders
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment Volume:19 Issue:4 December 2007 Pages:381 to 393

This study compared outcomes for 104 adult male sex offenders who received community cognitive-behavioral treatment, correctional supervision, and periodic polygraph compliance exams with a matched group of 104 sex offenders who received the same types of treatment and supervision services but no polygraph exams.
This study found that at fixed 5-year followup periods, the number of men in the polygraph group charged with a new nonsexual violent offense was significantly lower than in the no-polygraph group (2.9 percent compared with 11.5 percent); however, there were no significant between-group differences for the number of individuals charged for new sexual offenses, any sexual or violent offense, or any criminal offense. If subsequent research finds that polygraphy is a useful tool for reducing the reoffense rates of sexual offenders, it will likely be a component of programs that follow well-established principles of effective correctional practice, i.e., primarily those of risk, need, and responsivity. The "risk" principle suggests that polygraphy will be more effective in programs that treat moderate and high-risk offenders. Programs that target the "need" principle will use the polygraph to target those problems closely linked to sexual reoffending, and the "responsivity" principle involves delivering services in a manner to which individuals can respond effectively. The current study involved adult men who had committed sexual offenses and been placed under State community correctional supervision in Vermont from 1995 through 2001. Polygraph exams focused on whether participants were following their conditions of community supervision and treatment and had avoided committing new sexual offenses. The two groups were matched on three variables: Static-99 risk score, having completed prison sex offender treatment, and the date they were released into the community. 5 tables and 42 references

Ethics? What About Assault?

2008-01-24T17:34:00.000-06:00

Oh, yeah. Sorry. It’s a legislator.

Ethics panel postpones decision on Sen. Charles Bishop slugging colleague

Catching On?

2008-01-24T17:32:00.000-06:00

Stateline does a summary of state action to relieve prison pop pressures as budgets shrink in some of the states in 2007 and recites the usual “budgets will force legislators to the table” stuff. Which is, of course, true in many but not all states, but does nothing to change the underlying dynamics that force prison pops upward whenever possible. That will take a narrative paradigm shift that few right now seem to understand is even needed.

We went through this budget-induced reform in the early 90s, which is when some of the more effective commissions like NC and KS got rolling in response. But most states just adjusted as they could and waited for an econ upturn, which came by the end of the 90s. States a little behind in the changes like OK when I worked for the sentencing commission there got caught without doing much of significance in time to offset the resumption of the prison growth pattern once it could be supported by revenues again. And, ceteris paribus (never pass up a chance to say ceteris paribus when you get it), that means whatever changes being made now are mostly likely to fade when the econ improves again. Except . . . there are so many fiscal nightmares out there on the foreseeable horizon for state and local gov’ts right now—the detritus (see “ceteris paribus” above) of the effects of global warming, water wars, energy costs and peak oil, gov’t pension shortfalls, public infrastructure shortfalls, education and health shortfalls, did I leave out anyth . . . , oh, yeah, that housing crisis thing and the recession that all the experts who said housing wasn’t tanking are now admitting may happen (but it will just be a small one)—the fiscal crunch may go on for a much longer time than it did when I got started in this business.

In fact, I’ll again go out on a limb and say that the real impact and impetus (see “detritus” and “ceteris paribus” above) in corrections sentencing will be more interest in and buying into of TECHNOCORRECTIONS, particularly the kinds that seem most punitive and intrusive, which should provide a major market for corporations being hit by the fiscal nightmares. A chip or a drug-delivering unit implanted deep in skin tissue? Check. Costing less than personnel-heavy supervision? Check. You’re a legislator, being deeply impressed by the formidable logic and extensive knowledge of that corporation’s salesperson/former college cheerleader/beauty queen. You gunna say no? When your state’s looking at a 5%-10% budget cut already this year? So, five years from now, let’s check this story out again and see if it’s still the same.

In Case You Were Wondering

2008-01-24T17:31:00.000-06:00

Heath Ledger died as payback for “Brokeback Mountain.”

So there you go.

Private Prisons Pro and Con

2008-01-24T17:29:00.000-06:00

All on display in ID right now where the governor is trying to change state law to allow private prisons wider rein. Or is it reign? Actually, that’s part of the debate that’s going on, the whole “what’s best for the state?” argument with both sides reciting their now-familiar lines well. If you’ve missed out on what these debates look like, this is a good piece to catch up. If you haven’t missed out, just go for the nostalgia. While on the topic, though, you might want to check out MI’s problems with their privatized health provision for its prisons to add to your store of knowledge.

Going into Campaign Consulting?

2008-01-24T17:27:00.000-06:00

I mentioned the other day that Doug Berman has been letting his hair down (uh . . .) with commentary more pointed than usual, all of it worth hearing, I might add, and today he’s giving campaign advice to Sen. Obama that the senator would do well to listen to. If Obama does and wins, what happens then? AG Berman? Sup Crt Justice Berman? Best of all, TV pundit?? Hannity and Berman?!! Don’t stop, Doug. Oh, the Places You Will Go!

Just Think If They Had MRIs

2008-01-24T17:26:00.000-06:00

A report in WY estimates 80% of state inmates likely have had brain injuries. The goal of the report was to sensitize the prison folks as to the need for care and attention, but, if you’re a WY defense attorney aware of the effort to use brain abnormalities to mitigate punishments, aren’t you reading some of that research along with this report right now?

It's Not Whether You Win or Lose

2008-01-24T17:25:00.000-06:00

The sports culture surrounding football and wrestling may be fueling aggressive and violent behavior not only among teen male players but also among their male friends and peers on and off the field, according to a Penn State study.

"Sports such as football, basketball, and baseball provide players with a certain status in society," said Derek Kreager, assistant professor of sociology in the Crime, Law, and Justice program. "But football and wrestling are associated with violent behavior because both sports involve some physical domination of the opponent, which is rewarded by the fans, coaches and other players."

Using a national database of 6397 male students from across 120 schools, Kreager analyzed the effects of team sports -- football, basketball, and baseball -- and individual sports -- wrestling and tennis -- on male interpersonal violence. The study looked at factors such as self-esteem, reports of prior fights, and popularity of the various sports.

The researcher found that, compared with non-athletes, football players and wrestlers face higher risks of getting into a serious fight by over 40 per cent. High-contact sports that are associated with aggression and masculinity increase the risk of violence, he concluded.

"Players are encouraged to be violent outside the sport because they are rewarded for being violent inside it," Kreager said.

However, the violent behavior is not restricted to players alone. The Penn State researcher also found that the risk of getting involved in fights increases with the proportion of friends who play football.

"Males with all-football friends are expected to have a 45 per cent probability of getting into a serious fight, more than 8 percentage points higher than similar individuals with no football friends and almost 20 percentage points higher than males with all-tennis friends," Kreager said in a recent issue of the journal American Sociological Review.

As for individual sports, wrestlers are 45 percent more likely to get into a fight than non-wrestlers, while tennis players are 35 per cent less likely to be involved in fights. The team sports, basketball and baseball, on the other hand, do not lead to fights.

The findings run contrary to a belief that participation in sports discourages anti-social behavior among boys because of the emphasis on teamwork, discipline and practice, and good sportsmanship and fair play.

What You Do and Don't Do

2008-01-24T17:24:00.000-06:00

If you’ve been wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade because of the ego and arrogance of a law enforcer and “because I was the easiest suspect to go after,” you talk like Tim Masters in CO, who seems to have learned a lot of valuable lessons about authority and our crim just [sic] process while working with officials. If you’ve negligently homicided someone, you don’t talk like this woman who got caught on tape laughing about and deriding the person she killed. Got her almost maxed out on her sentence despite her remorseful [sic] courtroom claims of learning her lesson and wanting to do right in the future. I’m betting you’ll need your anti-depressants when you’ve finished these two stories.

Haven't Scared You Lately

2008-01-24T17:22:00.000-06:00

Climate change is occurring far faster than even the worst predictions of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change foresaw, Al Gore warned Thursday.

New evidence shows "the climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic side of the IPCC projections had warned us," the former US vice president and climate campaigner told delegates at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.

There are now forecasts that the North Pole ice cap may disappear entirely during summer months in as little as five years, Gore said.

"This is a planetary emergency. There has never been anything remotely like it in the entire history of human civilisation. We are putting at risk all of human civilisation," he added.
……………………….
He said that the single most important policy that could be implemented would be a tax on carbon emissions that is applied across the whole world, "so that those who don't pay the price for carbon don't have an advantage over those who do."

"I think it is really important from a climate change point of view to move away from the idea that personal actions from each of us represents the solution to this crisis.

"These are important... but in addition to changing the light bulbs it is important to change the laws," Gore said.

Again, we have to keep in mind that, as these events progress, they will push attention and resources away from all the other things that seem so important to us now, including corrections sentencing. If we think there are pressures to find other ways to achieve equal or greater crime and victim reduction than prison now, those pressures will multiply enormously in the foreseeable future. The costs to government of shoring up and retrofitting, not to mention the impacts of relocating, energy spirals, and water shortage, will dwarf what we’re facing at this moment. If we wait until hooey and fan meet, the costs and effectiveness of what we end up doing will be first much higher and second much lower. Global warming is a corrections sentencing issue whether we like that or not. I don’t see anything to give confidence that we as a nation and a planet will address what we need to do to slow the effects of the warming in anything like the way we will need to so the impact on what corr sent does will probably max out. So, the time for action is now.

Prison for the Heinous

2008-01-24T17:19:00.000-06:00

Steven Erickson at Crime and Consequences has a smart post up about the need to refine our approach to the heinous offenders, such as the sex offender he describes, to ensure that guys like that get put away for good. He also makes some appropriate comments about the utility of the STATIC-99 assessment tool. STATIC-99 can be useful, particularly for lower level offenders and if used in conjunction and triangulation with other tools and subjective judgments, as they did in CA in this report I mentioned yesterday. The only part of the post I have a problem with is his agreement that we can’t “one size fits all” all offenders but his challenge to those of us who want reform of the system to deal with the offenders like he describes. I’m sorry, Steven, but I’m one of those you’re talking about and I have no problem with putting that guy away forever, as I and other “reformers” have made clear over and over. In fact, those are the first guys who should have a bed found for them in the view of every “reformer” I know. It’s sorta what we mean when we reject “one size fits all.” That’s why I essentially agree with 98% of what you said here and hope that you take that seriously rather than assuming we “reformers” believe things we clearly don’t.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 24, 2007

2008-01-24T17:15:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 220886
Bringing Evidence-Driven Progress to Crime and Substance-Abuse Policy: A Recommended Federal Strategy
Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy

Intended for top officials from Federal agencies involved in a joint initiative to advance crime and substance-based policy developed from evidence-based evaluations, this report presents recommendations on how the Federal Government can most effectively use its resources to advance the development and effective use of rigorous evidence on what works in crime and substance-abuse policy. In profiling the problem, this report presents data to show that crime and substance abuse cause significant harm and costs to life and health in America; however, Federal programs and strategies intended to prevent and/or reduce this problem have not been designed and tested based on rigorous evaluation research. This report proposes a Federal strategy for building the knowledge base of crime and substance-abuse interventions shown to be effective in randomized trials. The strategy is also intended to stimulate the widespread use of such evidence-based interventions by recipients of Federal crime/substance-abuse funding. Randomized trials have thus far identified a few social interventions that have proven highly effective in addressing the problems of crime and substance abuse. These interventions involve nurse-family partnerships, life-skills training, and the use of prison therapeutic communities. The fact that these interventions are effective but rare suggests the need for a Federal effort to build the knowledge base of these evidence-backed interventions so as to encourage and assist in their widespread implementation. This report outlines six main recommendations for Federal agencies in promoting this effort in the near term. 36 notes

NCJ 220889
OJP What Works Repository: Working Group of the Federal Collaboration on What Works
National Institute of Justice/NCJRS

This report describes the objectives and features of the What Works Repository (WWR) of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs. The WWR was developed in response to recommendations of the White House Task Force for Disadvantaged Youth and the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy. The WWR is also a response to the White House's call for the Federal Government to make a change toward programs and policies based in the findings of rigorous evaluation research. The WWR is a Web-based resource that classifies programs based on evidence of their effectiveness, so as to assist communities in selecting and replicating programs with proven success based on evaluation research. Programs in the WWR are rated according to a classification framework that consists of six levels of evidence of effectiveness and three levels of readiness for dissemination. Levels of effectiveness are as follows: "effective," "effective with reservation," "promising," "inconclusive evidence," "insufficient evidence," and "ineffective." The three levels of readiness for dissemination are "fully prepared for widespread dissemination," "fully prepared for limited dissemination," and "not ready for dissemination." Programs with top-rated evidence of effectiveness and readiness for dissemination receive a cumulative rating of 1A. Programs classified lower than "promising" do not receive a dissemination rating or cumulative rating. The WWR will classify prevention, intervention, treatment, and supervision programs developed by Department of Justice/Office of Justice Programs and other public and private organizations, and it will provide guidance for support of the replication of effective and promising programs. Further, it establishes credible and assessable criteria for evidence of effectiveness while informing the research and program-development agenda. 31 references

Early Analysis of GPS Program

2008-01-23T17:51:00.000-06:00

From Corrections Community, NIC’s great resource blog:

The Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, at the University of California, Irvine, has just posted the results of the first analysis of implementation and outcomes for GPS monitoring of high risk sex offender parolees in California. In Implementation and Early Outcomes for the San Diego High Risk Sex Offender (HRSO) GPS Pilot Program, the authors report on issues encountered with equipment, data use guidelines, effect on parolee recidivism, etc., useful findings as the pilot is in the process of expanding statewide.

Lots of good stuff in the report, far more than I can report on. It's got a description of the problems that come when implementing programs that any program implementer will just nod his/her head at and every non-implementer should be forced to read and take a test on. Just a couple of points to note: the importance of getting offender cooperation with the GPS and the strategies officers have to employ to get that coop, the inevitable involvement and possible abuse of a GPS program by law enforcement, the range of offenses these offenders commit and not just the offenses for which they got labeled a sex offender (when actually they're multi-talented at offenses), and the validity of STATIC-99 as a recidivism predictor for sex offenders but more so for lower risk than higher risk offenders. The key point to take home is probably that, despite concerns, GPS offenders were less likely to abscond than non-GPS offenders, but you may disagree. Read it and let me know, please.

Isn't That Like Prohibition?

2008-01-23T17:50:00.000-06:00

Interesting story on the gyrations UT is going through to get “alco-pops” out of grocery stores and into state liquor stores, which may not be able to actually sell them. Hence, folks are talking “ban.” But I love the response of a legislator: However, Senate Majority Whip Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, said he can't see the state going so far as to ban the product. "Why would you ban it," Eastman said. "Isn't that like Prohibition?" Or, like, you know, the War on (Some) Drugs?

The Evil We Do

2008-01-23T17:49:00.000-06:00

Philip Zimbardo has a post up at The Situationist providing a quick review of his studies into the situational and contextual nature of our actions and the resulting evil that can result even from “good” people. Always worth considering in an Oprah, “God Don’t Make No Junk” age, but here’s his view that’s related to our corr sent arena:

This body of work challenges the traditional focus on the individual’s inner nature, dispositions, and personality traits as the primary – and often the sole – factors in understanding human failings. Instead, I argue that while most people are good most of the time, they can readily be led to act anti-socially, because most people are rarely solitary figures improvising soliloquies on the empty stage of life.

On the contrary, people are often in an ensemble of different players, on a stage with various props, costumes, scripts, and stage directions from producers and directors. Together, they comprise situational features that can dramatically influence behavior. What individuas bring into any setting is important, but so are the situational forces that act on them, as well as the systemic forces that create and maintain situations.

Most institutions that are invested in an individualistic orientation hold up the person as sinner, culpable, afflicted, insane, or irrational. Programs of change follow either a medical model of rehabilitation, therapy, reeducation, and treatment, or a punitive model of incarceration and execution. But all such programs are doomed to fail if the main causal agent is the situation or system, not the person.

As a result, two kinds of paradigm shift are required. First, we need to adopt a public health model for prevention of violence, spouse abuse, bullying, prejudice, and more that identifies vectors of social disease to be inoculated against. Second, legal theory must reconsider the extent to which powerful situational and systemic factors should be taken into account in punishing individuals.

Although much of The Lucifer Effect examines how easy it is for ordinary people to be seduced into engaging in evil deeds, or to be passively indifferent to the suffering of others, the deeper message is a positive one. It is by understanding the how and why of such deeds that we are in a better position to uncover, oppose, defy, and triumph over them. By becoming more “evil smart,” we build up resistance to having our moral compass reset negatively.

Home Grown Bedspace Reduction

2008-01-23T17:47:00.000-06:00

With no government involvement whatsoever. Imagine!!

No hats, no hoods, no sunglasses or no service at banks

(h/t Crime and Justice News)

Here’s another example from Mizzou:

One-glass limit might be on tap for offenders

Women Whacking Women

2008-01-23T17:46:00.000-06:00

No, not the latest reality tv show. Just Anne Reed’s find at Deliberations of a study showing that women are harsher than men in penalizing successful women in civil and, presumably, criminal trials. Anne’s pointing out the clear implications for attorneys picking juries, but don’t findings like these raise serious questions of bias that should be considered by academics studying disparity as well as trial attorneys? Is simply alerting the attorneys doing voir dire enough? If people can be eliminated for opposing the death penalty, shouldn’t they be eliminated for looking at the plantiff/victim or defendant and thinking “Die, Martha Stewart, die”?

Seriously.

Wait? You Want Evidence?

2008-01-23T17:45:00.000-06:00

More on that ID story yesterday in which the state drug czar is asking for $25 m. for drug treatment programs and the gov’s recommending $3. Turns out the gov is saying things like "Just like I've demanded from every department: 'What are you doing with the money you've got now?'" Otter told The Associated Press on Monday. "They couldn't go through each charge and tell me what the success or the failure rate was." Short-term, ID might be harmed a bit by the denial of funds, but long-term, this is a good thing in my former state budget analyst opinion. Get your data collection and analysis built and prove the need for expenditure. Show that your request gets the job done the best it can be for the dollars available or could do even better with more dollars. Something we seldom do in corr sent and results in the horrible results we’ve seen in both crime and waste for decades now. If it’s coming from a conservative state like ID, maybe there’s hope for all of us. (h/t Crime and Justice News)

Corr Sent Changes in CT

2008-01-23T17:44:00.000-06:00

Gideon’s got the details of what CT’s come up with in its effort to deal with prison and crime problems over the last few months after that heinous triple murder that roiled the state. The state really did do a good job of being outraged but not irrational, the way too many states get, and seems to have avoided a lot of the knee-jerk stuff through some careful discussion before action (imagine that!). Not doing “three strikes” is the first sign that they took what they were doing seriously although it sounds like Gideon has problems with a “home invasion” definition. And kudos to Gideon and “a public defender” for the fine work they’ve done in keeping the rest of us up-to-date on what’s been happening. Shows what good blogs can do.

Snark and Great Snark

2008-01-23T17:43:00.000-06:00

Most blogs can pull off the first, but not all can do the second. Court-o-rama’s becoming one of my best places to get a smile cracked, and this post on the truly scandalous silliness that is the Houston DA right now will show you why and get you to bookmark them, I predict.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 23, 2007

2008-01-23T17:40:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 220711
Summary Report: Repaying Debts
Michael D. Thompson; Rachel L. McLean
Council of State Governments Justice Center

This summary report, the first of its kind, addresses the various types of debts that people released from prisons and jails typically owe their victims, their families, and various criminal justice agencies. This summary provides an overview of the full report, including highlights of relevant research, policies that should guide an initiative to improve the likelihood that people released from prisons and jails or under criminal justice supervision will meet their court-ordered financial obligations, and practical recommendations for implementing these policies. It also includes examples from a variety of cities, counties, and States that may provide useful ideas for other policymakers to tailor to their jurisdictions. Research shows that many individuals released from prisons or jails have a substantial amount of debt, including supervision fees, court costs, victim restitution, and child support. These individuals typically have insufficient resources to pay their debts; and victims, families, and criminal justice agencies often compete for a share of the small payments these ex-inmates can make. Within units of State and local governments, policies that govern the collection of fines, fees, restitution, and child support often conflict with one another, making it difficult for ex-inmates to meet their financial obligations. Ex-inmates' inability to meet their financial obligations can contribute to their reincarceration based on failure to meet the financial portion of probation supervision requirements. The report recommends that States and localities coordinate, and ideally integrate, agencies' policies, procedures, and information systems so that the fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution orders for each person sentenced to prison or jail are consolidated. Child support and victim restitution should be prioritized. Child-support enforcement policies should be enacted to encourage ex-inmate parents to maintain legitimate employment that will help them provide long-term support to their children. 28 notes

NCJ 220968
Irina Komarovskaya; Ann Booker Loper; Janet Warren
Role of Impulsivity in Antisocial and Violent Behavior and Personality Disorders Among Incarcerated Women
Criminal Justice and Behavior: An International Journal Volume:34 Issue:11 Dated:November 2007 Pages:1499 to 1515

This study investigated the relationships among impulsivity, antisocial and violent behavior, and personality disorders in female inmates of a maximum-security female prison. The study demonstrates the association between incarcerated women’s levels of impulsivity and self-reported violent behavior, personality psychopathology, and institutional infractions. The study contributes to the research on the unique characteristics of incarcerated women by demonstrating similarities and differences related to the construct of impulsivity among female inmates compared to male inmates. In summary, this research provides evidence for the importance of impulsivity associated with violent behavior of female offenders. The results underscore the need for gender-specific models of understanding of impulsivity. Impulsivity is related to various forms of psychopathology and maladaptive behavior. Among incarcerated men, there is a well-documented relationship between impulsivity and antisocial behavior, as well as institutional aggression and adjustment problems. Despite the considerable increase in the number of female inmates in the past several years, few studies have focused on the relationship between impulsivity and antisocial behavior among incarcerated women. In this study, a positive relationship between impulsivity, violence, and both self-reported and behaviorally observed antisocial behavior in incarcerated women was predicted. It was also expected that a positive relationship between impulsivity and those personality disorders in which impulsivity is an important component would be found and no relationship between impulsivity and those personality disorders in which impulsivity is a less relevant construct. Participants were 590 women incarcerated at a maximum-security prison in central Virginia who were participating in a larger prison-wide longitudinal study on adjustment in prison. Tables, references

A Two-Fer!!

2008-01-23T17:39:00.000-06:00

Watch the hit rates climb now!!!

Paris Hilton: Britney's a 'Great Mother'

Drug Treatment and Public Policy

2008-01-23T17:37:00.000-06:00

Both Real Cost of Prisons and Juvienation are giving deserved shout-outs to the Justice Policy Institute’s latest publication in its series on non-corr sent alternatives to stopping crime and reducing costs. This one, after reports on education’s impact and employment’s, focuses on drug treatment, noting yet one more time that every dollar spent on effective drug treatment can save a community $18.52 in decreased crime and other costs. Expect everything in what we do to change just as soon as policymakers read the hard copy, of course.

How TECHNOCORRECTIONS Might Add to Prison Bed Needs

2008-01-23T17:35:00.000-06:00

If DNA testing gets used broadly by more and more jurisdictions to i.d. more and more lower-level offenders, thereby increasing conviction rates, but the TECHNO tools to sanction them aren’t also available to avoid sending them to prison, then you might find yourself with more bedspace problems than you started with. Just something to think about as we do tech-wild.

(h/t Crime and Justice News)

News of the Day, Tuesday, January 22, 2007

2008-01-22T18:14:00.000-06:00

Since time immemorial, when the going gets tough, the tough pass the costs along. AZ trying to foist its rocketing prison costs off more on the counties, who are predictably elated.
CT still trying to get its head around the need to respond intelligently to the triple homicide there that set off a round of “reform” and the resources it has to do so, including what the actual costs of its version of “three strikes” will be. The state really has been an excellent case study in the dynamics of the whole corrections sentencing policy arena for the last few months.
ID’s drug czar is asking for $25 m. this year, which is only $22 m. than she was budgeted by the governor. You think this finding that, despite ID’s version of the Meth Project that we’ve discussed here, 25% of ID youth don’t see any problem with meth might be persuasive in the coming debate?
ME’s looking at ways to improve its collection of fines and court fees, including adding in a surcharge for collection agencies that in the past took so much of a percentage of the owed fine or fee that it wasn’t worth it to collect. This is a major problem for practically everyone, and the state that comes up with a super-duper way to handle this should get a portion of the cut from everyone else. Is that incentive enough?
Who said this? "There is, in my view, no more pressing problem of public perception regarding Utah's court system than the justice courts." The state chief justice, actually. She has some ideas on how to change that here that you might be interested in.
One problem with regional jails is the charges that the counties have to pay, regardless of how much of a day an offender is actually there. WV is trying to hash it out, if you have similar problems in your state and want some ideas.
Finally, WI is facing shortfalls in its revenue intake, meaning possible troubles for funding its vital services like courts, law enforcement, and prosecution at a time when its prison pops are growing and about to blow out the seams due to present policy. Gosh, maybe they could use a sentencing commission . . . .

Will Assessment Pass Appeals?

2008-01-22T18:12:00.000-06:00

One of the newer ideas in corr sent is to provide judges before sentencing the findings of assessments predicting likely recidivism and how similar offenders have done with various sentences. I know enough about how the data are put together not to put absolute faith in this, but overall I think it would be a good move to inform decision-makers and to put evidence into practice. However, what happens if a judge does all that and then those well-known statisticians and methodological wizards on the appellate level decide that, well, they’re not convinced? Don’t have to wonder in the 7th Circuit. And it’s not good news, as EvidenceProf blog notes:

The STATIC-99 is an actuarial risk prediction instrument designed to estimate the probability of sexual and violent reconviction for adult males who have already been charged with or convicted of at least one sexual offense against a child or a non-consenting adult. An expert uses STATIC-99 to match a sex offender's characteristics to characteristics found in studies of convicted sex offenders to determine their likely recidivism rate.

The Seventh Circuit was recently presented with STATIC-99 evidence in the case, United States v. McIlrath, 2008 WL 90084 (7th Cir. 2008). 31-year old Christopher McIlrath was on an internet chat room and thought he was chatting with a 15 year-old girl. He wrote her that he would travel to her state to have sex with her, but the "girl" was actually a detective conducting a sting, and he arrested McIrath upon his arrival. McIlrath thereafter pleaded guilty to traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor and was sentenced to 46 months imprisonment. This sentence came after the trial judge discounted forensic psychologist Eric Ostrov's use of STATIC-99 to determine that McIlrath's characteristics matched the characteristics of offenders 9 to 13 percent of whom were found to have repeated their offense.
………………….
. . . The Seventh Circuit, however, found that there are a plethora of problems with STATIC-99:
-even its advocates only claim that it has "moderate predictive accuracy;"
-estimates of recidivism are bound to be too low when one is dealing with underreported crimes such as sex offenses; and
-STATIC-99 has too limited a number of potentially relevant characteristics.

The Seventh Circuit then found that McIlrath had not addressed these criticisms and held that "without any effort by the defendant's lawyer to establish the reliability of Dr. Ostrov's methodology -- or even to explain it -- the judge was entitled to discount his prediction." Now, as noted, this was not a decision that addressed the admissibility of STATIC-99 results, and maybe McIrath's lawyer simply dropped the ball. But it certainly seems like the Seventh Circuit was holding that STATIC-99 results are too unreliable to be admissible as expert evidence, and it should be interesting to see how courts in future cases deal with this evidence.

An Insane Rant

2008-01-22T17:58:00.000-06:00

Sometimes someone on a blog just goes rats nuts with rage, and you really enjoy it, especially since it's not you. From a Canadian:

Walk with me a while and imagine you are mad. Crazy. Insane. It's an interesting sort of insanity where you see the world as something other than it is. You are dead convinced that people are out to get you, but these people have almost no means to harm you and fear your retaliation greatly, because you're a powerful person and they are weak.

You believe that you are hale and hearty, but in fact you're ghastly, obese and ill. You think you're rich, but in fact you're poor. You think you have the best doctor around, but in fact your doctor is worse than almost every other doctor and charges 50% more. You think you're tough, and you certainly haven't let the fact that two ninety pound weaklings seem to be able to stand up to you get in the way of that conviction.

You think that you have the most advanced technological toys, that what you have is the best. And once you did, but these days everyone else seems to have more advanced gadgets.

The illness goes deeper though, a deep decay in your brain. The parts of your brain that make most of the decisions for your body think everything is wonderful. They seem only able to take in sensations from the taste buds these days, and for the last thirty years you've been on a rich diet. So your brain thinks everything's great. Your once lean body, packed with muscles, has been replaced by a flaccid one, paunchy and fat, but somehow the key parts of your brain don't know that. They don't feel your sore back, they don't hear the broken down breathing, and they don't see the gut hanging over your belt.

The "you" I'm referring to, as I'm sure many have figured out by now, is the US.

What's that, you say? Nothing about criminal justice or corr sent? Au contraire. (Don't they do some French up there?)

At the end of World War II the US had about half the world's economy. Admittedly that's because Europe had been bombed into oblivion, but even when Europe rebuilt the US was still far, far ahead. The US was insanely rich and powerful. See, when you're rich you can do stupid and unproductive things for a long time. There are plenty of examples of this but the two most obvious ones are the US military and the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs hasn't reduced the number of junkies or drugs on the street in any noticeable way. It has increased the US's prison population to the highest per capita level in the world, however. It has cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It has gutted civil liberties (the war on terror is just the war on drugs on crack, after all). And after 30 years does anyone seriously say, "Wait, this doesn't work, it costs billions of dollars and it makes us a society of prisons"? Of course not. If anything, people compete to be "tough on crime." What's the definition of insanity, again?—Doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results.

The irony of this last quote, though, of course, is that it's what critics of our corrections sentencing policies have been saying since, at least, my first day in it over 13 years ago. It's not just the advocates of our current policies who are guilty of the "doing the same thing" problem. It's also the advocates of change, too. The long time play still goes on:

Status quo: Prison, prison, prison.

Change: Cost, cost, cost.

Status quo: Three strikes.

Change: Smart on crime.

Status quo: Do the crime, do the time.

Change: The ones we fear, not the ones we're mad at.

I mean, seriously, if we all already know the lines before they get said, like a warped version of "Rocky Horror" (is that possible?), then hasn't it just become an unending run of a tired play? Each set of roles may have new actors come on stage, so they're not saying the same thing again and don't see the connection with insanity, but the same things keep getting said. Until that play is changed and the script rewritten to better reflect our reality of what works and doesn't to promote public safety and prevent more victims (both of which don't happen with the play currently running), 13 years from now, some new foreign guy will use criminal justice as evidence in yet another righteous rant. And not recognize how insane he's being.

And the play's ending? Well, he's got an idea on that, too:

But here's what I do know: you can get away with being nuts as long as enough people benefit from you being insane. When the credit cards are all maxed out, when the relatives have stolen even the furniture, when suddenly all the enablers go away then the knee-breakers or the men in white pay you a visit. At that point you can live in the real world, or you can go to the asylum.

I wonder which way the US will go?

So do we all.

More Fun with MRIs

2008-01-22T17:56:00.000-06:00

And maybe with some implications for jury composition, interrogations, selection of judges, fill in the blank.

The research team led by Tania Singer, at UCL, asked volunteers to play a game with employees of the lab, secretly instructing the employees to play either fairly or unfairly. Afterward, the scientists measured brain activity in the same volunteers under quite different circumstances: looking on as their former game opponents were subjected to various degrees of pain. In both male and female volunteers, the brain areas that signal pain became active, giving neural evidence of their empathy with the others' pain. Strikingly, however, that empathy did not appear to extend to all the players who were hurting. When unfair-playing employees were seen experiencing pain, the male volunteers - but not the females - showed significantly less empathetic brain activity than when they saw fair-players perceiving pain. Thus, females showed the brain responses of empathy regardless of their moral judgment of the employees' social behavior, whereas the men's brain responses were conditional upon how fairly the employee had played.

(h/t Frontal Cortex)

Around the Blogs, Tuesday, January 22, 2007

2008-01-22T17:47:00.000-06:00

Anne Reed at Deliberations has a good post up on the folks called, actually showing up, and then doing jury duty, as well as the breakdown by race of who thinks jury trials are fair? And in a related post at “a public defender,” Gideon has an equally provocative post asking whether, even if you were innocent, would you do a guilty plea if it meant there’d be no way you’d do incarceration time?
Congratulations to Pam Clifton and Christie Donner for all their contributions at Think Outside the Cage to getting Tim Masters freed in CO. It was an egregious case of misuse and abuse, and their attention has to have had an effect. Unfortunately, now it sounds like they’ve got a very similar case to work on.
While we’re congratulating, Corey Rayburn Yung’s article on sex offender banishment laws is finally available at SSRN, in case you haven’t already gotten there through his blog or the nice picture and notice he got at CrimProf Blog.
Real Cost of Prisons has a nice run of posts up here, particularly a couple of good analyses of opponents to prison closures (nice to have those who want crime and victims to continue to come out of the woodwork) and a couple on how CT is dealing with its prison questions.
Speaking of nice runs, Jonathan Simon at Governing Through Crime went wild over the weekend with posts you should check out on CA’s prison boom, how Dr. King might have reacted to it, and why San Fran’s move to deal with drugs may be behind its current violence boom. It’s been pointed out fairly frequently and then ignored for several years that a familiar pattern occurs when a polity is forced to switch more of its scarce resources into fighting the War on (Some) Drugs, and it’s this pattern of violence, although Simon’s point is more that decriminalizing drugs would deny the violence opportunities to the young jacka—es who populate the field.
Latest and depressing details of Mexico’s crackdown on drugs here at Grits for Breakfast, who really must have a strong stomach to keep posting on this.
Is it me or is Doug Berman’s effort to avoid revealing how he really thinks about some of the ways we do things starting to crack just a bit? And I like it!
Finally, Court-o-Rama supplies a really nice post for those of us perhaps in the market for a job or career change with this listing of links to job sites for various orgs in the field. Now if they could just let me know about career opportunities in selling t-shirts at the beach in San Diego . . . .

Eulogy for a Drum Major and Former Inmate

2008-01-21T08:36:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator--that something we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.

I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.

I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question.

I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry.

And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison.

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I wanted to say.

If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, if I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, if I can spread the message as the master taught, then my living will not be in vain.

Bishop Charles J. Mason Temple, Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968

Needing Some Advice

2008-01-20T08:55:00.000-06:00

My wife of 34 years thanked me the other evening for talking with her after I got home from work and not immediately getting online to start blogging.

Hi, my name's Mike. I'm apparently a blogoholic.

I'm thinking about what to do about this and I need some advice from you. I do enjoy blogging and have greatly valued the response and the friendships that have come my way from doing this blog. But I've walked away from one blog (arts, politics, BS) that most of you never knew about so I know how to do that, too. I need to readjust my scheduling, clearly, but I'm thinking about moving away from this altogether. I would appreciate some feedback from you regular reader types to help decide whether that would a good idea.

I don't have illusions about the value of what we do here. Nothing significant in the corrections sentencing discussions has changed in the going on two years this blog has been up so we can't claim to have changed the debate as we planned when Kim Hunt and I started this up. We certainly haven't generated the wide-ranging, "open source" conversations that we envisioned. There are other blogs that do what this one does, maybe more specialized or regionalized, but covering most of what we do here. And (here comes some ego-busting) blogs that haven't been around as long have lately been justifiably and deservedly been announcing total hit rates that have already caught or surpassed ours. We get probably 3-4 times as many people as we did when we started (more on Paris Hilton days!!) and more than any NASC conference I've ever been to (although the San Fran one this coming August will probably make a lie of that, too). But we aren't reaching so many people that I can use that to explain why my wife thinks it's a good day when I'll talk to her before blogging that evening.

As you probably can tell, blogging takes time, especially when you have a day job that doesn't permit it. It's usually 2-3 hours each night for me to write up and then transfer to post the posts I do, just like a part-time job. I'd gladly do it for money, but those positions apparently don't get advertised in my local paper and the deep pockets and schools are into yet one more report and study after another. I still think the resources we provide would be useful to me if I were starting in the field, but I don't know for sure that the daily posts tell anyone anything they don't already pick up from others. I mean, between Berman, Clifton, Grits, NIC's Corrections Community, and Corey Rayburn Yung, I figure I could keep up with everything in the field I need to know. If that's true for you, too, then, really, why should I keep doing this when there's a lovely woman who'd like to talk to me (something that doesn't happen much anymore as my hair gets thinner and . . . blonder)?

I hope this isn't too personal and certainly don't mean it to be maudlin. I can rearrange other things (such as my famous tin whistling) to rebudget my time if this is worth doing. I'm not asking for ego-stroking, I promise. I've received enough for this blog from my devoted readers (both of you) and presume that I would continue to do so. I seriously need to know whether this is the best use of my time, that you get enough out of what we do here to be disappointed in me or lose something that you use if we drop this. So, if you have time, please let me know if you've found something valuable in the last few visits that you haven't read or thought about other places. Those of you I talk to or who send me things regularly, consider yourself exempt. It's the folks I don't hear from whose input I'm seeking. If all I'm doing is echoing what others do or offering something helpful at most only once every couple of months or so, then I'll keep whistling or doing other writing or maybe take up origami.

When I'm done dancing with my wife.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 20, 2007

2008-01-20T08:53:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL.

NCJ 220922
Joseph P. Morrissey; Gary S. Cuddeback; Alison Evans Cuellar; Henry J. Steadman
Role of Medicaid Enrollment and Outpatient Services Use in Jail Recidivism Among Persons With Severe Mental Illness
Psychiatric Services Volume:58 Issue:6 Dated:June 2007 Pages:794 to 801

This study determined whether having Medicaid benefits and receiving mental health services were associated with a reduction in reoffending after release by jail detainees with severe mental illness. In both counties involved in the study, having Medicaid benefits available at release was linked to a 16-percent reduction in the average number of subsequent detentions of severely mentally ill detainees. After the analysis controlled for demographic and clinical variables, more days on Medicaid were linked with a reduced number of subsequent detentions in King County (Washington State) and more days in the community before subsequent arrests in both counties (King County and Pinellas County, FL). No association was found between Medicaid status and the severity of the offense leading to rearrest in either county. Further research is required in order to determine ways in which greater reductions in reoffending can be achieved for jail detainees with severe mental illness. The study used a quasi-experimental design in which administrative data were collected and analyzed. Subjects of the study were all persons with severe mental illness released over a 2-year period from jails in King County (n=5,189) and Pinellas County (n=2,419). They were monitored for 12 months after their release from jail. Those who were receiving Medicaid benefits at release and those who did not receive these benefits were compared on three variables: number of arrests after release, how soon any rearrests occurred, and the seriousness of offenses linked with any rearrests. The data were analyzed with negative binomial, Cox proportional hazards models, and logistic regression with adjustment for dependent observations. 3 tables and 32 references

NCJ 220964
Sharon Casey; Andrew Day; Kevin Howells; Tony Ward
Assessing Suitability for Offender Rehabilitation: Development and Validation of the Treatment Readiness Questionnaire
Criminal Justice and Behavior: An International Journal Volume:34 Issue:11 Dated:November 2007 Pages:1427 to 1440

This paper reports on the development and validation of a brief self-report measure (the Corrections Victoria Treatment Readiness Questionnaire) designed to assess treatment readiness in offenders who have been referred to a cognitive skills program. The Corrections Victoria Treatment Readiness Questionnaire (CVTRQ) scale itself exhibited good psychometric properties. It is internally consistent and has high levels of discriminant and convergent validity. The CVTRQ was able to predict treatment engagement and treatment performance at the mid-point of the program. It is concluded that the measure can play a valuable role in the assessment of offenders who are being considered for rehabilitative treatment. Although the needs to assess appropriate candidates for offender rehabilitation programs are widely acknowledged, few assessment tools are available that has been validated for use with offender populations. The objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which a self-report measure, the CVTRQ, validly predicted those offenders who were likely to be able to engage in a cognitive skills program. The CVTRQ is a 40-item self-report questionnaire that assesses readiness to participate in and engage with a cognitive skills training program. Participants in the study were 177 convicted male offenders referred to a cognitive skills program delivered in community and prison settings in Victoria, Australia. Tables and references

NCJ 220963
He Len Chung; Carol A. Schubert; Edward Mulvey
Empirical Portrait of Community Reentry Among Serious Juvenile Offenders in Two Metropolitan Cities
Criminal Justice and Behavior: An International Journal Volume:34 Issue:11 Dated:November 2007 Pages:1402 to 1426

This study examined the community reentry process among several hundred serious adolescent offenders released from juvenile court commitments in two metropolitan areas. The findings indicate that reentry offenders are sensitive to close and extended supervision and service contacts during the aftercare period and that different components of these processes may be important for motivating restraint from negative behaviors and promoting engagement in school and/or work. The general findings about the importance of aftercare services in reducing the likelihood of recidivism mirror results from other investigations of long-term criminal outcomes with adult offenders on parole. To date, studies of offender reentry have provided limited data on reintegration outcomes and the impact of aftercare supervision and services on individual adjustment. This study examined the facility-to-community transition among 413 serious adolescent offenders released from juvenile court commitments in Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA. The study sought to provide a broad view of functioning during young offenders’ first 6 months in the community on multiple indicators of adjustment, antisocial activity, formal system involvement, school attendance, and employment. The study also assessed their participation in postrelease court supervision and community-based services and presented data about the duration and intensity of these activities. References

Somebody Gets It

2008-01-19T17:40:00.000-06:00

Not doing endorsements here, but it IS nice that someone who might be running for president may actually understand the importance of investing in our social infrastructure and stopping the policies that pander and pull bucks away from real needs toward those that simply get the policymakers reelected.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who says he's not a candidate for president, chose electoral vote-rich California Saturday from which to deliver a scorching assessment of Washington for failing to keep up with the need for new airports, roads, water systems and bridges across America.

While China and other nations are investing heavily in ports and high-speed trains "Washington doesn't have a plan" to address crumbling U.S. infrastructure, Bloomberg said.

In remarks clearly aimed at a national audience, the mayor said politics trumps common sense in Congress, where pork-barrel spending takes priority. Inevitably, the economy will be strangled if goods and people can't move easily, he warned.

"In politics, winning elections and protecting a party majority is more important than solving problems. And so short-term pork invariably wins over long-term investments," the mayor said.

Washington "spends money to win votes and collect campaign cash no matter what the real needs are," Bloomberg added. "It's hurting our country."

Maybe living in NY has blinded him from seeing that it happens other places and with other policies, too. The thing is, as we finally are forced to make the investments, if other demands are rising at the same time, like the adjustments necessary to deal with an increasingly aging and retiring population, a warming planet, peak oil and scarce water, fill in the blank, even a growing economy won't have the funds for increases in education, health, and, yes, corrections sentencing. TECHNOCORRECTIONS and more traditional alternative sentencing will have to move forward, but their effectiveness and availability will rely on foresight and planning. Still not seeing that much in the election rhetoric, are we?

Fancy Meeting You Here

2008-01-19T07:56:00.000-06:00

A woman hiding in a closet from burglars was shocked when they opened the doors -- not once but twice -- and never saw her.
..................................
. . . Police say three men rang her doorbell, and when no one answered they let themselves in. The intruders smashed in the window, climbed inside and headed upstairs to see what they could find, all while Brittney was home.

"It's almost surreal. I can't even comprehend the feelings," Brittney told us today.

As the burglars got closer, she hid in an upstairs closet. At one point on the 911 recording, the burglars are heard arranging for a ride. "You get closer yet by chance? Because we'll be ready in like, maybe 10 minutes," one of them said.
...................................
One of the burglars, looking for stuff to steal, opened the closet where Brittney was hiding. "I was just standing right there. He pushed it open and was bumping into my legs, my boots," she said.
....................................
The burglars spotted police and scrambled. One jumped into the bedroom closet, inches from Brittney. "He was standing right there. I could have kissed his cheek if I'd stood on my tippy toes," she said.

She stayed still and silent until officers entered the bedroom. Then Brittney said, "He's in here!" Police ordered him out of the closet. "He looked at me with a completely dumbfounded expression, like, 'Where'd she come from?'" Brittney explained.

Sometimes It's Not Immediately Clear

2008-01-19T07:47:00.000-06:00

how a news item can come back to bite us in our corr sent butts. So what if housing prices, for example, are tanking? Why would a bridge collapse affect our prison populations? Or this one, a particularly obtuse connection, an insurance company having serious trouble raising funds to bolster its balance sheet?

One of the largest US firms that insures the bonds issued by municipal authorities, especially in the US, to raise cash for projects such as new transport links, abandoned efforts yesterday to raise $1bn (£512m) to bolster its balance sheet only two days after its board approved the initiative.

Ambac Financial, which has seen its share price drop by 60%, said the fundraising was "not an attractive option" against a backdrop of jittery markets.

Ambac is one of a number of so-called monoline insurers that have become the focus of economists' attention in recent weeks. These companies, many of which were set up in the 1970s when US municipal authorities raised funds for projects by issuing bonds, insure those bonds against default. Such insurance makes it cheaper for local governments to raise cash as the risk of default is reduced for investors. Two of the original monoline firms, Ambac and MBIA, are estimated to provide guarantees to bonds worth $2.4tn.

They are called monoline because they have one line of business: insuring bonds. But in recent years, lured by the profits being made elsewhere in the financial markets, these companies have started insuring financial instruments based on less obviously creditworthy assets, such as mortgages issued to people with poor credit histories. As US house prices decline, investors have become increasingly concerned about the exposure that the monoline insurers have to the sub-prime market.

Not clear yet? Well, here's the article's punchline:

The worry is that these downgrades will reduce these companies' ability to insure further bonds, making it more expensive for local authorities to raise cash to support projects. In the UK, for instance, this could mean that building projects such as hospitals and schools being paid for under the government's private finance initiative will become prohibitively expensive.

If major infrastructure projects cannot find a highly rated insurance company willing to underwrite their bond issues, the government will have to dig into its own pockets, holing the whole PFI concept below the water line. The Treasury is understood to have already drawn up plans to help PFI schemes fund themselves by the issuance of government bonds.

In the U.S., too. Government having to find more money when it doesn't have enough as it is for every demand we put on it. Including locking people up and throwing away the key. IOW, corrections sentencing.

Kudos to The Cage

2008-01-19T07:43:00.000-06:00

Pam Clifton and the folks at Think Outside the Cage have done wonderful work alerting this weird little corner of the blogosphere to the injustice of the Masters case in CO over the last several months. Run over to her place if you get a chance to find the details about how the kid has basically been proven innocent now, as he should have been declared from the start if not for the perfidy of the usual crim just suspects, and check out her older posts to follow the whole chronology of this tragic case. I hope she doesn't spend the whole holiday weekend partying.

Valuable Inmates

2008-01-19T07:38:00.000-06:00

One thing I'm not sure outsiders to corrections truly understand is just how valuable certain inmates with certain skills can be to an individual facility or to the entire system. Wardens have been known to block transfers, even for purposes of getting offenders ready for release, if the guy is a good plumber or cook or has been handling key duties within the prison. Here's a great case of the broader example, how a group of inmates can be valuable to the system, especially when they're low risk offenders who can be used as cheap but trained labor in fighting fires. Their potential release in CA is causing planners for fighting future fires (no charge for additional alliteration) to ponder the wisdom of (ever?) letting them go.

Next Come Bake Sales

2008-01-19T07:33:00.000-06:00

Remember when you used to get warned about driving through certain small towns that were known as "speed traps" because of the way they preyed on motorists for their revenue. Consider now the "speed state." The people of AZ following the long American tradition of "don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that guy behind the tree" to fund their budget shortfalls, including their exploding prison pops. When exactly did "community responsibility" cease to have a definition in our culture?

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano says the deployment of new photo radar or other speed enforcement technology on state highways is all about public safety. But her proposed state budget counts on the anticipated speeding fines to help erase a projected revenue shortfall.

The proposal, submitted to the Legislature late Friday, anticipates $120 million in revenue the first year, including $90 million in net income after expenses from the statewide effort. Even bigger dollar amounts are expected in future years.

The state faces a projected revenue shortfall of at least $1.2 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

More NCJRS Abstracts, January 19, 2007

2008-01-19T07:30:00.000-06:00

AMONG THE LATEST RESEARCH POSTED AT http://www.ncjrs.gov/. CHECK FOR OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST THERE AS WELL

NCJ 220939
D. Michael Risinger
Innocents Convicted: An Empirically Justified Factual Wrongful Conviction Rate
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume:97 Issue:3 Dated:Spring 2007 Pages:761 to 806

This paper attempts to give some informed discussion concerning likely wrongful conviction rates for various types of crime, specifically capital rape-murders, and set out a position on the moral person’s obligations when facing the undoubted and non-trivial phenomenon of such convictions. Using DNA exonerations for capital rape-murders from 1982 through 1989 as a numerator, and a 407 member sample of the 2,235 capital sentences imposed during this period, this paper shows that 21.25 percent or around 479 of those were cases of capital rape-murder. Data supplied by the Innocence Project of Cardozo Law School and newly developed for this paper show that only two-thirds of those cases would be expected to yield usable DNA for analysis. Combining these figures and dividing the numerator by the resulting denominator, a minimum factually wrongful conviction rate for capital rape-murder in the 1980s emerges: 3.3 percent. The paper goes on to consider the likely ceiling accompanying this 3.3 percent floor, arriving at a slightly softer number of the maximum factual error rate of around 5 percent. To a great extent, those who believe that the criminal justice system rarely convicts the factually innocent and those who believe such miscarriages are widespread have generally talked past each other for want of any empirically justified factual innocence wrongful conviction rate. This paper attempts to remedy at least a part of this problem by establishing the first such empirically justified wrongful conviction rate ever for a significant universe of real world serious crimes: capital rape-murders in the 1980s. Appendix 1 and 2

NCJ 220940
Richard A. Wise; Kirsten A. Dauphinais; Martin A. Safer
Tripartite Solution to Eyewitness Error
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume:97 Issue:3 Dated:Spring 2007 Pages:807 to 872

Eyewitness testimony plays a role in over half of all wrongful convictions. Many eyewitnesses have great difficulty making accurate identifications of perpetrators of crimes. In addition, current procedural safeguards are inadequate to prevent wrongful convictions from eyewitness error. Based on over 30 years of extensive scientific research on eyewitness testimony, a comprehensive, practical solution was developed to eyewitness error, the tripartite solution which involves (1) permitting expert testimony when the primary or sole evidence against the defendant is eyewitness testimony, (2) improving procedures for collecting eyewitness evidence by conducting eyewitness interviews and identification procedures in a manner consistent with best practices, and (3) educating the principal participants in the criminal justice system about eyewitness testimony to sensitize them to the effects of eyewitness factors. The tripartite solution provides judges, attorneys, law officers, and jurors with a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating eyewitness testimony and gives practical suggestions in the form of 10 guidelines for attorneys to use when either supporting or attacking the reliability of eyewitness testimony. This paper serves as a blueprint for the reforms that the criminal justice system must institute to significantly reduce eyewitness error.

NCJ 220919
J. Steven Lamberti
Understanding and Preventing Criminal Recidivism Among Adults With Psychotic Disorders
Psychiatric Services Volume:58 Issue:6 Dated:June 2007 Pages:773 to 781

Drawing on contemporary crime-prevention principles as well as current knowledge of psychotic disorders and their treatment, this article presents a conceptual framework for understanding and preventing reoffending by adults with psychotic disorders. The conceptual framework presented indicates that the key to preventing reoffending by adults with psychotic disorders is to involve them in interventions that target risk factors for reoffending. This includes active participation in treatment as well as adherence to a treatment regimen. This is most likely to occur when treatment techniques and goals match the needs and characteristics of the offender. A second component of the conceptual framework is a focus on factors linked to nonadherence to treatment regimens, since nonadherence to treatment requirements has been associated with violence and increased rates of arrest and incarceration among offenders with mental illness. The third component of the conceptual framework is a focus on issues that inhibit psychiatric treatment, such as arrest and incarceration rather than referral to medical services and hospitalization for treatment. This conceptual framework implies that combining legal supervisory and mandatory measures to facilitate entering and maintaining adherence to treatment is the approach most likely to prevent reoffending among psychotic offenders. 2 figures and 101 references

Yes!! A Lindsay Lohan Post!!!

2008-01-18T16:34:00.000-06:00

A nice example of creative sentencing, an implied bit of snark at the end, and a chance to double my hit rates this weekend and try to keep up with Corey Rayburn Yung and his 100,000 hits at Sex Crimes Blog. The Trifecta!!!

Lindsay Lohan is about to see dead people. The 21-year-old actress will soon be working at a morgue as part of her punishment for misdemeanor drunken driving, her attorney, Blair Berk, told a judge Thursday.

She has also spent two months in rehabilitation and has done some community service, Berk said at a hearing on her progress toward fulfilling the terms of her plea bargain.

Her two four-hour days at the morgue are part of a court-ordered program to show drivers the real-life consequences of drinking and driving. She must also spend two days working in a hospital emergency room.

Lohan was arrested twice last year on DUI charges and pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges. She has already served 84 minutes in jail as part of the plea deal.

And I Get to Say "Britney Spears"!!!

2008-01-18T16:32:00.000-06:00

A complaint has been filed against Dr. Phil with the California Board of Psychology.

The complaint reportedly accuses Dr. Phil McGraw of practicing without a license when he visited Britney Spears at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after her meltdown earlier this month, according to TMZ.com.

Dr. Phil is also accused of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The complaint alleges Dr. Phil practiced clinical psychology without a license and further violated doctor-patient privilege by discussing the pop star's case with the media.

Dr. Phil has never been licensed to practice in California, and he is no longer licensed in his home state of Texas.

McGraw failed to complete the conditions imposed as disciplinary sanctions by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists in 1989.

At that time a former therapy client had filed a complaint against him, claiming their relationship was inappropriate.

McGraw later admitted giving her a job but denied touching her.

Soon after he was officially reprimanded, McGraw closed his private practice.

Just one more reason to be glad we all live on Planet Oprah.

Whack-a-Kid

2008-01-18T16:31:00.000-06:00

I’d love to blame this on the Drug Czar and the foolish War on (Some) Drugs, but this is too depressing. Ultimately we all have it in our own power to stop this in one second just by growing up and stopping putting crap in our bodies. In the end, those kids are dead because of us.

Hit men from Mexico's drug gangs are breaking traditional codes of honor by killing children in a chilling new chapter of a narcotics war that President Felipe Calderón is struggling to control.

In unprecedented attacks, gunmen killed a 3-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl and seriously wounded a 12-year-old girl in the city of Tijuana on the US border this week as they targeted a senior local police officer.

Even hardened residents of Tijuana, where more than 300 people were killed in drug violence last year and severed heads were dumped on city streets, were shocked by photos of young Jose Luis Ortiz's body riddled with bullets.

Ortiz and his mother and father were shot dead as they slept Monday night. Gunmen apparently mistook the boy's father for a police officer and had no qualms about killing the 3-year-old.

Moments later, they found the police officer they were looking for and murdered him, his wife, and their youngest daughter.

Their other child was wounded.

"This is a new strategy to attack children and families and respond to the government's military assault on the cartels. The gangs want to sow panic and fear to overwhelm the authorities," said Victor Clark, a drug trade specialist at San Diego State University.

When Crime Causes Crime

2008-01-18T16:30:00.000-06:00

Disturbing story at Prevention Works (seriously, don’t go there if you’re in a good mood and want to stay there) about a father catching his step-son doing his daughter and then wreaking his own punishment. Some wise words from the post for us all to consider, especially the folks at Doug Berman’s place debating whether adding the death penalty to this would stop it or make it more likely that the step-son or father would be turned in.

Big Dogs and Underdogs

2008-01-18T16:29:00.000-06:00

Some smart commentary as usual over at Deliberations relating recent research on our tendency to side with underdogs and why to how to make that work for and not against you at trial. I’m still puzzled by criticisms Anne Reed gets there about the value of her advice. If I were a trial attorney, I’d be calling her so much she’d block me on caller ID.

[If you want to pursue the research, here’s a good commentary as well from a poli sci perspective over at The Monkey Cage.]