10 Jan 2012

January 10, 2012


Crime Records Should Have Expiration Dates, Criminologists Say

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A stunning number of young people are arrested for crimes, and those crimes can haunt them for the rest of their lives, criminologists Alfred Blumstein and Kiminori Nakamura write in the New York Times. An article in the journal Pediatrics says that by age 23, 30 percent of Americans have been arrested, compared with 22 percent in 1967. The ubiquity of criminal-background checks and the efficiency of information technology in maintaining those records and making them widely available, have meant that millions continue to pay a price long after the crime.

The risk of recidivism drops steadily with time, but there is still the question of how long is long enough. By looking at data for more than 88,000 people who had their first arrest in New York State in 1980, and tracking their subsequent criminal histories over the next 25 years, we estimate the "redemption time" - the time it takes for an individual's likelihood of being arrested to be close to that of individuals with no criminal records - to be about 10 to 13 years. A big problem is state and local rules that restrict employment or licensing for the rest of the individual's life in some occupations. We propose that the "forever rules" be replaced by rules that provide for the expiration of a criminal record.

New York Times


CA Inmates In Shift Have More Serious Mental Ills Than Expected

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As California shifts supervision of thousands of newly released state prisoners to local probation agencies, ex-convicts are arriving with incomplete medical records and more serious mental illnesses than anticipated, the Los Angeles Times reports. Mental health officials are scrambling to provide appropriate and often costly treatment. "At the start, every day [ ] there was a crisis," said Dr. Marvin Southard, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. "There was somebody we didn't know what to do with."

In some cases, released inmates have had to be immediately transferred to hospitals or residential centers for psychiatric care. A new state law aimed at reducing prison crowding requires that certain nonviolent convicts serve their time in county lockups rather than state prisons. It also makes counties - rather than the state parole agency - responsible for supervising such inmates after their release. Mental illness and drug addiction are common in California prisons, where more than half of inmates report a recent mental health problem and two-thirds report a drug abuse problem.

Los Angeles Times


Baltimore Schools Chief Cites "Seismic Shift" In Youth Crime Drop

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Violence against juveniles has declined significantly in Baltimore in recent years as juvenile arrests have dropped and student graduations increased - a trend that the city schools chief said stills lags behind perceptions of the city's youths, reports the Baltimore Sun. "The fact that these things are coming together is [ ] not an illusion," said schools CEO Andrés Alonso. "It's huge for the city."

Amid the continued decline in gun violence, which helped the city fall below 200 homicides last year for the first time since the 1970s, has been a sustained reduction in violence involving juveniles. Forty-two juveniles were shot or killed in 2011, down 67 percent from 2007 when 128 were shot or killed. Between 2000 and 2006, an average of 141 juveniles were shot or killed each year. Officials attribute the drop to closer working relationships among agencies that interact with city youths, including police, the school system, juvenile services and the health department. Agencies work to identify at-risk youths and try to surround them with services to keep them out of trouble and off the streets. Alonso said the changes are part of a "seismic shift" that he believes has not been fully appreciated.

Baltimore Sun


500 People Wrongly Imprisoned In Denver In 7 Years

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More than 500 people were wrongly imprisoned in Denver's jails over seven years, with some spending weeks incarcerated or pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit before authorities realized they nabbed the wrong person, says a federal court filing quoted by the Denver Post. Civil-rights lawyers suing the city and county of Denver assert the documented mistaken-identity arrests "are the tip of the iceberg" and are an undercount of the problem's true magnitude.

In one case a black man spent nine days in jail after he was arrested on a warrant for a white man. In another, authorities arrested an 18- year-old when they were searching for a man 30 years older. City officials say the documented mistakes make up a small fraction of the more than 33,000 inmates detained last year. They say they strive to avoid detaining the wrong suspects but concede that mistakes do happen. "The best we can do is set up processes so these get addressed immediately, and that's what we've done," said Denver police Lt. Matt Murray. The wrongful arrests occurred for a variety of reasons. Often those wrongly held had the same names as criminals, but authorities failed to check their dates of birth. Some were wrongly arrested because their identities had been stolen. In other cases, the last name matched but not the first or middle.

Denver Post


MN Homicide Research Center Works with FBI On Weapons Study

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The Minneapolis-based Center for Homicide Research is assisting the FBI in a sharp-edge weapons homicide project, says St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist Ruben Rosario. The joint research project with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at Quantico, Va., involves looking at the relationship between victim and offender in edged-weapon homicides. "We are trying to determine any correlations between victim and offender by the number and placement of the wounds to the victim," said Timothy Keel, an FBI major-case specialist. "The CHR has a large database and has conducted many research projects, which will allow us to conduct a more effective and cost efficient research project."

The Minneapolis center, which Dallas Drake and his late domestic partner founded in 1999, began with a listing of 65 gay homicide cases in Minnesota since 1969. Its files now hold 3,082 cases nationwide and counting, with up to 230 distinct variables on each homicide. Drake has learned that gay homicides - estimated to account for about 3 percent of all homicides - are in some respects profoundly different from heterosexual homicides. Drake initially thought that a majority would be hate crimes committed by strangers. He was wrong.

St. Paul Pioneer Press


Restrictions Drive Sex Offenders to Live in Motels, Trailer Parks

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Laws that restrict sex offenders residences have driven them to cluster in roadside motels or trailer parks, criminologists and corrections officials tell USA Today. Such sex offender enclaves came to light after the killing of Aliahna Lemmon, 9, before Christmas in Indiana. The suspect was not an offender but lived in a trailer park where sex offenders in Fort Wayne clustered. Prosecutors say Michael Plumadore, 39, repeatedly hit Aliahna in the head with a brick before dismembering her with a hacksaw.

Plumadore, who had caring for Aliahna while her mother recovered from the flu, pleaded not guilty. Aliahna's mother had moved her family to the trailer park to care for her ailing father, a convicted child molester. Some cities, including Riverside and San Bernadino, Ca., have passed or are considering laws that break up the clusters because of concerns they have become magnets for crime. Experts say the new laws may make problems worse by forcing sex offenders into homelessness or isolating them from social services and jobs. "The larger the buffer zone and the more densely populated the area is, the more difficult it is for them to find housing," said Jill Levenson, an associate professor of psychology at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fl., who specializes in sex crime policy. A study in Orange County, Fl., found 99 percent of residential housing off-limits to sex offenders.

USA Today


30 States Have "Castle Doctrine" Laws, NRA Wants More

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When Sarah Dawn McKinley, of Blanchard, Ok., shot and killed a burglar breaking into her home on New Year's Eve, she was spared prosecution by the state's "castle doctrine" law, which protects people who defend themselves against intruders. Oklahoma has one of the nation's most expansive castle doctrine laws - the law includes those defending themselves in either a home or place of business, says Stateline.org. The National Rifle Association says that at least 30 states have some form of legislation protecting people from prosecution when they feel threatened by intruders to their property.

In New Hampshire last year, legislators overrode Governor John Lynch's veto when he objected to a castle doctrine bill that allows anyone to defend themselves if they are in their "dwelling, its curtilage, or anywhere he or she has the right to be." Lynch said the new provisions would increase "deadly violence," but the legislature disagreed. The year 2011 was a successful one for the castle doctrine, with states enacting new laws and, as in New Hampshire, expanding earlier ones. The national Association of Prosecuting Attorneys argues that the right of self-defense and defense of property are well established in common law and don't need to be legislated. Still, the NRA is advocating for castle doctrine laws in the 20 states without them.

Stateline.org


Experts Recommending Reforms to Oklahoma Offender Supervision

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There is growing evidence that Oklahoma isn't supervising enough offenders and that the supervision in place isn't working effectively, said John Estus, spokesman for House Speaker Kris Steele, tells The Oklahoman. "The question about supervision has to be bigger than just one form," Estus said. "You have to look at everything and find out what's working and what's not. You don't want one form of supervision to drag down another if that one form isn't doing well."

At least one in 92 adult Oklahomans is under state correctional probation or parole, says the Pew Center on the States. Thousands more are on probation either through a private entity or a district attorney's office. They all pay - usually $40 a month - to be supervised, but how much they're supervised, who supervises them and how success is defined differs greatly. Those disparities led a group of lawmakers and criminal justice experts in Oklahoma to research court-mandated supervision and determine how the state should move forward. The group will release policy recommendations to the legislature tomorrow.

The Oklahoman


Congress Members Seek Criminal Probe In IL Anti-Terror Spending

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U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Il.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Il.) have requested a federal criminal probe into the missing records, equipment and money from Project Shield, a $45-million Cook County homeland security program, says the Chicago Sun-Times. A six-month probe by the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cites numerous abuses including equipment that did not work, unallowable costs, and unaccountable inventory items.

"This program may have been looted by Cook County officials and the prime and secondary contractors involved," Kirk said. "We don't have specific criminal activity that the IG found, but there's a lot of smoke there. And so we think the FBI should go in and find the fire." Funding for Project Shield happened in three phases. IBM was the prime contractor for the first two phases and Johnson Controls of Milwaukee was the contractor for Phase 3. IBM declined to comment and Johnson Controls could not be reached for comment. "When you waste Homeland Security money you are less safe," said Quigley, a critic of the program when he was a Cook County commissioner. All 128 suburbs in Cook County were supposed to have two police squad cars equipped to beam live video back to a central command. Fixed mounted cameras were to be placed in communities as well.

Chicago Sun-Times


S.F. Sheriff Mirkarimi Sworn In Amid Wife-Abuse Investigation

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Ross Mirkarimi was sworn in as San Francisco's 35th sheriff Sunday and acknowledged the legal and political challenge he faces amid a police investigation into allegations that he abused his wife, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Eliana Lopez, his wife, stood with her arm around her husband when he took the oath of office, and said, "I don't have any complaint against my husband."

Allegations surfaced Thursday that Mirkarimi, 50, was under police investigation for an alleged domestic violence incident involving Lopez on New Year's Eve. Officers obtained a search warrant to get a video camera and phone that allegedly show bruising on Lopez's arm that she reportedly received during the domestic violence and text messages discussing the episode. Police investigators handed their case to the district attorney's office Friday; if Mirkarimi is convicted, he would be prohibited from serving as sheriff.

San Francisco Chronicle


TX Judge Scales Back Sweeping Gag Order In Capital Murder Trial

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A Texas judge scaled back a sweeping gag order she had imposed on news coverage of a capital murder trial, leaving in place bans against reporters interviewing the families of victims or defendants and photographing jurors until after the trial, reports the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Before a hearing to let the Star-Telegram challenge the order, Judge Elizabeth Berry issued a revised list of courtroom restrictions that maintained bans on some interviews about the case with attorneys, district attorney officials, and witnesses until the end of the trial of Kwame Rockwell.

"We're gratified the judge decided to revise the order she issued Friday, which we felt was clearly unconstitutional in the limits it placed upon us," Star-Telegram Executive Editor Jim Witt said. "One of our jobs is to be the eyes and ears for the public, to tell them what is going on in their courtrooms. The original order was too restrictive for us to do that." Among the judge's concerns: a "defiance" of her order to use a pool camera by the broadcast media, a Star-Telegram article that included comments from the mother of the defendant, media presence in prohibited areas of the courtroom, and media efforts to contact people in the courtroom who appear to be family members of the victims and could be called as witnesses.

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram


CA Legislator: Brain Tumor Was Factor In Neiman Marcus Shoplifting

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Powerful California state Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi says a brain tumor contributed to her shoplifting $2,500 in clothing from a Neiman Marcus store, McClatchy Newspapers report. Hayashi's attorney, Douglas Rappaport, said a brain tumor impaired her decision making but that it is being treated with medication and it no longer affects her. Medical experts said it would be very rare for a brain tumor that does not require surgery to influence behavior so significantly.

"My gut feeling, as a constituent, is that it's a BS excuse in order to get out of her crime," said Brian Morrison, president of the Castro Valley Chamber of Commerce. Hayashi, 45, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor shoplifting. She was sentenced to three years of probation and nearly $200 in fines, but reduction of the charge from a felony makes her eligible to continue as a lawmaker. Hayashi said yesterday she had "unintentionally walked out of a store" with unpaid merchandise. "My medical condition may have complicated the situation," Hayashi said. "However, I want to be clear that I take full responsibility for my actions."

McClatchy Newspapers