5 Jan 2012

January 5, 2012


Crime Down in L.A. Area; Beck: Economy Not Driving Force

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Even since the economy began stalling several years ago, there have been dire warnings that crime would rise. In Southern California, says the Los Angeles Times, crime continues its long decline despite the weak economy. Indeed, 2011 brought new worries about a "double dip recession," yet streets in many parts of the region were the safest they've been in decades. The trend continues to puzzle some criminologists but has reinforced the view of many in law enforcement that factors other than the economy determine the rise or fall of crime.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said crime rates are determined largely by how well police do their job and the "informal social standards" set by communities - that is, what kind of behavior people are willing to tolerate from others. "The driving forces on crime," Beck said, are " 'What is the likelihood the police will catch you?' and, 'What would your mother or neighbor think if they knew what you were doing?' " The city, along with much of the rest of L.A. County, finished the year with thousands fewer serious crimes than in 2010. "It is deeply puzzling," said Richard Rosenfeld, a leading criminologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. "During past economic recessions, with high unemployment and stagnant incomes, we saw increases in crime. That has not been the case this time."

Los Angeles Times


Most States Still Don't Comply With Adam Walsh Law, Could Lose Aid

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Six years ago, Congress passed what is known as the Adam Walsh Act, aimed at protecting children from predators by collecting sex offender data in a national public registry and requiring those people listed in it to report their movements to law enforcement, says Stateline.org. Adam's law required states to place convicted sex offenders in one of three tiers, based on the severity of their crimes. The act, named for a 6-year-old boy who was kidnapped and murdered in Florida in 1981, gave the states five years to comply.

The vast majority of states did not comply on time. As the five-year deadline of July 2011 was approaching, only four had met the terms of the law. The Obama administration issued new guidelines that gave states more discretion in implementing the act and clarified how to share information, and in the past year, 12 more states have become compliant. Most still are not, even though they will lose 10 percent of their federal justice assistance grants as a penalty. Many states are continuing to voice their objections to what the federal law expects of them. Susan Frederick of the National Conference of State Legislatures, expects states to continue to press Congress for more discretion about which offenders to place on the three-tiered national registry, and for how long.

Stateline.org


California Medical-Pot Morass: "It's About the Almighty Dollar"

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Miller-McCune magazine tries to sort through California's medical-marijuana morass. By one estimate, the Golden State produces 8.6 million pounds of pot annually - one-third of the U.S. total - with a street value of $13.8 billion. Annual retail sales of medical marijuana in the state may total $1.3 billion, on which the state now collects as much as $105 million in sales tax.

Federal authorities concede that they're far too busy to chase down and lock up individuals who say they smoke marijuana because it eases their pain or who grow it in relatively modest amounts. That laissez-faire attitude doesn't apply to those who dispense medicinal pot. The U.S. Justice Department contends that state sanctions intended to regulate the sale of medicinal marijuana have been hijacked in many cases by criminally minded profiteers who've basically turned dispensaries into convenience stores that cater to recreational users. "This in not about the sick and the afflicted in many cases," says Rusty Payne of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "It's about the almighty dollar."

Miller-McCune


KS Must Consider Sentencing Changes With Prisons Over Capacity

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Ninety-nine times over the last six years, Kansas legislators have increased criminal penalties, says the Kansas City Star. As more criminals are packed into overcrowded prisons, the state is struggling to balance the new costs of justice against needs such as education and social services. State prisons for men are more than 250 inmates over capacity. In a decade, they're projected to be short about 2,000 beds. Prisons for women also will exceed capacity in about seven years.

State officials are considering solutions that will release some prisoners sooner than planned or keep them out of prison in the first place, said Kansas Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts. The idea of mass releases is not on the table. Roberts has three broad options - or a mix of them - in mind: build more prisons, house prisoners in county jails, or cut recidivism by helping paroled prisoners. Each idea would cost millions of dollars, he said. Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman said administrators need to find a way around the problem because police and prosecutors will continue to haul criminals before judges. "We would be opposed to any kind of early release determination by administrators after experts like police, prosecutors, and juries have determined what a sentence should be," he said.

Kansas City Star


Departing Denver Police Monitor: Ruling Says It's OK for Cops to Lie

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A Denver civil service panel's decision to return two police officers fired for lying on the job suggests to cops that it is OK to lie, Denver's independent monitor said yesterday, the Denver Post reports. The three-member hearing panel said that misleading statements made by David Torrez and Jose Palomares about their chase of a stolen car didn't meet the legal bar needed to end their careers. The decision tells police "you can lie, and if it is not a serious enough lie, you won't get fired," monitor Richard Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal, who oversees internal investigations of Denver police and sheriff's deputies, said returning to the job any officer who lies during an investigation has "horrible implications" for the department. Cops routinely are called on to testify in cases. Returning them to their jobs after they have lied over important matters weakens the criminal justice system, he said. In some cases, the officers will be called on to tell the truth during trials for years. Rosenthal, who came to Denver in 2005 from Portland, Ore, where he had initiated an independent monitor's office, is leaving the position at the end of the week to create and head a new independent investigations office in British Columbia.

Denver Post


Departed OR Corrections Chief Reframed Crime-Punishment Debate

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Doubters rolled their eyes eight years ago with the announcement that Max Williams would be the next director of the Oregon prison system, says The Oregonian. Williams was a trial lawyer and a Republican legislator aspiring to higher office. What did he know about running a sprawling prison complex? "We were a little concerned that he was an outsider with no corrections background," said Tim Woolery, corrections representative for the prison system's largest union.

Now, with Williams gone, few doubt his abilities and impact on one of the state's largest bureaucracies. "I've been proven right of my assessment of Max," said former Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who picked Williams. The 48-year-old Republican stepped down Friday as the Corrections Department director to take over another billion-dollar enterprise, the Oregon Community Foundation. He leaves a 14-prison system holding 14,000 inmates. He drove the agency to better prepare inmates for freedom. Almost from Day One, he has reckoned with mental illness in thousands of inmates, recasting how the prison system handles one of its most challenging populations. Williams took advantage of the public spotlight to reframe Oregon's debate about crime and punishment. He plants himself in the "smart on crime" camp, convinced that simply holding inmates until their parole dates wastes money and, worse, puts Oregonians at risk for more crime.

The Oregonian


Do Neighborhoods Influence Juvenile Crime?

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Juveniles are more likely to commit crimes, especially drug offenses, if they live in crime-heavy neighborhoods, found researchers from Temple University in a recently published study quoted in The Crime Report. The report, "The Coaction of Neighborhood and Individual Effects on Juvenile Recidivism," was published in Cityscape, a HUD journal focusing on original research on housing and community development issues.

Researchers considered several outcome variables based on different recidivating offense types: drug offenses, person (violent) offenses, and property offenses. They found that high rates of juvenile recidivism in the neighborhood surrounding individual youths greatly increased the likelihood of recidivism in individual offenders.

The Crime Report


Mt. Rainier Shooting Suspect's Downward Spiral, Gun Obsession

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By the time Benjamin Barnes, 24, fled into the woods in Mount Rainier National Park, suspected of the ambush-style slaying of a park ranger, friends say his life already had collapsed around him, reports the Seattle Times. Records show he'd struggled in high school and had been kicked out of his beloved Army - a loss that fed an obsession with guns, according to an acquaintance. He lost his girlfriend to his erratic, threatening behavior and a close Army friend to suicide. He was under court order to be supervised when he visited his infant daughter.

Early Sunday morning, his role in a gunfight that left four people wounded at a home sent him running for the mountains, the place a friend says he felt most at home. Park Ranger Margaret Anderson did not know his recent background as she set up a roadblock to intercept Barnes' car. Barnes stopped, according to witnesses, and then stepped out of the car and shot the 34-year-old mother of two girls, ages 3 and 1. The newspaper reports on Barnes' recent life in detail. Chris Smith, a friend, said he had heard through friends that Barnes had become obsessed with guns after leaving the military. "Everything was guns and shooting and stuff like that," Smith said. Barnes was found dead of exposure after the weekend incident.

Seattle Times


After MN Court Shooting, Judge Won't Hear Cases Without Security

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A Minnesota judge and vocal critic of a lack of weapons screening at three suburban courtrooms says he is refusing to hear cases at them until stronger security precautions are put into place, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I'm tired of driving to Brookdale, the courtroom everyone who knows agrees is the most likely place for a shooting or violence to occur, and not know whether I will be carried out in a body bag that day," District Judge Lloyd Zimmerman wrote to judicial colleagues yesterday, citing the high number of domestic violence cases at that courtroom.

"I ask that you stand in solidarity with me. Do not go. Don't take my place." Zimmerman's ultimatum follows a Dec. 15 shooting at the Cook County Courthouse in Grand Marais that critically injured a prosecutor and witness, underscoring concern about the lack of weapon screening at courthouses in some Minnesota counties. Zimmerman, 57, an 11-year veteran of the bench, said he intends to continue hearing cases in downtown Minneapolis, where visitors are screened before they can enter the court and administration towers. He is one of 12 judges who rotate one week per month at the county's three suburban courtrooms. Court administrators, who are scrambling to find replacements for hundreds of Zimmerman's misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor cases, say they're in the middle of a $77,000 study by a consulting firm to determine how to improve security.

Minneapolis Star Tribune


About $1.3 Million of Record $6.6 Million MO Cash Heist "Re-Stolen"

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Plotters involved with St. Louis' record $6.6 million ATM Solutions heist were themselves robbed of about 20 percent of the money, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. LaTunya Wright, whose former boyfriend was among four armed men who stormed the money depot in 2010, entrusted another woman to help hide at least $2 million in a storage unit. "They stole my stolen money," Wright cried out after she finished counting the cash later and came up with only $640,000 to $650,000, according to a co-defendant's plea agreement filed yesterday and a person with knowledge of the investigation. That was at least $1.3 million short.

Three guilty pleas of peripheral players in the crime, and claims about the re-stolen money, could mean a new round of charges in a case in which 14 people have been accused of the robbery, its planning or its aftermath. It also could mean recovery of more money. Only about half of the $6.6 million has been tracked down. It appears that all of the $1.3 million re-stolen portion remains missing.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch


WI Gun Shop License Revoked, Still Runs Shooting Range, Sells Ammo

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A Milwaukee gun shop whose license was revoked for breaking federal law stopped selling guns Dec. 31 but continues to run a shooting range and sell ammunition and other accessories, as allowed by federal law, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked the federal firearms license of Badger Guns last year.

Congress has passed special laws that prohibit the ATF from releasing much information about revocations. Badger Guns and its predecessor, Badger Outdoors, have been the top sellers of crime guns recovered by Milwaukee police for at least the past decade. The store is expected to resume aselling guns. The owner, Adam Allan, previously said he planned to sell the operation to someone who could get a license. That person may be his brother. It would be the second time in recent years that players inside the operation changed position, wiping away violations. ATF is largely powerless to stop such changes. The agency can deny a license if it can prove there is a "hidden ownership" arrangement, and Congress limits how deeply the ATF can dig into a new applicant's background - one of several ways federal lawmakers have crippled the ATF's ability to regulate lawbreaking gun dealers.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


Texas Maintains Largest Prison Graveyard; 2,100 Burials So Far

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The Texas prison system's Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery is the nation's largest prison graveyard in the country, 22 acres where thousands of inmates who were executed or died while incarcerated are buried, all of them unclaimed by relatives, reports the New York Times. In a state known for being tough on criminals, where officials eliminated last-meal requests on death row, the Byrd cemetery has been a little-known counterpoint to the mythology of the Texas penal system.

One mile from the Walls Unit, which houses the execution chamber, about 100 inmates are buried each year in ceremonies for which the state spends considerable time and money. Each burial costs Texas about $2,000. Often, none of the deceased's relatives attends, and the only people present are prison officials and the inmate workers. "I think everyone assumes if you're in a prison cemetery you're somehow the worst of the worst," said Franklin Wilson, an assistant professor of criminology at Indiana State University who is writing a book about the cemetery. "But it's more of a reflection of your socioeconomic status. This is more of a case of if you're buried there, you're poor." Prison officials have verified 2,100 inmates buried at the cemetery,

New York Times