THE GREAT DEBATE (PART I)
Who should go to prison? For how long?

POSTED 1/31/10 -- On December 6, 2009 police in Culver City, a Los Angeles suburb, confronted Boneetio Washington, a transient on felony probation, on a complaint that he tried to break into a home...More

SEE NO EVIL,
SPEAK NO EVIL
Why don’t witnesses come forward?
Often, for a very good reason.

“These rats deserve to die, right or wrong? . . . My war is with the rats. I'm a hunt every last one bitch that I can, and kill 'em.”

“If you see something, you better look the other way...Don't tell nothing unless you can take care of yourself, because the city don't have nothing in place to help you.”

POSTED 1/17/10 --  According to the Philadelphia Inquirer thirteen witnesses or relatives of witnesses have been murdered in the city of brotherly love since 2001...More

DOING NOTHING, REDUX
What’s more frightening than terrorism?  Relying on analysts to prevent it.

POSTED 1/3/10 -- Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s pitiful attempt to deflect blame for letting a bomb-carrying terrorist board a U.S.-bound plane didn’t work.  Only a day later, as Al Qaeda openly gloated about an operation that...More

A VERY DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT
Camden PD fights crime and
violence.  And its own officers.

POSTED 12/13/09 -- Being first is normally an honor. But when the FBI reported that Camden, New Jersey, pop. 76,182, had 1,777 violent crimes and 54 murders in 2008, yielding a sky-high violence rate...More

IN MEMORIAM

Lakewood Police union website,
with donation information

MISSED SIGNALS
In hindsight everything’s simple.  But policing takes a lot more than hindsight.

POSTED 11/15/09 -- So much violence, so little time! While the (virtual) ink from “Hidden in Plain Sight” was still wet we were shaken by horrific news from Cleveland, where police were unearthing human remains at the home of registered sex offender Anthony Sowell...More

WHAT IF THERE’S NO DNA?
When biological evidence is lacking, the wrongfully convicted may be stuck

POSTED 11/1/09 -- It’s the rare prosecutor who will admit a grievous error. Rarer still are those who seek them out. Dallas D.A. Craig Watkins is such a man.  Elected in 2007 after a string of exonerations shocked Texas, Watkins formed a “conviction integrity unit”...More

THE NEW NORMAL
In the industrial belt, poverty and
violence are no joke

POSTED 10/18/09 -- NBC Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien’s little joke brought on a You-Tube scolding by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who banned the talk show host from the Newark airport.  His move precipitated a series of back-and-forths that culminated...More

DOPES, NOT ROPED
More losers get hurled, or hurl themselves,
at America.  Should we tremble?

POSTED 10/4/09 -- Since 9/11 the FBI has to all appearances enjoyed a remarkable string of victories against terrorism. From the Fort Dix Six and the Liberty City/Sears Tower Seven, to the Rumble in the Bronx, the Feds have served up case after case...More

WHAT’S THE D.A. WANT FROM THE SHERIFF?
The DNA lab, of course.  Or if he can
get it, everything.

POSTED 9/20/09 -- Orange County (Calif.) District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is a great fan of forensics.  So much so, in fact, that he’d like to run a lab. Wouldn’t you know it, there’s one next door! More

HOUSE OF CARDS
Evidence isn’t better just because
there’s lots of it: it must also be true

POSTED 9/6/09 -- That’s what Cameron Todd Willingham reportedly said as the poison dripped into his veins.  On February 17, 2004 he was executed by lethal injection for deliberately setting fire to his Corsicana...More

IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS
Playing ostrich about officer misconduct doesn’t make it go away

POSTED 8/23/09 -- It was a brisk Virginia morning. Dressing quickly, your blogger rushed to the hotel conference center, eager to grab a good seat for what promised to be one of the most interesting panels at NIJ’s 2009 conference...More

DNA’S DANDY, BUT WHAT ABOUT BODY ARMOR?
As lethal threats to police increase,
protection languishes -- but there’s hope

POSTED 8/2/09 -- It’s no surprise that Boston cops feel a chill. With criminals wielding powerful semi-automatic weapons whose rounds can sail through walls...More

SLAPPING LIPSTICK ON
THE PIG (PART III)
Simple policing strategies are the best

POSTED 7/19/09 -- It’s as close to a Nobel as a criminologist can get. David L. Weisburd, a professor with joint appointments at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and George Mason University in Virginia was awarded the 2010 Stockholm Prize in Criminology...More

SLAPPING LIPSTICK ON THE PIG (PART I)
Do elaborate violence-reduction initiatives make a difference?

POSTED 7/5/09 -- “Given his extensive criminal record, if there was a Federal law against jaywalking we’d indict him for that.”  Issued by United States Attorney Don Stern (yes, Stern), the pithy threat...More

Top  

TINKERING WITH THE
MACHINERY OF DEATH
Academics prove that the
death penalty works. And that it doesn’t.

POSTED 1/24/10 -- When ASC members opened the November 2009 issues of the society’s two publications, stodgy old Criminology and the supposedly more real-world Criminology and Public Policy, they must have felt dizzied...More

IT’S NOW L.A.’S PROBLEM
A cop’s tragic fumble turns into a cause célèbre. What will happen if he’s acquitted?

POSTED 1/10/10 -- In a few weeks the murder trial of former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle will get underway. As we reported earlier, Mehserle, who shot passenger Oscar Grant to death at an Oakland subway platform one year ago, argues that he meant to use a Taser but in the confusion pulled his pistol instead.  More

POLICE ISSUES’ OINK-OINKS FOR 2009

POSTED 12/20/09 -- Our wild and wacky world of criminal justice has again offered up an embarrassment of riches. Indeed, there was so much to choose from that we simply had to expand the list.  Without further ado here are this year’s honorees; except for the very last entry, which is a real doozy, they appear in no particular order...More

AN ILLUSION OF CONTROL
Can dangerous out-of-State parolees
be adequately supervised?

POSTED 12/6/09 -- Maurice Clemmons was eleven years into a ninety-five year sentence for armed robbery, burglary and other crimes when his words stirred former Arkansas Governor and one-time Presidential candidate...More

PLAYING WITH FIRE
Journalism students double as
advocates for the wrongfully convicted

POSTED 11/22/09 -- About the only thing not in dispute is that a life violently ended in a dark corner of a hardscrabble Illinois town some thirty-one years ago.  On the evening of September 15, 1978, in the Chicago suburb of Harvey, a man sitting in a car...More

WOULD YOU BET
YOUR FREEDOM
ON A DOG’S NOSE?
 Dog scent evidence comes under fire

POSTED 11/8/09 -- Jag” and “James Bond” are bloodhounds. They drool a lot but they’re nice dogs. And if you believe their caregiver, Fort Bend County (Texas) Deputy Sheriff Keith Pikett, they’re also CSI specialists, with a sense of smell so keen...More

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES
A Sheriff needlessly entangles himself,
and his agency, in a web of deceit

POSTED 10/25/09 -- As the balloon came to a surprisingly soft landing on the high plains of Colorado a transfixed nation held its breath.  Was six-year old Falcon Heene alive? Could he be?  Had the boy succumbed to hypothermia or, God forbid, suffocated...More

GUN SHOW AND TELL
New York City sent private eyes to
gun shows. What did they find?

POSTED 10/11/09 -- If you’re New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, what’s not to like? Although the Big Apple has more than twice L.A.’s population, its homicide rate is thirty-seven percent lower...More

THE CHASE IS ON
Are foot pursuits prone to result in bad shootings?

POSTED 9/27/09 -- Two weeks ago Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies were looking for two robbery suspects when they spotted a pair of possible candidates. As they approached the men one ran off...More

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
The unintended consequences of sloppy policing

POSTED 9/13/09 -- In 2006 a 911 caller reported that women and girls were “living in squalor” in the rear yard of a home in Antioch (Calif.) A deputy contacted the homeowner and warned him that living outdoors...More

NEVER SAY DIE
When should prosecutors quit
clinging to a case?

POSTED 8/30/09 -- On August 13, 2009, after a decades-long battle to prove his innocence, Bruce Lisker was a free man, at least for the time being.  Imprisoned at seventeen, he had served twenty-six years for murdering his mother...More

HE SAID THAT SHE SAID.
BUT DID SHE?
Does the Cambridge PD report truthfully reflect what a witness said?

POSTED 8/16/09 -- On July 29 the woman whose 911 call precipitated the encounter between Cambridge PD Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Gates met with reporters to counter the “scorn and ridicule because of the things I never said”...More

WHEN (VERY) HARD
HEADS COLLIDE
A professor and a cop revive the race debate.  But was it really about that?

POSTED 7/26/09 -- It’s about a quarter to one in the afternoon of a sunny spring day in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Police sergeant James Crowley is driving an unmarked car near Harvard Square...More

SLAPPING LIPSTICK ON
THE PIG (PART II)
“Proving” that crime-control strategies
work is laden with pitfalls

POSTED 7/12/09 -- In August 2005 the prestigious journal Criminology & Public Policy published “Did Ceasefire, Compstat, and Exile Reduce Homicide?”, an analysis by Richard Rosenfeld and two colleagues from the University of Missouri-St. Louis...More