The Justice System and a 10-year old killer

Prosecutors frustrated by limited options for trying juvenile murders

Thursday, February 26, 2009

By Daniel Malloy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jordan Anthony Brown

The law isn't built for a case like Jordan Brown's.
The 11-year-old boy, charged with killing his father's pregnant girlfriend with a shotgun, has kept prosecutors up at night and caused a national stir.
"It scares us," said Allegheny County Judge Kim Berkeley Clark, who handles juvenile cases. "Because we don't like to think that our children, small children, are capable of these types of things."

Neither do lawmakers.

That's why the legal mechanism for dealing with Jordan's case has Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo flummoxed. As a murder suspect, Jordan is required to be charged as an adult because Pennsylvania law says murder cannot be a delinquent act.

Yesterday morning, Jordan was moved to the Allencrest Juvenile Detention Center in Beaver, an 18-bed facility that handles kids as young as 10. Mr. Bongivengo determined it was a better place for Jordan than the Lawrence County Jail, where there were no uniforms that fit him and he was sequestered from other inmates.

But, in an illustration of how ill-equipped the law is to handle such a circumstance, Jordan is technically not allowed to be at the juvenile facility, Judge Clark said, because he's been deemed an adult defendant.
Pennsylvania is one of five states -- the others are Delaware, Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin -- where Jordan would automatically be charged as an adult, according to data compiled by the Pittsburgh-based National Center for Juvenile Justice.

His attorney, Dennis Elisco, said he will argue to have the case moved to juvenile court, but the burden is on him to prove it should be sent down.
The allegations are almost as jarring as Jordan's boyish mugshot.

Prosecutors say that Friday's killing of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, who lived with Jordan in a New Beaver farmhouse, was premeditated. After shooting the sleeping woman in the back of the head, police said, the fifth-grader got on the bus and went to school.

There is precedent in Pennsylvania for trying a child this young for murder.

On March 6, 1989, Cameron Kocher, 9, of Kresgeville, Monroe County, took a rifle from his father's gun cabinet, loaded it and fired it out of a window, killing a 7-year-old girl on a snowmobile. He later pleaded guilty in adult court to involuntary manslaughter and was placed on probation until he was 21.

But Patrick Griffin, senior research associate at the NCJJ, said child killers are so rare that the system doesn't account for them well.

"It's kind of a safety valve of the juvenile system, [not] handling offenses that are too serious," Mr. Griffin said. "Murder was way beyond the pale. But they weren't thinking about an 11-year-old."

State Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, chair of the judicial subcommittee on courts, said he intends to use the subcommittee to address the issue of juveniles charged as adults.

"I believe we should look at this situation and balance out the need to punish adult crime with adult punishment, and balance that with the reality of, my God, an 11-year-old," Mr. Walko said. "To me that was flabbergasting."
Mr. Walko said he had been thinking of bringing this up before Ms. Houk's killing, and one of the issues to address will be the all-or-nothing nature of juvenile or adult prosecutions.

The juvenile system in Pennsylvania can't maintain control after the juvenile turns 21, whereas an adult murder conviction can mean decades -- or life -- in a state prison.

NCJJ statistics say 25 states allow for a third option, the hybrid juvenile-adult sentence. For a particularly serious crime, a juvenile can be sentenced to serve until a certain age in a juvenile facility, then move to state prison for a period of time, if warranted.

Though Pennsylvania does not have such an option, Mr. Griffin noted that it is one of the most flexible states in the country in giving judges leeway to decide whether the case proceeds in juvenile or adult court. In many states, there's a firm cutoff age for certain crimes.

"This may seem like the wrong way to start out the case, but there will be an opportunity to consider the individual circumstances of the kid," Mr. Griffin said of Jordan.

"Probably they will be able to work it out without having a big contentious hearing."

Jordan's preliminary hearing was rescheduled yesterday for March 24, and Mr. Elisco said a bond hearing and a hearing to determine whether the case is sent to juvenile court will come sometime after that.

Another potential option for Jordan, Judge Clark said, would be a mental health placement. If a doctor determines that the child needs serious treatment, Jordan could be housed in a mental hospital.

But the idea of treating an 11-year-old in the same manner as a 31-year-old has struck many observers as absurd.

"He probably hasn't had the sex talk yet," said Melissa Sickmund, chief of systems research at the NCJJ. "He remembers learning how to tie his shoes -- and being proud of it. His big worries in a day are so unlike that of an adult."

Police Discretion or Discrimination?

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This articles was found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/nyregion/22tickets.html and it raises issues of discrimination. How is this different from the interactions of many motorists and drivers where the police decide to simply let the person go with a warning?

Is this a natural result of discretion? 

February 22, 2009

Can You Plea-Bargain in a Traffic Case? That Depends

By JOHN ELIGON

For years it was a normal routine in traffic courts in towns and villages across New York State: Drivers would negotiate at the courthouse with the state trooper or the local police officer who cited them for moving violations to reduce the charge. The judge would then make it official.

But the State Police, citing ethical concerns, issued an order in 2006 banning the practice, generating outrage among judges, town leaders, district attorneys and even some troopers. Local police officers still offer plea bargains.

Now, some lawyers have taken an unusual approach to challenge the ban: fighting tickets using a law established after the Civil War to protect the rights of former slaves.

The lawyers have cited the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which mandates that laws be applied equally to everyone, to argue that the State Police policy prevents drivers from receiving equal justice. Whether a driver can negotiate a lower fine, the lawyers say, depends on where they get a ticket and from whom.

“It stinks because it prevents people from doing what other people are permitted to do, based on the color of the uniform of the cop that’s pulling them over,” said Jonna M. Spilbor, a Poughkeepsie-based lawyer who has fought about half a dozen traffic tickets using the equal protection argument. Although some of those tickets were reduced or dismissed, she and other lawyers and judges said they did not know of any state judge who had explicitly ruled that the State Police policy violated equal protection rights.

The issue may soon be decided by a state appellate court.

Critics of the policy accuse the State Police, who wrote more than one million traffic tickets last year, of trying to save on overtime by decreasing troopers’ court appearances, of interfering with the judiciary and of placing an unnecessary financial burden on small towns. The State Police rule has no effect on drivers ticketed in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester and some towns in Suffolk County, where traffic violations have long been handled in administrative hearings set up by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Those cases are heard before an administrative judge, and there is no plea bargaining before the hearing with the ticketing officer.

The State Police have defended the ban, saying they did not want to open the door to ethical problems by having troopers cut deals with people they ticket. That argument was echoed by Gov. David A. Paterson when he vetoed a bill last year that would have overturned the State Police rule. (The two previous governors, Eliot Spitzer and George E. Pataki, had also vetoed such bills.)

Mr. Paterson said the bill “would undermine the authority of the superintendent of State Police to institute policies that will prevent troopers from engaging in conduct that could lead to allegations of impropriety, favoritism and corruption.”

The State Police also said the policy does reduce overtime costs and keeps troopers focused on more important patrol tasks. The policy saves the State Police about $5 million in overtime and other personnel costs annually, according to a spokesman for the governor.

Towns have a strong financial incentive to allow plea bargains because cases that reach trial cost more. And for some infractions, like speeding, the state keeps all the money from the fines, but for a lesser charge, like failing to obey a traffic sign, the money goes to the town.

Despite the complaints, plea bargains or dismissals in town and village traffic courts around the state have not greatly dropped since 2006, according to statistics from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Many towns have avoided the State Police directive by assigning special prosecutors who can offer deals to drivers who are given tickets by troopers. This adds fuel to the equal protection argument, lawyers say, because drivers ticketed by troopers in towns with those special prosecutors are treated differently from those in towns without them.

But in the roughly two dozen counties where troopers also serve as prosecutors in court, some judges dismiss or reduce tickets, even when troopers object.

And in some courts, troopers engage in surreptitious plea bargaining, said Thomas B. Mafrici, a traffic lawyer based in Cicero, N.Y. “I’m still talking to the trooper before I go to the judge,” he said. “It’s almost no different.”

Lt. Glenn Miner, a spokesman for the State Police, said any trooper caught violating the agency’s policy would be disciplined.

Some district attorneys said assigning their prosecutors to traffic cases was a waste of resources.

“I would certainly rather have my people working on real criminal cases as opposed to performing a largely ministerial act of dealing with hundreds, probably thousands, of traffic tickets,” said Terry Wilhelm, the Greene County district attorney. “We were completely satisfied with the procedure that was in effect before the state policy did this.”

The State Police have aggressively sought to protect their policy. Two years ago, Francis G. Christensen, a town justice in Milan, reduced a speeding charge and ruled that it was “improper and unreasonable” for the State Police to ignore a defendant’s explanation.

“A prosecutor is required to look out for justice, not necessarily a conviction,” Justice Christensen, a former state trooper, said in a recent interview.

The State Police sued Justice Christensen, arguing that he overstepped his authority. Last September, a State Supreme Court justice ruled in the agency’s favor.

Justice Christensen is appealing the decision to the Appellate Division, the second-highest court in the state. His lawyer, Marshall L. Brenner, said he planned to raise the equal protection argument.

Mr. Paterson’s office has also rebuffed the equal protection argument, saying that despite the State Police ban on plea bargains, the county prosecutors in the area still have the discretion to offer them.

But Ms. Spilbor said it was unfair that state troopers would not even listen to a driver’s arguments.

“The discretion to negotiate with you as the motorist is gone because this policy does not allow for it under any circumstances,” she said. “By any other police agency, the discretion exists.”

 

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

 

Family Annihilators

An article from Newsweek Magazine that is available here talks about the

potential surge in family annihilations.

The term is not one most of us are even familiar with although our newspapers

cover the stories when they occur. In simply terms it involves the killing of

an entire family by a member of the family, usually the mother or father.

Here is a bit of scary knowledge: the largest number of mass killings in the 

United States occur in the family with workplace killings and schools slayings

the next two categories. 30% of mass killings are within the family.

The author of the article spoke with Professor Jack Levin of Northeastern

University who wrote a book on serial killers.

Professor Levin believes that as the economy spirals downward more

family annihilations may be on the way as well.  According to Levin these

individuals are not insane but rather externalize blame and feel total loss

of control. He mentions both the revenge situation as well as the altruistic

one.

It is well worth reading.

What happens to 6th Amendment?

The repercussions of this are too frightening to behold! WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2009 Court cuts trigger blunt warnings By John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer

The budget emergency facing state governments has produced an uncommon alliance of advocates — from business leaders to public defenders and chief judges — who, in blunt terms, are urging state lawmakers not to slash funding for the courts.  Among their warnings: The poor could go without lawyers. Businesses could take a financial hit. Court employees could be laid off by the hundreds, leading to the slower delivery of justice.  At least 25 state court systems face budget shortfalls this fiscal year, according to Daniel Hall, a vice president with the National Center for State Courts, a research and advocacy organization representing the 50 state court systems. With state lawmakers around the country sitting down for painful budget talks for the next fiscal year — which begins July 1 in all but four states — they are debating whether the courts can absorb funding cuts of the kind being aimed at many state universities, prisons and parks. “You have to remember that the courts are a coequal branch of government,” said Utah state Sen. Scott McCoy, a Democratic member of the subcommittee overseeing court appropriations. “This isn’t just some agency. It is of an entirely different magnitude in our constitutional structure.”   The depth of some states’ court funding problems already is on display.   New Hampshire is suspending jury trials for a month to save an estimated $73,000. Utah’s chief justice warned that every one of the state’s 1,000 court employees could be furloughed for 26 days starting this month. In Minnesota, the state’s chief justice has taken the unusual step of going on a publicity tour to highlight court funding problems.   “Our state courts are in crisis,” Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall told the American Bar Association on Monday (Feb. 16).   Compounding court shortfalls are caseloads that are on the rise in many areas, with foreclosures, contract disputes and other civil claims surging in the struggling economy. In Idaho, for example, civil case filings jumped an unprecedented 17 percent in 2008, the state courts administrator told a legislative panel in January.   As they work to craft much slimmer budgets for the coming fiscal year, state lawmakers are hearing from judges, lawyers and a range of constituents who say current funding levels for the courts are inadequate — and who argue, in no uncertain terms, that more cuts threaten the justice system itself.   In Florida, which recently announced it would lay off 280 court workers, or nearly 10 percent of its 3,100 court employees, business groups say the court system is so overworked and under-funded — and civil case delays so long — that the state’s already beleaguered economy could suffer further.   At a conference of business leaders in Miami in January, Tony Villamil, an economist and dean of the business school at St. Thomas University, estimated that Florida faces more than $17 billion in lost economic output each year because of extensive civil case delays.   That figure, Villamil said, represents legal fees, lost interest payments and other expenses firms must pay — or revenue they must forgo — during protracted litigation. Villamil also estimated that more than 120,000 Florida jobs are “adversely impacted” by the court delays.   “It’s too expensive to wait for our day in court,” said William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, a subsidiary of the Florida Chamber of Commerce that advocates for pro-business changes to the state’s civil justice system.   Utah’s chief justice, in her annual speech to the Legislature Jan. 26, also said under- funded courts would have an adverse effect on the state’s economy — a warning that McCoy, the Democratic state legislator, said has attracted attention in the halls of the statehouse.   “Some of the more conservative folks here have realized the commercial implications,” he said.   But not everyone agrees. Florida state Rep. Michael Weinstein, a Republican and vice chair of the House Civil Justice and Courts Policy Committee, told Stateline.org he is skeptical of a direct link between funding of the courts and the economy, noting that “courts have historically been a slow process for resolving your disputes.”   But Weinstein did not downplay the problems facing Florida’s courts. “Rest assured: The Florida court system, as well as most of the other court systems in the country, are facing reductions in resources that cut to where it’s close to being dangerous,” he said.   In Kentucky, state-funded public defenders are sounding the alarm. Ed Monahan, the state’s chief public advocate, warned in a newspaper column this month that the justice system could “unravel” unless legislators appropriate more money to public attorneys for the current fiscal year. Public defenders will run out of funds by May and prosecutors will run out by June, he said.   “The lack of sufficient funds could result in up to eight weeks without defenders in the courtrooms,” Monahan said. “When an innocent person goes to jail, the real criminal is free in the community, putting everyone’s safety at risk.”   Monahan’s office even has filed suit against the state, seeking permission to refuse new cases and citing annual workloads of up to 450 cases per attorney. A trial court rejected the plea.   Kentucky is not alone. Public defender’s offices elsewhere, including statewide systems in Minnesota and Rhode Island and county-funded systems in Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee, also have cut back on the services they can provide, according to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA), which advocates for public defenders.   In Missouri, the state’s chief justice last month told lawmakers that the Show Me State ranks last in the nation in per-capita funding of public defenders and, like Monahan, cautioned that the low funding level could jeopardize public safety.   “The federal constitution guarantees defendants both speedy trials and competent legal counsel,” Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith said. “The inadequate number of public defenders, however, puts in question the state’s ability to meet either of these requirements. In short, if not corrected, defendants potentially could be set free without going to trial.”   Court funding shortfalls have attracted the attention of other groups as well. Many drug court professionals worry that state funding will be slashed for the courts, which provide alternatives to incarceration for low-risk drug offenders.   Legal aid groups, which provide civil legal services to the poor, have seen drastic funding cuts not only from states but through little-known programs — known as Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, or IOLTAs — that are dependent on the interest rate set by the Federal Reserve.   The programs, which exist in all 50 states, take the interest earned on some escrow accounts lawyers keep for their clients and earmark it for legal services for the poor. As the Federal Reserve has slashed the interest rate in an effort to help the economy, however, the IOLTAs have lost millions in value, and legal aid groups are urging states not to enact further cuts.   Among the states that have seen the sharpest decline in funding for legal aid efforts are California, Connecticut and New York, said Don Saunders, a civil justice expert with the NLADA.   In other states, meanwhile, court employees themselves face furloughs or layoffs. Besides Florida and Utah, court workers in Iowa and Vermont also have been ordered to take unpaid leave to cut costs.   Personnel costs account for about 90 percent of state spending on courts, according to the National Center for State Courts. As a result, experts say, court administrators have little room to maneuver as they try to make cuts.   When courts are forced to lay off workers, “there’s an immediate hit on services,” Hall, the NCSC analyst, said. “You can’t cut courts so deep that they can’t resolve disputes,” he said, “because then it starts to get at the fabric of our society.”

New Report on Incarcerated Parents and Their Children

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_incarceratedparents.pdf

There is an 82% rise in the number of children with parents imprisoned

As of 2007, 1.7 million children had a parent in prison, 

an 82 percent increase from 936,000 in 1991, says 

The Sentencing Project. The racial/ethnic variation is broad: 

1 in 15 African-American children has a parent in prison, 

as does 1 in 42 Latino children and 1 in 111 white children.

Because sixty-two percent of parents in state prisons are 

more than 100 miles from home, visits from children decline over time. 

In 2004, more than half of parents in state prisons and 

nearly half in federal prisons had never had a visit from their children. 

The Sentencing Project backs parent-child relationships through programs such as that 

of the Bedford Hills, N.Y. women's prison in which newborn babies 

can live with their mothers for a period of time. 

The advocacy organization also urges amending legislation that 

impedes the prospects for successful reentry and uniting parents 

with children, such as the ban on receipt of welfare and food stamps 

for those with drug convictions.

Interesting facts about deadly force

Complete article: http://www.twincities.com/ci_11630767?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-

"Pulling the Trigger: A 25-year Study of Deadly Force Encounters by Law Enforcement" (Galde Press, 2008).

The recently published book is less a study than a potential training tool and overview — primarily from a law-enforcement perspective — of the 110 reported fatal police shootings in Minnesota from 1981 to 2005. The shootings claimed the lives of 112 civilians and two cops.

What's impressive about the book is that it contains a summary from case files, media stories and court filings of every fatal police shooting in the state during that time span.

The first is the Jan. 3, 1981, fatal shooting by Burnsville police of 17-year-old Gregory Knodel. The suspected burglar was shot as he came toward officers with a pry bar. The last case is the Aug. 1, 2005, fatal shooting of Ricky Redin, 47. Redin accosted a woman at a Minneapolis grocery store, then stabbed two cops before he was fatally shot.

NOT 'TRIGGER-HAPPY ROOKIES'

Interesting factoids gleaned from the book:

 The hours between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. accounted for most of the shootings — 58.

 Wednesdays — not Saturdays, as most people would assume, with all their shopping and social activities — was the day most fatal shootings took place — 28. Mondays, with 16, bested Saturdays by just one.

 Only 25 of the fatal shootings took place outside the seven-county metropolitan area. Not surprisingly, Minneapolis and St. Paul cops were involved in most of the local shootings.

 Almost half of the people killed by police were armed with a handgun. About one in five were armed with a knife. Of the 110 fatalities, three were unarmed.

 All but two of the people shot were male.

Brubaker found interesting the average age and experience of most law-enforcement officers involved in the shootings.

"There is that notion out there that most are trigger-happy rookies or cowboy types," Brubaker said. "But actually, the average age is 34 or 35, and the average length of service at the time of the shooting is about seven years."

Will this stop teens from sending these?

Prosecutors Bring "Sexting" Cell Phone Charges 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Teenagers' distributing nude self-portraits electronically --

called "sexting" if done by cell phone - is resulting in some 

child pornography and other criminal charges, reports 

the Associated Press. 

"Hopefully we'll get the message out to these kids," 

says Michael McAlexander, a prosecutor in Ft. Wayne, In., 

where a teenage boy faces felony obscenity charges 

for allegedly sending a photo of his private parts 

to several female classmates. Another boy was 

charged with child pornography in a similar case. 

Some photos are sent to harass other teens or 

to get attention. Other times, they're viewed as 

high-tech flirtingt. Either way, law enforcement 

officials want it to stop, even if it means threatening 

to add "sex offender" to a juvenile's confidential record. 

"We don't want to throw these kids in jail," McAlexander 

says. "But we want them to think." In Greensburg, Pa., 

hree high school girls who sent seminude photos 

and four male students who received them were 

all hit with child pornography charges.

 

Associated Press/Memphis Commercial Appeal 

Will this become the trend in Sentencing

The following article appeared today in Criminal Justice News:

A state commission has recommended changing New York's drug laws to emphasize addiction treatment for low-level offenders and reserve long prison terms for high-risk criminals, although some lawmakers don't think the suggested reforms went far enough, according to the Associated Press.

The Commission on Sentencing Reform studied the issue for nearly two years before releasing a report Tuesday calling for simplified sentencing rules and drug law reform that would give judges more discretion when sentencing addicts. 

New York's strict drug laws have long been controversial. Reform of the '70s- era "Rockefeller drug laws" in 2004 led to fewer offenders going to prison because more drug treatment is available. Now many lawmakers and lobbyists want more change.

"I think all three players have the will to do something," said Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat. "The governor is serious, and the Assembly is serious, and I can assure you we're serious."

According to the commission, if their proposed model of judicial diversion had been put in place in 2006, roughly 3,000 offenders - 89 percent of them black or Hispanic - might have been spared prison and steered instead toward treatment. That could save the state money in a period of massive budget deficits.

The question remains of how the state will pay for the treatment when they have a massive budget deficit? This type of question will be echoed across the country since citizens are not happy to see so much of the budget go towards corrections while the law-abiding struggle with life's basic needs. 

New Study Says Mental Illness Alone is not Violence Trigger

FEBRUARY 2, 2009, 4:36 P.M. ET
Mental Illness Alone Is No Trigger for Violence, Study Says

Associated Press
CHICAGO -- A new large study challenges the idea that mental illness alone is a leading cause of violence.

Researchers instead blame a combination of factors, specifically substance abuse and a history of violent acts, that drives up the danger when combined with mental illness in what they call an "intricate link."

People with serious mental illness, without other big risk factors, are no more violent than most people, according to the study of more than 34,000 U.S. adults. The research was released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Mental illness can provide the knee-jerk explanation for the Virginia Tech shootings," but it's not a strong predictor of violence by itself, said lead author Eric Elbogen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Mr. Elbogen compiled a "top 10" list of things that predict violent behavior, based on the analysis.

Younger age topped the list.
History of violence came next,
followed by male gender,
history of juvenile detention,
divorce or separation in the past year,
history of physical abuse,
parental criminal history and
unemployment in the past year.

Rounding out the list were
severe mental illness with substance abuse and
being a crime victim in the past year.

After the 2007 Virginia Tech killings by a student ordered to get psychiatric treatment, some states considered laws adding mental health questions to background checks for gun buyers or denying weapons to people who've been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.

The new research, which bolsters other similar findings, raises questions about such laws, experts said. Such legislation may be both ineffective and discourage people who need help from getting treatment.

"We are being misled by our own fears," said Columbia University psychiatry professor Paul Appelbaum, who wasn't involved in the new study. "We ought to be concerned about providing good treatment and helping people lead fulfilling lives, not obsessed with protecting ourselves from phantom threats that appear to be unrelated to mental illness."

U.S. systems to treat mental illness and substance abuse are separate, uncoordinated and could do a better job treating people with both problems, Dr. Appelbaum said.

For the new study, the researchers analyzed data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. The original survey in 2001-2002 involved more than 43,000 face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of American adults. Three years later, many of the same people, more than 34,000, were interviewed again.

Questions about violence in both interviews included:

-"Ever use a weapon like a stick, knife or gun in a fight?"
-"Ever hit someone so hard that you injured them or they had to see a doctor?"
-"Ever start a fire on purpose to destroy someone's property or just to see it burn?"
-"Ever force someone to have sex with you against their will?"

From the responses, the researchers determined what elements raised the risk of violent behavior.

There were 3,089 people deemed to have severe mental illness -- schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression -- but no history of either violence or substance abuse. They reported very few violent acts, about 50, between interviews.

But when mental illness was combined with a history of violence and a history of substance abuse, as in about 1,600 people, the risk of future violence increased by a factor of 10.
The relationship between mental illness and violence is there, "but it's not as strong as people think," Mr. Elbogen said.

Predicting who will act violently is complex, said John Monahan, a psychologist at University of Virginia's law school, who has done similar research but was not involved in the new study.
"It is true that our crystal balls are very murky," Mr. Monahan said. "The vast majority of violence that occurs in American society has absolutely nothing to do with mental illness."

The large national survey, conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, included people living in shelters, hotels and group homes, as well as houses and apartments, but it didn't include people living in hospitals, jails or prisons.

Rosanna Esposito of the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va., applauded the study but pointed out the researchers weren't able to analyze whether the subjects were in psychiatric treatment or not. Medication for serious mental illness can reduce the risk of violence, she said.

Copyright © 2009 Associated Press

Prison Reform May Be Helped by Economic Crisis

From Crime and Justice News email:

Fiscal Crisis Seen As Opportunity For Sentencing Reform

With state and local government finances in peril, now is the time for criminal justice system leaders to come up with creative ways to save money by reducing the 2-million-plus correction national criminal justice system population, speakers said yesterday at the annual Harry Frank Guggenheim symposium on crime in America at New York City-based John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Criminologist Todd Clear of John Jay said, for example, that little harm would be done and lots of taxpayer funds would be saved if all inmates' sentences were cut by six months.

Clear also urged that incentives be created for judges and probation or parole officers to keep convicts out of custody successfully; the incentive in the current justice system now is for officials to imprison more defendants or convicts to avoid risk of reoffending.


U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner of Boston complained that there has been so much emphasis on avoiding disparity among different judges' sentences for the same offenses that some judges try to impose the same sentence as the judge in the next courtroom even if it makes little sense. The judiciary needs better research on the effectiveness of various sentencing levels in preventing future offending, Gertner said.

Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll that his state's poor fiscal condition was forcing quick legislative decisions on proposals to consolidate prisons and reduce the number of inmates. The Colorado prison system takes up nearly 10% of the state budget, which is projected to experience a $600 million shortfall this fiscal year.

Adam Gelb of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project, declared it a myth that advocating rational policy on sentencing policy is an act of political suicide. Several states are instituting "smart policies" that include non- prison sanctions without serious backlash against legislators, he said.