Hate Crimes - FBI Statistics

This year’s report—Hate Crime Statistics 2007, is now posted online

Overall, 7,624 hate crime incidents involving 9,006 offenses were reported to the FBI—incidents that involved bias towards a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability.

The report goes into a great deal of interesting detail, but here’s a breakdown of some key numbers:

Victims

* 52 percent were targeted because of their race
* 17.1 percent were targeted because of their religious belief
* 15.9 were targeted because of their sexual orientation
* 14.1 were targeted because of their ethnicity/nation origin

Offenses

* Of crimes against persons, nine people were murdered and two were raped
* Intimidation accounted for 47.4 percent of crimes against persons
* Simple assaults accounted for 31.1 percent
* Aggravated assaults accounted for 20.6 percent

Sherrif Joe ordered to make changes to jails

October 24, 2008

U.S. Judge Orders Arizona Sheriff to Improve Jails

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., who has built a national reputation with his get-tough tactics, and county health officials have violated the Constitution by depriving jail inmates of adequate medical screening and care, feeding them unhealthy food and housing them in unsanitary conditions, a federal judge has ruled.

Sheriff Arpaio, whose jurisdiction over the Phoenix metropolitan area includes one of the country’s largest jail systems, must make a number of changes under an order issued Wednesday by Judge Neil V. Wake of Federal District Court in Phoenix.

Judge Wake said that disciplinary practices against mentally ill inmates had caused “needless suffering and deterioration” and that the jails must ensure they receive prescription medication.

Inmates who spend more than 24 hours in initial processing, Judge Wake said, must have a bed or mattress and receive food that meets nutritional guidelines. Many inmates, he added, consume moldy bread and rotten fruit, and the “court does not believe” a jail dietitian’s claim that it was adequate.

Unclean cells, Judge Wake said, pose “an unconstitutional health risk.”

Sheriff Arpaio, a Republican who is seeking a fifth term in November, has drawn a great deal of attention in recent years for a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

But Judge Wake’s ruling throws light on Sheriff Arpaio’s handling of the county jails, which brought him notoriety for tactics like building a sweltering “tent city” for convicts and cladding them in black-and-white striped uniforms and pink underwear.

The ruling does not apply to inmates of the tent city, only to detainees awaiting trial in other facilities, who make up nearly two-thirds of the 10,000 inmates housed in the jails each day.

“This is a total victory for the hundreds of thousands of inmates who are going to be coming to Sheriff Joe’s jails in the next couple years,” said Debbie Hill, a lawyer who worked on the case with the American Civil Liberties Union. “We will ensure they will have adequate supervision, mental health care and food.”

In a court hearing last summer, lawyers for the A.C.L.U. gave the example of a mentally ill inmate who was denied medication and severely beaten by other inmates.

Experts who testified for the A.C.L.U. said the jails had substandard cells and lacked adequate supervision and health screening for inmates.

Last month, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, based in Chicago, withdrew its accreditation of the jails’ health system. But the accreditation remains in place while county officials appeal, saying the action was taken without sufficient evidence.

During Sheriff Arpaio’s tenure, Maricopa County has paid at least $30 million, by the sheriff’s count, and up to $43 million, according to local news media, as a result of lawsuits alleging deaths, injury, mistreatment and other claims in the jails.

A deputy chief in the sheriff’s office, Jack MacIntyre, said officials would not decide whether to appeal Judge Wake’s ruling until they had reviewed it completely. But he said Judge Wake had misunderstood jail procedures in some instances or imposed measures that were impractical or would be an economic burden.

“The A.C.L.U. flies into town,” Chief MacIntyre said, “wrings their hands and moans and groans, and gets out of town without making anything work.”

Over all, Chief MacIntyre said, conditions have improved since a consent decree was first placed on the jails 30 years ago. In some instances, Judge Wake agreed, lifting certain requirements at some facilities.

In 2001 Sheriff Arpaio went to court seeking to have the decree lifted, setting off seven years of litigation that culminated in Judge Wake’s ruling. A hearing is scheduled for December to determine out how to carry it out.

Betty Adams, the director of the county agency that provides health care to inmates, said the agency would review the ruling and make appropriate changes.

“There is always room for improvement,” Ms. Adams said, “but we feel the health care is adequate.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Obscene? Oh how times have changed

In re-reading the major juvenile Supreme Court case that enabled juveniles to enjoy
due process rights and other aspects of the Bill of Rights granted to those
in the criminal justice system, I discovered the "obscene"
remarks allegedly made by Gerald Gault that led to his sentence of possibly six-years;
he was sent to a detention facility until he reached majority at age 21.

The phone statements according to the 2nd edition of Juvenile Justice: Policies,
Programs, and Practices by Taylor, Fritsch, and Caeti, were:

"Are your cherries ripe today?"
"Do you have big bombers?"

Were the questions vulgar? definitely in that time and place and maybe even today in some areas.

Compare these two questions to the language heard daily on 2008 television sitcoms.
Or how about the lyrics to current rap?

Can't you picture in your mind two adolescent teen-aged boys phoning someone, as a prank,
giggling and then hanging up? Before the age of video games, computers, and other time-consuming
inventions, many a young person got his/her kicks out of doing such inane things.

My point, such that it is, is the term obscene or even vulgar. These terms are redefined to meet changing
times and standards and current rules of conduct. What to label some words or phrases is often a
generational decision.

Interestingly I am totally unable to think of any word or phrase that would make
the obscenity list today if it was written by those of the current generation.

Are some words considered disrespectful, hateful,
or even disgusting? Of course, and some of them will always be so classified.

But is the word "obscene" obsolete now?

Are some terms used with one's friends but never with one's parents or other stodgy adults?

Society standards change, but are the changes always for the best?

Drug Courts have made/are making a difference

An article from today's New York Times

October 15, 2008

Courts Give Addicts a Chance to Straighten Out

By ERIK ECKHOLM

SEATTLE — It was not your usual courtroom scene. For one thing, the judge choked up as he described one woman’s struggle with opiate addiction after her arrest for forging prescriptions.

Over the last three years, she had repeatedly missed court-ordered therapy and hearings, and the judge, J. Wesley Saint Clair of the Drug Diversion Court, at first meted out mild punishments, like community service. But last winter, pushed past his forgiving limit, he jailed her briefly twice. The threat of more jail did the trick.

Now she was graduating — along with 23 other addicts who entered drug court instead of prison. Prosecutors and public defenders applauded when she was handed her certificate; a policewoman hugged her, and a child shouted triumphantly, “Yeah, Mamma!”

In Seattle, as in drug courts across the country, the stern face of criminal justice is being redrawn, and emotions are often on the surface. Experts say drug courts have been the country’s fastest-spreading innovation in criminal justice, giving arrested addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight and addiction treatment. Recent studies show drug courts are one of the few initiatives that reduce recidivism — on average by 8 percent to 10 percent nationally and as high as 26 percent in New York State — and save taxpayer money.

Since Judge Saint Clair took over the King County drug court here in 2005, the annual number of graduates — drug and alcohol free for at least six months — has more than doubled. His court has been cited by outside experts as one of the country’s best, yet a state budget crisis is forcing a shrinkage in participants.

Since the first drug court began work, in Miami in 1989, the idea has spread to more than 2,100 courtrooms in every state, though they still take in only a small fraction of addicted criminals. Offenders, usually caught in low-level dealing or stealing to support their addictions, volunteer for 9 to 18 months or more of intrusive supervision by a judge, including random urine testing, group therapy and mandatory sobriety meetings. The intent is a personal transformation that many participants say is tougher than prison — and with the threat of prison if they drop out or are kicked out.

“I’ve waited 22 months for this day, and I never thought I’d make it,” Scott Elkins, a 26-year-old hip-hop singer, told the Seattle audience in September. A cocaine user and dealer who had been clean for two years, Mr. Elkins had his felony charges dropped and has a job, his own music production company and marriage plans.

Nationwide, 70,000 offenders are in adult or juvenile drug courts at any given time, with the number growing, said C. West Huddleston III, director of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. The concept has been supported by the Clinton and Bush administrations.

“To find an intervention that works has generated great excitement in the criminal justice community,” said Greg Berman, director of the Center for Court Innovation, a research group in New York, where Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye has been a strong advocate.

But some scholars say that, because of high up-front costs, the limited success of drug treatment and a shortage of judges with the required personal talents, drug courts are unlikely to make a significant dent in the prison population.

Some lawyers also say the courts can infringe on the rights of defendants given that offenders usually must acknowledge guilt to enter the court, or in some places have already agreed to a plea bargain and sentence. Thus an addict might opt for drug court to avoid prison or with sincere intentions of going straight, but if treatment fails and he is expelled from the program, he must serve a sentence without having seriously fought the charges. His total time in court custody, between drug court and then prison, may be longer than it would have been otherwise. Advocates respond that such offenders are facing a plea-bargaining mill in any case, and are offered an invaluable chance for change.

Critics also worry that the courts can monopolize scarce drug-treatment slots at the expense of other addicts seeking help.

Clearly, the courts do not help everyone. One of the most successful programs is in New York State, where about 1,600 offenders are in adult drug courts. Studies found that while 40 percent dropped out of the program along the way, those who started it, including both dropouts and graduates, had 29 percent fewer new convictions over a three-year period than a control group with similar criminal histories and no contact with drug courts, Mr. Berman said.

In other regions, half or more of those who start the program do not finish. And recidivism rates for participants are reduced by about 10 percent to 20 percent, depending upon the quality of the judges and treatment programs, said John Roman, a researcher at the Urban Institute, based on a recent study.

An earlier review of 57 “rigorous” drug court evaluations around the country, led by Steve Aos of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, found that recidivism was reduced on average by only 8 percent, but with wide variation.

Yet even that modest reduction in crimes and prison yields cost benefits. The report this year by the Urban Institute found that, for 55,000 people in adult drug courts, the country spends about half a billion dollars a year in supervision and treatment but reaps more than $1 billion in reduced law enforcement, prison and victim costs. A large expansion would yield similar benefits, the report argued.

But some scholars, like Mark A. R. Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, remain skeptical about the potential and the achievements. He suggests, for example, that success rates of some courts may be inflated because they take in offenders who are not addicted and entered this track only to avoid prison. Dr. Kleiman advocates a slimmed-down system that does not initially require costly treatment, as drug courts do, but simply demands that offenders stop using drugs, with the penalty of short stays in jail when they fail urine tests. Such an approach has shown promise with methamphetamine users in Hawaii, he said, and because it is far cheaper, it can be applied to far more offenders.

Still, several drug-court graduates in Seattle and Olympia, Wash., said the supervision of a judge, ready to praise or jail them depending on performance, was crucial to their success.

Allison Alexander, 26, had parents who were heroin addicts, and she had lived on the streets since age 14, using and selling methamphetamine.

“I couldn’t have stopped on my own; I didn’t know how,” said Ms. Alexander, holding her 16-month-old daughter on graduation day.

“Drug court saved my life,” she told the audience, tears welling up in the eyes of her grandparents and even the prosecutor, and she said she aims for a career in child counseling.

The Seattle court handles about 500 offenders at a time, though state budget cuts will reduce the number to 300 next year. Judge Saint Clair, an animated 57-year-old, said this would cost society more in the long run. He also tried to dispel the notion that drug courts were a free ride.

“Drug courts work, and not because they’re fuzzy — let me tell you, I can be a hard man to deal with,” Judge Saint Clair said to the graduates, their families and friends. “For many of you, it would have been easier just to have taken your prison time.”

In Seattle, most of the offenders are addicted to cocaine, heroin or prescription narcotics. Researchers have not established whether the courts are more effective with one type of drug user or another.

But more than two-thirds of the clients in Thurston County, Wash., south of Seattle, are methamphetamine users. The court there in Olympia is led by Judge Richard A. Strophy, who was recently considering the case of Pepper Johnston, 26, who had lost custody of her baby girl during the three years she was, in her words, “strung out.” Now doing well after nine months in the program, Ms. Johnston meets her daughter after school and dreams of regaining custody.

But the judge told another woman who has missed therapy and urine tests that he might remove her from the program, and had her handcuffed and taken to jail until he decided.

“With meth addicts, who are paranoid and oppositional, you’ve got to force them to change,” Judge Strophy said. “Coerced treatment works.”

Offenders are referred to drug court by prosecutors but participation is voluntary, and some decline because they prefer brief sentences to a year or two under the thumb of a judge, with no guarantee that they will not fail and serve prison time anyway.

At a regular session of the Seattle court, Jenifer Paris, 36, sounded hopeful. She was six months clean, she said, after 22 years of heroin and cocaine use and stretches of homelessness and prostitution. She is in a methadone maintenance program — acceptable to many drug courts — and in therapy.

“You guys are the first people to believe in me,” Ms. Paris said.

“I’m full of gratitude for the opportunity and for you not kicking me out,” she said, eyes sweeping from Judge Saint Clair to the prosecutor and her public defender.

“We’re not done yet,” Judge Saint Clair replied with a hint of a smile.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Be aware that juveniles and adults are served in different courts in most cases

Do you think the concept of courts that deal with specific non-violent offenses is a good idea? What might some focus on?

Changing the Rules for Juries

This is where the article was located

October 12, 2008

Macomb tests jury reform

Move aimed to simplify duty

BY AMBER HUNT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The Michigan Supreme Court is debating whether to change how juries operate during trials

-- and some Macomb County residents will be among the first to test the proposed rules.

For the next 14 months, jurors in Circuit Judge David Viviano's courtroom could be allowed

to discuss the trial with each other before the case wraps up. And they'll be encouraged

to submit questions to the judge in writing before a witness is excused.

The changes are part of a potentially statewide jury reform that aims to make

jurors' jobs easier to understand.

"It's sort of to address human nature," Viviano said. "We tell people they can't talk to anyone --

not their spouses, not even the people they're serving with on the jury -- about the case

while it's happening. That's counterintuitive to human nature."

Viviano is one of 12 judges across the state whose courtrooms have adopted the rules

for the trial run that began at the end of August.

Among the proposed changes:

Jurors will be given binders with the legal instructions that the judge typically only gives orally.

Jurors will each get copies of documents that were entered into evidence.

Experts testifying for the defense or prosecution in either civil or criminal cases could be called back-to-back so that jurors can hear all of the technical testimony at once. Or Viviano could opt for the experts to basically debate each other, having both of them answer questions from either the judge or a moderator.

Viviano also could choose to summarize the case for the jury, which could include pointing out

the weaknesses in both sides' arguments.

Viviano said the latter change concerns him the most because his summary would be subjective,

possibly opening the door for an appeal if he's slanted too much toward one side.

"These changes aren't easy," Viviano said.

Prosecutor Eric Smith said he plans to meet with Viviano about the changes.

He said some of the changes -- such as allowing jurors to have the judge pose specific questions to witnesses -- are easier than others. Circuit Judge Matt Switalski already encourages jurors to submit questions to him in writing.

But Smith said he's concerned about having dueling experts engage in a debate.

After each trial, Viviano said he would talk to jurors and lawyers to find out which rules should stay and which should be tossed out. Then he'll report back to the Supreme Court, which is to decide whether an overhaul is needed.

The pilot project is set to wrap up in December 2010.

Even if you have not commented on this blog before, please comment on this one. If it
is effective, other states may also make changes. would you want Texas to follow suit?
Why or why not?

Some Things Never Change but Need to

This excerpt appeared in Criminal Justice Journalists News and is from a Dallas Morning News article.
If you click on the article, there is a chance to watch a video from the office of the prosecutor about
eyewitness testimony

Police, Prosecutors Still Rely On Unreliable Eyewitness Accounts

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

The fallibility of eyewitness testimony shown by DNA exonerations is not a relic of the past.
Police and prosecutors still depend on the same discredited identification procedures
to ensure convictions today, reports the Dallas Morning News in the third
of a 3- part series.

Police use these techniques in a variety of crimes from murders to robberies.
The difference between today's cases and the 19 exonerations involving
sexual assaults is that often there is no DNA to ensure guilt or innocence.
"We've shown how unreliable eyewitness testimony is in sexual assault cases,"
said Rob Warden of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University
law school. "But now the system itself is pretending that all of these armed robbery
cases are just hunky dory when we know, if anything, it's no doubt less reliable
in an armed robbery case than in a sexual assault case."

There are some good videos about this if you click on the first three.

It's impossible to estimate how many wrongful convictions might be occurring

in cases without genetic evidence. "There is no question that there are many

more mistakes that we will never know about because there is no DNA in those cases,"

said Edwin Colfax, an Austin researcher with the nonprofit reform group

The Justice Project. The Morning News examined robbery trials in Dallas County

from 2006 and 2007. Eyewitness testimony is the most crucial element in robbery cases.

The newspaper found that law enforcement still relies heavily on eyewitness testimony,

even if corroborating evidence is weak and despite decades of research showing

its shortcomings. Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable for a variety of reasons.

Victims often get only a brief look at their attackers, especially in robberies,

and they tend to focus on the gun rather than the face. Accurately identifying

strangers, especially of a different race, is difficult, and the stress

of being a crime victim can distort memories.

Why do you think that jurors put so much emphasis on eyewitness testimony when they

deliberate?

Mandatory Minimums Revisited

A recent report by the Families Against Mandatory Minimums
shows the many ways in which the sentencing
restrictions are not working. What was most interesting,
and even eye opening, to me was to learn that Congress
created the original mandatory minimums in the 1950s
as a 'solution" or "fix" for what they saw as the
viral spread of illegal drugs throughout the country.

The most frightening of these substances, marijuana, was blamed for a rise
in "sadistic" murders and gruesome sex crimes.

Under President Niixon these laws were repealed when lawmakers
saw evidence that showed the minimum
sentencing laws did not reduce crime nor did it reduce drug consumption.
All it accomplished according
to their findings was that judges were unable to fit the punishment
to the individual; judicial discretion was
no longer allowed in area of criminal law.

A primary finding was that stiff sentences were given to non-violent
offenders; judges no longer had discretion
to order any alternative to prison, including much needed addiction
treatment to help get the person rehabilitated.

In the 1980s, in spite of the previous findings by Congress
a decade earlier, once more mandatory
minimums were put into effect. The difference was the
precipitating drug -- crack cocaine.
Making the situation even worse was the fact that
those charged with powdered cocaine
had to have much larger amounts in order to face much time in prison.

Crack cocaine is primarily a drug choice among lower
socioeconomic individuals because it is much less
costly than the powdered version which is more likely
to have higher socioeconomic users.

State budgets were being squeezed because of the high cost
of incarcerating these individuals prior to the
latest economic crisis. It does not take a genius to realize that
the combination of the housing woes and the
extreme downturn in the stock market will exacerbate the problem for the states.

Hopefully the next Congress can once more do as they did
under Nixon and repeal the law and not ever again
resurrect it. If something doesn't work, it doesn't work and
trying it again, does not make it work.

The entire article that appeared in the Washington Post is here.