Category: Crime & Incarceration

Three obvious but important thoughts on the Scalise shooting.

Three obvious but important points.

1. Most important, very best to Rep. Scalise and to others wounded in this atrocity. Very best to Capitol Police officers David Bailey and Crystal Griner. The bravery and sacrifice of Capitol Police prevented a tragedy from being much worse. And best wishes for a full recovery to Zack Barth and Matt Mika.

If you want to gain a small sense of what these individuals and their families are going through, you might peruse photographer Kathy Shorr’s beautiful recent book, Shot. Shorr’s book provides portraits and brief stories of 101 survivors of gun violence. Shorr’s photographs convey the lacerating damage firearms inflict. Shown below is Chicagoan Ondelee Parteet.  He was shot in the face by a 14-year-old boy after an incident at a party.

Ondelee Parteet, by Kathy Shorr

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Montana mess

The compounded misbehavior in Bozeman yesterday has to appall any decent observer, a complete breakdown of order and decency.  We should note first the only participant who comes out of it with his reputation intact, Greg Gianforte, a Trump soldier who knows how to stay on message and follow his orders both specific (“Beat the s__t out of them!”) and general: hurt the weak [GG appears to have about a foot and twenty pounds on Jacobs], beat the press, and so on. If he gets to Washington he can surely be trusted to bravely smite the sick and the poor when the time comes.

Everything goes to pieces after that, though. A Fox News crew was present and truculently went completely insubordinate, telling the truth both in their dispatches and to the authorities with no consideration of the damage it would do to a notable Republican. With minions like this, Fox’s whole mission is at risk.

Then there’s the sheriff, who had everything he needed to arrest Jacobs for armed [a recording device attested by all witnesses, and a direct question to a candidate] assault with intent to cause great political harm.  Gianforte’s flack Scanlon spelled it out for him right away, with the magic words “liberal reporter.” But does he? He does not; he treacherously cites Gianforte, to whose campaign he had donated! No, it doesn’t redeem him that he smoothed out felony assault and battery into a misdemeanor.

Poor Gianforte; three Montana papers have unendorsed him. He followed the code of the West (“do unto others before they can do unto you“) and everyone walked away from him, just like the  craven citizens in High Noon. 

Mandatory sentencing and drug control

Three years after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the state’s  mandatory sentencing laws unconstitutional, the state’s DAs and some of the other usual law-‘n’-order suspects  managed to get a bill restoring them (even the “school-zone” mandatory, which I thought went out with disco) through the state’s House of Representatives. Today the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate held a hearing on the question.

My prepared remarks are below, after the jump. My oral presentation was somewhat less restrained; after two hours of listening to people assert that objecting to cruel and ineffective punishment proposals must reflect an indifference to the suffering of crime victims, I pretty much lost it: Without raising my voice, I pointed out that the vaunted capacity of prosecutors wielding the threat of long mandatory terms to convert lower-level offenders into “cooperating” witnesses against higher-ups faced the same logical and moral objections as using the threat of torture for the same purpose: the incentive to testify is just as strong for false testimony as for true testimony. If it’s obviously immoral to threaten to break someone’s arms if he won’t testify, and if spending five extra years behind bars is worse than having your arms broken, then why is it considered OK to exact testimony under the threat of an additional five-year prison term?

The broader point is, I think, straightforward. You can decompose the question of mandatories into two sub-questions:

  • Would it be a good idea to have more prisoners than we have now?
  • For any given number of prisoners, will a system of mandatory sentencing - especially for drug offenses - do a better job of crime control than letting the judges decide?

In each case, it seems to me, the answer is obviously “no.” The case on the other side consisted entirely of insisting that crime was a very, very bad thing and ignoring the notion that sentencing has opportunity costs.

I had lots of good company, including Al Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon, John Wetzel and Bret Bucklen of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey (now chairing the Pennsylvania Crime Commission), and Kevin Ring of FAMM.  I thought the good guys clearly won the debate on points; who has the votes is, of course, a different question.

Video here. My piece starts at Minute 114. (Look for the thumbs-up from Al Blumstein when I’m done. Made my week.)

Home - Judiciary Committee

 

 

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African-Americans are not soft on crime

Two narratives that differ in most respects nonetheless converge in spreading the myth that African-Americans are soft on crime. The New Jim Crow analysis, common on the left, maintains that law and order policies regarding drugs, guns and crime generally were ramped up from the 1970s - 2000s over the strong objections of African-American voters and politicians. The second narrative, common on the right, is that African-Americans protest police brutality while hypocritically turning a blind eye to Black-on-Black crime.

Neither narrative can stand up to an inconvenient fact: For at least the past 40 years and up to the present day, most African-Americans think the criminal justice system is not tough enough. If you want to learn more about what the evidence in this area really shows, see my latest piece in Washington Post Wonkblog.

The key lesson of the United Airlines fiasco has nothing to do with airlines

Chicago, as seen from non-United flight

Last Sunday, a security officer dragged a 69-year-old physician, David Dao, off a United Airlines plane at O’Hare Airport. Dr. Dao was injured in the altercation. The extent and severity of his injuries remains unclear, but are likely to receive close attention when he sues. Video of the incident ignited an internet firestorm.

The past week has occasioned thousands of tweets, countless newspaper op-eds and commentaries about how lousy airlines generally are, and how United Airlines in particular needs to raise its game.

A week later, I fear the real lesson is being lost.

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Jail and the Case-Deaton Thesis

The 21st century has witnessed remarkable decay in the well-being of many non-Hispanic white Americans. In a new report, economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton document that non-Hispanic whites who have a high school education or less have experienced reduced life expectancy and increased rates of suicide and addiction. Recent correctional system data highlight another dimension of this population’s travails: they are increasingly spending time in jail.

For the rest of the story, see my latest piece at Washington Post.

NAS Studies and President Trump’s Address

I received this post from a friend:

This morning I received an email from the National Academies Press (see the URL, below) containing both the script of President Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress and — interspersed at relevant locations — copies of various NRC reports from the National Academies containing information, data and recommendations about the many scientific, engineering and medical issues facing our country (and the world).

This is a perfect representation of the Academies’ primary mission — to serve the federal government by bringing unbiased (and carefully refereed) technical and analytical expertise and results to the nation’s decision-makers.  I thought you, and friends and colleagues, might be interested in this document.  Feel free to forward it to all and any.