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Today In Criminal Justice
How Connecticut Became a Model for Prison Reform
Gun Advocates to 'Go on Offense' Under Trump
New Chicago Use-of-Force Policy Stresses Life Sanctity
Many Sentenced Via D.C. Law Commit New Violence
Racial Bias 'Embedded' in New York's Upstate Prisons
Black San Diego Drivers Were Stopped More Than Whites
Minnesota Still Relies on Long Prison Solitary Confinement
Asplen to Direct National Criminal Justice Association
Near Mistrial, SC Jurors Resume Talks on Police Shooting Case
Man Checking Fake-News Claim Fired Shots in D.C. Eatery
Former Federal Anti-Drug Officials Back Sessions
Unprecedented Security Costs for Protecting Trump, Family
Texas Jail Suicides Down
California Legislators Propose Bail Reform Measure
Does Kidnapping Story Told By California Mom Hold Up?
Hoax Swamps NJ Court With Ex-Jail Inmates' Claims
Top Story
How Connecticut Became a Model for Prison ReformBehind the walls of Osborn Correctional Institution stands a laboratory for one of the most aggressive experiments in criminal justice reform currently underway in the United States, reports Christopher Madoff for TCR. Under the stewardship of Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, Connecticut has seen its prison population fall to a 20-year low, while rates of reported violent crime have plummeted. The Crime Report Gun Advocates to 'Go on Offense' Under TrumpFirearms enthusiasts who backed Donald Trump’s campaign and his full-throated support of the Second Amendment are expecting a sweeping expansion of gun rights under his administration and a Republican Congress, the Associated Press reports. Among their priorities: eliminating gun-free zones at schools, reducing requirements for background checks, and ensuring that concealed carry handgun permits from one state are recognized everywhere in the U.S. “This is our historic moment to go on offense and to defeat the forces that have aligned against our freedom once and for all,” says National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre. “The individual right to carry a firearm in defense of our lives and our families does not and should not end at any state line.”
The gun lobby’s GOP supporters could find themselves at odds with the Republican tenets of states’ rights and local control. “It would be ironic to see conservatives who long have professed a belief in states’ rights override states’ choices in this area,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law. A paramount NRA goal is getting Congress to require states to recognize concealed-carry handgun permits issued by any other state. Now, many permit holders leave their weapons at home when traveling to avoid violating other states’ laws. The NRA says permits should be treated like driver’s licenses. Trump endorsed the idea, but it will face opposition from Democrats in states with tight gun restrictions, including California and New York. States make their own judgments on concealed carry permits. Their eligibility requirements vary based on an applicant’s criminal history, age, and training. Police warn the change would mean seeing more guns during traffic stops and in tourist areas. With no national database, there is no way to easily check the validity of an out-of-state firearm permit. Associated Press New Chicago Use-of-Force Policy Stresses Life SanctityMoving to get past a scandal over black teenager Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by a police officer, the Chicago police department is preparing a new policy on use of force that prioritizes the sanctity of life, the Wall Street Journal reports. A draft of the new guidelines, first published in October, has been made available to the public for a nearly two-month-long period, ending Monday. About 400 public comments have been received so far in this first-of-its-kind effort by the Chicago police to glean public feedback on its internal policies.
A dashboard camera video of the 2014 McDonald shooting showed the teen veering away from police when he was shot. That was a different version of events than initially described by officers, leading to accusations of a cover up. In April, a city task force on police accountability set up in response to the shooting called for sweeping changes to the nation’s second-largest police department, including publicly acknowledging a history of racial discrimination and disbanding an agency in charge of investigating officer misconduct. The draft of the new policy says the department’s “highest priority is the sanctity of human life” and that department members “will act with the foremost regard for the preservation of human life”—language missing entirely from the previous draft, which dates back to 2002. The draft also states that officers must seek to de-escalate situations as soon as possible and won’t resort to force unless other alternatives have been exhausted or are impractical. Chicago police have killed 11 people this year, including three in a single week in November. Wall Street Journal Many Sentenced Via D.C. Law Commit New ViolenceHundreds of criminals sentenced by Washington, D.C., judges under a law crafted to give second chances to young adult offenders have gone on to rob, rape, or kill, the Washington Post reports. The Youth Rehabilitation Act’s intent was to rehabilitate inexperienced criminals under 22. It allows for shorter sentences for some crimes and an opportunity for offenders to emerge with no criminal record. A Post investigation found a pattern of violent offenders returning rapidly to the streets and committing more crimes. Hundreds have been sentenced under the act multiple times. In dozens of cases, D.C. judges issued Youth Act sentences shorter than those called for under mandatory minimum laws designed to deter violent crimes. The criminals often repaid that leniency by escalating their crimes of violence on release.
In 2013, four masked men entered the home of a family, held them at gunpoint, and ransacked the house. One of the invaders, Shareem Hall, was sentenced under the Youth Act. He was released on probation last year. A year later, Hall and a co-conspirator shot and killed a transgender woman, Deeniquia Dodds, 22, in a robbery. Police said the pair were targeting transgender females. “You’re telling me you can come back out on the streets and rob again, hold people hostage again, kill again — because of the Youth Act?” said Joeann Lewis, Dodds’s aunt. Hall is one of at least 121 defendants sentenced under the law who have gone on to be charged with murder since 2010. Four slayings occurred while the defendants could still have been in prison for previous crimes under mandatory minimum sentencing; 30 killings took place while the suspects were on probation. “We have a value in this city that youthful offenders should be rehabilitated,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser. “But I don’t think anybody expects leniency for violent criminals.” Washington Post Racial Bias 'Embedded' in New York's Upstate PrisonsRacial bias in the New York state prison system is a fact of life. The racism can be felt from the moment black inmates enter New York’s upstate prisons, reports the New York Times. They describe being called "porch monkeys, spear chuckers," and worse. There are cases of guards ripping out dreadlocks. One inmate said he was jumped by a guard who threatened to “serve up some black mashed potatoes with tomato sauce.” A former inmate said, “As soon as you come through receiving, they let you know whose house it is.” Most forbidding are three maximum-security penitentiaries in rural areas where the population is almost entirely white and nearly every officer is too. Guards rarely get to know a black person who is not behind bars. A review of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports, and three years of parole decisions found racial disparities embedded in the prison experience.
In most prisons, blacks and Latinos were disciplined at higher rates than whites. They were sent to solitary confinement more often and for longer periods. A greater share of black inmates are in prison for violent offenses, and minority inmates are younger, factors that could explain why an inmate would be more likely to break prison rules, state officials said. The disparities were greatest for infractions that gave discretion to officers, like disobeying a direct order. In these cases, the officer has much latitude to determine whether a rule is broken, and does not need physical evidence. Blacks make up 14 percent of the state population but almost half of its prisoners. Bias in prison discipline prevents access to jobs and to rehab programs, diminishing an inmate’s chances of being paroled. Each denial is likely to mean two more years behind bars. There are 50,000 inmates in 54 state prisons. New York Times Black San Diego Drivers Were Stopped More Than WhitesA new report on traffic stops in San Diego shows that police sometimes treat black and Hispanic drivers differently from white drivers, particularly after a stop has been made, mirroring the findings of other studies from around the U.S., reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Those studies have provided data-driven evidence to support or refute what many minority communities say has long been a problem: that they are disproportionately targeted and harassed by police. Most police departments, including San Diego’s, maintain that the vast majority of officers do their jobs without overt bias against members of any particular race or ethnicity. Some law enforcement officials have also acknowledged that unconscious bias is a factor and are now taking part in training that aims to address it.
A study by Stanford University researchers led by Jennifer Eberhardt, an expert on racial bias and its consequences, analyzed data from more than 28,000 traffic and pedestrian stops in Oakland between April 2013 and April 2014 and found police there were far more likely to stop and search African Americans than white people. In North Carolina, where a study focused on traffic stops by Durham police, researchers found that black male drivers were more likely to be pulled over than whites, but there was no disparity among women drivers. In Connecticut, black or Hispanic drivers were more likely to get pulled over and searched than white drivers. San Diego paid researchers at San Diego State University $62,500 to examine traffic stop records by police over two years and found that black drivers were stopped more often than whites in 2014. The disparities were more pronounced for drivers under 25. Data from both years showed that black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched after a traffic stop than whites but were less likely to be found with contraband. San Diego Union-Tribune Minnesota Still Relies on Long Prison Solitary ConfinementMore than 1,600 inmates in Minnesota have been held in solitary confinement for at least six months. Four hundred and thirty-seven have endured stays of a year or longer. One man spent more than seven consecutive years in solitary. Another spent longer than 10 years, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Across the U.S., states are taking new steps to either curtail or review solitary confinement, acknowledging that its unchecked use does not make prisons safer and may cause permanent harm to inmates. The federal government also has cut the use of solitary confinement in its detention facilities by 25 percent in recent years by banning it for juvenile offenders and adults who commit low-level infractions, and diverting inmates with serious mental illnesses.
Minnesota state prisons continue to rely on the use of solitary confinement. The state has no independent system to review whether such punishment was merited, nor any laws that limit who can be assigned to solitary in prison or how long someone can spend in isolation. As a result, what begins as days or a couple of weeks in solitary can turn into weeks, months or years, even for mentally ill inmates. “I would be very surprised if you’d find any mental health professional that would say this is OK,” said Sue Abderholden of the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “This is absolutely detrimental to someone’s mental health. It is not a practice that we should be doing in Minnesota.” State officials defend their practices, saying they use solitary confinement only as last-resort discipline for difficult inmates. “There are some inmates who spend long periods of time because of their behavior,” said Terry Carlson, deputy corrections commissioner. “If they seriously assault a staff member, if they kill another offender while they’re incarcerated, they’re going to be in segregation for a long time.” Minneapolis Star Tribune Asplen to Direct National Criminal Justice AssociationChristopher Asplen, a former prosecutor and an international expert on DNA technologies, will be the new executive director of the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), which represents state, tribal, and local criminal and juvenile justice practitioners. Asplen will succeed Cabell Cropper, who is retiring this month after leading the association for almost 20 years. Asplen’s “experience, knowledge and vision make him the ideal person to lead NCJA,” said the group’s president, Karhlton Moore of the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Asplen formerly directed the DNA Legal Assistance Unit of the American Prosecutors Research Institute and the National District Attorney’s Association, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and as executive director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence for the U.S. Department of Justice. In private law practice, he has advocated for policy and legislative initiatives integrating DNA technology, including post-conviction DNA, into criminal justice systems around the world. Asplen said that, “The broad base of NCJA’s membership combined with its emphasis on research and evaluation based program support make it an organization well positioned to address the challenges facing stakeholders in the criminal justice community.” The NCJA is based in Washington, D.C. Its members represent all facets of criminal and juvenile justice, including law enforcement, corrections, prosecution, defense, courts, victim-witness services and educational institutions, and officials on the federal, state, and local level. The Crime Report Near Mistrial, SC Jurors Resume Talks on Police Shooting CaseOn the brink of hopelessness that their deliberations would end without a verdict, jurors stepped back from their impasse Friday, resolving to discuss further whether white North Charleston, S.C., officer Michael Slager committed a crime when he fatally shot Walter Scott, a black man, reports the Charleston Post and Courier. They sent notes to the judge throughout the afternoon, saying they were deadlocked. Their messages pointed to a lone holdout, a juror who refused to convict Slager of either murder or manslaughter. There are 11 other jurors. The jury’s other option is acquittal. The decision must be unanimous. But through nearly 18 hours of deliberations, they still had not found one. The judge was prepared to declare a hung jury and order a mistrial.
Their desperation was apparent, as the holdout wrote to the judge, sidestepping the usual procedure that tasks the jury’s foreman with such communication. The resulting letter was a rare look into the closed-door workings of a jury grappling with a case that the whole world is watching. “I regret to say we may never reach a unanimous decision,” the holdout juror wrote. “We all struggle with the death of a man,” the juror wrote. “My heart does not want to have to tell the Scott family that the man who killed their son, brother and father is innocent. But with choices, I cannot and will not change my mind.” Exhausted, jurors chose to return Monday and start fresh with a weekend of rest. Charleston Post Man Checking Fake-News Claim Fired Shots in D.C. EateryA North Carolina man was arrested yesterday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., carrying an AR-15 assault-style rifle and fired one or more shots. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign, the Washington Post reports. The incident caused panic, with several businesses going into lockdown as police swarmed the neighborhood after receiving the call shortly before 3 p.m.
Police said Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., walked in the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee. The employee was able to flee and notify police. Police said Welch proceeded to discharge the rifle inside the restaurant. Welch has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Police said there were no reported injuries. The popular family restaurant was swept up in the onslaught of fake news and conspiracy theories that were prevalent during the presidential campaign. The restaurant, its owner, staff, and nearby businesses have been attacked on social media and received death threats. James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, said the incident “demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences. I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here … and stop promoting these falsehoods right away.” Fake news stories claimed that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief were running a child sex ring from the restaurant’s backrooms. Washington Post Former Federal Anti-Drug Officials Back SessionsSeveral senior law enforcement officials who served under Republican and Democratic administrations are calling for the swift confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as Attorney General, reports Politico. In a letter being sent today, they praise Sessions’ reputation as “a tough, determined professional who has been dedicated to the appropriate enforcement of the rule of law.” Despite controversy over Sessions’ reputation on racial issues, the group praised him as a “protector of civil rights.”
Each of the eight letter writers previously served as director of National Drug Control (the so-called drug czar) or the Drug Enforcement Administration. Sessions has a reputation for being tough on drug offenders and his nomination has raised questions about how the Trump administration will address the legalization of recreational marijuana by some states. The letter was signed by former national drug control directors Bill Bennett, Robert Martinez, and John Walters, and former DEA administrators Peter Bensinger, John Lawn, Robert Bonner, Karen Tandy, and Michele Leonhart. Politico Unprecedented Security Costs for Protecting Trump, FamilyProtecting Donald Trump and his family will involve unprecedented costs for taxpayers. Local and federal law enforcement officials concede the costs for securing the immediate and extended First Family-elect in target-rich New York City are enormous. Melania Trump’s decision to stay with 10-year-old Barron at the family’s triplex penthouse means the skyscraper will need permanent new fortifications, and plans to protect Trump’s four adult children will force an already short-staffed agency to ramp up its ranks, reports Politico. “Operating in Manhattan is expensive, and the fact that the Secret Service has to pay, by law, for office space on protectees’ residences, plane tickets on protectees’ planes, there’s a dollar figure that I don’t think you can really estimate right now,” said Donald Mihalek of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
The biggest variable is how much time Trump himself will actually spend in New York. “Those costs are something that we won’t know until he establishes his travel,” said Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant director of the Secret Service. “The New York field office is quite large. No one knows how many bodies…would have to go there.” A Secret Service spokeswoman said the 2016 budget for “protecting persons and places” was $871.7 million, which includes visiting foreign leaders. “At this point, we’re still looking at the size of our footprint,” said Secret Service spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan. The agency is negotiating that with Trump’s team, “like it does after every campaign,” she added. “The only difference this time is the President-elect happens to live on Fifth Avenue.” Unnamed city officials said the city is spending a million dollars each day on Trump, a figure yet to be confirmed. Most of those demands will be on the police department, which racks up especially heavy overtime when the president visits the Big Apple. Politico TX Jail Suicides Decline Sharply Under New Intake ProcessTexas county jails have seen a sharp decline in inmate suicides since they began using a revised mental health screening tool last December, reports the Texas Tribune. Since December 2015, 14 county jail inmates have taken their own lives, a drop from a record 34 suicides between December 2014 and November 2015. In the five years before that, inmate suicides averaged 23 a year, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which monitors county lockups across the state. Last year, Sandra Bland was arrested by a state trooper in Waller County and died three days later in the local jail, drawing national attention and scrutiny from lawmakers, policy analysts, and activists over how jails identify and respond to mental health issues.
Last fall, lawmakers and other officials examined intake form used by jails to determine if inmates are suicide risks. Previously, jails asked inmates to self-report medical problems, mental health histories or intellectual disabilities and indicate if they felt depressed or suicidal, among other inquiries. The new screening forms use multiple questions to try to elicit the same information and give jailers lengthier instructions for responding to inmate answers. The revised form alone did not cause the “dramatic drop,” said Brandon Wood, director of the Jail Standards Commission. “There’s a lot of different factors at play there, and we realize that,” he said. “Did it help drive the conversation? Did it require counties to become more vigilant in screening? Yes. Even after screening it still requires observation of the inmates. It requires services be provided. The form itself is only one part of the issue.” Texas Tribune California Legislators Propose Bail Reform MeasureCalifornia legislators next year will make it a top priority to reform the system through which judges award criminal offenders bail, saying courts across the state are punishing “the poor for being poor,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Assemblyman Rob Bonta and Sen. Bob Hertzberg plan to introduce bills that will reduce the number of people detained before trial and address the racial and economic disparities in the bail process. Bonta said he sees “unprecedented” energy and momentum on the issue but predicted “a heavy, strong resistance from the bail industry and insurance companies.” Debate over bail reform has simmered at the national level in recent years. It often has been waged in court, with cities and counties facing lawsuits over policies that some legal experts say have turned jails into modern-day debtors prisons.
Under California law, bail is set when a person is arrested according to a county fee schedule and depends on the gravity of the alleged crime. To gain release, offenders must post the amount upfront, or pay a 10 percent fee to a bond company. Those who can’t afford to do so either can remain incarcerated up to 48 more hours before they are formally charged and arraigned. A judge then sets the conditions for release before trial, weighing such factors as whether the defendants pose a flight risk or are a threat to their community. Those conditions typically include bail, and lawyers and legal experts say the rules on how high that monetary amount is set vary by city and county, often allowing courts to keep people in jail based on their inability to pay their fees. Bail reform legislation has failed in California in the past, often because of tough opposition from bondsman companies that argue the current system allows defendants access to their civil liberties. Los Angeles Times Does Kidnapping Story Told By California Mom Hold Up?More than a week after California mother Sherri Papini was found battered but alive on a highway in the predawn hours of Thanksgiving, debate over the legitimacy of her harrowing tale of kidnapping and abuse continues to rage, reports the Sacramento Bee. The comments got so cutting that her husband, Keith, felt compelled to issue a statement in an effort to quell accusations of a hoax. Experts say the skeptical response isn’t surprising given that the details sheriff’s investigators and family members have relayed about Papini’s account don’t fit patterns typical for kidnapping scenarios. They also caution that while many elements of Papini’s story are admittedly odd, that doesn’t mean detectives – or the public – should assume it doesn’t hold up.
“I’ve had some pretty bizarre but righteous cases, where people look at it and say, ‘That didn’t happen.’ Well, it did,” said Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI agent who specialized in criminal profiling. Papini told investigators that the two people who abducted her near her home Nov. 2 were both women and that she didn’t know them. They held her captive for three weeks, sometimes transporting Papini by car, according to authorities, and during that time worked to conceal their identities. She was beaten and branded with a “message,” said Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, then released without explanation. He said there is no known motive for the abduction, saying he has no information indicating her capture was related to cartels or sex trafficking. Kenneth Ryan, a former police officer who teaches criminology at California State University, Fresno, said the branding allegation is rare. He equated it with retaliatory behavior associated with motorcycle gangs. Ryan was struck by the efforts Papini’s abductors made to shield their identities. In general, he said, kidnappers who hold their victims for a protracted time, intent on assault or sexual crimes, don’t go out of their way to hide their identities. Sacramento Bee Hoax Swamps NJ Court With Ex-Jail Inmates' ClaimsA man in Camden, N.J., last month told Carmen DeJesus that if she had spent a night in crowded Camden County jail cell, money from a court settlement regarding conditions at the jail was up for grabs. To get it, she only needed to fill out the paperwork to file a lawsuit, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. DeJesus, who spent nine days in the jail crammed into a two-person cell with four others, joined 1,800 people who have sued the jail in the last three months in hopes of getting a payout. The problem is, there’s no money. The lawsuits were sparked by a rumor that spread wildly through the streets of Camden and beyond: Anyone who was held in a crowded jail cell can get a check if he or she files a lawsuit.
The hoax has been perpetuated by people who claim they have received checks and by people passing out the filing paperwork on the street. The men and women suing the jail have filed more than eight times the number of the civil cases submitted in a typical month, overwhelming the staff of the U.S. District Court and prompting administrators to bring in employees from other federal courthouses to help process the claims. The lawsuits are being filed pro se, without help from attorneys. Because many claims do not meet certain statutory guidelines, almost all are likely to be dismissed, said U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle. The statute of limitations for personal-injury complaints is two years, and many of the concerns detailed in the suits – that inmates were temporarily held in rooms that were built to hold fewer people – do not rise to the level of constitutional violations, he said. Philadelphia Inquirer
Correction: A report Friday on a study of the level of women and girls' violent deaths in some of the world's richest countries erroneously stated that women are killed in north America at a rate double that of men when compared with their share of the population. The story also wrongly called the research a "United Nations" study. It was financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. | |
| | On every business day, The Crime Report (TCR) and Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provide a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links commentary, and New & Notable research in the field. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Langeloth Foundation and the Urban Institute. Today's report was prepared by Ted Gest and Isidoro Rodriguez. Please send comments or questions to izzy@thecrimereport.org. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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