FW: Crime & Justice News: Some Police-Aid Groups Spend Most Money On Telemarketing
meredith lopez
Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2009 8:14 AM
December 24, 2009 Today's Stories -- Some Police-Aid Groups Spend Most Money On Telemarketing -- International Child Abductions From U.S. Rise Sharply -- Latest Crime-Gun Connection Evidence: More Guns, Less Crime -- Homicides Down Sharply In L.A.; Beck: "It's A Different World" -- Jail Time In CO Balloon Hoax Called Deterrent To Publicity Stunts -- A Call For Better Coverage Of "One Case That Went Horribly Wrong" -- Driving Drunk Tonight? Cops Say "No Breaks For Christmas" -- Beatrice Hanson Named To Head U.S. Office For Victims Of Crime -- Do Michigan Public Defenders Pressure Clients To Plead Guilty? -- "Affinity Fraud" A Popular White-Collar Crime In Hard Times -- "Sexting" Cases Draw More Police Attention As Child-Porn Violations -- Uneven Justice: One Husband Killer Freed, The Other Faces Execution You may go to TheCrimeReport.org to search all archived CJN stories. Please e-mail Ted Gest at CJJ with concerns about the editorial content of our news items, to suggest news stories, or with general comments. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nonprofit groups with ties to law enforcement have your number and they're dialing it this Christmas. The Dallas Morning News found that several charities have spent up to 89 percent of the money they collect on telemarketers, cutting deeply into what they can spend on programs. "When your spending is upside down like that, you would have to ask yourself as a consumer, 'Are they a telemarketing organization or are they legitimately representing the concerns of law- enforcement officers?' " said Charley Wilkison of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. Some of the groups say it is expensive to raise money and that telemarketing provides them the means to offer training and services to those in law enforcement. Texas is among about a dozen states that don't require charities to register with the state if they solicit for funds. A decade ago, Texas attempted to crack down on scams by passing a law that requires organizations that solicit for law-enforcement causes to register annually with the state attorney general. The Better Business Bureau and the American Institute of Philanthropy recommend that charities spend no more than 35 percent of their money on fundraising. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Brazil abduction and custody case over 9-year-old Sean Goldman illustrates a growing problem of international child abduction that needs to be addressed with more laws and greater parent precautions, experts tell the Christian Science Monitor. The number of children being abducted from the U.S. and taken abroad has increased dramatically since 2007, say data from the U.S. State Department. More than 1,000 new cases involving 1,615 children abducted from the U.S. by a parent were reported in fiscal 2008, compared with a little over 500 cases involving 821 children in fiscal 2007. Abductions from other countries also rose, with almost 500 children reported abducted from foreign countries and brought to the U.S. last year. One reason "international child abductions are on the rise is that it is fairly easy to accomplish in the United States," says Chris Schmidt of the law firm Bryan Cave LLP. "In the United States, one parent can leave the country with a child without the consent of the other parent." By contrast, many other countries such as China and Argentina require an official document giving permission of the parent who is not traveling before minor children can travel abroad with only one parent. In the Goldman case, Brazil's chief justice ended a five-year custody battle when he ruled that the boy should be returned to his American father. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Even as gun ownership has surged in the U.S. in the past year, violent crime, including murder and robbery, has dropped steeply, says the Christian Science Monitor. With homicides down 10 percent in the first half of 2009, the FBI reports that gun sales - especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups - are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama. Pro-gun groups say the data disprove a long- running theory by gun-control groups that gun ownership spawns crime and violence. "Anti-gunners have lost another one of their baseless arguments," says Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation. Some gun-control groups have long sought to establish gun ownership as a health issue, which would expose purchasers to the kind of regulation now imposed on prescription drugs and alcohol. That view embodies the idea that mere exposure to guns makes people more violent. "We can absolutely draw a fact-based conclusion about [whether there's a correlation between declining crime rates and increasing gun ownership], and the answer is no," says David Kennedy of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "There are very consistent findings that the acquisition and obtaining of carry permits by ordinary law-abiding people has either no or very little impact on the crime rate." | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Crime in Los Angeles County dropped in 2009 despite rising unemployment and the bad economy, continuing a slide that has pushed homicides to levels not seen since the 1960s, reports the Los Angeles Times. Killings dropped 17 percent in Los Angeles and by nearly a quarter in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff. Together, the agencies investigated about 500 killings through Sunday -- a sharp drop in bloodshed compared with the more than 1,500 in 1992, the year of the Los Angeles riots. "It is a different world," said Police Chief Charlie Beck, a 32-year veteran of the force. "There was a time when it was the opposite of today -- when it seemed there was no limit on the potential for things to get worse and worse. The whole outlook has shifted now." The number of property crimes, such as burglary and theft, also declined this year, including a surprisingly large drop in the number of stolen automobiles. Vehicles are getting much harder to steal. A few years back with all the old American cars it just took a screwdriver and some yanking. Any joy-rider could walk down the street and rip off a car," said Los Angeles police commander Andy Smith. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Richard and Mayumi Heene, the Colorado couple who duped law enforcement and the television-watching world by claiming their son was adrift in a homemade balloon, were sentenced to jail time for the publicity stunt, says the Denver Post. "What this case is about is deception, exploitation - exploitation of the children of the Heenes, exploitation of the media and exploitation of people's emotions - and money," said Judge Stephen Schapanski. Richard Heene will serve 30 days in jail and 60 on work release. Mayumi Heene got 20 days of jail, to be served through a program that allows her to perform jail-supervised community service a couple of days a week and return home at night. The Heenes must also pay a still-to-be-determined amount of restitution, a figure that a prosecutor said could be $47,000 or more. As part of plea deals, prosecutors agreed to ask for only modest amounts of jail time and long probation sentences. Larimer County prosecutor Andrew Lewis said, "This is a deterrence to other people who want their 30 seconds of fame." | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The killing of four police officers and the controversy over the murderer is a reminder of how costly America's war on crime has been for our institutions of government, and for our justice system, says former U.S. Pardon Attorney Margaret Colgate Love in The Crime Report. For the past 20 years, despite dropping crime rates and escalating prison budgets, politicians have been cautious to the point of paralysis when it comes to rolling back overbroad laws and unreasonably harsh punishments, or easing up on their enforcement, Love says. Needless to say, pardoning does not thrive in such a climate. Presidents and most governors have found it expedient to neglect what has been described as among their toughest jobs, at a time when clemency has never been more necessary to a just system. Journalists have played an important part in creating this climate, in which politicians live in fear of being labeled soft on crime, and it is time they owned up to it. While the public's fascination with sensational crimes tests the integrity even of the mainstream media, some greater balance could have been introduced in the reporting of the Seattle murders. Any system involving the exercise of discretion will occasionally produce a decision that can later be criticized as unwise or even irresponsible. Why not report on the overall operation of the system, Love says, rather than leap to conclusions based on the one case that went horribly wrong? | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don't think the holiday spirit will get you out of a drunk- driving charge, says the Memphis Commercial Appeal. "A lot of times they think the officer will let them go because it's Christmas," one officer told the newspaper. "No breaks for Christmas." A midday drinking excuse won't work either. One woman on her way to work at noon asked an arresting officer, "At 12 o'clock, you think I'm drunk?" the officer replied: "Yes, ma'am." The group most likely to be involved in an alcohol- impaired fatal crash are men and women in the 21-24 age range. During the 2006 holiday season, alcohol was a factor in almost 37 percent of the fatal crashes with drivers this age. Compare that to drivers 44-54, where 20 percent of the fatal accidents involved alcohol. December is National Drunk & Drugged Driving Prevention Month and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, with assistance from other agencies, will staff more than 100 sobriety and driver's license checkpoints through New Year's Day. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beatrice (Bea) Hanson has been nominated by President Obama to head the U.S. Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime. Hanson is chief program officer for Safe Horizon, a crime victim assistance organization in New York City. She oversees a staff of more than 600 professionals who provide services to more than 350,000 people annually. Hanson joined Safe Horizon (formerly Victim Services) in 1997 as the Director of Emergency Services. She went on to oversee the agency's domestic violence, homeless youth, and child abuse programs, before being promoted to her current position in 2004. Hanson had served as director of client services for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. She has degrees from the University of Michigan and Hunter College School of Social Work. In 2010, she is scheduled to receive a Doctorate in Social Work from the Social Welfare Program at the City University of New York. Joye Frost has been acting director of the agency since Bush administration director John W. Gillis left. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Are Michigan public defenders improperly pushing the poor into copping pleas? The Michigan Supreme Court will consider that question in a case challenging how publicly appointed lawyers represent poor criminal defendants, reports the National Law Journal. At issue is whether cash-strapped public defenders are violating the constitutional rights of defendants by too eagerly encouraging plea bargains, as opposed to vigorously fighting the charges. Plaintiffs contend that the public defender systems in some counties are so bad that poor people are pleading guilty because, for all practical purposes, they are given no other choice. Critics charge that public defenders would often meet their clients for the first time in court; investigations were rarely done; and witnesses were not interviewed. Michigan is one of the few states that leave the expense of public defenders up to the counties. Legislation is pending to create a statewide public defender program in Michigan. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A difficult economic year has brought a flurry of white- collar crime cases in Indiana, including one that made a fraud suspect a household name, says the Indianapolis Star. Beyond Marcus Schrenker, who tried to fake his own death in a plane crash in January to dodge a state securities fraud investigation, a chorus of accused swindlers waited in the wings for their own turns in the spotlight. Many victims fall prey to "affinity fraud," in which a swindler appeals to older people, the devoutly religious, or others by appearing sympathetic. Investors succumb to greed or a desire for unrealistic returns, particularly when they're struggling financially. "The promoters will really bring out the worst in people," said Chris Naylor, commissioner of the Securities Division. The division's Prosecution Assistance Unit chalks up most of the 44 cases it has evaluated since 2007 to the implosion of schemes hatched in robust times, rather than a recent uptick in fraud. "The one good thing the economy has brought out is the bad guys," said unit investigator Charles Williams. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Police in some areas are spending more time looking into "sexting" cases. Plainfield, Il., police seized nine cell phones after a 16-year-old high school honors student took a nude photograph of herself and sent it to a male student, the Chicago Tribune reports. "It's something that's starting to become more and more of a problem," said Plainfield police Sgt. Anthony Novak. In one sign of how quickly the photo spread, some of the original senders told police they had received it from other people last week, according to court documents. Viewing the photograph and forwarding violate child pornography statutes, though police and prosecutors typically handle such cases through juvenile probation. No one has been charged. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 4 percent of teen cell phone owners ages 12 to 17 reported sending a "nude or nearly nude" image of themselves to one another and 15 percent reported receiving such a photo. | |
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why was there a huge difference in the outcome of two cases in which Tennessee women MaryWinkler and Gaile Owens killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart, asks John Seigenthaler in The Tennessean. The headline on one case said, "Woman who killed preacher husband gets custody of their three children." The other said, "Woman on death row loses her last appeal." Psychologist Lynne Zager of Memphis said both suffered from battered woman's syndrome - a condition courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence." Winkler, 36, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. Owens, 57, is due to be executed. Winkler testified about the abuse she suffered. Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman defense. Seigenthaler reports on both cases in detail to shed light on why they turned out so differently. | |
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