Tools for Activists: Good News From The Courts, For A Change

March 31, 2009 2 Comments

I’m not a glass-half-full type of person.  But this story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution really must be categorized as a half-full glass: thanks to a lawsuit by the indomitable organization, Children’s Rights, headed by Ira Lustbader, children in foster care in Fulton County, Georgia are now one tiny step closer to being accorded the type of legal representation we routinely subsidize for murderers and rapists: 

Fulton County has made significant progress in reforming its troubled legal services for children in foster care, according to a report by a court-appointed monitor of the system. ... 

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No Harm, No Foul? Why Aren’t More People Charged With Attempted Murder?

March 26, 2009 3 Comments

Several recent crimes involving recidivists who had fired guns at people during previous assaults got me thinking about the charge of attempted murder.  Why is it that we almost never hear about an attempted murder case?  

Turns out I didn’t need to look far for an answer.  When I typed in the question, I found the most user-friendly prosecutor’s website I’ve seen.  District Attorney Kelly R. Burke, of Houston County, Georgia, posts articles about case outcomes in his district, funding issues, and explanations of Georgia law.  This level of transparency by a prosecutor’s office (or anyone else in the courts) is practically unheard-of. Burke clearly believes that the public has the right to know what is going on in their criminal justice system.  How odd of him.  ... 

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What Is Your Personal “Aggregate Burden of Crime”?

March 20, 2009 1 Comment

On Tuesday, I wrote about the debate that’s raging over incarcerating convicts or releasing them to “community sentencing” programs of one type or another.  Proponents of community or alternative sentencing argue that we save tax dollars when people convicted of crimes get to stay at home for therapeutic or rehabilitative interventions instead of being removed from the community and sentenced to prison terms.  ... 

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The Pew Center Study, Repeat Offenders, and the Real Price of Crime

March 17, 2009 1 Comment

From The Tennessean: 

Cons commit crimes after early release

Sentencing guidelines enable repeat offenders

A college student is kidnapped, brutalized and murdered. A mother looks up from changing her baby’s diaper to find a gun pointing in her face. A 62-year-old man is bludgeoned with a baseball bat in a mall parking lot. ... 

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Burglary is Not a Non-Violent Crime, #2: A Lesson on DNA and Recidivism

March 16, 2009 5 Comments

In today’s St. Petersburg Times, on a double murder in Masaryktown, Florida:

The feet belonged to Patrick DePalma Sr., 84. He lay on his stomach, head and torso halfway into the den, a mess of blood by his head. He wore a blue sweat suit; his slippers were astray nearby. ... 

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Why Crime Victims Media Report? [Updated below, 3/11/09]

March 10, 2009 1 Comment

Because of this.  Why does the media report so obsessively on the last meals of convicted murderers?  This man sexually attacked a woman, stabbed her, slit her throat, and then left her to die, which took 20 hours. 22 years later, he is scheduled to die, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports — on his last meal.  

Does the reporter also tell us anything so personal about the victim?  No, he defines her, briefly, as a “former amateur diving champion,” then gets to the real point of the article: fomenting sympathy for rapist/killer Robert Newland by recounting the pathos of his prison diet.  Seasoned collard greens?  Bread pudding?   ... 

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How Many Gold Mercedes Are There Out There?

March 5, 2009 2 Comments

THE average citizen hardly needs to be persuaded that crimes will be committed more frequently if, other things being equal, crime becomes more profitable than other ways of spending one’s time.

–James Q. Wilson, “Thinking About Crime” Atlantic Monthly, September, 1983 ... 

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