The tents still occupy two parks in Washington, D.C., but there are fewer people living in them as protesters with the Occupy movement flee for warmer quarters. The desertion of the Occupy D.C. is fueling class divisions within the movement among “those who can’t go home again and those who chose not to,” according to the Washington Post. Homeless people flocked to the parks this fall and are now apparently among the few remaining. One of them is Blair Rush, a 41-year-old homeless woman interviewed by the Post. She told …
According to new data from the FBI, violent and property crime rates fell in America last year, despite continued high unemployment rates. Unlike previous press reports that said criminologists are puzzled by declining crime rates during times of high unemployment, the Associated Press ran a story quoting University of Cincinnati professor John Eck’s conclusion that “The connection between crime and the economy is an illusion.” Criminologists should not be surprised at this conclusion, because the social science literature on the relationship between unemployment and crime rates is mixed. Studies tend …
During the past week, the U.S. and Colombia indicted and arrested more than 50 individuals charged with organizing maritime and aerial smuggling of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. via Central America and Mexico. The arrests again reflect the sustained nature of close law enforcement cooperation between the U.S. and Colombia. This cooperation has been nurtured patiently over more than a decade. By stark contrast, cooperation between Washington and Mexico has been harmed as a result of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched law enforcement operation that allowed more than …
Violent and property crime fell in America last year, the second full year of the current recession, according to new data from the FBI. Recently, the Associated Press ran a story on how criminologists are puzzled by declining crime rates during times of high unemployment. Criminologists should not be surprised, because the social science literature on the relationship between unemployment and crime rates is mixed. Studies tend to find either a positive relationship or no relationship at all between unemployment and crime. Policymakers and journalists need to understand that the …
In the International Criminal Court (ICC) Review Conference’s discussion of the “crime of aggression,” the U.S. agenda — convincing ICC member states to adopt a version of the “crime of aggression” that would prevent the ICC from investigating or prosecuting individuals for that crime without an express determination by the U.N. Security Council that an act of aggression had been committed — appeared to be gaining speed. This momentum was based on the impact of strong interventions by the U.S., China, and Russia, all of whom urged rejection of proposals …
On November 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. In preparation for oral arguments, JLWOP: Faces & Cases will be an on-going series on The Foundry that will tell real stories about juvenile offenders who are currently serving LWOP sentences. Life without parole for the very worst juvenile offenders is reasonable, constitutional, and (appropriately) rare. In response to the Western world’s worst juvenile crime problem, U.S. legislators have enacted commonsense measures to protect their citizens and hold these …
With the recession officially beginning in December 2007, some speculated the economic downturn would result in increased crime, especially property crime. Yet, the Department of Justice’s just-released 2008 National Crime Victimization Survey shows violent and property crime did not increase last year. During the first full year of the recession, those crime rates were at or near their lowest levels since creation of Justice’s crime survey in 1973: • The violent crime rate dropped from 20.7 “victimizations” per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2007 to 19.3 incidents last …
Each morning, District of Columbia special police officer Dick Heller reports to his job protecting the Federal Judicial Center, where he takes possession of a handgun that he carriers throughout the day. Despite the fact that the city trusts Heller to carry a handgun all day in order to protect the courthouse, the city denied him a permit to keep a gun at home in order to protect his family. The District of Columbia has one of then nation’s most draconian handgun bans, and yesterday the Supreme Court struck down …
A recent Pew Center study purports to show that, for the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison. This ratio would put the U.S. far ahead of such police states as Russia and China. Heritage Foundation criminal justice analyst David Muhlhausen responded: “Public safety is the number one priority of state and local governments. Incarcerating serious and violent criminals reduces crime and our incarceration policies are partially responsible for the large reduction in crime since the early 1990s.” To put …
Jon Yorke, a British law lecturer who has written widely on the U.S. death penalty, argues that the law’s focus on the actual act’s pain (Baze v. Rees, presently pending in the Supreme Court, asks how courts should consider the risk of pain during execution) may be misplaced: While hypoxia might meet the approval of some, others argue that focusing on the dying moments of a prisoner is a distraction to the wider issue – the mental trial of being on death row for months or years. “No method of …
