Prevention Works

NCPC Is Moving

After 24 years in downtown Washington, DC, NCPC is moving out of the city. Our current building (1000 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC) is being torn down to make way for new construction.

Effective September 10, 2007, NCPC will be moving to the following address:

2345 Crystal Drive
Suite 500
Arlington, VA 22202-4801

Our phone and fax numbers remain the same and we do not expect any website outages during the move. Unfortunately, because we’re busy packing, blog entries will be sporadic until mid-September. Once we’ve settled into the new building, be ready for your daily dose of crime prevention news and analysis!

Rapid Access to Crime Reports

How long does it take a police officer or sheriff’s deputy to put in his or her paperwork after working a 12-hour shift? Most say it could take two or three days to sort through all the forms. How much easier would it be if the law enforcement officer could just log all the information into a database?

There have been crime databases for years, but recently the San Diego Sheriff’s Department worked with Motorola and Microsoft to develop a system that creates a “bigger, smarter picture of what’s happening and where it’s happening,” said Lieutenant  Kirby Beyer, the program leader, who was quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune. This system allows law enforcement officers to file crime reports in hours rather than days. It makes it easier to identify crime trends and serial criminals, facilitates the tracking of sex offenders and documented gang members, and makes it easier to serve warrants, restraining orders, and more.

The database makes it possible to do everything digitally. An officer can attach videos, pictures, and sound files to make it easier for other officers, even in other jurisdictions, to seek out information about a criminal or sex offender. The databases’ ability to track crime trends assists police in distribution of resources and ultimately prevents crimes by better deploying officers. These files can be sent digitally to the district attorney’s office or probation office for their use also. There will even be tests of a mobile version in the coming months.

This new Motorola system will link to the Automated Regional Justice Information Center (ARJIS), so information logged into the San Diego Sheriff’s Office database is automatically uploaded into the regional system. The database will strengthen relationships between agencies. It gives other jurisdictions access to the database so that they can link cases and track activity of repeat offenders.

Criminals are known to move from city to city to escape arrest; often they are committing more crimes while they’re at it. Therefore, the next step should be to link regional databases to create a national database. That way, the database could help law enforcement across the country track the criminals and stand a better chance of catching them before they commit more crimes. Ultimately, a national database could prevent crime by tracking the movements of repeat offenders throughout the United States.

Bad Publicity Brings Good Results

Have you ever wondered about the motivation behind assigning certain criminals nicknames?  For example, a recent bank robber in the DC area earned the title of the “Cell Phone Bandit” after she robbed four banks, talking to someone on her cell phone all the while.  Perhaps, like me, you have dismissed this quirky practice of nicknaming criminals simply as a tactic of the media.  But a recent article in the Washington Post insists that the practice can be much more than that.  In fact, according to the article, law enforcement officials regard the practice as an effective law enforcement tool.

It seems that by designating memorable nicknames for wanted criminals, law enforcement agents also increase their odds of catching that fugitive.  In the article, FBI agents say that assigning “colorful and quirky nicknames generate more news coverage, more public interest, more tips, and more opportunities to apprehend culprits quickly.”  So creating a mental image of a criminal for the public tends to increase the chances that the criminal will be spotted and reported.  Furthermore, creating a negative moniker for suspects separates them from the rest of us and causes them to stand out as antisocial members of society.

The practice seems to date back to the infamous killer, “Jack the Ripper.”  But these days nicknames tend to be more eccentric, and they often highlight the criminal’s more unflattering features.  For example, one criminal with bad acne was dubbed the “Clearasil Bandit.”  In jail, he was taunted by other inmates and became so offended by the pseudonym that he tried to sue the FBI.  I think we should go ahead and offend more criminals with bad nicknames.  It seems to be working.

Putting Cities to the Test

Oregon State University researchers have figured out how to test entire communities for drugs using just a teaspoon of wastewater, according to an article published by the Associated Press on August 21. 

For obvious reasons, the test couldn’t be a tool for identifying specific users.  But it could serve as a tool for officials to map the spread of illegal drugs across the United States.

Researches tested ten American cities ranging in population from 17,000 to 600,000 for both legal and illegal drugs.  They have decided not to release the names of these cities at this time.  The researchers found that the ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most is caffeine. 

In early results the study showed huge gaps in the use of methamphetamine from city to city.  They found that one city located in an urban area with a gambling industry had five times higher levels than other cities.  In some cities they noticed a peak in activity of cocaine and ecstasy use on the weekends but in others a steady level of methamphetamine use throughout the week.

Federal agencies have become interested in the testing idea and have begun taken samples from U.S waterways to evaluate the idea of drug testing whole cities.

Caleb Banta-Green, a university of Washington drug abuse researcher referred to the idea as a “community urinalysis.” 

This seems to be a way for law enforcement officials to begin locating where the illegal drug use is happening and when it is most likely to occur.  I think it can serve as a great tool for evaluating drug use and give us a better idea of who’s using, even without pin-pointing individual users.  It can pinpoint communities and we can work from there.

Community Corrections

Since I began blogging about crime prevention, I have been fascinated by alternative sentencing plans, such as restorative justice or shaming. I do not think that we have found a perfect punishment for crime in incarceration, and I do believe that for some crimes, alternatives may prove to be more efficient (both in preventing recidivism and in simply costing less). So, you can probably imagine my excitement when I saw Doug Berman’s link to a new paper on the Social Science Research Network that brings to together “the now extensive literature on the varied arenas in which restorative justice is theorized and practiced.”

The paper, Restorative Justice: What Is It and Does It Work by Carrie Menkel-Meadow, is excellent in its breadth. Although I generally talk about shaming when I talk about restorative justice, Menkel-Meadow catalogs many forms of “restorative justice,” which she claims “is the name given to a variety of different practices, including apologies, restitution, and acknowledgements of harm and injury, as well as to other efforts to provide healing and reintegration of offenders into their communities.” She also catalogs many of the known uses of restorative justice, from apologies for petty theft to public narrations of genocide. Finally, and perhaps most valuably, Menkel-Meadow covers the promises, challenges, and results of restorative justice. Although the paper is certainly not a quick read, it’s worthwhile if you are interested in corrections, incarceration, and alternatives.

Restorative justice is interesting to me for several reasons, which the report has made it much easier to articulate. The goals seem to coincide with the goals of prevention—in a restorative justice program, the community is involved—restorative justice proceedings generally involve many of those affected by the crime, and everyone has a voice. The wrongdoer is punished, but the punishment keeps an eye on reintegration. Furthermore, the process is generally personalized, using expert guidance to target the process to the crime and the victim. Additionally, the focus is generally not on punishment, but instead on preventing future wrongs. Victims, too, in theory get a better shake; restorative justice looks to make them whole by allowing them to tell their story, find out from the offender why the crime occurred, receive an apology, and take part in the decision about punishment. In theory, it sounds wonderful, and its advocates claim that it reduces recidivism rates, which is a form of prevention, to me.

However, I  try to be a rational skeptic. Reading the article, I was happy to see that “[t]he greatest claims for restorative justice … that it creates greater compliance with agreements or judgments, reduces imprisonment (and therefore costs to the system), provides greater satisfaction for both victims and offenders, and reduces recidivism—have all been substantiated in a variety of different studies.” However, reading further, the article claims that, in longer studies, “recidivism rates move closer together for restorative and convention criminal justice participants.” Additionally, I worry that any nonstandardized process, when given over to widespread practice, could feed on people’s innate desire for retribution instead of serving justice. In the end, the report has raised bigger questions for me than it answers. I look forward to more research, and I hope that my fears are not confirmed.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Just last week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released somber figures regarding the victimization of blacks in America.  The numbers, compiled from BJS and FBI reports, indicate that although black Americans constituted only 13 percent of the national population in 2005, they were the victims of 49 percent of all homicides that same year.  Furthermore, black homicide victims tended to be much younger than white or Hispanic victims, and in an overwhelming majority of cases, black homicide victims were murdered by black offenders.  In general, black Americans are statistically more likely to be victimized by violence than any other race, and this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed by communities directly.

People resort to violent lifestyles out of desperation and the belief that they have no other choice in life.  Some young blacks seem particularly disenchanted with the idea that they control their own destinies, and seem to believe that there are few alternatives to violence in the desperate situations they face every day.  Furthermore, I think that teachers, lawmakers, community leaders, and other so-called “leaders” are not doing enough to instill hope in our younger generations.

All of us, black, white, Hispanic, and others, should place more of an emphasis on education.  On top of that, communities everywhere should embrace afterschool and extracurricular activities as good alternatives to releasing children onto the streets after school.  This has been shown time and time again to reduce crime in the children's neighborhoods.  We should reassure younger generations that they do, in fact, control their own destinies and that they can always choose nonviolence above all else.  Finally, and more often, we should invoke the names of great Americans, of today and of yesteryear, as role models. Martin Luther King, Jr., Maya Angelou, Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Cesar Chavez are all great leaders who practiced nonviolence whose names come to mind quickly. There are many others, both black and white. We should teach our kids more about them. 

Failure to Communicate: Addressing Issues Faced by the Deaf Community

While reading a recent article in the National Institute of Justice Journal about a study on the needs of victims of sexual assault in the deaf community, I was struck by the similarities between the deaf and immigrant communities.

The Council on Crime and Justice study highlighted in the NIJ Journal, Understanding the Needs of the Victims of Sexual Assault in the Deaf Community (PDF), focuses on the importance of viewing deaf people as members of a linguistic and cultural community. Traditionally, hearing culture tends to define deafness as a disability and as such, has focused on studying disabled populations as a whole without acknowledging the unique character of cultural deafness. To understand the needs of this community as a language or cultural group, the study highlights the importance of acknowledging American Sign Language (ASL) as an independent language apart from English. It also urges that the deaf community’s distinct culture and mores be recognized.

Some of the problems highlighted in the NIJ Journal are remarkably similar to issues faced by members of new immigrant communities. These include the reluctance of victims to report crimes or to reach out to service agencies because most of them do not have systems for effectively communicating with deaf people, and the feelings of guilt and embarrassment that are compounded due to the small and generally close-knit nature of the deaf community.  A research brief (PDF) from the National Institute of Justice on immigrant populations as victims has similar findings to the study of the deaf community; both communities tend to underreport crimes, particularly incidents involving perpetrators from the same ethnic or cultural group as the victim.

The Council on Crime and Justice’s study highlights the efforts made by a Minnesota program, Community Solutions: Crime Prevention & Safety for People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (more info at Lifetrack Resources), which provides workshops on crime and safety to the deaf community and educates law enforcement agencies on deaf culture and communication.  I think the program’s concept is entirely valid. It is, in brief, that to address the crime prevention and safety needs of people who are deaf or hard of hearing, all community components must be involved, and this includes families, schools, churches, businesses, and state and local governments. 

For crime prevention programs to be successful, we need to build strong community coalitions that involve different cultural groups and help them understand their rights and responsibilities within the legal system. This way, we can foster a climate where these groups will want to collaborate with law enforcement to prevent crime.

Courtrooms Play Host to the War on Gangs

Deadly shootings and drug dealing are just two of the problems that gangs bring to our cities, and local officials are looking for new ways to confront the gang problem. In some locales, law enforcement has decided to take the battle into a new field, the courtroom, by filing lawsuits against gang members in an attempt to stop their criminal activity.  Now, when an individual is picked up for a crime and identified as being affiliated with a gang, officials are attempting to file lawsuits that bar that person from standing in a certain area or even sitting in his or her car in an area that is associated with gang activity.

A Seattle Times article highlighted two cities that are in the forefront of this approach: Fort Worth, TX, and San Francisco, CA.  Both cities have filed lawsuits against gang members that request that the courts prohibit such things as congregating together on street corners and cars in certain areas.  The idea behind barring these activities is to stop the escalation of crime that often occurs when gang members congregate.  Additionally, this would allow police a legal reason to stop and question gang members.

Preventative approaches such as this are not new.  According to the article, similar lawsuits were first filed in the 1980s against the Playboy Gangster Crips, and covered the entire city of Los Angeles.  Since then however, cities have limited their lawsuits to specific gangs or gang members.  This appears not only to have reduced crime, but also to have reduced opposition to the lawsuits. 

Although, this approach may appear proactive in nature, the legal community must be aware of its possible ramifications. 

For instance, how will individuals be targeted?  Essentially, congregating in cars or in public areas is an otherwise lawful activity.  How will police distinguish between innocent youth who are just “hanging out” and those who are gathering for law-breaking purposes?  The new approach could potentially and unfairly target some youth and trample on their rights.  Furthermore, if injunctions like these are put in place, what would stop some gang members from simply moving their activities outside the covered zone?  If the life of a gang member involves maneuvering around the law, I would presume that civil injunctions would not deter many from continuing their gang lifestyles. 

Although this approach is a great start, perhaps future approaches would do well to take it a bit further.  However efficient and effectively youth continue to be incarcerated, such punishment may ultimately serve no lasting effect.  I believe that the answer lies in more than just taking the “problem” off public streets and leaving gang members to fester in jail. Instead, we must design programs that specifically offer gang members the means to pursue an alternative lifestyle and ensure that these programs are supported by the community and local school system.  These programs should address the very root causes that often lead youth to join gangs such as lack of familial support and social and academic development.  The belief that “there is no other lifestyle” is often heard from many of those involved in gangs. It is up to the community and legal system to show them that there is.

Does It Add Up?

How much danger are young people in when they go online? Are they in greater danger of being bullied when they reply to comments on Facebook than they are in the cafeteria at school? How many are solicited for illicit encounters online each year? Depending on what you read, you may get very different answers to these questions. A recent report by Grunwald Associates LLC that was funded by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon claims that the web is a surprisingly safe place. Critical reading, however, makes me incredulous.

The report offers two interesting sections: one is on the different habits of teens online and the other is on the reported level of danger to teens online. The authors sort teens into two groups: conformists (78 percent) and nonconformists (22 percent). Nonconformists are “students who step outside of online safety and behavior rules.” These teens may use “inappropriate language,” post “inappropriate pictures,” or share personal information that may endanger them. The language of the report, however, downplays any potential danger to “nonconformists” (a loaded term at best) and offers instead a rosy view of their internet usage: nonconformists “are on the cutting edge of social networking with online behaviors and skills that indicate leadership among their peers.” Reasonably, to me it makes sense that the less risk-averse teens would also be the teens who use more advanced online features. Unfortunately, risk-taking teens also place themselves in greater danger by being on the cutting edge, something the report downplays.

The report also asserts a number of interesting statistics about the number of youth who report problems online. According to this report, only seven percent of students “say they’ve experienced self-defined cyberbullying.” Additionally, only 18 percent “say they have seen inappropriate language on social networking sites,” and only 20 percent have seen inappropriate pictures. Comfortingly (if you believe the numbers), only four percent have “had conversations on social networking sites that made them uncomfortable,” and only .08 percent “say they’ve actually met someone in person from an online encounter without their parents’ permission.” I have little doubt that News Corporation, owner of MySpace, was happy with the results of the report; MySpace has received a great deal of flak in the media for the risks it may pose to youth.

I don’t believe many of these numbers. NCPC’s own research, conducted in conjunction with Harris Interactive, shows that 43 percent of teens experienced some form of cyberbullying in the past year, a number that is in line with the results of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Although I do worry that the media inflates the risks of online life for youth a bit (because faceless strangers preying on youth is a scary story), I also have a very hard time believing that only 20 percent of teens have seen inappropriate language online — unless my definition of inappropriate language is far, far from that of teens.

In the end, it may be impossible to accurately gauge the risks of the Internet for youth. However, none of the reports claim that the web is risk-free. Thus, parents and community leaders should keep teaching kids crime prevention techniques for general Internet use, social networking, and cyberbullying. Once crime prevention education is a really standard part of teens’ upbringings, I may find results like these easier to believe — although I doubt I’d ever swallow the statistic about inappropriate language.

Hat tip to Ars Technica.

Violence Behind Dog Fighting Does Not End in the Pit

I grew up learning how to respect, love, and care for all types of animals and, as an adult, I have put this to use volunteering with animal rescue groups. As such, I was heartbroken to hear about Michael Vick and the alleged dog fighting ring (PDF) that has been in the headlines. Unfortunately, even though dog fighting is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and even though the federal Animal Welfare Act prohibits the interstate transportation of dogs for fighting purposes, dog fights still take place every day. As horrendous as dog fighting is, it is only one type of intentional cruelty aimed at animals, which is defined as knowingly depriving an animal of essential needs or maliciously torturing, maiming, mutilating, or killing an animal. And each state handles cases differently.

I have animals that live with me and I’m not alone. Three-fourths of households in the United States with school-age children have at least one household pet. Why do people abuse these companions that we knowingly bring into our lives, let into our homes, and open our hearts to? Control.

Animal abuse or cruelty is motivated by feelings similar to those underlying domestic violence and bullying. Abusers learn that by hurting animals, they can also manipulate other people in their lives who don’t want to see the animals suffer. Also by seeing the animal suffer, family members realize the abuser could just as easily turn on them and consequently fear for their own lives too. In fact, studies have shown that 85 percent of battered women in shelters also report their abuser turning against the family pets.

But this study only looks at the people who have sought help. There are people who won’t leave the abuser because they are scared that the abuser will take action against their animals. “Colleen” did separate from her boyfriend, who had hit her, and in turn he retaliated by drowning Rumney, her border collie. The Humane Society of the United States created a program called Safe Havens for Animals™  that provides temporary boarding and care for the victims’ pets. Veterinarians are also working with their local law enforcement on suspected animal abuse cases.

You too can help by starting an animal watch in your neighborhood. Like Neighborhood Watch, it involves neighbors helping neighbors. You can do this by:

• Knowing your neighborhood’s pets
• Paying attention to abuse, neglect, and abandonment
• Watching for pets in parked cars, especially during the heat of summer and the cold of winter
• Remembering that wild creatures such as squirrels and birds are also susceptible to abuse
• Creating a neighborhood dog park
• Working with local law enforcement, animal shelters, and other groups

If you’re interested in learning more or starting an animal watch, visit First Strike.

We can decrease the number of both animals and people who are put through this senseless suffering by working together with veterinarians, individuals, neighbors, law enforcement, animal control and others. Children should be taught at a young age not just to respect others, but to value life overall, whether it be a person, dog, guinea pig, bird or any other animal. And you can start today by adopting a companion.

To give a dog, cat, or other companion animal a second chance, visit your local shelter or animal rescue group or go to www.petfinder.com where you can search near you for your new friend.

I’ve seen the quote, "In a perfect world, every dog would have a home and every home would have a dog." I’d like to change that to say, "In a perfect world, every dog would have a good home and every home would have a dog," because just having a home isn’t enough.

Special thanks to my companions, Gracie, King, and Kona, for their inspiration.