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  1. #1
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    Law Enforcement News

    Role of Prisons Put in Focus After LODDs

    The end of January has been a deadly time for police officers around the country. The shootings and killings - which felled 12 officers and a U.S. marshal's deputy over five days - began with two Miami police officers being shot and killed on Jan. 20 while trying to serve an arrest warrant on a fugitive wanted for murder. Four days later, an Indianapolis officer was shot in the head during a traffic stop and died in the hospital.

    The same day, four officers were shot in Detroit, two deputies in Port Orchard, Wash., and another officer in Lincoln City, Ore. Then, Monday morning in St. Petersburg, two police officers and a U.S. marshal's deputy were shot while attempting to serve an arrest warrant at a home.

    The two officers died.

    Which raises the question: Even as overall violent crime is declining across the nation, is this sudden rash of police shootings the beginning of an era marked by an escalation of brazen, cold-blooded cop killers?

    "It appears it is. More and more criminals are out there to pop a cop," said Steve Groeninger, spokesman for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington, D.C. He points to 78 officers feloniously killed in 2010, a dramatic upswing from the 2009 number of 48, and headlines like this one in the Indianapolis Star: "Cop Killing is Part of Disturbing U.S. Trend."

    But criminologists around the country disagree. They say the 2010 number will be closer to 50 when the FBI releases it, and they point to long-term FBI statistics that show a decrease in felonious killings of police officers between 1973 and 2010 - despite a few upticks. It's too soon to tell if this trend has shifted, they say. Furthermore, they agree it's extremely rare for someone to pull a trigger because the sole purpose is to "pop a cop."

    "Some people are asking if there are more sociopaths out there set on killing police, when the question should be: Are there more people out there who will do anything not to be taken into custody?" said University of South Florida criminology associate professor Lori Fridell.

    "The answer is yes and the question becomes: Why?"

    FBI statistics between 2000 and 2009 show that 62 percent of cop killers were previously convicted of crimes, many having done time. Does prison experience make some released convicts more likely to do anything to avoid being returned?

    Ron McAndrew, a former warden at Florida State Prison, a death row facility known for being the harshest prison in the state, has strong opinions about the role prisons play in released inmates' desperation when facing return.

    "In Florida, most inmates come out of prison 10 times worse than when they went in. We have a grand opportunity to make them participate in school, learn a trade and do all sorts of things to become worthwhile. But, instead, we throw them into an environment where they have to fight to stay alive, then complain when they get out and commit more crimes."

    In the case of the late St. Petersburg cop killer and former convict Hydra Lacy Jr., corrections records show he worked sporadically as a food server, a grounds man and a clinic aid in prison but was frequently put in solitary confinement between late 1992 and 2000 for fighting, "disrespecting officials" and "disobeying an order." He spent close to three years in solitary.

    McAndrew says he's "very pro law enforcement," but knows enough about the prison environment to understand why a former convict - especially one who spent so much time in solitary - could "go off the deep end" if threatened with return to prison.

    Beth Huebner, criminal justice associate professor at the University of Missouri, agrees with McAndrew: "Prisons are more crowded than ever, and there's less money and fewer programs to rehabilitate inmates," she says. Another problem she sees is that many prisoners aren't followed with community services once they're released and return to the same environment that got them in trouble in the first place - often an environment rife with illegal guns.

    FBI statistics from 2000 through 2009 show that of the 536 officers feloniously killed, 490 were killed with firearms - most with illegally obtained 9-millimeter handguns. The majority of these killings occurred when officers were trying to make an arrest. In 2009, 48 officers were feloniously killed - eight while serving arrest warrants.

    Gary Kleck, professor of criminology at Florida State University, predicts that despite the spate of police killings this month, the numbers will go down as the year continues and will be close to the average of 50 police deaths a year by the end of 2011.

    "You mark my word," he says. "The number of recent shootings are a fluke, not a trend."

    Police officers have become increasingly invulnerable with better training, tactics, weapons and body armor, Kleck says, and if it weren't for the "huge proliferation of illegal guns" the numbers would be lower.

    He concedes that gun laws are easy to circumvent because criminals simply buy them from private individuals or steal them, but he thinks it would help if police made more arrests for illegal gun carrying.

    "When someone is stopped for reasonable suspicion, police should do pat downs and search cars," he says. "We have to find ways to lessen the number of illegal guns out there."

    Dave Klinger, associate professor of criminology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, also worries about the number of illegal guns, but he doesn't see them as a main contributor to police killings.

    "Guns are guns. Bad people do bad things with guns. Period," he says.

    Instead, he says, when police are killed, we need to look at "tactical decision making."

    As an example, he points to Hydra Lacy hiding in the attic of the St. Petersburg house and shooting officers Jeffrey Yaslowitz and Thomas Baitinger, who were there to arrest him.

    "Why go into that attic in the first place?" asks Klinger. "Where was command and control?"

    Criminologists readily acknowledge that every situation when police are killed is different and must be looked at individually. But they also say they see the same things over and over: Former convicts about to be arrested who are desperate not to return to prison. Easy access to illegal guns. Police doing what they do every day and letting their guard down. Slips in tactical decisions and command and control.

    And, very infrequently, a criminal dead set on popping a cop.

    "The one thing we can say is that if someone is out to do harm - for whatever reason - you can take all precautions," says Elizabeth Watts, spokesman for the Clearwater Police Department. "But it won't matter if they're determined."

    http://www.officer.com/online/articl...ion=1&id=56543

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    Officer’s suicide fits familiar pattern


    Wednesday Feburary 17, 2011--A self-portrait by Sgt. William Vize showing himself as a knight playing chess against himself. The photo hangs in the living room of his home in St. Louis. Below the painting are pictures of Vize in his police uniform from his 17 years of service in the St. Louis Police department. Vize took his own life in December. David Carson dcarson@post-dispatch.com

    City police Sgt. William Vize's living room offers a glimpse of how he looked at his life before deciding to end it two months ago.

    Foremost an artist, Vize decorated the tall walls with a host of self-portraits. In one, Vize is a clown with a red smile. In another, he's a knight, competing against himself in a game of chess. A piece with a dramatic sweep illustrates him deciding to become a police officer amid the dark influences of society.

    In the corner of the room, a replica of a skull stares back from the top of his computer screen. Over the years, he did hundreds of composite sketches of crime suspects for the police department.

    There's a cut-out newspaper photo nearby of Vize walking side by side with then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a time when he was hailed as a symbol of community policing.

    His career path wound up taking a drastic turn. Frustrated with bosses and under department scrutiny at the end, Vize became a face of the silent killer of cops.

    On duty early Dec. 18, officials said, he put his service pistol to his head and shot himself in an overgrown lot near the Mississippi River.

    He was 45 and just three years from receiving a pension. He left behind a wife, two teenage boys, his parents and a brother.

    Carolyn Vize, his wife of 20 years, said she doesn't believe it was a suicide. She isn't satisfied with the investigation and wishes now she had listened to his stories more closely.

    "Bill talked so much," she said. "Every day, he came home and would go on and on about work. I wish I'd paid better attention or written it down. I never thought we'd need that information.

    "His death was a complete and total shock to us," she said.

    For one thing, he didn't leave a note. Family said he was so communicative that he would have left behind a book. And he knew from his work the kind of stress suicide puts on children.

    But his case bears the markings that psychologists say are key indicators of being at a higher risk for suicide.

    He was a white male between 45 and 54. He had easy access to a gun and was trained to use it. He felt unneeded. (Police had stopped using his artistic skills.) He was frustrated. (He had worn co-workers thin lambasting the department for minimizing crime statistics.)

    And there was a fresh allegation that he sexually assaulted someone while on duty.

    "I can understand the wife trying to make sense of something, and sometimes it's very difficult, but there is absolutely nothing in the investigation that indicates anything other than suicide," St. Louis Police Chief Dan Isom said in an interview Wednesday.

    Vize was buried quietly, without a formal police motorcade or honor guard.

    "It makes it difficult because here's an officer who has committed suicide but at the same time there were some very serious allegations that were being investigated prior to his death," Isom said. "We've got to recognize the sensitivity of disparaging an officer with allegations that have not yet been substantiated and causing undue stress to his family."

    Isom wasn't sure how many officers have committed suicide in his department, but he said the rates are high among police officers compared to most other professions.

    "This is an extremely stressful job and along with that creates some mental illness problems," he said.

    Six weeks after Vize pulled the trigger, another local officer did the same.

    Sgt. Michael J. Amrein, 47, a 21-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department, shot himself in his patrol car about noon Jan. 29 in the parking lot of Rockwood Summit High School in Fenton.

    It was a surprise to his department, officials said. Among his other accolades, he was the 2006 winner of the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association's Medal of Valor.

    ‘FERTILE ARENA FOR SUICIDE'

    Finding accurate data on police suicides is difficult because state or federal agencies don't track them. According to a study published in the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, 141 U.S. officers committed suicide in 2008, three times the number who were considered homicide victims that year.

    Meanwhile, the National Police Suicide Foundation estimates the total at more than 400 a year, counting retired officers and figures from Native American police forces.

    Researchers continue to debate yearly estimates but generally agree that more police kill themselves than are killed by others, which is the same for the general population.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the suicide rate for the general population is 11.5 for every 100,000 people, with 35,000 reported each year. A study at Radford University in Virginia estimated the suicide rate for police is 50 percent higher.

    "The job is a fertile arena for suicide," said John Violanti, a professor at State University of New York in Buffalo. "They have a gun, and there's exposure to trauma."

    Police suicide is also linked to marital problems, drug and alcohol abuse, work-related stress, guilt for not saving someone, legal problems and loss of respect by peers.

    "One of the worst things you can do is have somebody ostracized because police work is a very peer-oriented occupation," said Herb Nieburg, associate professor of law and justice and policy studies at Mitchell College in New London, Conn.

    Police can be their own worst critics. So deeply invested in their careers, they often react strongly when their image is threatened, Laurence Miller, a police psychologist in Boca Raton, Fla., wrote in a 2005 study.

    When police find themselves under criminal investigation, they "may fear the loss of status and identity of the police role, and for some overly emotionally invested officers, this may be too much to bear."

    Many experts agree that police departments should do more to encourage officers to seek yearly mental health counseling.

    Among the biggest obstacles, said Sgt. Clarence Hines, who heads a team that supports city officers involved in traumatic on-the-job encounters, is persuading officers to "step from behind the blue wall" and seek help when they need it.

    "They're worried about being judged, worried about perception and to some extent they may be worried about repercussions," he said.

    ABOUT-FACE

    A photograph of Vize in uniform was chosen for the cover of the police department's 1994 annual report.

    A year later, he was a symbol of President Bill Clinton's initiative to put 100,000 foot patrol officers on the streets. Vize gave Reno and then-House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-St. Louis, a walking tour of his beat at the time in Dogtown.

    In front of cameras that day, Vize told Reno how he had gathered enough information to return a missing power saw to its owner. Walking instead of driving, he said, earned him better trust. Residents came out of their homes to tell the entourage his presence made them feel safer.

    Without the basic police work like Vize was doing, Reno said, "the whole standard of society breaks down."

    Vize was on a roll. Two years later he was named officer of the year of a district in north St. Louis.

    But by 2010, Vize's career was cooling.

    He was sent home 10 minutes into his shift for arguing or fighting with a peer, family said. He also clashed with commanders.

    Vize was frustrated with the department's revamped method of counting crimes to lower statistics.

    In a Post-Dispatch interview in November about his sketch work, Vize criticized department brass for staging "dog and pony" shows based on crime statistics, trends and new investigative approaches that he thought didn't really reduce crime.

    He specifically criticized the formation of a district task force designed to reduce residential burglaries, an idea he says was done in one of the despised weekly meetings.

    "If you have one bright idea on how to prevent a residential burglary, you let me know," he said.

    Last year, the Post-Dispatch disclosed that the city had begun counting multiple property crimes that happen close together as one incident, even when there are multiple victims, under the FBI report guidelines' "time and place" rule.

    Vize said he thought it masked a bleak picture of crime in St. Louis. As a sergeant, he carried authority to review incident reports. When he saw burglary reports changed further up the line to a lesser offense, Vize was furious, his family said. A colleague at work said Vize even tried to change the charges back to burglaries, apparently to no avail.

    Soon after, Vize was moved to the overnight shift.

    In November, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University hired him to draw forensic sketches from people's recollections of their first loves. He told a reporter then that he thought the police department undervalued his skills as an artist.

    He also spoke of how 17 years in law enforcement changed him.

    "I went into being a police officer for all the right reasons," he said. "I wanted to change the world."

    Though he said he'd had some victories, "probably, in reality, the world has changed me a little bit more."

    Vize did 14 sketches during his gig at Kemper. He had an appointment to do one more on Dec. 18, the day he died.

    FINDING SGT. VIZE

    On early morning duty the weekend before his death, Vize crossed paths with a distressed woman and gave her a ride home. Several hours later, she made a formal complaint to the department, alleging sexual assault.

    Internal affairs officers arrived at his doorstep the next day, a Sunday, asking him to grab his duty belt and come downtown. His wife said he stalled, trying to contact an attorney, but eventually complied.

    As part of their inquiry, internal affairs detectives seized Vize's handcuffs, according to police records. Later that night, he went back to work. It went poorly.

    "It seemed that everyone knew more than he did," said Carolyn Vize. "Other officers said they had heard he was suicidal."

    They kept asking him if the allegations were true, she said. Vize told his wife they weren't.

    Throughout the week, officers kept calling him, even some he didn't know well.

    Before heading out to his 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift Dec. 17, Vize set his alarm clock for 1 p.m. the next day, to be sure he would be up for the last sketch appointment. He and his wife had been discussing plans to attend a Christmas party that a lieutenant was hosting.

    Vize briefly chatted with dispatchers by radio. By 3 a.m. he didn't answer, and a search that included a police helicopter was launched. His locked patrol car was found at the end of Angelica Street, near the river. He turned up nearby, at a former industrial site now littered with fallen trees and cinder blocks.

    The isolated area is surrounded by railroad tracks. Interstate 70 traffic hums in the distance. On a recent day, a long strand of yellow police tape lay half-buried in ice and snow.

    "I wish he would have called me," said a sergeant who knew Vize well. "I am still mad at him."

    THROWING PUNCHES

    The BackStoppers is a charity in St. Louis that provides financial help to the families of public safety workers killed in the line of duty. The annual Guns 'N Hoses boxing showdown between police and firefighters is its major fundraiser.

    Vize, 5-foot-7, 150 pounds and at the top of his game, trained for months for the 1997 event. The Kiel Center downtown pulsed with more than 10,000 spectators when Vize lined up in the opposite corner from Danny Picarella, a firefighter from Glen Carbon.

    "He came out like a bull," recalled Picarella, now 43, who described the bout in terms of a back-alley fight. Picarella tripped a few times in the first round, and Vize held his own. But the match was reported as the comeback of the night, with Vize losing in a 5-0 decision.

    "He kind of tired himself from throwing punches," Picarella said.

    Vize gave his all for the BackStoppers that night, but by its rules the organization cannot backstop his wife and children. Families left behind by line-of-duty deaths qualify, explained Ron Battelle, a former St. Louis County police chief who is now the BackStoppers' director. Families of those who commit suicide don't.

    "They realize what our mission is," Battelle said. "Certainly there are inquiries," he noted, adding, "they understand."

    A tall trophy from the Guns 'N Hoses fight rests on top of a bookshelf in the Vize family living room. It's above a row of Cub Scout "Pinewood Derby" cars - one that looks like a patrol car - a few chess boards and dozens of miniature knights that Vize used as models for his paintings.

    His family isn't sure what will become of the room - particularly the corner where he often sat at the computer - and how they will manage in a house so dominated by his personality. His paintings are scattered all over. A collage of composite sketches bearing his signature lines the stairwell.

    "My boys and I are pretty quiet people, and he wasn't," said his widow. "It's just been very different in the house since he left."

    http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/c...292423e84.html

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    New Warden Mike Martel Takes Reigns At San Quentin

    A veteran of the state corrections system has been tapped to take over at San Quentin State Prison, where he started his career 30 years ago.

    Mike Martel, 56, became warden at the state's oldest prison on Feb. 22.

    "It's an honor for me," he said. "This is my last job that I anticipate having so I like the fact that I'm going to complete my career at the place where I started."

    Martel takes over amid state budget problems and court battles over California's lethal injection procedures and a plan for a $356 million death row complex at San Quentin.

    He said he would focus his attention on the safety of inmates and staff and on complying with court orders, leaving larger policy questions to others.

    "Those are decisions that the Legislature and the public and the governor's office make," he said. "When instructions are given I will try to make sure that we comply in an efficient and fiscally sound manner."

    The prison has struggled with heavy turnover in the warden's job in recent years, with three chiefs from 1984 to 2004 — but seven in the years since. Martel's predecessor, Vincent Cullen, was hired in January 2010 but was replaced when he failed to be confirmed in an evaluation after a year as acting warden.

    California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said Cullen would be reassigned to another job within the department.

    "Mr. Cullen was effective at maintaining
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    the sound operation of San Quentin during his time as acting warden, but it was decided that an alternate placement was more appropriate at this time," Hidalgo wrote in an e-mail.

    Martel, who became eligible for full pension benefits at age 50, said he does not anticipate retiring anytime soon. He is earning $122,000 a year.

    "Right now I have all the support of my family," he said. "I have very good health. I still have a lot of drive. I still have a lot of ambition and goals."

    A native of Niagara Falls, N.Y., Martel worked in his family's restaurant and attended college on and off before moving west and finding a job as a San Quentin correctional officer in 1981. He left the prison in 1986 and served in a number of jobs elsewhere in the corrections department, most recently as warden at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, southeast of Sacramento.

    "What I lack in education, I have a tremendous amount of experience and common sense," he said.

    Martel is stepping into a "very tough job" and will face a number of challenges such as overcrowding and staffing shortages, said Jeanne Woodford, who was warden from 1999 to 2004 and head of the corrections department from 2004 to 2006.

    "The warden is expected to really be addressing any issue," she said.

    "My only advice would be to continue to work with the wonderful community in the Bay Area," she said, referring to the nonprofit groups that work with the prison population.

    http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_17542290

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    DA, police union push bill to scrap coroner's inquests; critics outraged (Nevada)

    Coroner's inquests into killings by police would be scrapped under a bill that the district attorney and local police union are trying to push through the Legislature.

    Assembly Bill 320 would gut Clark County's 40-year-old system that probes deaths at the hands of police, a contentious process that recently was revamped to quell public outrage about questionable inquest findings.

    A key change, giving families appointed counsel at hearings, has irked many officers who say they will refuse to participate rather than be cross-examined.

    After losing the battle to fend off reforms with the County Commission, the police union is now fighting in Carson City to dissolve inquests before the first case is heard under the new rules.

    If the bill passes, the district attorney would investigate the deadly incidents and determine whether to file criminal charges. Information from the investigations would be made public.

    The bill has inflamed civil rights advocates who argue that it would scuttle a system essential for holding police accountable in taking a human life.

    Proponents contend that inquests have strayed too far from the original intent of finding facts and have become adversarial, making officers not want to take part.

    Introduced by Assemblyman John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, the bill is in an early stage, with an uncertain fate.

    The first hearing on the bill was held by the Assembly Government Affairs Committee on Monday. It will resume Thursday to gather more testimony.

    The bill must make it out of its first committee by Friday or it will be declared dead for the session.

    ACLU CRITICIZES BILL

    Scrapping the inquests would turn the clock back decades and waste the work of advisory panels who spent many hours hammering out ways to bolster the public's trust, said Maggie McLetchie, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

    "I think it's inappropriate for the Legislature to circumvent the will of the people of Clark County," McLetchie said. "We haven't even had a chance to see how the new system works. All the important rights we fought for ... would be gone."

    County commissioners approved reforms in January, such as allowing families representation at inquests, disclosing investigative files before hearings and eliminating jury verdicts. But the first case using the new guidelines won't be heard for at least a month.

    That probably will be the case of Eduardo Lopez-Hernandez, who died last year after Nevada Highway Patrol officers stunned him with electronic devices.

    A local police union leader insists he isn't reacting just to the latest inquest overhaul, but to cumulative changes over the years.

    "We've always believed the inquest process was not necessary," said Chris Collins, head of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association. "We lived with it, tolerated it. There are remedies to get to what you want without inquests."

    The district attorney can look into a police killing and determine whether the officer did anything wrong, Collins said. If the family is dissatisfied with the outcome and wants to delve deeper, it can file a lawsuit, he said.

    No other county in the state has inquests, and few places in the nation do, Collins said, arguing that local police should not be treated differently here than anywhere else.

    But Richard Boulware, a local NAACP vice president, said Collins was mistaken. Most local governments in the country have independent boards, prosecutors or task forces that probe police killings -- they're just not called inquests, he said.

    "The officers don't understand that the community wants them to be held accountable for taking the life of an individual," Boulware said, adding that "very, very disturbing incidents" spurred reforms.

    CASES THAT SPARKED REFORM

    Commissioners formed an advisory panel last year to suggest changes in the system after inquest juries found officers justified in two contentious cases: those of Trevon Cole and Erik Scott.

    Cole, 21, a small-time marijuana dealer, was shot and killed by Las Vegas police while unarmed in his apartment.

    Scott, 38, a medical device salesman and West Point graduate, was killed outside a Costco in Summerlin by officers who said he drew a gun.

    Collins, McLetchie and Boulware were among those on the panel.

    About five years ago, police fatally shot 17-year-old murder suspect Swuave Lopez in the back while he was handcuffed and fleeing. An inquest jury found the shooting justified, spurring an outcry that led to the first inquest review panel being formed in 2006.

    District Attorney David Roger said he disagreed with how the inquest system has been reshaped. The new procedures will make inquests more time-consuming and, in turn, more expensive, Roger said.

    Supplying the requisite two attorneys for each hearing will cost more than $100,000 yearly, he estimated. "I just don't have the resources."

    Commissioner Steve Sisolak initiated the most reforms and later opposed giving suspects' families representation at inquests.

    He said he understood why police officers would be disenchanted.

    "I see their side to it," Sisolak said. "I wish there could've been a common ground reached."

    But Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said police should welcome more scrutiny to avoid the perception of secretive dealings behind closed doors.

    "In this age of transparency, wouldn't they want to have more transparency?" she asked.

    And if Roger wants to save money, he should quit pursuing so many death penalty cases, which has cost the county more than $20 million, she said.

    Rory Reid, a former commissioner who voted for reforms, said it was unfortunate that the union "wants to do an end run around the process" just because it dislikes the changes that much of the public called for.

    He doesn't think such a complex problem should be tossed to a busy Legislature to solve.

    "We spent hours and hours on this," Reid said. "I don't see how the Legislature will have the time to devote to this, given all that's in front of them."

    http://www.lvrj.com/news/da-police-u...119742509.html

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    How the American Prison Population Grew

    The U.S. now has over 2,300,000 inmates in its state and federal prisons. Our entire correctional population, including those on probation and parole, is well over 7,000,000. The expansion of the American prison population to budget-busting levels occurred in several ways, all of them starting in the last half of the twentieth century:

    Destruction of the Family & Marriage. The destruction or non-formation of the two-parent family is heavily correlated with increased levels of juvenile delinquency and crime. Youth from father-absent households, especially those who never had a father in the household, have significantly higher incarceration rates. Marriage significantly discourages crime, but was increasingly not available for that purpose as more were incarcerated.

    Death Penalty Decline. The death penalty came under increasing attacks. For a few years, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively stopped it with one of their rulings. Eventually, executions resumed, but on a smaller scale than earlier in the twentieth century. Instead of eliminating the worst criminals, we asked modern penitentiaries to keep convicted murderers, rapists and other dangerous criminals alive until they died in prison, either naturally or by execution.

    Illegal Drugs & the War on Drugs. New illegal drugs or new forms of those drugs were discovered and developed. A War on Drugs swelled the prison population. Unlike real war combatants who destroy or disable their enemies, the government only puts the enemy in cages temporarily, and then releases drug war POWs to fight another day. The War on Drugs proceeded locally, nationally and internationally in the hopeless supply-side attack mode.

    Victims' Rights Movements & Getting Tough on Crime.The U.S. Supreme Court greatly developed criminal constitutional rights favoring the accused. A backlash ensued, and the campaign for victims' rights followed. Advocates for crime victims supported tougher laws. Voters elected politicians for being tough on crime and defeated them for being soft on crime.

    Abolition of Parole in the Federal System. In 1984, Congress "recognized that the efforts of the criminal justice system to achieve rehabilitation of offenders had failed." The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 abolished parole in the federal system, sought to eliminate huge sentencing disparities, basically made all federal sentences determinate, rejected "imprisonment as a means of promoting rehabilitation," and said "punishment should serve retributive, educational, deterrent, and incapacitative goals."

    Mandatory Minimum Sentences. The federal government and states enacted various mandatory minimum sentence laws, requiring judges to impose minimum sentences for designated crimes, including drug crimes. These laws took discretion away from judges, some of whom were seen as too lenient, gave that discretion to prosecutors, and supposedly equalized punishment. These laws significantly increased the length of prison terms. Federal drug convictions started drawing two or three times the years previously imposed.

    Three-Strikes Habitual Offender Laws. The violent career criminal was condemned. Starting with Oregon in 1993, within just a few years many states rushed to enact three-strikes habitual offender laws, before seeing the results. Three-strikes habitual offender laws in many states mandated life sentences after the third felony conviction.

    Incarceration of the Mentally Ill. Courts re-examined the institutionalization of the mentally ill, started requiring formal commitment hearings, and allowed the freer release of mental patients if not deemed a threat to themselves or others. In large numbers, medicated, sedated and restrained mental patients left the hospitals controlling them. Lofty ideals justified this restructuring. These patients returned to their communities or families, received uneven treatment, and often found life difficult. Many became homeless. As mental hospitals de-institutionalized and drastically reduced the number of their patients, the mentally ill increasingly wound up in prison. Mentally ill people in large numbers changed from institutionalization in state mental hospitals to incarceration in state prisons. Around 16% of the current American prison population is mentally ill.

    Prison Time Does Not Deter Enough Crime. The public recognized prisons were ineffective rehabilitation mechanisms - and then poured on more time there. The remedy to re-impose law and order was the only common penalty in sight: more prison time. Additional years in prison do not generally enhance deterrence. Although the prospect of prison time is a general deterrent to crime, the marginal deterrence of longer prison sentences is doubtful. The Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University concluded, "that the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects." Criminals notoriously lack long-distance foresight.

    Editor's note: Corrections.com author John Dewar Gleissner, Esq. graduated from Auburn University (B.A. with Honor, 1973) and Vanderbilt University School of Law (1977), where he won the Editor's Award and participated in the Men's Penitentiary Project. In addition to practicing law in Alabama for the last 33 years, Mr. Gleissner is the author of the new book "Prison and Slavery - A Surprising Comparison"

    http://www.corrections.com/news/arti...opulation-grew

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    Wichita police to tweet one hour's worth of calls Thursday

    WICHITA - Wichita residents will get an online glimpse of what police deal with for one hour Thursday through the social media site Twitter.

    The Wichita Police Department announced this morning, on Twitter, that it will post all of its dispatch calls from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on its Twitter page.

    Police say they will give a summary of calls.

    On Twitter, people around Wichita began sharing the news with their friends. All but one of the first nine reactions welcomed the experiment.

    "I'm now following, specifically because you are going to do that," Walker Schwartz said.

    "OK, that's a flat out cool idea," added Davis Ray Sickmon Jr.

    Police here got the idea after the Seattle Police Department tweeted a day of its dispatches on Tuesday.

    Departments in the U.S. and abroad have provided online, real-time snapshots of dispatches to show the public the volume of calls they receive. In April, police in England tweeted from court to show how busy they were during one morning's docket.

    Follow "WichitaPolice" on Twitter, or see the feed Thursday on Kansas.com.

    Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2011/07/27/195...#ixzz1TKCSoenY

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Police chiefs warn that overcrowding plan could lead to crime wave

    Warning of a possible crime wave, the California Police Chiefs Association met with Gov. Jerry Brown this past week to request money for new officers they say will be needed as lower-risk criminals are released early or supervised more loosely under the state's plan to reduce prison overcrowding.

    The chiefs expressed their concerns to Brown and Corrections Secretary Matt Cate at a half-hour meeting Thursday in Sacramento. Some advocates of the state plan say the chiefs' concerns are highly premature and unwarranted. But the chiefs joined a growing chorus of other law enforcement officials throughout the state, including the plan's biggest critic, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, who called it a "public safety nightmare."

    "We expect more breaking into cars, stealing of mail, ID theft, shoplifting and burglary,'' said Los Gatos Police Chief Scott Seaman, a vice president of the association who attended the meeting. "There will be increased victimization -- and that means an increased workload."

    But Seaman stressed that the chiefs largely support the general philosophy of the plan, including the view that the current system, with a 67.5 percent recidivism rate, has failed at great taxpayer expense.

    Brown and Cate declined to comment Friday.

    The plan, crafted by Brown, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year upheld federal court orders requiring California to reduce the prison population to 137 percent of design capacity, beginning with about 33,000 inmates by May 2013.

    The state will achieve those numbers primarily through a plan shifting responsibility for incarcerating and supervising lower-risk, nonviolent offenders from the state to the 58 counties. The state is providing block grants totaling about $400 million this year to the counties to carry out the plan.

    "The funds ought be concentrated on evidence-based programs that have been shown to reduce recidivism, not to putting more cops on the street in anticipation of a crime wave we have no reason to believe will materialize,'' said Allen Hopper, police practices director of the ACLU Northern California.

    Under the plan, California counties starting next month will have to house inmates convicted of non-violent, non-serious, non-sex offender crimes in county jails, rather than sending them to state prisons. At the same time, newly paroled prisoners meeting the same criteria will become the responsibility of county probation officers rather than state parole agents.

    Even though no current prison inmates will be bused to counties, the gradual influx of an estimated 40,000 newly convicted lower-risk felons in the next few years is expected to overwhelm some local probation departments and jails -- particularly in the 34 counties like Los Angeles whose jails are at capacity or overcrowded.

    To deal with the extra population, counties are expected to turn to a series of incarceration alternatives for their lowest-risk offenders, from drug treatment programs to electronic monitoring to early release. The chiefs say property crime in particular will surge as thousands of petty thieves and drug addicts are let go or enrolled in programs outside jail walls.

    But some advocates say there is little to be gained by continuing to throw lower-risk parolees back in state prison for a few months at a time for technical violations -- like dirty drugs tests -- at great expense. Better results can be gained by imposing intermediate sanctions -- including 10-day "flash'' incarcerations in county jail -- and providing counseling, job training and drug treatment.

    "I don't think this will cause a public-safety disaster at all,'' said Jeanne Woodford, former San Quentin warden and acting head of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who currently directs the nonprofit Death Penalty Focus. "I think it will make California safer.''

    Most of the counties aren't including police departments in the division of funds, allocating the money to sheriffs who run the jails and probation departments who supervise offenders, and to a lesser extent drug treatment, job training and other programs. The plans vary considerably from county to county. The funds are expected to grow annually -- exceeding $1 billion in fiscal year 2013-14.

    Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus, who has been meeting regularly to discuss the plan with other Contra Costa County law enforcement officials, said the $4.5 million the county is slated to get to house and tend to the medical needs of the new inmates and to supervise others is inadequate.

    "It's hard to see how this plan can turn out well," Magnus said. "The situation seems even more dire at a time when cities are cutting back on police staffing and services due to budget and other economic challenges.''

    The Fresno and Clovis police departments are among only a few municipal police departments that will get a piece of the funding pie -- about $95,000 each of a $9 million pot. They plan to use the money to pay two officers, largely to go after people who fail to show up in court or otherwise violate the terms of their supervision. Even so, police say more is needed to combat car theft and other offenses they expect to spike.

    But state revenues already are falling billions of dollars short this year of what was expected, making it harder for Brown to tap the general fund to satisfy the chiefs. But Seaman said the group is hopeful Brown will advocate that cops be included in next year's funding formula.

    Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said he spoke to the governor about the needs of police departments last month when Brown visited the city.

    "I believe the governor looked at it as a valid concern,'' Dyer said. "He is trying to do the right thing for the people of California with a limited budget and the Supreme Court ruling hanging over his head.''

    http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-cou...325?source=rss

  8. #8
    Gordon Martines
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    DA, police union push bill to scrap coroner's inquests; critics outraged (Nevada)

    To my fellow bloggers;

    The former coroner's inquest was in my opinion was about as transparent as could be invented. After attending 6 inquests over a period of 33 years as a law enforcement officer and listening to literally thousands of questions posed to the witnesses, most of which were irrelevant and repetitive, I can attest no stone was left unturned as to the events of the killing. The new revamped system is a joke and will cause a multitude of problems let alone violate the witnesses civil and criminal legal protections. It wouldn't break my heart to see the whole system dumped and to utilize the already established Grand Jury System to inquire into police shootings.

    Just an old cop reflecting,

    Gordon Martines

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Ex-corrections officer makes career out of criminal investigation

    Forget the idea of the private investigator who checks on cheating husbands. Forget the TV shows that make the job seem sexy. Instead, imagine reviewing boring police reports looking for procedural mistakes or other missteps that could help a defendant in a criminal trial.

    That’s the world of Rick Martinez, the private investigator who owns Titan Investigative Services in Hanford.

    Police have detectives. District attorneys have investigators. Defense attorneys have people like Martinez, who specialize in handling cases involving state prison inmates accused of crimes while incarcerated.

    Such inmates still have all the protections of the U.S. Constitution when it comes to a fair trial.

    Martinez is committed to making sure it stays that way.

    “That’s what drives me,” he said. “I’m a fact finder. I want to know.”

    Martinez, with a 20-year career at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation under his belt, works mostly with a handful of contract defense attorneys that work with defendants — often inmates — who can’t afford their own attorney. The county contracts with the attorneys to do the same work a public defender’s office would do.

    Martinez figures it’s only fair to make sure the police are doing their work properly. Most of the time he doesn’t find major mistakes. But because of the consequences of a major mistake, he relishes the role of doing an independent investigation to make sure everything’s in order.

    “Did they talk to all the witnesses? Did they try to hide something? Did they discover everything they were supposed to?” he said. “Nothing makes me happier than when I can’t find anything [wrong].”

    Since 2001, he’s investigated cases involving everything from stolen skateboards to death penalty cases.

    Originally, Martinez was going to sit back and enjoy his retirement from the Department of Corrections, but he just couldn’t take the boredom. He earned a master’s degree in criminology and teaches criminology classes at San Joaquin Valley College in addition to his private investigative work.

    Martinez finds meaning in providing balance in the criminal justice system. Sometimes he catches flak from former Department of Corrections colleagues who question his work on behalf of defense attorneys. He shrugs it off and keeps investigating.

    “I still just see myself as a fact finder,” he said.

    Read more: http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/...#ixzz1aguzB13y

  10. #10
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    Bryan: I've served the people of Oktibbeha County well

    STARKVILLE -- Around Dolph Bryan's office, there are patches of painted cinder block, almost forming their own design to compliment the remaining plaques and pictures from 36 years as Oktibbeha County sheriff.

    Bit by bit, Bryan is packing up and making way for a new sheriff -- either Steve Gladney or Rudy Johnson -- following Tuesday's election.

    The collection of memorabilia is still vast and diverse. Bryan, a car enthusiast, has scale models on the wall. Oddly, there's a collection of water bongs -- never before used -- confiscated from a now defunct head shop that opened for a brief period in Starkville.

    Leaving is hard to do for Bryan, especially considering he's spent his lifetime living and working in Oktibbeha County. But he's had a good ride.

    After all, elected in 1976, he never expected to serve for five decades.

    "Just about nobody holds an elected position that long," Bryan said. "I'm humbled by that. I appreciate that citizens voting me in that many times. I expected maybe two or three turns before I get knocked off the mountain. I stayed up there a long time."

    Bryan's tenure as sheriff has touched enough people that dozens of his supporters vowed to vote for him as a write-in on the general election ballot. Though it wouldn't have worked -- votes for a candidate already defeated can't count unless his/her party's candidate has died -- the support strikes a deep nerve with Bryan.

    He's even had people approach him, tears trickling down their faces and lips quivering, offering him condolences following his run-off defeat to Gladney.

    "I end up consoling them," Bryan said. "I'm going to be alright. I'm gonna survive getting defeated. I'm getting older. I'm 68, but I'm not going to sit down.

    "People have been good to me," he added. "I've tried to do them a good job."

    Among the memorabilia remaining in his office, there's one collage, almost within an arm's reach of his desk, that's most significant. The sketched and colored picture of the Willie "The Fly" Jerome Manning murder trials of 1994 and 1996 draws a deep stare and evokes a proud smile from Bryan.

    Bryan recalls working with Starkville Police Chief David Lindley, then head of investigations at the SPD, to collect evidence for the cases against Manning, who is currently on death row for the murders of Mississippi State University students Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller and Starkville residents Emmoline Jimmerson and Alberta Jordan in '92 and '93, respectively. From digging bullets out of a tree Manning used for target practice, to blowing up a still photograph to show a flaw in the stolen leather jacket Manning gave his girlfriend, prosecutor Forrest Allgood had a "dealer's choice" of evidence, Bryan said.

    Bryan's investment in the Manning murder cases is further evidenced by a copy of a poem Manning wrote about killing the women in Brookville Gardens.

    Graphic and explicit, the poem would make most people cringe when hearing it, much less reading it. But Bryan reads it without missing a breath, hitting every cadence and rhyme as if he'd written music to accompany it.

    "I can almost recite it," Bryan said.

    As determined as Bryan was to solve the Manning cases, he vows to continue collecting evidence for an unsolved murder case. The case, which he declined to give details about, isn't the one that got away; one of two suspects still lives in Oktibbeha County.

    "I've turned over the file to one of the men I'm pretty sure will not be replaced in the new regime," Bryan said. "And I hope, one day, it will get solved. I will continue to try and gather information on that case. I know his family members will be reading the paper to see if I'm still interested in that case, and I am."

    Bryan noted personal accomplishments, like graduating from the National Fire Academy in Maryland in 1990 and completing an 11-week course at the National FBI Academy in Virginia.

    But his fondest memories as sheriff are shared with the people of Oktibbeha County. As many criminals as he's helped lock up, there's a side of Bryan many people might not know enough about: Kindness. Two pictures that have already been removed from the walls tell that story. Bryan recalls two brothers who faced felony charges, but the sheriff's office had the option to pursue their cases as misdemeanors. Bryan did, and both boys ended up in the Marine Corps, mainly because they didn't have a felony conviction on their record. Both came back and gave Bryan framed pictures of them wearing their dress blues.

    "One of them is about ready to retire," Bryan said. "Neither one of them got into trouble after that. They were able to turn it around. It's always great to see people do something positive after making mistakes."

    Bryan isn't sure what he's going to do when he leaves office. Retirement, however, isn't an option.

    "I'd rather do something in law enforcement, but I'm not too good to do anything that needs doing," Bryan said. "Positions are hard to find, but you can find a job."

    Read more: http://www.cdispatch.com/news/articl...#ixzz1cvjotxK3

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