By Laura Amico
America’s top cops say they need more help from the courts
Read full entry »The number of people shot in the U.S. each year has risen significantly from the beginning of the new century to 2008, reports the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Between 2000 and 2008, 272,590 people died of gunshot injuries, an average of 30,288 gun deaths per year, a number the violence center calls "shocking by comparison to any other developed country." During the same period, an estimated 617,488 people suffered nonfatal gunshot injuries.
The total shot in 2008, the latest year for which data are available, was 110,215, the highest recorded during the nine-year period surveyed in the analysis. The violence center says that, “the common focus on gun deaths as a marker to illustrate America’s ‘gun problem’ obscures an alarming trend. The number of persons who suffer nonfatal gunshot injuries--that is, who are shot but do not die--has risen. This means simply that more people are being shot by guns every year."
Read full entry »By Steve Yoder
Many of the leading Republican contenders in the presidential race have pushed reformist 'smart on crime' agendas. But will those agendas survive if one of them sits in the White House?
Read full entry »States with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws report the highest rates of gun death, says the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center...
Read full entry »Nevada’s rate of women killed by men — more than double the national average — ranks first in the nation for the second consecutive year, says a new study from the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center reported by the Las Vegas Sun. Nevada has taken the unenviable top spot four of the past five years in the “When Men Murder Women” report. The new report analyzes homicides from 2009, the most recent data available from the FBI.
Nevada’s homicide rate of women killed by men in 2009 was 2.7 per 100,000. The national average was 1.25 per 100,000. Alabama and Louisiana followed Nevada in the report’s homicide rate rankings. Police say the gloomy portrait of domestic violence in Nevada isn’t necessarily accurate now. Lt. Rob Lundquist said domestic violence-related homicides in Las Vegas have been decreasing since the report’s data were collected. “We’ve definitely had a substantial reduction in domestic violence-related homicides and also female fatalities,” Lundquist said. “We’ve taken a very active stance on it.”
Read full entry »The overburdening of U.S. public defense systems can result in more and longer prison sentences, says the advocacy group Justice Policy Institute in a report issued today.
Read full entry »
Law Enforcement could be watching, but you would have no idea.
Read full entry »
By Edith Brady-Lunny
How measures to tackle corrections spending are portrayed in the media makes a crucial difference—as Illinois discovered.
Read full entry »
By Ted Gest
Federal belt-tightening may encourage smart justice reforms at the city and state level, a Wash DC meeting is told.
Read full entry »
Budget crunches and overcrowded prisons provided a turning point for sentencing reform in 2010, says a new report by The Sentencing Project. New criminal justice policies, including changes to crack and cocaine sentencing in order to alleviate disparities, took place in 23 States across the nation in 2010.
Other reforms included changes to parole supervision and the successful reentry of felons.
Read the report here.
Read full entry »
Once a suspect is arrested, the role of law enforcement ends until trial. But now some law enforcement agencies are saying that level of involvement is just not enough. In today’s criminal justice many cases don't make it through to the trial phase and instead are resolved in the pre-trial phase.
A new report, "Law Enforcement's Leadership Role in the Pretrial Release and Detention Process," released by The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACAP), with the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI) and The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) argues that collaboration between agencies can help prevent the early release of dangerous felons.
Read the report here.
Read full entry »
By William D. Burrell
President Obama on Wednesday announced a federal effort to curb domestic violence and help women who have been victims of abuse, reports United Press International. Federal housing officials released new rules to prevent victims from getting evicted or denied housing assistance, and the Justice Department released new tools for judges, advocates and law enforcement to use "to help ensure that protective orders are issued and enforced." Obama spoke at a White House event to note Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
"As you all know, domestic violence was for far too long seen as a lesser offense," Obama said. "Victims were often just sent home from the hospital without intervention; children were left to suffer in silence. And as a consequence, abuse could go on for years. In many cases, this violence would only end with the death of a woman or a child.().The bottom line is this: Nobody in America should live in fear because they are unsafe in their own home."
Read full entry »
Nearly one in seven women who sought abortions at a large family planning clinic in Iowa reported at least one incident of physical or sexual abuse in the past year, a new study, "Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence Among an Abortion Clinic Population," found. Published in the American Journal of Public Health researchers at the University of Iowa, College of Public Health and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland studied 986 patients over the course of a year.
Access the study here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on Domestic Violence.
Read full entry »Senior Vice President
Community Impact
United Way of Dane County
Wisconsin
datkinson@uwdc.org; tkuplic@uwdc.org
Read full entry »
