Violent behaviors of youths vary within various Latino ethnic subgroups such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Mexicans, found a new study.
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Calling it an act of "humanity" and "compassion" for Los Angeles' illegal immigrants, the city's police commission yesterday approved a controversial plan to limit the cases in which police officers impound vehicles of drivers operating without a license, reports the Los Angeles Times. The commission made the move despite warnings from Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and state lawyers that the new policy is illegal.
It is a victory for immigration-rights advocates as well as Police Chief Charlie Beck, who has championed the new policy despite sharp criticism at public meetings, on talk radio, and by some law enforcement officials. The shift is significant in a city with a large illegal immigrant population. For decades, the Los Angeles Police Department has tried to convince immigrants that police are not the enemy, and Beck hopes the new rules will improve relations and encourage undocumented immigrants to cooperate with police. The new policy will apply to unlicensed drivers who are pulled over for minor traffic infractions, ranging from a broken tail light to speeding. Unlicensed drivers who meet several requirements — including having auto insurance, valid identification, and no previous citations for unlicensed driving — will still have cars impounded but no longer face a 30-day hold, with fines that often exceed $1,200.
Steve Conrad, a former assistant police chief in Louisville now chief in Glendale, Az., is the new Louisville police chief, says the Louisville Courier-Journal. Conrad left Louisville in 2005, having helped to shape the newly formed Louisville Metro Police Department. He joined the former city department as a patrol officer in 1980 and rose through the ranks to become assistant chief under former chief Robert White. White left Louisville in December to take the chief’s job with the Denver Police.
Conrad was chosen from a slate of five candidates who were interviewed by Mayor Greg Fischer the week of Feb. 6. The five finalists included the deputy chiefs, Yvette Gentry and Vince Robison. Two of the candidates are chiefs in other districts but formerly served with either the city or county department. They are Jeffersontown Chief Rick Sanders and Conrad. The other candidate, Glenn Skeens, has had a long career with the Owensboro Police Department, where he now serves as police chief.
Read full entry »A new nationwide survey of 2,406 senior law enforcement officials indicates that police agencies are being overburdened by the mentally ill, according to the Huffington Post. DJ Jaffe, executive director of PublicIllnessPolicy.org, writes that this is the unintended consequence of a policy change that "removed the daily care of our nation's severely mentally ill population from the medical community and place it with the criminal justice system," prompting a spike in the arrests of severely mentally ill persons.
The survey by Michael C. Biasotti, vice president of the New York State Chiefs of Police, calls for implementation of assisted outpatient treatment laws to improve care for people with mental illness, conserve law enforcement resources, and keep patients and the public safer. The laws allow courts to order mandatory treatment for severely mentally ill individuals who have a past history of dangerous behavior, arrest, incarceration or multiple hospitalizations.
Read full entry »Washington, D.C., will not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leaving it up to federal immigration officials to determine on their own whether a resident is in the country illegally, reports the Washington Post. The decision by Mayor Vincent Gray reinforces orders by previous mayors but it goes further by explicitly setting standards for how the city’s criminal justice system will deal with immigrants.
Officials with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston proposed yesterday to put the state prison system back in the health care business for the first time in 18 years as a way to exit what they claim is a money-losing program that the university cannot afford, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Declaring an impasse in negotiations on a new contract, university President David Callender told its correctional health care employees that unless a deal can be reached, the university plans to "begin transitioning to (the Texas Department of Criminal Justice) a number of the services we currently provide."
The newspaper reported yesterday that in a new sign that Texas' state budget crisis is far from over, officials drafting a new contract to provide medical care for Texas' 153,000 imprisoned criminals acknowledged that the $900 million allocated by the legislature will not cover the costs. For Texas taxpayers, the funding disparity could mean they will have to pay more money to provide care for prison inmates during the next two years, even if private vendors do start providing the care. For convicts, it could mean further cuts in a system that already is drawing increasing complaints about inadequate care. Prison officials said the university has reported that its current expenses are running about $2 million more per month than is budgeted.
Read full entry »A lack of support by prosecutors lies behind the failure of forensic science reform legislation to be approved so far by Congress, says federal appeals court Judge Harry Edwards of Washington, D.C. A bill introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would establish a federal office of forensic science that would propose national standards for the field. The bill was drafted after a critical report issued by a National Academy of Sciences panel co-chaired by Edwards.
Edwards spoke at the showing of a new documentary, Mississippi Innocence, at the Newseum in Washington. The film tells the story of Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who were wrongly convicted in the rape and murder of two three-year-old girls in Noxubee County, Ms., in the early 1990s. The Innocence Project sought DNA tests that helped free both men and also helped lead authorities to the real killer. The movie focuses on two controversial forensic specialists, medical examiner Steven Hayne and forensic dentist Michael West, whose testimony was instrumental in the Brooks and Brewer convictions.
Read full entry »Journalists usually learn more about a story than they can possibly get published or on the air. For some who cover courts, social media is the solution...
Read full entry »The Obama administration is cracking down on immigrants in the U.S. who have overstayed the terms of their visas by using a system that automatically checks multiple national security, immigration, and law enforcement databases at the same time, a Homeland Security Department official tells the Associated Press. The common practice has been to make manual checks of individual databases. The new system has already identified dozens of investigative leads, said John Cohen, deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the Homeland Security Department.
The immediate focus is on identifying people who have overstayed their visas and who pose a potential threat to national security or public safety, Cohen said. Some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were in the U.S. in violation of their visas, and in one case because the hijacker did not attend a school he said he would on his application for a student visa. The 9/11 Commission saw the visa system as a major vulnerability and recommended completing a biometric system that would log immigrants out as they left the U.S. This program was never fully implemented. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the exit system called for by the commission is expensive, and the government has put other policies in place since 2001 to address the same issue for a lot less money. Automating these checks is the latest of those policies.
Read full entry »Under a new Florida law that takes effect Oct. 1, all cities and counties must repeal local rules limiting gun ownership, which means handguns may be turning up more often in places like parks and city halls, reports the Miami Herald. Although the state has claimed sole right to regulate firearms since 1987, this year’s new law adds fines for local officials who fail to comply, and gives gun owners a right to sue for damages if they believe their rights have been violated.
Local leaders have begun to comply, cancelling laws that kept guns out of parks and community buildings, and taking down signs warning visitors not to bring firearms to such places. The law highlights differences between those Floridians who see guns as tools of criminals and those who see them as sporting goods, tools of self-defense or symbols of freedom. Guns still aren’t allowed in schools or bars. They may be brought into government buildings, although an exception allows them to be excluded while a city council, school board or county commission is meeting. Private businesses still get to decide whether to allow guns inside.
Read full entry »The DOJ released a proposed rule that aims to prevent and respond to sexual abuse in incarceration settings along with an extensive report detailing sexual abuse in prisons.
A 60-day public comment period will follow publication in the Federal Register.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on sexual abuse.
Can Federal grant assistance lead to a reduction in serious crime? Many researchers have concluded that they can, but John L. Worrall of the University of Texas at Dallas, recommendations caution in this recent study. Using data from a 12-year panel of approximately 5,000 cities, Worrall concludes that he has concerns.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on Federal Programs.
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One in 25 white children born in 1990 had a parent who was imprisoned, while one in four black children born that year had a parent imprisoned, found researchers at Justice Strategies, in a new report, “Children on the Outside.”
The study details the harm experienced by some of the 1.7 million minor children with a parent in prison, a population that has grown with the explosion of the U.S. prison population.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on Prisons.
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The American Bar Association has started the Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System, co-chaired by David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, as a priority of 2010-2011.
This Task Force is addressing some of the most critical issues facing the legal profession today: the severe underfunding of our justice system, depletion of resources, and the courts’ struggle to render their constitutional function and provide access to justice for countless Americans.
They are currently looking for reports, anecdotal evidence, surveys, or other relevant information pertaining to the underfunding of the justice system.
For more information go to their Web site.
Use the Crime Report for more information on courts.
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Are athletes more aggressive than others? Researchers from the Center for Psychological Studies of Nova Southeastern University, studied the myths and science surrounding this idea.
They found that investigation into aggression and violence within an athletic population has been surprisingly absent.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on violence.
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