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From PUBLIC CRIMINOLOGY II: Strong Globe Series on Prison Suicide - "the boston globe is running a chilling three-part series on prison suicide. though jail and prison suicide rates have declined since the 1980s, those working in or around correctional facilities will tell you that self-harm remains an all-too-common occurrence." ...
Capital Punishment, 2006 - Statistical Tables
Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2006, and of persons executed in 2006 from the NPS-8 data collection. Tables present state-by-state information on the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 2006, status of capital statutes, and methods of execution. Numerical tables also summarize data on offendersâ gender, race, Hispanic origin, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal status at time of capital offense, and time between imposition of death sentence and execution.
The tables are based on those presented in Capital Punishment, 2005 with the following change: table 3, which reported information on minimum age authorized for capital punishment, has been discontinued and replaced with a table summarizing Federal laws providing for the death penalty.
From Docuticker
American Indian Executions in Historical Context
Author:
David V. Baker
Criminal Justice Studies,
Volume
20,
Issue
4
December
2007
, pages 315
- 373
DOI:
10.1080/14786010701758138
Abstract: The research record on capital punishment in the USA is void of any
empirical analysis of American Indian executions. This paper corrects
for this deficiency by presenting a descriptive profile of American
Indian executions within a historical-contextual framework of the
American Indian experience in US society. The paper suggests that the
history of American Indian executions is nested within the
sociopolitical context of internal colonialism calculated to dispossess
American Indians from their sacred tribal territories, disruption of
their cultures, and continuation of their marginalized status.
Reference from Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC): "NEW RESOURCES: Native Americans and the Death Penalty."
Intimate Partner Violence in the United States - Bureau of Justice Statistics.
by Shannan Catalano, Ph.D., BJS Statistician
U.S. Disparity in Executions Grows as Texas Bucks Trend
By ADAM LIPTAK - New York Times, Published: December 26, 2007
This year’s death penalty bombshells — a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas. ...
Presents Federal criminal case processing statistics on child sex offenses, including sex transportation, sexual abuse, and child pornography. The report includes data on case processing, such as the number of cases referred, prosecuted, and convicted. Defendant characteristics at initial hearing for the three types of offenses are provided. Data are also presented on changes in the number of defendants charged from 1994 to 2006.
Highlights include the following:
12/07 NCJ 219412
from the volokh conspiracy ...
As noted above, this part of the song is an exchange between two characters in the song. The full lyrics are on the Pogues website here. Here is the video and here is a live performance of the song.BBC’s Radio 1 edited the word “faggot” out of the Pogue’s Christmas standard “Fairytale of New York”, stating that the decision was made because “this is a word that members of our audience would find offensive”. This, despite the fact that the song has played in an unedited version for the last 20 years. The song has topped several Best Christmas Song polls in Britain, and it regularly hit the number one spot every Christmas. (Yes, a song with that word in it is a Christmas favorite. England – it’s a different planet.)
UPDATE: Apparently the BBC backed down.
thx to Taxprof blog for bringing this piece to our attention ...
Nominee for Law Review Article Title of the Year: Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law
Ira P. Robbins (American), Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law, 41 UC-Davis L. Rev. ___ (2008). Here is the abstract:
The middle finger is one of the most commonly used insulting gestures in the United States. The finger, which is used to convey a wide range of emotions, is visible on streets and highways, in schools, shopping malls, and sporting events, in courts and execution chambers, in advertisements and on magazine covers, and even on the hallowed floor of the United States Senate. Despite its ubiquity, however, as a number of recent cases demonstrate, those who use the middle finger in public run the risk of being stopped, arrested, prosecuted, fined, and even incarcerated under disorderly conduct or breach of peace statutes and ordinances.
This Article argues that, although most convictions are ultimately overturned on appeal, the pursuit of criminal sanctions for use of the middle finger infringes on First Amendment rights, violates fundamental principles of criminal justice, wastes valuable judicial resources, and defies good sense. Indeed, the Supreme Court has consistently held that speech may not be prohibited simply because some may find it offensive. Criminal law generally aims to protect persons, property, or the state from serious harm, but use of the middle finger simply does not raise these concerns.
Court to Release Audio in Death Case (Associated Press):
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Thursday it will quickly release audio tapes after the Jan. 7 argument over the death penalty.
The death
row cases of Kentucky inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr.
present the question of whether the mix of drugs and the way they are
administered in executions in three dozen states violate the
Constitution.
The last time the court considered a challenge
to a method of execution was in 1879, when it upheld the use of a
firing squad in Utah.
The immediate, same-day release of audio tapes following arguments in major cases started in the 2000 presidential election, when the justices decided appeals of the Florida recount controversy in favor of George W. Bush.
On Dec. 3, the court provided same-day audio from arguments over the rights of prisoners who have been detained by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The court records arguments and ordinarily releases them at the end of each term. With television cameras barred from the court and reporters prohibited from using tape recorders, the availability of audio provides the public a chance to hear the justices at work.
The case is Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling, Petitioners v. John D. Rees, Commissioner, Kentucky Department of Corrections, et al., 07-5439.
Supreme Court Asked to Set a Standard for Lethal Injection
Marcia Coyle
The National Law Journal
12-21-2007
Dying Without Dignity - Homeless Deaths in Los Angeles County. Written & Published by: Whitney Hawke, Max Davis and Bob Erlenbusch, Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger & Homelessness In partnership with: Michael Stoops, National Coalition for the Homeless
December 21, 2007 - National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day
Executive Summary: This report is an investigation into 2,815 homeless deaths in Los Angeles County between January, 2000 and May, 2007, based on statistics provided by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office.
Dying without dignity - Table of Contents
Dying without dignity - PDF REPORT
ABCNEWS.com - Interview with an executioner - By JIM AVILA, MARY HARRIS and CHRIS FRANCESCANI
Dec. 17, 2007
Jerry Givens spent 17 years as a professional killer. From 1982 to 1999, he killed 62 people. He was never punished. His work was paid for by the Commonwealth of Virginia. "Taking a Life is Not a Pleasant Thing to Do,'' He Tells ABC News...
What lies behind the case of lethal injection?
By Franklin E. Zimring - Special To The SacBee.com
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E4
"This is a peculiar era for capital punishment in the United States and not simply because there is a de facto moratorium on execution while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the chemicals used in lethal injections pose an unreasonable risk of excessive pain. The legal fight about lethal injections is really one symptom of a much broader set of concerns about the death penalty, and two puzzles in the lethal injections cases illustrate the larger confusion and mixed feelings. ...
Two puzzles in the current litigation before the Supreme Court deserve public scrutiny. One is why it took so long for any court to pay close attention to the problems. No state or medical organization conducted a serious medical evaluation of the practice. This unevaluated execution mix was used 900 times before the courts called time out. Why?
A second mystery is the unwillingness of states to simply change to a single sedative injection so that executions can resume. Why do California officials persist in submitting a three-drug protocol to the federal court when the court has indicated that the combination is dangerous?" ...
New Jersey becomes first state in 42 years to ban death penalty
Associated Press
LATIMES.com
December 17, 2007
TRENTON, N.J. -- "Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law today a measure that abolishes the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.
The bill, approved last week by the state's Assembly and Senate, replaces the death sentence with life in prison without parole.
"This is a day of progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response to the grievous, even heinous, crime of murder," Corzine said. ..."
Sex Offenders Set Up Camp - The Julia Tuttle becomes a colony. Politicians pass the buck. By Isaiah Thompson. Published: December 13, 2007. Miami New Times
In March, New Times revealed the Florida Department of Corrections was housing sex offenders under an overpass near the county courthouse; the state responded by moving the men here. The reason: A 2005 county ordinance prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of any school, so nearly the entire county has become off-limits to them.
The story was picked up by national media outlets, and for a few weeks the bridge was a source of widespread disbelief. Statements were made, resolutions were passed, letters were sent — but nothing changed. Since then, much to the relief of local politicians, no doubt, the situation seems to have quietly faded from public memory.
But the numbers kept growing. More than 30 men have been sent to live here in the intervening months. A few have since left — the majority of them arrested for minor violations of probation, two or three were able to move out, and two have disappeared. But most — as of press time, at least 20 — remain under the bridge, even though many have families willing to house them. Everyone agrees the situation under the Julia Tuttle has become untenable, but so far neither local politicians, nor the courts, nor the state legislature have been willing to do anything about it.
[tipped Discourse.net]
The Miami Beach Ordinance is available online via Municode (search "2,500" to retrieve the ordinance):
Sec. 70-402. Sexual offender and sexual predator residence prohibition; penalties; exceptions.
(a) Prohibited location of residence. It is unlawful for any person who:
(1) Has been convicted of a violation of F.S. § 794.011, 800.04, 827.071, or 847.0145, regardless of whether adjudication has been withheld, in which the victim of the offense was less than 16 years of age;
(2) Or is required to register as a sexual offender or sexual predator with the State of Florida Department of Law Enforcement due to an offense where the victim was less than 16 years of age;
to establish a permanent residence or temporary residence within 2,500 feet of any school, designated public school bus stop, day care center, park, playground, or other place where children regularly congregate. [emphasis added] ... (Ord. No. 2005-3485, § 1, 6-8-05; Ord. No. 2006-3541, § 1, 12-6-06)
Report
To The Commissioner Of Baseball Of An Independent Investigation Into
The Illegal Use Of Steroids And Other Performance Enhancing Substances
By Players In Major League Baseball
409 pages; PDF.
by George J. Mitchell
DLA Piper US, LLP
December 13, 2007
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice. Volume 46, Number 5, December 2007 [Access not open]
Criminologists Say … : An Analysis of UK National Press Coverage of Criminology and Criminologists and a Contribution to the Debate on `Public Criminology'
pp. 459-475(17)
Author: GROOMBRIDGE, NIC
Constructing British Criminology
pp. 476-492(17)
Authors: SOOTHILL, KEITH; PEELO, MOIRA
Children Who Commit Sexual Offences: Some Legal Anomalies and Practical Approaches to the Law
pp. 493-499(7)
Author: JANES, LAURA
Probation Education, Why the Hush? A Reply to Stout and Dominey's December 2006 Counterblast
pp. 500-511(12)
Authors: TREADWELL, JAMES; MANTLE, GREG
COUNTERBLAST: The Prison Overcrowding Crisis and Some Constructive Perspectives for Crime Policy
pp. 512-519(8)
Authors: LÖSEL, FRIEDRICH
Penal Policy File No. 112: June-July 2007
pp. 520-533(14)
Authors: Fowles, Tony; Wilson, David
Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason by B. Agozino
pp. 534-537(4)
Author: CAIN, MAUREEN
Community Policing: National and International Models and Approaches by M. Brogden and P. Nijhar
pp. 537-538(2)
Author: O'NEILL, MEGAN
Out of Order: The Political Imprisonment of Women in Northern Ireland 1972-1998 by M. Corcoran
pp. 538-539(2)
Author: DAVIES, PAMELA
Forensic Psychology: Emerging Topics and Expanding Roles by A.M. Goldstein (Ed.)
pp. 539-541(3)
Author: MIKTON, CHRISTOPHER
ASBOs: A Practitioner's Guide to Defending Anti-social Behaviour Orders by M. Sikand
pp. 541-542(2)
Author: ARMITAGE, RACHEL
Drugs and Popular Culture: Drugs, Media and Identity in Contemporary Society by P. Manning (Ed.)
pp. 542-543(2)
Author: CLAPTON, KERRIN
Statistics in the Jury Box: How Jurors Respond to Mitochondrial DNA Match Probabilities (David H. Kaye, Valerie P. Hans, B. Micha....). Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2007 p.797-834. Available at
"Policy makers, pundits, and scholars have all raised questions about how jurors understand and apply scientific evidence. In the current study, 480 jury pool members observed a mock trial that included expert testimony about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evidence purportedly linking a defendant to a crime. As a group, the jurors showed moderately good command of the biological facts relating to mtDNA evidence, although some jurors made errors in defining mtDNA and in making inferences about its relevance to the trial. Comprehension was higher after jury deliberation and among jurors with more education. A minority of jurors expressed reservations about science, concern about the reliability of the mtDNA evidence, and suspicion that the mtDNA evidence was contaminated."
Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series: The Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series presents the scholarship of the Cornell Law School faculty on a broad range of law-related and interdisciplinary topics. [NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository]
Transitional Jobs for Ex-Prisoners - Early Impacts from a Random Assignment Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Prisoner Reentry Program
Dan Bloom, Cindy Redcross, Janine Zweig (Urban Institute), and Gilda Azurdia
MDRC
This paper presents early results from an evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in New York City, a highly-regarded employment program for former prisoners. The evaluation is part of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. The project is led by MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research firm, along with the Urban Institute and other partners.
Criminal Victimization, 2006
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Presents estimates of rates and levels of personal and property victimization for 2006. National estimates are not comparable with those of previous years because of methodological changes to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 2006. The report provides annual victimization counts and rates for 2005 and 2006 for urban and suburban areas, where comparable survey methods were used. It discusses the methodological changes that were implemented and how they impacted the survey estimates. The estimates are drawn from the NCVS, an ongoing survey of households that interviews about 135,300 persons in 76,000 households annually. The report also includes data on violent crimes (rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault), property crimes (burglary, motor vehicle theft and property theft), and personal theft (pocket picking and purse snatching). See also, Criminal Victimization, 2006: Fact Sheet (Acrobat file 134K)
Highlights include the following:
* In 2006 — Males experienced higher levels of victimization than females. The rate of violent victimization for males was 26 violent victimizations per 1,000 males age 12 or older. Females experienced 23 violent victimizations per 1,000 females age 12 or older.
* An estimated 25% of all violent crime incidents were committed by an armed offender. The presence of a firearm was involved in 9% of these incidents.
* Violent and property crime rates in urban and suburban areas were stable between 2005 and 2006.
12/07 NCJ 219413
Juveniles in detention in Australia, 1981-2006
Natalie Taylor
Technical and background paper series, no. 26
ISBN 978 1 921185 59 5 ; ISSN 1445-7261
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2007 (online only)
This paper provides an overview of juveniles in detention in Australia. It contributes to knowledge about the numbers and rates of Indigenous young people placed into detention, a concern stemming from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Australian Institute of Criminology Juveniles in Detention Monitoring Program contains census data on the numbers of young people placed into detention on a quarterly basis from 1981 through to 2006. This report tracks changes over time and also provides a statistical overview of the financial year 2005-06. [Download Full Report]
Goldfarb, Phyllis, "Pedagogy of the Suppressed: A Class on Race and the Death Penalty," 31 N.Y.U. Rev. L. Soc. Change 547 (2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=977779
What does it mean to contextualize legal doctrine and how does contextualization matter? This essay explores a general pedagogy of contextualization within the particular context of a class on race and the death penalty. Teaching the Supreme Court's infamous 1987 opinion in the case of McCleskey v. Kemp within its historical, doctrinal, cultural, and human contexts - rather than as a self-explanatory pronouncement - provides a deeper understanding of America's death penalty system, its connection to America's racial caste system, and the Supreme Court's role in each. These multiple contexts provide a foundation for comprehension and critique of values served by conventional legal methods. They also create conditions for progressive insights about what law enables and what it elides.
U.S. Sentencing Commission News Release
U.S. Sentencing Commission
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 11, 2007) — The United States Sentencing Commission unanimously voted today to give retroactive effect to a recent amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduces penalties for crack cocaine offenses. Retroactivity of the crack cocaine amendment will become effective on March 3, 2008. Not every crack cocaine offender will be eligible for a lower sentence under the decision. A Federal sentencing judge will make the final determination of whether an offender is eligible for a lower sentence and how much that sentence should be lowered. That determination will be made only after consideration of many factors, including the Commission’s direction to consider whether lowering the offender’s sentence would pose a danger to public safety. In addition, the overall impact is anticipated to occur incrementally over approximately 30 years, due to the limited nature of the guideline amendment and the fact that many crack cocaine offenders will still be required under Federal law to serve mandatory five- or ten-year sentences because of the amount of crack involved in their offense.
On November 1, 2007, after a six-month congressional review period, the Commission’s amendment to the Federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses took effect. The amendment was intended as a step toward reducing some of the unwarranted disparity currently existing between Federal crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentences. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 specifically authorized the Commission to provide for retroactive effect of amendments that result in lower penalties for classes of offenses or offenders, as this amendment could.
The Commission made its decision on retroactivity of the crack cocaine amendment after months of deliberation and years of examining cocaine sentencing issues. It solicited public comment on the issue of retroactivity and received over 33,000 letters or written comments, almost all of which were in favor of retroactivity. Last month, it held a full-day hearing on the issue of retroactivity and heard from key stakeholders in the federal criminal justice community.
The Commission considered a number of factors during its deliberations, including the purpose for lowering crack cocaine sentences, the limit on any reduction allowed by the amendment, whether it would be difficult for the courts to apply the reduction, and whether making the amendment retroactive would raise public safety concerns or cause unwarranted sentencing disparity in the federal system. Ultimately, the Commission determined that the statutory purposes of sentencing are best served by retroactive application of the amendment. Mindful of public safety and judicial resource concerns, the Commission today issued direction to the courts on the limited nature of this and all other retroactive amendments and on the need to consider public safety in each case. The Commission delayed the effective date of its decision on retroactivity in order to give the courts sufficient time to prepare for and process these cases.
The Commission’s actions today, as well as promulgation of the original amendment for crack cocaine offenses, are only a partial step in mitigating the unwarranted sentencing disparity that exists between Federal powder and crack cocaine defendants. The Commission has continued to call on Congress to address the issue of the 100-to-1 statutory ratio that drives Federal cocaine sentencing policy. Only Congress can provide a comprehensive solution to a fundamental unfairness in Federal sentencing policy. The Commission has consistently expressed its readiness and willingness to work with Congress and others in the criminal justice community to address this very important issue.
The bipartisan United States Sentencing Commission, an independent agency in the judicial branch of the federal government, was organized in 1985 to develop national sentencing policy for the federal courts. The resulting sentencing guidelines help to ensure that similar offenders who commit similar offenses receive similar sentences.
Sentencing Commission votes in favor of crack cocaine retroactivity
Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)
U.S. Sentencing Commission Makes Crack Guidelines Retroactive
ACSBlog
U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously votes to make new crack guidelines retroactive...
Sentencing Law and Policy
Anna King, KEEPING A SAFE DISTANCE: Individualism and the Less Punitive Public
British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published on December 10, 2007.
doi:10.1093/bjc/azm069
[access not open]
This article will address individual differences in punitiveness or ‘get tough’ attitudes towards lawbreakers, but will do so by looking in depth at the nature of worldviews that have been identified as decidedly forgiving. The aim is to generate new hypotheses through a grounded narrative analysis regarding a dimension of public sensibilities towards crime—leniency—about which we know very little. I conclude that social identity is an important aspect of merciful worldviews, and that a precondition of a forgiving orientation may be a focus on individual agency. This analysis is supported by quantitative tests of new hypotheses to emerge. This article contributes to the more complex picture of differentiated public opinion to crime and criminal justice that has emerged recently in the literature.
