Blog Dec 30, 2009
Do Black Teens Need More Policing?
Why do the news media adore James Alan Fox? He’s never been right. The Northeastern University criminologist perpetuates fossilized 19th century demographic dogmas that measure crime as a function of dark-skinned youth in the population, inflammatory racialized quips branding nonwhite teenagers as “sociopaths” and “superpredators,” and 25 years of horrendously wrong crime predictions. Now Fox and colleagues are back with another media-splashed study (conveniently…
Blog Dec 30, 2009
Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Returning Home — Is this Vietnam Revisited or Vietnam Surpassed?
Returning Afghanistan and Iraq veterans are confronting unemployment, housing unavailability, domestic violence, substance abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injuries. Regardless of the number of tours in a war zone these veterans have served, their second war begins following discharge from the military — the war that begins when they return home. Although many of the challenges facing Afghanistan and Iraq veterans are similar to those confronted by Vietnam veterans…
From 2003 through the present, 4,200 Americans died and over 30,000 have been wounded in the war in Iraq. This toll has generated justifiable outrage among those who consider invading Iraq a colossal mistake. Indeed, President-elect Barack Obama, has pledged to end the war soon after taking office. Meanwhile, right here at home from 2003 through 2008, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports indicate that around 200,000 Americans died from overdoses of illegal drugs; SAMHSA surveys…
I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of reading about the “bailout.” A day does not go by without being reminded how much those already loaded with cash and goodies receive yet another Christmas present from we the taxpayers. I guess the proverbial “last straw” for me was the report by the Associated Press that asked 21 banks that had received at least $1 billion from the government four simple questions: “How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in…
Blog Dec 22, 2008
We can’t just shoot ‘em
California’s growing budget crisis and prison lawsuits are focusing more attention on a serious policy question: Are there better ways to reduce crime and treat criminals than by spending $36,000 in taxpayer dollars every year to lock up each low-level property and drug possession offender in state prison? California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reports show the state now imprisons 30,000 offenders sentenced for non-invasion property crimes or simple drug possession, at a cost…
(ISSN 1530 – 3012) From the editor Racial Disproportionality in the American Prison Population: Using the Blumstein Method to Address the Critical Race and Justice Issue of the 21st Century Guns and Homicide: Is the Instrument-Focused Approach to Deterrence Efficacious? Guards or Guardians? A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Parenting Styles in Juvenile Correctional Programs Criminal History on a “Need To Know” Basis: Employment Policies that Eliminate the Criminal History Box…
Recent reports by the W. Haywood Burns Institute and NAACP deploring disproportionate minority confinement in juvenile facilities raise an important ongoing issue. It is true, as the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice’s own investigations agree, that black and brown youth receive increasingly harsh treatment as they move from arrest through sentencing stages that the juvenile justice system must address. But there’s another troubling issue. A key CJCJ mission has been to reduce the use of…
Dec 18, 2008
Just Released! Fall 2008 Justice Policy Journal
Just Released! Fall 2008 Justice Policy Journal: CJCJ’s Premiere Online Academic Journal As one of the first online criminal justice journals with contributions from renowned scholars, the Justice Policy Journal (JPJ) is quickly becoming among the most widely read and discussed journals in the field. The JPJ provides an international forum for researchers and policymakers to examine current justice issues and promote innovative policy solutions in a web based format that maintains the…
Blog Dec 13, 2008
Avoid Easy “Blame the Media” Path on Crime
Two starkly diverging pathways for President-elect Barack Obama’s crucial, so far unknown, public stance toward crime issues are emerging. This brief discusses the Easy Path: Blaming youth, gangs, popular culture, and “the media” that former President Clinton largely embraced. News reports are abuzz with a barrage of “shocking new studies” declaring popular-media influences such as television, movies, rap music, and internet sites are pivotal causes of violence by youth. Unfortunately,…
Blog Dec 13, 2008
Abolish the Office of National Drug Control Policy
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy was established in the early 1980s, funded in 1986, and issued its first National Drug Control Strategy in 1987. In the middle of a massive crack-cocaine and heroin epidemic generating rising overdose deaths and dealer violence, the Strategy prioritized chasing around casual users, mostly of marijuana, on the grounds that moderate drug users set a bad “moral… example.” In the two decades during which the ONDCP and its “drug czar” have…
Blog Nov 29, 2008
Obama’s crime policy — no “change” yet
Think anew, exhorted Barack Obama. “The old ways simply can’t meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.” That’s been a campaign theme of the president-elect’s repeated, welcome calls for innovation on foreign policy, budget reform, and energy and an end to Washington’s stifling “groupthink.” But does Obama propose to extend this refreshing imperative to evolve new thinking America’s century of disastrously failed policies on crime, violence, drug abuse, and related social ills? After all,…
In criminal justice debate and policy, it is important to keep up with often startling realities – and California’s contain plenty of surprises. Consider three statements often made about adult-court prosecutions of juveniles: 1. The number of juveniles tried in adult court is increasing. False. Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) reports show the number and percentage of juvenile inmates in state facilities sentenced by adult criminal courts (as opposed to juvenile courts) has plummeted ‚…