The consequence has been that violent crime—defined as actions which cause injury or serious threats to do so—has fallen steadily for about the last 15 years. The official statistics do not show a fall in violent crime when comparing offences now with those recorded before 2002-03—quite the opposite, in fact. This was because of a foolish agreement which attempted to make recorded crime a perfect representation of reality, so that a crime had to be recorded if reported even if the police officer did not believe it had happened. Moreover, the definition of violent crime was greatly widened, with the result that more than 50 per cent now falls into the category of—wait for it—”assault without injury.” It would be hard to conceive a more perfect weapon for opposition parties to beat a government with—as the then shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, unhappily showed during the election campaign. This is probably why the new government seems to be casting about for someone other than the home office to be in charge of crime statistics. Perhaps they will even give them back to the police.

In 2008-09, the annual murder rate in England and Wales was 651, lower than at any time in the past decade. Moreover, the number of children under 16 killed by strangers was two. In 2006, UN figures show that England and Wales had 16 murders per million population, far lower than the US at 59 and roughly equal to France, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. (The figure for Colombia was 611.)

And yet the “broken Britain” mantra remains—not because we have become a more violent society, but because we have become a much more violence-averse society, in which such acts are widely reported and vilified.

It is interesting to see that contradiction exists in other countries besides the US. I know little about the state of television in the UK, but judging by this article it is safe to assume that the strains of the 24 hour news cycle exist there as well, forcing the media to turn every report of crime into a sensationalist warning that crime is on a meteoric rise.

It is also somewhat heartening – deflating? – to see that politicians are politicians the world over, especially when it comes to criminal justice policies.

There are many more interesting themes and points in the article. I recommend reading it all.

Whether this is a product of reduced funding, of lengthy sentences coming home to roost, of a zero-tolerance “tough on crime” policy enacted years ago or of the sheer overcriminalization of our society is an open question (my guess: a mix of them all). When a small state like CT has 1663 crimes defined in its statutes (and that’s in 2006; several more have been added since) and when books are written warning us that we commit three felonies a day, it’s time for someone to sit up and take notice. And by someone I mean those with the power to change the direction we’ve gone in: legislators and voters. So you, all of you.

The repercussions of too many people in the justice system are beginning to reverberate throughout the country: Georgia is on its 4th lawsuit to force indigent defense spending; Michigan is being sued by three defendants who claim that the lack of funding forced their public defenders to pressure them into entering pleas of guilty; the Missouri Supreme Court recently allowed public defenders the nuclear option of shutting down their doors and refusing cases if caseloads got unmanageable; the costs in Ohio are rising quick; the Fresno public defender’s office got permission to lay off 6 attorneys before the end of the year to balance their budget; and contract attorneys in Nebraska have been receiving a $100 flat fee instead of $50 per hour for all misdemeanor cases.

Should I even go near the financial black hole that is the death penalty?  How, in times where basic rights of defendants may be in jeopardy – ordinary run of the mill defendants, mind you – can we even consider sustaining the machinery of death?

This will not end anytime soon and even if there is an alleviation of the financial crisis, the impact on the criminal justice system will be temporary. More crimes will be committed, more knee-jerk reactions will be induced and harsher sentences will be given out. The burden continues to build until there is a fundamental change in the way we think about the numbers, the crimes and the system.

A report from 2000, that I’ve mentioned before, seems to have gotten it right. Too bad no one is listening. I’ll reprint the salient points:

Prison overcrowding has a cyclical pattern in Connecticut — reaching a crisis point about every 10 years. The committee report showed most of the causes of prison overcrowding occurred outside the administration and jurisdiction of the Department of Correction and these complex issues and problems cannot be addressed by a single state agency. Specifically, the program review committee identified five main causes of prison overcrowding. They are:

• Despite the decrease in arrest and crime rates, the number of offenders in prison or jail continued to increase due to the “war on drugs”, increased funding for police, increased role of victims and victim advocacy groups in the court process, added bed capacity in the correctional system, recidivism and technical violations of probation and parole, harsher penalties for certain types of crimes, and narrowed eligibility for community release and alternative sanction options.
• Convicted inmates were remaining incarcerated for a greater portion of their court-imposed prison sentences as a result of the shift from an indeterminate to a determinate sentencing structure, elimination of “good time”, creation of time-served standards for parole eligibility, and the enactment of several “truth in sentencing” initiatives.
• The aggressive “tough on crime” approach supported by the legislature and adopted by the executive and judicial branches allows the criminal justice system to narrow its use of discretion and take a more conservative and less controversial approach to punishment.
• A lack of prison beds, especially high security and pre-trial beds, forced DOC to operate at capacity.
• Poor planning and a lack of an accurate population projection and offender needs analysis contributed to the cycle of overcrowding and hampered DOC’s efforts to adequately plan for new or expanded facilities.

In reviewing options available to manage and control growth of the inmate population, the committee found Connecticut cannot build its way out of a prison overcrowding crisis. However, prison expansion is one model to address prison overcrowding. This strategy has been Connecticut’s primary response to prison overcrowding over the past 20 years. It is the simplest but least effective and most expensive approach. Services in this model are concentrated primarily on the small percent (25 percent) of the offender population in prison.

And yet here we are: more crimes, longer sentences and an almost unmanageable burden. We’re still fighting the absurd war on drugs and on parolees and probationers. While our prison population has seen somewhat of a slight decline from the record numbers of last year, it would be a tremendous mistake to consider that an improvement. The record numbers were the result of the Governor’s ban on parole. But don’t let that obscure the fact that even prior to the ban, the population numbers were already at the breaking point.

And it’s not going to get any better. Per the OPM‘s most recent projections, the population is expected to increase from its current numbers to around 18, 942. [Here are the Dec 2009 monthly indicators.] The most recent breakdown of inmates by crimes is this one from 2007. And here’s the most recent recidivism study [there's a wealth of information in there if you're interested].

So how is this to be done? Over the years, I’ve made many suggestions: legalize marijuana, get realistic about prison sentences, divert all non-violent offenders into treatment and community based rehab, address the problem at its root, etc.

[Update: This NYT editorial makes the case for smart reforms, pointing to a slew of legislation pending in NJ to make the prison system more rehabilitation centric. Among some of the proposals is one akin to the ban the box idea implemented in New Haven earlier this year.]

But it’s all a futile exercise. It’s never going to happen unless there’s a fundamental shift in the thinking. That shift may well be driven by the financial engine. So how about taking a different tact. How about we keep detailed statistics: how many people end up going to jail for a violation of probation for drug problems instead of to a treatment facility? Let’s keep a record of that for 3 years and calculate the cost of sending that person to jail. How about defendants sentenced to 7 years in jail where 5 years would have been just as good. Keep a track of the costs there. How many inmates were denied entry into programs for lack of beds and so instead were forced to take a prison sentence? Let’s keep track of that.

At the end of 3 years, let’s add it all up and look at the staggering cost of our penal system. Let’s put it into real numbers and compare it to the budget shortfall. Extrapolate that over the last 20 years and I bet we will see that these “tough on crime” policies have come at a significant, tangible cost to us.

For 19 spots, there were 120 applications, and rightly so. This program presents an unique opportunity: to get a high-level education and to attempt to rebuild one’s life and prepare for an eventual release into a world that won’t acknowledge their existence (for some).  There are several remarkable things about this program. One of them is that the crime of conviction is not a factor in who gets accepted into the program. So whether you’re a murderer or someone who was selling drugs, you have an equal shot at getting accepted. The second feature that struck me was that while there is no guarantee that graduates of this program will get a degree from Wesleyan, they will be entitled to access to career services upon release.

Imagine that! Inmates will have somewhere to go, armed with an education and the possibility of a degree and get assistance in finding a job. The State should be ashamed of itself.

Reading this article, I learned some things about Wesleyan and its tradition and history:

But the university has a long history of civic engagement that traces back to its Methodist roots. It is named after John Wesley, an 18th-century minister who championed prison reform and helping the downtrodden. Two students, Russell Perkins and Molly Birnbaum, who had volunteered in prisons as students, revived the idea last year when they were seniors and figured out a way to finance it.

What’s even more stunning is that this proposal was scheduled for a vote the very same day that a student at Wesleyan was gunned down in a bookstore. The school merely postponed the vote 2 weeks and during that subsequent vote, it was approved. Goes to show you that to recognize that not all “criminals” are the same, you merely have to have your head screwed on straight.

Of course, this brings the usual din of dissent and cries of “wah, you’re helping those scum criminals” from the usual suspects. I don’t have very many good things to say about the State’s victim’s advocate (none, really), so I’ll just quote her and let it speak for itself:

Crime victims and their advocates question whether the investment will be worthwhile. “I appreciate the need to educate offenders, but I’m saddened we don’t spend that kind of money or take that kind of time to rebuild the lives of crime victims,” said Michelle S. Cruz, Connecticut’s independent victim advocate.

Private institution, private funds, state spends enough money on incarceration and “retribution”, blah blah.

Sam Rieger, a Waterbury man whose 19-year-old daughter was murdered by a man now incarcerated at the Cheshire prison, agreed. “This does not make sense to me,” he said of the Wesleyan program. “What is the point?” He said the money should be spent on victims or on trying to help young people make better choices.

I have not met Mr. Rieger, nor do I know who he is, but I understand his sentiment. The point is this: many “young people” are already lost by the time they come to prison. There are programs attempting to help them before they get there, but there are few. In prison, they have nowhere to go. They are, in a sense, forced to be attentive. If this programs takes those same men and provides them with the education that they didn’t receive earlier, what’s the harm? I can only see a benefit to it. Lets not forget that there are well defined roles in prison among the inmates as well. Lifers are usually looked on with some reverence and do carry some amount of clout (or used to, at least). If you educate the ones that are going to be there for a long time, they can pass that on to the young whippersnappers rushing through on their latest tour.

The bottom line, though, is that education can never be a bad thing. Some might argue (including myself) that providing better education to our underprivileged youth might be the best way to attack the crime problem. But I’m just some liberal nut who would love to take these classes at Wesleyan.

(H/T: the local listserve)

So, it’s probably unnatural and unhealthy to be so giddy upon learning that Gov. Rell has decided not to seek re-election, but as most of you know, I can’t stand the woman. And that’s putting it mildly. I let out an audible yell yesterday when Ann Nyberg tweeted that she wasn’t going to run. My colleagues looked at me, much like they always do, like I had three heads. So maybe my disdain of the American Idol Governor knows no bounds.

But there’s good reason. After all, she has singlehandedly done so much to create such a disregard for the law and the rule of law, that sometimes I wonder who is worse: the law-breaking “criminals” she sought to protect our white community from or the law-ignoring bureaucrat.

She was the most dangerous of the “tough on crime” pols: sweet, nurturing, grandmotherly. She would lull everyone into sleep with her gentle affect and then decree the most outrageous acts of lawlessness this State has seen this decade.

First, there was Cheshire. Oh boy was there Cheshire. The brutal crimes in a white suburban neighborhood served not only to rouse the Governor from her mid-term siesta, but also had the side-effect of completely blinding her to common sense, and well, the rule of law. So the first thing she decided to do (well, sort of) was ban parole. That lasted for 4 months and resulted in severe overcrowding and a tremendous burden on state resources. That’s when Colin McEnroe coined the moniker “The American Idol Governor“. I still can’t get enough of that. She then proposed some truly scary and not very well thought out “reforms” of the criminal justice system, some of which unfortunately made it into law. Then she wanted CT to have a three-strikes law, in the face of all scientific research on its uselessness. Then came the unhinging, aka, “The David Pollitt Project“. I’m not even going to touch that. And finally, the veto of the death penalty abolition bill.

I write all of this, not to disparage her, but to remind myself and you  – voters all – of the absolute effing nonsense we’ve had to put up with these past few years. Will any of the people who’ve announced they’re running for Governor be any better? They almost have to, don’t they, because it can’t get much worse than this.

So while I wish her well in her personal life and hope that her health remains strong, I will not be sad to see her become former Governor Rell. I’m not sure there was a person less equipped to take on that job.

And now, on to the big question. What needs to be done? The first response is obvious: abolish the death penalty. But there are so many more things that need to be changed about the criminal justice system in our State. In my mind, there’s only one candidate who is qualified to do that. So, you guys can be the first to hear it: I am hereby announcing my candidacy for the Governor of the State of Connecticut and I will be running on the Smart on Crime platform for the “It must be easy; she did it for so long” party.

More details about the, well, details of my platform will follow in subsequent posts. I’m now going to go and do a cartwheel.

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.”

Theories are, of course, the products of fertile imaginations. Unless they’re tested out – directly or indirectly. Which is why I write again. This week brought the coincidental juxtaposition of two stories dealing – directly and indirectly – with the broken windows theory.

The first direct test of this theory comes from some enterprising researchers in the Netherlands. The theory

does not necessarily mean that people will copy bad behaviour exactly, reaching for a spray can when they see graffiti. Rather, says Dr Keizer, it can foster the “violation” of other norms of behaviour.

So the researchers set up an elaborate set of experiments, whereby they could observe if people were more likely to litter if there was graffiti on the walls or litter already on the ground. What they found was that when the alley contained graffiti, 69% of the riders littered compared with 33% when the walls were clean.

That’s not all. To test the central tenet of “broken windows” – that small crime begets big crime – the researchers set up an experiment to see if people would steal in an air of disorder:

The most dramatic result, though, was the one that showed a doubling in the number of people who were prepared to steal in a condition of disorder. In this case an envelope with a €5 ($6) note inside (and the note clearly visible through the address window) was left sticking out of a post box. In a condition of order, 13% of those passing took the envelope (instead of leaving it or pushing it into the box). But if the post box was covered in graffiti, 27% did. Even if the post box had no graffiti on it, but the area around it was littered with paper, orange peel, cigarette butts and empty cans, 25% still took the envelope.

To see the broken windows theory in action, we have to travel almost 6,000 miles to Hartford, CT, where the Community Court has been helping the community since 1998 [an interesting report written in 1999 by the Center for Court innovation which helped found the ComCourt]. This report details the origins of the community court and emphasizes its focus:

Given that the Hartford Community Court serves the entire City, it is designed to maintain close contact with representatives of each of the City’s 17 neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a problem-solving committee that determines priorities for their communities, including crime and non-crime issues to be dealt with by the police, the Community Court, and other appropriate City departments (e.g., public works).

Which of course brings us back to the topic at hand:

Redefining Behavioral Norms & Expectations The Court is also attempting to influence behavioral norms about low-level nuisance offenses. Court planners were ambitious in lobbying for legislation that expanded the menu of sanctions available in municipal ordinance cases, sending the message that certain forms of disorderly behavior will not be tolerated.

10 years on, the Court seems to have been a success. The Courant has run a few pieces on the Court (calling it Judge Norko’s court – Judge Norko was the first judge and recently returned there) and on the impact of the court implementing the broken window theory.

Community court has made a difference to the city and undoubtedly to the defendants who pass through its doors on Washington Street. It does not yield drama worthy of “Law and Order.” It deals with misdemeanors that might otherwise be dismissed by the courts handling more serious crimes.

Judge Norko’s court metes out justice to loiterers, prostitutes, litterers, drunks, disturbers of the peace and other scofflaws who spoil the quality of neighborhood life.

The court was crowded recently with offenders waiting for their one- or two-day community service sentences. Once they complete the service hours, their records are wiped clean. For that reason, many people declined to give their names when talking about their experiences at the court. Others said they had been wrongfully arrested and planned to fight the charges — an option all defendants have at the court.

But for repeat offenders, the system aims to help them through whatever problems led them to offend in the first place. A drug addict might be led to addiction services; prostitutes can enroll in a specialized counseling program; petty thieves can apply for food stamps at the courthouse.

Kudos to the Court and kudos to Judge Norko. Perhaps Kelling was right. The theory might just work after all. It may be time for other cities and states to follow their lead and start dealing with the little problems that lead to big problems.

The Community Court is the one aspect of the criminal justice system that I am quite happy with. This addresses, on a small scale, the issues that I think are most important to improving law and order in a city: drug addiction and alcoholism. Those across the street in the regular criminal court are not that much different from the folks in community court; they just didn’t have the community court to help them back then.

The relevant question, obviously, is whether implementing a community court has done much for Hartford’s general crime. The answer depends on several factors, but the statistics are what they are: Since 1998, there has been a drop in violent crime (although it had been dropping pretty steadily since an all-time high in 1990). It’s possible that this drop in crime from 1990 onwards can be attributed to tougher sentencing or the elimination of indeterminate sentencing or an economic boom, but to the residents of Hartford, the community court has made an undeniable impact.

For more on the community court, you can read its newsletters here or see pictures from the 5th anniversary celebration here. For more general information, see here.