HOT STORY
The FBI’s preliminary data on reported crimes for the first six months of 2009, during the depths of the current recession, show drops in both violent and property crimes over the same period in 2008. The crime declines are dominated by reductions in the largest cities. Homicides fell 10 percent nationwide but 19 percent in New York City and 29 percent in Los Angeles. New York and L.A. also registered sizable drops in robberies and burglaries, crimes for monetary gain that past research suggests tend to increase during economic downturns, says criminologist Richard Rosenfeld of University of Missouri St. Louis.
Not all cities experienced crime decreases. Burglaries increased by 9 percent in Houston, 12 percent in San Jose, and by fully 25 percent in San Antonio during the first half of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. Robberies increased by 28 percent in Seattle. Still, the continuing nationwide declines are unexpected in the midst of a deepening recession. What then might explain the absence – or delay – of crime increases during the current recession? Five factors bear watching by researchers and the press.
1. Drug markets. Past recessions have been accompanied by expansions in illicit drug markets –
heroin in the 1970s and crack in the late 80s and early 90s. No comparable expansion in drug markets has occurred during the current recession. Even methamphetamine use has dropped in recent years. If drug market activity begins to accelerate, increases in homicide and robbery may follow, as they did during the height of the crack epidemic.
2. Policing. More effective policing is clearly part of the reason New York and LA continue to mount impressive crime declines. Compstat-type accountability systems, the use of real time crime information, and hot spots enforcement are spreading and may have contributed to crime decreases elsewhere. But effective policing is not cheap and its widespread adoption may be slowed by over burdened municipal budgets.
3. Target hardening. An unheralded feature of the recent crime decline is the double-digit drop in motor vehicle thefts over the past few years. As newer model automobiles with electronic locking and ignition systems continue to displace older vehicles, substantial decreases in motor vehicle thefts should continue.
4. Economic stimulus. Economic stimulus spending, particularly the extension of unemployment benefits, has cushioned the impact of the recession on millions of Americans. But while stimulus spending may help to account for the absence of recent crime increases, it cannot explain why crime rates have declined.
5. Declining criminal opportunities. The reduction of criminal opportunities can help to explain why crime rates fall when economic conditions deteriorate. When unemployment rates are high, more people remain at home, and burglars prefer to avoid occupied households. When people do venture out, they carry less cash and other valuables with them, making them less attractive targets for street robbers.
One factor conspicuous by its absence from this list is imprisonment. Skyrocketing imprisonment rates contributed to crime declines during the 1990s. But the increase in imprisonment has slowed in recent years and many states are implementing early release programs in the face of budget constraints. If the number of persons leaving prison begins to outpace the number entering, and post-release supervision and services remain unchanged, that will put upward pressure on crime rates.
- by Richard Rosenfeld , University of Missouri St. Louis
our pris“A Story That Needs To Be Told”
The True Reality Of Prison, Crime And Justice
The Criminal Mind Never Sleeps Because Prisons And Our Justice System Have Becoming A Circus Of Shams And Charade
At Taxpayers’ Expense.
PRISON REFORM HAS BECOME JUST WORDS TO KEEP THE
TAX DOLLARS FLOWING INTO THESE FEDERAL AND STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
This letter will inform the mind and startle the soul, of how our prisons have become contaminated with flaws imbedded with unthinking unknowing or Corrupted Officials and Political Bureaucrats.
Lawmakers cannot control illegal immigrants crossing the boarders in this country, nor can they control repeat-felons and illegal-immigrants from committing most of the crimes in the United States.
Now these same lawmakers are demanding that prison leaders must help reduce the deficit in this country by reducing overcrowding of prisons, and release criminals that have not completed their sentences.
This is completely hypercritical and insane. Why are lawmakers misleading the American people that count on justice to put criminals behind bars and then turn right around and start defacing our justice system?
For example, in California they have approximately 33 prisons that are filled with approximately 153,000 criminal, which includes murderers, rapist, pedophiles, and drug-pushers and mentally unstable inmates living off the taxpayers.
Lawmakers are demanding that in three-years they want to reduce prison spending and overcrowding by releasing approximately, 55,000 criminals from the California correctional facilities. And yet, most of these criminals will still be supervised and supported by taxpayers, who will be paying approximately $5,000.00 dollars a years to keep one criminal on parole.
The present California Governor is now trying to make lawmakers reconsider their options because prisoners have a recidivism rate of 79% in one to three-years.
How can lawmakers justify, that releasing criminals to save tax-dollars when over 75% of them will commit more crimes and return back to prisons?
The major problem is revenge from criminals. They hate correctional officers because they remind them of the officers on the streets.
Now those same law-enforcement officers, who keep putting these same criminals behind bars, will once again be in a life-threatening situation trying to re-arrest these repeat felons at taxpayers’ expense…
Gang wars are taking over our society like butter melting over a hot stove. Our prisons are infested with violent gangs that come from ghettos of our society. Prisons-Officials and Lawmakers cannot stop these gangs from continuing their crimes in prisons.
How can anyone in the Judicial System favor releasing so many repeat felons knowing that the criminal mind never sleeps in prisons? Prison Officials know that repeat felons get more violent and evil minded from dealing with so much corruption in the prison systems that’s disaster-prone and can not be repaired.
Preparing prisoners to reform in today’s prisons without re-socializing them is hypocritical and life-threatening. But it keeps the taxpayer’s money flowing into the system, which apparently, does not bother our justice system and lawmakers, who keep right on pushing for more laws to protect criminal rights.
In Mexico, the crime rates are high and that breeds a lot of corruption in their society and in law-enforcement officials. They now have the highest kidnapping rate in the world. When these Mexicans and millions of other illegal immigrants keep pouring over the boarders in our county crime rates keep increasing. Phoenix Arizona now has the second highest kidnapping rate in the world.
The federal panel of lawmakers within our government is trying to sell the American taxpayers, a stimulus package that will get the economy going again. And the governors of each state are helping to reduce the deficit in this country, by reducing prison population, closing prisons, and reducing prison staff.
Here is how I see the past and future of prisons. As a society we cannot afford to release dangerous prisoners frivolously. Our criminal justice system was developed by lawmakers to pass laws to put these criminals behind bars. But instead, our prisons are turning criminals into psychopathic monsters who act like prehistoric man existing all over again.
The recidivism rates are at an all time high. Taxpayers cannot control prison spending nor can they stop prison bureaucrats from building new prisons to keep locking up the same murderers, rapist, pedophiles, drug-pushers and mentally unstable felons that show no remorse for human life.
Most of our children are being sexually abused by an average of 90% of sex-offenders and pedophiles’ who keep returning back to prisons in one to three years, committing the same crimes.
I worked in an “All Male Maximum-Security Prison” for almost three decades and I say with experience and sound mind. That behind those prison walls is a failing prison system, controlled by criminals where prison officials have become their servants and political followers, who worry more about pleasing their superiors and prisoner’s rights then keeping prisons safe.
My books “Hell Behind Prison Walls” and “The Devil’s Den of Prison and Justice” are true compelling and gripping stories taken from my personal thoughts and prison experiences in dealing with corrupted officials, and how I perceive our prisons are now filled with eighty-percent of thugs and gangsters that are career criminals. Hooking up with old gang members from the streets of our society, and without remorse, continue their crime sprees in prisons.
Now that correctional officers have been downgraded from being the backbone of the prison system to glorified babysitters, they are living in constant fear of their superiors for violating criminal’s rights and using too much physical force when trying to protect them-selves from violent inmates. This is not what prisons were intended for.
These violent criminals not only control our prison compounds, but have turned our correctional facilities and courtrooms into their personal playgrounds while hiding behind their civil rights, while they continue to violate the civil rights of others. This is so appalling and degrading to taxpayers’ that pay over “one-hundred-billion-dollars” a year to keep the ”Criminal Justice System” going to fight crimes in this country… And forty-nine billion dollars of that money is spent on the department of corrections.
“A Nightmare from Hell” is how I describe working in one of the most dangerous prisons in the country, The Elmira Correctional Facility.
I invite you to review my website http://www.johnpecchio.com that will introduce my books, which has generated great interest in readers around the country and are regional best-sellers.
I survived working in this prison system in New York State as a vocational instructor, dealing with so many violent and non-violent inmates of all ages.
Prison staff lives in constant fear of moving daily between freedom and captivity, while walking a delicate line between administrative politics and the threat of inmate violence.
I offer unique insight into the inner-workings of “America’s prisons”. In addition, I give readers a definitive look into the causes behind their major problems, which were shockingly created by lawmakers and prison officials.
You can now read how federal and state prisons have deteriorated to their worst condition in the history of these institutions. They have changed from being run with dignity and strong security into a hellish nightmare where corruption is the norm.
With the loss of positive leadership in our prisons came the increase of prisoner’s power, primarily caused by their ability to hide behind highly-defended “Civil Rights”, which has now taken precedence above all else. These rights allowed them to live without fear of strong retribution for their actions, thereby leading to a breakdown in inmate behavior and resulting in riots, fights, and physical and verbal abuse of prison workers.
I have personally suffered the negative effects of this volatile environment when I was brutally attacked by a prisoner who was serving two life sentences for multiple murders. This attack, which I describe in devastating detail, was induced by the ongoing failing prison systems along with the lack of prisoner and administrative discipline.
The truth can be found from letters and personal remarks I received from many readers, which can be reviewed on my website guest-book. You can also see a video commercial and read along with newspaper interviews.
For (Prison Presentation) (Book Signings) and (Interviews) please visit my Website – http://www.johnpecchio.com.
Sincerely
John J. Pecchio
ons and courtrooms have become a playground for criminals Press release please print my article
Dear John you must have been one jaded officer, here is a bit of information you may or may not know, there are 56 million Americans with criminal records 26 million which are for felonies, according to the US bureau of Prisons as of Jan 2010. You also make it seem as if every person who enters prison is a career criminal with gang affiliations, this is an over generalization, of the 2.4 million Americans currently imprison in the US, according to the Justice dept, 2010, (dont know how accurate). In regards to corrections officers having their hands tied behind their backs endagering their lives. In NYC Rikers island there was a White Correction officer that walked around with a steel ball in his hand, and if an inmate gave him a problem he would knock him upside his head, perhaps you miss the good old days when a correction officer good dish out a lil justice to keep the inmate in line, well we as a country profess to be better than other countries in so many ways, and allowing self rightous correction officers to discipline and torture blacks and hispanics like they do in other countries that are supposedly third world is wrong. Thank God we still have some rights, although Im sure you would consider taking away all of an ex-cons rights and if possible just disposing of them permanently. As for you being assulted that is unfortunate however you do realize that you chose the profession and knew the risks, I have seen the way corrrection officers behave towards all inmates ( and frankly it is degrading, disrespectful and many times inhumane) you write about your experiences hoping to encourage others to hate ex convicts, and to fear all of them, this is totally wrong, becuase you know that there are really good people in prison that have made a mistake, like I learned at John Jay college of criminal justice your only a criminal when you get caught and all humans beings have secrets hidden in their closets. All of us!