the crime report

For the first time in 40 years, the state prison population declined, says Prison Count 2010 a new survey by the Pew Center on the States.  The population decreased in 27 states, California’s population fell the most loosing 4,257 prisoners in 2009. Five other states reduced their prison population by 1,000 inmates. In 23 states the prison population grew, and more than half the increase was in five states: Pennsylvania (2,122), Florida (1,527), Indiana (1,496), Louisiana (1,399) and Alabama (1,053).

Read the full survey here.

Use the Crime Report for more information on prisons.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center received 336,655 complaints of online fraud in 2009, up 22 percent from 2008. The Center, a joint operation run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, also reports that the loss linked to such complaints totaled more than half a billion dollars, up from just $183.2 million in 2005.

Click here to read the entire report and see a state-by-state breakdown.

Use The Crime Report for more information on White-Collar Crime and Cyber Crime.

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Way back in 1988, the federal government recognized that minority youths were more likely to be incarcerated than white youths for the same offense, and mandated that states “access and address” the issue. So how are we doing? A new, interactive data set and map from the W. Haywood Burns Institute breaks the information down by state, and further by offense, race and more. The site includes graphs on the state’s one-day incarceration count, and provides contact information for local decision makers and advocates.

Click here for the map.

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The Fels Institute of Government at University of Pennsylvania released a study with examples of seven successful cities using social media tools. There are some interesting sections on law enforcement using social media. Read the report here.

Use the Crime Report for more information on social media.

Deaths due to accidental drug overdose New York City in 2008 were at their lowest since 1999, according to a new report from the city’s health department. In 2006, 874 city deaths were attributed to overdose, and in 2008 that number fell 27 percent to 666. Still, drug overdose is the third leading cause of death for New Yorkers aged 25-34, and was a factor in 55,000 hospital emergency admissions in 2007.

Click here to read the entire report.

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The Department of Education released a survey last week detailing the policies in place for the use of restraint and seclusion in schools in the states and territories. Polices, or the lack thereof, vary widely: Vermont, for example, has no formal guidelines governing how schools can restrain students, while Nevada has “stringent” requirements about specific conditions under which restraint can be used, as well as a formal process for filing violations. In Missouri, a 2009 law mandates localities create relevant policies by July 2011.

Click here to read the entire survey.

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A new report by the Urban Institute analyzes how children are affected by the results of their parents’ immigration violations. “Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement” examines a sample of the more than 5 million children whose unauthorized parents have been scooped up by immigration authorities, and looks at housing, food, mental health and behavior, to create a picture of the affect of arrest, detention and deportation on children, most of whom are U.S. citizens.

Use The Crime Report for more information on Immigration and Deportation.

A new study out of Syracuse University looks at the results of a more than 100 percent increase in the budget of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Detention and Removal budget in the years 2005-2009. According the report produced by TRAC, ICE had pledged to focus on detaining people who posed a threat to society, but the number of non-criminal detainees doubled, while the number of criminal detainees remained the same: “Instead of giving priority to the detention and removal of aliens convicted of crimes, the agency seemingly focused on filling detention beds.”

Click here to read the study.

In the next week more than one million visitors will be descending on Vancouver for the winter Olympics, but many of the attendees will not be truly prepared for protecting themselves, finds a new report, “The Dark Side of the Winter Olympics.”

The report, prepared by the Online Safety Foundation, discusses issues of cyber security, including, identity theft, emergency response, organized crime, and even espionage.

Read the report here.

Use the Crime Report to find out more information on Cyber Security.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein today announced the introduction of legislation that would criminalize carrying a gun in New York while under the influence of alcohol. The proposed law would make carrying a gun with a more than 0.08 blood alcohol content a class-A misdemeanor punishable by one year in jail and a $10,000 fine, but will not apply to guns inside the home. 20 other states currently have similar legislation.

“If you are too intoxicated to drive a car, you should not be carrying a gun,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The law would apply the same standards and tests that are now used to prevent and punish driving while intoxicated.”

Click here to read the state’s pre-legislation report.

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