the crime report

The criminal justice division of the American Bar Association released their annual report: The State of Criminal Justice 2010. Authors from across the criminal justice field provide essays on topics ranging from white collar crime to international law to juvenile justice. The 2010 volume contains 19 chapters focusing on specific aspects of the criminal justice field, with new addition of full text and reports of all of the adopted official ABA policies passed in 2009-2010 that address criminal justice issues.

Access the report here.

Additionally the committee also released a list of active criminal justice Federal legislation.

Read the list here.

On June 25 and 26th  2010, 18  journalists from across the country gathered with preeminent experts in tribal justice at The University of New Mexico School Of Law for a specialized reporting institute. The Institute, one of a series of advanced journalism workshops on pressing topics supported annually by the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation, is co-sponsored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ), the Department of Communication &Journalism at University of New Mexico, the School of Law at the University of New Mexico and the Native American Journalists Association.

Topics discussed included: jurisdictional issues on and off reservation, violence against women, substance abuse use among native population, and the theft of native art and cultural artifacts. Speakers included: Brendan Johnson, U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota, Bernadine Martin, Chief Prosecutor, Navajo Nation, Everett Little Whiteman, Director of Public Safety, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Marcus MacCaskill, Special Agent, FBI, and Tracy Toulou, Director of the Office of Tribal Justice, Department of Justice.

Read the full agenda here.

Read the press release announcing the selection of tribal justice fellows.

Resources

American Indians and Crime, by Steven W. Perry, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice

Census of Tribal Justice Agencies, 2002

Improving Criminal History Records in Indian Country

Improving Recidivism Data in Indian Country by Steven W. Perry, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice.  JRSA Forum – June 2008, Vol. 26, No. 2

The Nation’s Two Crime Measures

 Jurisdictional Variation in American Indian Criminal Justice: An Argument for Stronger Understanding and Better Methods by Attorney General Larry Long, South Dakota

DOJ Tribal Justice Fact Sheet

Thomas Perrelli, Associate Attorney General, Department of Justice Op-Ed

Special Journal Issue on Tribal Justice by the Center on Court Innovation

Articles by our Fellows

“Despite witness, confession, Navajo man cleared of molesting infant daughter,” by Joseph Kolb, Gallup Herald

“Obama says he’ll sign Tribal Law and Order Act,” by Felicia Fonesca, Associated Press

“Standing Rock’s tribal court stays busy,” by Jenny Michael,  The Bismark Tribune

“Tribal Law and Order Act expected to felt on Standing Rock,” by Jenny Michael,  The Bismark Tribune

“UTTC plans training to ease tribal officer shortage,” by Jenny Michael,  The Bismark Tribune

News About our Panelists

Using Statistics and Research to Improve Justice Policies and Practices

Bureau of Justice Statistics/Justice Research and Statistics Association

Oct. 28–29, 2010

Holiday Inn by the Bay, Portland, Maine

http://www.jrsa.org/events/conference/index.html

New York City saw an unprecedented 72 percent decline in homicides between 1990 and 1998. A June 2010 report from the National Institutes of Health looks at the city’s gun-related murders by the age of the perpetrator, finding drug treatment and an increased social safety net helped reduce murders by young people, the group most likely to carry them out.

Read the full report here.

Use The Crime Report to find out more information about homicide rates.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld said his department would work to improve how it categorizes and resolves rape investigations, responding to a Baltimore Sun report that found Baltimore has the nation’s highest rate of cases that officers conclude are false or baseless. The Sun story prompted Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to order an audit of the department’s procedures and statistics. City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young said he has asked council members to “examine police investigative practices” after the audit is complete. (more…)

(more…)

Some experts warned that crime rates might not continue to drop even though the FBI reported a third consecutive year of falling crime reports despite the recession. “It’s fabulous news, but I would draw an analogy to global warming: Even if you believe the long-term trend is increasing temperatures, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a cold year,” Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University told the Associated Press. (more…)

Adam Gelb, Director of the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States, was on Capitol Hill May 11, testifying before a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee about the state of the American criminal justice system. With 1 out of 100 Americans behind bars, Gelb testified that five states now spend more money on incarceration than they do on higher education, but that the success of some states in reducing incarceration rates “firmly debunk[s] the notion that if imprisonment goes down, crime will go up.” Gelb praised efforts at “justice reinvestment” and the HOPE Probation program, and asked Congress to support them.

Click here to read the testimony.

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.

(more…)

As many as 94 percent of former inmates will be rearrested and up to 81 percent will wind up behind bars again, says a 20-year study by psychologist Greg Little that he tells the Memphis Commercial Appeal shows recidivism is far worse than statistics usually indicate. It is the only study done over such a long period of time, tracking inmates who were first jailed at the Memphis correction center between 1987 and 1991. Tennessee correction department studies show recidivism rates of 51 percent over three years; a national study estimates 65 percent.  (more…)