Of Arms and the Law: Crime and statistics Archives

Jim Lindgren takes on study of DC homicides

Posted by David Hardy · 9 July 2008 09:02 AM

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindren gives a devastating critique of the 1991 Loftin study claiming that DC's gun ban cut homicides.

DC's gun crime

Posted by David Hardy · 2 July 2008 12:10 PM

From an article in the Washingtonian:

"Gun violence is relatively rare across the Potomac River in Virginia, despite the fact that guns are easily bought and registered there. And there is much less gunplay in urbanized parts of Montgomery County, just over the line from DC.

Why? Activists outside the criminal-justice system blame poverty and the flow of illegal guns into DC; police and prosecutors point to cases like that of D’Angelo Thomas."

Police stopped his car; four guys and five pistols inside. Three of them were on probation -- and Thomas on probation for robbery (i.e., he was a felon in possession) and a gun violation. But DC hadn't done the paperwork to charge him in time for the initial appearance. The judge dismissed charges against all four. The paperwork arrived in the courtroom ten minutes later, but he'd already been released (I guess DC can be fast at that) and was gone. 11 days later he fatally shot someone.

"“Suspects arrested in DC don’t fear the criminal-justice system,” says Edgar Domenech, head of the DC field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. “The majority of the gun cases go through Superior Court, and they don’t see any real jail time.”

DC police officer Tamika Hampton says she has made a number of arrests for CPWL—carrying a pistol without a license. “They get right back out on the street,” she says. “They know it when I make the arrest. After I process them, they walk out of court the same time I do. They laugh at me.”"
.......
"Sounds tough, but any change in gun enforcement laws has to pass through a DC Council that sometimes seems to favor criminals over cops.

Since the 1970s, when it passed the landmark ban on handguns, the 13-member council has been among the nation’s most liberal legislatures on law-enforcement problems.

Until the law was changed two years ago, even a convicted felon caught with a gun in DC could be charged at most with a misdemeanor and would likely serve no time.

In early 2005 then-mayor Anthony Williams proposed reforms to toughen penalties on many crimes, including gun possession. Judiciary Committee chair Phil Mendelson held the bill in his committee for a year and a half.... Mendelson also doesn’t believe in holding violent offenders while they are awaiting trial. Mayor Williams had proposed changes in the law that would make it easier for judges to hold suspects. Mendelson stripped the provisions from the bill."

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Glad to know the DC gun ban has made things safer

Posted by David Hardy · 5 June 2008 09:39 AM

DC will seal off high-crime areas, set up vehicle checkpoints. Drivers who fail to show ID will be arrested for failure to obey an officer. (?)

Reading carefully -- actually, they're going to set up a checkpoint only on one street in the area. Pedestrians will not be stopped (and in DC, you get around on foot or via Metro whenever you can -- traffic goes slowly and usually there's no parking). So it must come under the "This will show we are doing something" exception to the 4th Amendment. (DC figures the 2nd Amendment is subject to that exception, hardly astonishing they think the 4th has it, too).

Interesting that the proposal is opposed both by the FOP and by the ACLU.

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Crime drop in prisons

Posted by David Hardy · 19 April 2008 04:53 PM

A Weekly Standard article notes that, while violent crime has dropped generally, violent crime in prisons has fallen to an incredible degree -- as in a 94% fall in homicides.

The article attributes it to better administration, which I suspect is correct. Back in the 70s, one of my partners had a client a fellow who had been in and out of prison for many years. He was intelligent, but had an explosive temper. The tiniest bit of prodding and it was another agg. assault conviction. We got to talking about what prison was like, and he pointed out that if you looked at the guard to convict ratio, there were enough guards to ensure that all was under control. But, he pointed out, they were generally (up in the attic, I think he said) smoking pot. And often dealing it to the inmates. He said if he were made warden he'd (1) fire all the then-current guards, because so many were corrupt or lazy it wasn't worth finding the exceptions; (2) he'd double the pay and (3) with that as an attraction, hire good replacements. He figured he could have the entire place in order, honest, and safe in a few months. Unfortunately, his long list of felony convictions probably ruled out being hired as warden. But I rather suspect something like his agenda was carried out over the years.

Never bring a bat to a gunfight...

Posted by David Hardy · 17 April 2008 10:02 AM

Story here.

Another dumb crook story

Posted by David Hardy · 14 April 2008 06:20 PM

Lady jailed after she pays theft fine using stolen credit card.

UPDATE: I see someone is following Alan around, hoping for links and hits...

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Canadian paper interviews Steve Levitt

Posted by David Hardy · 2 April 2008 01:11 PM

Story here. He's and economist and the author of Freakonomics. While he's had battles with John Lott (as I recall, the dispute was over whether more CCW means less crime, Lott's position, or doesn't affect crime one way of the other, his position), he tells the Canadian paper that gun laws do nothing to lower crime rates, a swimming pool in the backyard is more dangerous than a gun in the house, and gun laws have few effects, except when they are counterproductive effects.

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Revolving doors

Posted by David Hardy · 1 March 2008 07:55 PM

I don't usually comment on "revolving door justice," because in most States (and certainly under the Federal Guidelines), sentencing is pretty strict. But this case out of Florida certainly merits that label. Watch the video for a list of his priors.

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines do not have an enhancement for felonious stupid, but if they it would surely add on 20 points.The gang leader posts video to YouTube threatening the police, daring them to arrest him, and in the course of it waving around a gun, when he's a felon with a few dozen convictions to do. The police of course took him up on the dare.

Drug ODs killing more than gunshots

Posted by David Hardy · 6 February 2008 03:07 PM

Story here. Drug deaths (predominantly among illicit users, but the story has some startling reports of accidental deaths) doubled 1994-2004. The biggest rise was in prescription drugs (oxycodone, for example), which went up 152% in five years.

Another dumb criminal story

Posted by David Hardy · 17 January 2008 09:23 AM

Robber enters convenience story, at one point puts pistol back in waistband. And manages to shoot himself in the scrotum.

Hat tip to reader Josh Berger...

Clayton Cramer & SF Chronicle on inner cities and crime

Posted by David Hardy · 14 December 2007 05:25 AM

Right here. The point is made by one officer: you have entire areas where everyone, but everyone, is growing a psychopath. How do you deal with that?

Via Instapundit...

American vs. European homicide rates

Posted by David Hardy · 7 November 2007 06:18 PM

Don Kates brought my attention to this paper by the late Eric Monkkenen. It's interesting on a number of levels (including the conclusion that European homicide rates were very high during the medieval period and then fell rapidly during the Industrial Age ... when popular histories tended to treat the period as disruption, urbanization, and exploitation).

John Lott on DC gun law

Posted by David Hardy · 7 September 2007 09:11 AM

He has an op-ed in the Washington Times today.

"The city's brief focuses only on murder rates in discussing crime in D.C. Yet, in the five years before Washington's ban in 1976, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000. In the five years after it went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. But there is one fact that seems particularly hard to ignore. D.C.'s murder rate fluctuated after 1976 but has only once fallen below what it was in 1976 (that happened years later, in 1985). Does D.C. really want to argue that the gun ban reduced the murder rate?

Similarly for violent crime, from 1977 to 2003, there were only two years when D.C.'s violent crime rate fell below the rate in 1976. These drops and subsequent increases were much larger than any changes in neighboring Maryland and Virginia. For example, D.C.'s murder rate fell 3.5 to 3 times more than in the neighboring states during the five years before the ban and rose back 3.8 times more in the five years after it. D.C.'s murder rate also rose relative to that in other similarly sized cities."

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Profile of homicide victims

Posted by David Hardy · 3 September 2007 03:10 PM

Data here. The vast majority of homicide victims have criminal records, usually extensive ones, and the trend has been increasing:

"In Baltimore, about 91 percent of murder victims this year had criminal records, up from 74 percent a decade ago, police reported. In many cases, says Frederick Bealefeld III, Baltimore's interim police commissioner, victims' rap sheets provide critical links to potential suspects in botched drug deals or violent territorial disputes... Philadelphia also has seen the number of victims with criminal pasts inch up, to 75 percent this year from 71 percent in 2005, department statistics show.

In Milwaukee, ... 77 percent of murder victims in the past two years had an average of nearly 12 arrests."

Hat tip to Joe Olson, who pointed out that Don Kates has been studying and documenting this fact for about thirty years, with little coverage in the press.

Roundup of dumb crooks

Posted by David Hardy · 28 August 2007 08:44 PM

Let's see... should the criminal Darwin Award go to:

Francisco Torrez, who was arrested after checking into a hospital due to an asthma attack -- brought on by inhaling powder smoke after he shot at his intended victim. Or...

Daniel Clark, who attempted to disguise himself during a robbery by coloring his face blue. He fled, but when officers tracking him down, they had no trouble IDing him. Since he still had the blue coloring on his face.

Safety tip

Posted by David Hardy · 14 August 2007 12:20 PM

There are safe ways to load a handgun, and unsafe ways. One of the unsafe ways to load a handgun is while the deputy is trying to wrestle you to the ground.

"Dodge City"?

Posted by David Hardy · 13 August 2007 01:47 PM

The standard response to liberalizing CCW or allowing self defense is that it'll lead to "Dodge City" (which actually was rather peaceful compared to modern inner cities).

It's already here, as this Washington Post article illustrates.

Facts: a guy commits two murders, on the street, in front of dozens of witnesses. Despite offers of relocation and witness protection, only one will testify. The second murder, BTW, was of a witness to the first murder whom the perp thought (incorrectly) might be aiding police. Guy wins two acquittals.

The mother of the second victim starts investigating, and is warned her house would be shot up if she didn't stop. She stops and moves away.

At least in Dodge City you could shoot back. And in Tombstone, you could bring in John Slaughter, tell him to do what he had to, and you'll look the other way so long as he hurts only the bad guys.

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Fairly insightful article in Boston Globe

Posted by David Hardy · 5 August 2007 08:37 AM

I found it rather striking.

"Liquarry's accidental death June 24 brought familiar calls for tougher gun controls. Mayor Thomas M. Menino suggested the National Rifle Association was partly to blame."

But then

"Liquarry A. Jefferson probably didn't have a chance. His father was in prison the day the boy was born, emerging long enough from his manslaughter sentence to commit a string of armed robberies. His four half siblings were born of three different fathers, all gang members, and, currently, all inmates.... But the killing laid bare a much deeper truth about urban violence: Crime in many neighborhoods runs in families, where elders bequeath gang membership, drug abuse, joblessness, and brutality to their offspring like a toxic inheritance. In Grove Hall, police have said that 2.4 percent of the area's 19,000 residents cause most of the serious crime. Many of those people, police say, are related."

And even....

"A Globe analysis shows that in the final year of Liquarry's life, government agencies spent at least $314,000 on his family, about half for social services and government benefits, in an extraordinary effort to save the family, especially the children.
Besides the salaries for the battery of social workers who regularly called on the house, the public spending includes a subsidized housing allowance, food stamps, court-appointed public defenders, and the $56 paternity test that a judge ordered one of the fathers of Liquarry's mother's other children to undergo for an out-of-wedlock child with another woman.

The other half of the total went to the costs of prosecuting and imprisoning family members. Taxpayers spent an estimated $30,000 on a double-homicide trial for the father of two of Liquarry's half siblings in October -- he was acquitted -- as well as dozens, maybe hundreds of hours worth of police work on cases that involved family members. When the Boston Herald admonished the family last month for costing the public $10,000 in needless investigative work because Liquarry's mother, Lakeisha Gadson, falsely reported that her son had been shot by home invaders, police and social service officials knew the bigger story. The family had been tearing through $10,000 in public resources every couple of weeks for a long time."

Egad--this is the Globe?

California leaning the way of Great Britain

Posted by David Hardy · 4 August 2007 10:26 AM

From the land of assault rifle bans, etc., comes the story of a newspaper editor murdered, apparently because he was working on a story critical of a Black Muslim bakery. One might wonder why the killers were so bold. Well,

"The police said the raid came after a lengthy investigation of other crimes, including two kidnappings on a single day in May, and two killings in July that occurred in the same north Oakland neighborhood where the bakery is located. The police had connected those crimes and put the bakery under surveillance before Mr. Bailey was killed. ... The bakery’s operators had been investigated by the police in the past. In 2002, the founder, Mr. Bey, was charged with rape, sodomy and lewd acts with a child under 14, stemming from accusations that he had fathered a child with a 13-year-old girl in 1982. Mr. Bey died of cancer in 2003 before his trial began.

In late 2005, several members of the group that operates the bakery, including the younger Mr. Bey, were charged in an attack at a small neighborhood grocery store, in which liquor bottles were smashed and other merchandise was destroyed. The attack was treated as a felony hate crime, the police said, because the store, which is owned by Muslims, had sold goods forbidden by Islamic law.

Lieutenant Joyner said that many residents of the neighborhood surrounding the bakery had been afraid of the Muslim group, whose members sometimes shot automatic rifles in the air in a show of intimidation. Other members of the group, the police said, flaunted their defiance of outstanding warrants on assault and gun charges."

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Wierd case gets even wierder

Posted by David Hardy · 13 July 2007 05:29 PM

The case I blogged a few days ago, about the guy who went into a bank with a bomb fastened around his neck, and ultimately got blown up...

Just got a LOT wierder. As one commenter said, if anybody had made a TV series on it, they'd have been laughed off as ludicrously implausble.

The full story now involves:

Cocaine;

a hooker;

a doublecross (the guy was in on the plot, having been told it was a fake bomb, and was only told it was real at the last moment);

a "treasure hunt" for clues (after robbing the bank, he was supposed to follow a chain of clues until he got to the last one, that would tell him how to take the bomb off);

a plot to murder a woman's father, so she would inherit;

a hit man who was to be paid from the bank robbery;

a suicide note that gave clues as to who else was involved; and

a body in a freezer.

DC law enforcement

Posted by David Hardy · 12 July 2007 09:41 AM

At the Volokh Conspiracy, there's a post on law enforcement in the District of Columbia.

Frankly, I suspect DC police just get demoralized and jaded. Trying to enforce the law in a city where a sizeable percent of the population are convicted felons (I forget now the proportion, but it was pretty high), crime is constant, etc. must be pretty demoralizing after years.

To give you some idea of what I mean when I saw crime is constant: at one point they sent fire engines down the streets, shooting water under parked cars. Why? The coke dealers all hung out on those streets, and put their inventory under the cars. A customer would buy, and they would direct him to get it from under the car. That way they figured that, if busted, there would be no proof they possessed the coke. The volume of trade was so large that DC found it easier to just wash it all down the drain than to do what would be necessary to set them up.

One strange crime

Posted by David Hardy · 12 July 2007 09:09 AM

Story here. This one is too wierd to describe, read the story.

New book by John Lott

Posted by David Hardy · 4 June 2007 09:34 AM

Just in the mail: "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." It is quite interesting and a good read, in part an answer to an earlier book "Freakonomics." These two books seem intended to remove economic's popular reputation as "the dismal science," by showing how statistical work can be applied to matters of popular interest. The key to that is often having the imagination to figure out the beginning data, where do you start comparisons?

A few of the most interest points (to me, anyway):

Interest groups contribute to campaigns of politicians who favor them. Does that prove politicians favor them because of their contributions, or rather that they contribute to politicians who favor them anyway? Which is cause and which effect?

Lott takes the voting records of 700+ House members, and asks what happened after they announced they were retiring? Contributions of course fell off by 85% -- they're not going to campaign again. But their voting record stayed the same. Even with no need for campaign funds or other support, they voted the same. The contributions didn't create their positions; their positions lead to contributions, is to say the call for "campaign reform" is badly undercut.

Campaign finance reform: the main effect is to level the playing field. Except that the playing field is already heavily stacked in favor of the incumbent. So the re-election rate goes upward wherever these measures are adopted.

A bit of history: private radio stations initially seemed doomed to failure, since nobody could figure out to make it pay. How can you charge for subscriptions, when anyone can listen in? For a time it looked as if government radio was the only possibility. Then AT&T discovered they could sell ads, and make it pay without dues or taxes.

Crime rates: a mystery to many was why rates began rapidly falling in the early 90s. Freakonomics attributed it to abortion -- potential criminals were being terminated early and the population of them was smaller. Freedomomics argues this was a bad analysis of the data, and denies the conclusion. It argues that increasing the number of executions depressed homicides, for one thing. (It points out that the odds of a policeman being murdered is less than the odds of a killer being executed, yet that is enough to influence officer decision -- to wear body armor, be cautious, etc. -- why doubt that the odds of execution influences killers?) Another factor was increased police on duty. Plus right to carry laws, and here Lott answers Freaknomomic's attack on his conclusion that right to carry reduces crime rates. (He also cites data by other economists suggesting that when right to carry is enacted, and crime rates drop, they often go up in adjacent counties in nearby states that didn't enact it, suggesting that the criminals moved, or relocated their crimes).

He has an interesting chart on studies of right to carry and its effects. Basically, 15 studies conclude right to carry reduces violent crime. 10 studies conclude it had no discernable effect. Zero studies conclude it increased violence.

All in all, a very great read, and demonstration of how statistical work can illuminate matters of great policy concern to us all. Oh, and here's the Amazon link to buy (I suspect it'd be useful if its Amazon ranking shot up quickly -- best-seller data isn't available for a while, and Amazon ranking is often used as a short term substitute):

"Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence."

Drug raid in Mexico

Posted by David Hardy · 29 May 2007 02:10 PM

Here's a pic of *part* of the drug runner's money supply. Yes, those are hundred dollar bills.

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Kates & Mauser article

Posted by David Hardy · 26 April 2007 11:30 AM

Incarceration, committment and homicide rates

Posted by David Hardy · 25 April 2007 09:28 AM

Two recent papers by Prof. Harcourt finds an inverse relationship between homicide and total incarceration rate (i.e., in prison and in mental institutions).

"First, at the national level, using the new, expanded data on mental institutions (including all institutions for those deemed mentally ill), the contrast between the midcentury and 2001 is even more pronounced: during the 1940s and 50s, the United States consistently institutionalized in mental hospitals and prisons at rates above 700 persons per 100,000 adults, reaching peaks of 778 in 1939 and 786 in 1955. The relationship between the expanded aggregated institutionalization and homicide rates over the period 1934 to 2000 is statistically significant at the national level, holding constant three leading correlates of homicide.

Second, the very same relationship exists at the state level. Using state-level panel data regressions spanning the entire period from 1934 to 2001, including all 50 states, and controlling for economic, demographic, and criminal justice variables, I find a large, robust, and statistically significant relationship between aggregated institutionalization and homicide rates. The predicted relationship is not linear, but involves some slight elasticity. The findings are not sensitive to weighting by population and hold under a number of permutations, including when I aggregate jail populations as well. "

Boston crime wave

Posted by David Hardy · 6 April 2007 10:24 AM

Boston's homicides are up 60%. So much for one of the few states that gets an A from Brady Campaign.

Passing note: the mayor proposes to spend millions on summer jobs to lower the rate. Uh... sure. Apart from the obvious, I've always had a question. Where do you get the money for the jobs? By taxing it away from people who might otherwise hire someone for a summer job. Tax and spent can move money around, but can't create it. Of course it also means that the persons with the jobs will thank the mayor instead of some other employer.

Crime Stats and a con job

Posted by David Hardy · 27 March 2007 11:48 PM

Here's the story (hat tip to Don Kates).

"It is a remarkable con job.

Over the last six months, the Police Executive Research Forum, the chief executives of primarily large police departments, has gotten the media concerned that the country is threatened by a sudden upsurge in violent crime and murder.

A New York Times story on March 9th started the current round of hysteria with the headline that "Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge."

An earlier front-page story in January in USA Today caused a similar ruckus.

One wonders whether the reporters ever thought of getting a critical comment for their story.

.....

It becomes a lot less scary when one realizes that the violent crime rate fell for 13 straight years, a total drop of 39 percent, before increasing in 2005 by less than 1 percent.

The Forum even referred to this minuscule one-year increase as a "trend.""

And that's just the beginning.... read the entire story. They use number of crimes rather than rates, hand-pick certain jurisdictions, omit those violent crimes whose numbers and rates fell, etc., etc...

Study of cop-killers

Posted by David Hardy · 17 February 2007 10:08 AM

Here's a summary of a study of killers of law enforcement officers. Of relevance here: only one of the 40 studied bought a gun legally. "Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.""

The cop-killers boasted of being better shots and more practiced that the LEOs they fired on. 40% had been in gunfights before the one with the officer.

Interesting cues for LEOs:

None used a holster, they generally tucked the gun into their waistband. As a result, they have to feel it from time to time to make sure it's in place, and when running, have to keep a hand on it. Both should be clues that the suspect is armed.

40% carried a backup gun, at least on occasions.

Female officers are more thorough at searches of suspects, but are more likely to overlook the fact that females with the suspect may also be armed.

The gang-bangers' style is to avoid using sights, get the first shot in, and just fire in the general direction. The first hit is all-important, because if the other person goes down, they can always walk over and finish him off. (For LEOs this would underscore the FBI program I've heard about, something like just because you're hit doesn't mean you're dead. Most people hit just collapse, when they actually could continue the fight. In this setting, keeping up the fight means surviving, since the gang-banger doesn't plan on taking prisoners).

One reason Philadelpha might have a crime problem

Posted by David Hardy · 13 February 2007 03:53 PM

From the Delco Times: a gun dealer has a stolen gun, it's recovered in a drug bust. The arrested guy has a long record. He's let out after posting a $100 bond, and charges are later dropped. The dealer requests return of the gun and is told he must file a motion and appear in court. "So the guy they caught with Crane’s stolen gun doesn’t have to appear before a judge, but Crane does."

"Just recently, Crane said he was at his old stomping grounds [he's retired law enforcement] downtown at Fourth and Girard. At the station house he saw a sawed-off shotgun laying on a table. A cop there told him the gun’s owner was in custody. But also that he’d arrested the same guy just three days earlier for carrying a different illegal weapon."

John Lott takes on the latest Hemenway claims

Posted by David Hardy · 25 January 2007 07:02 PM

Three staff at the Harvard School of Public Health (as in Joyce Foundation grants) issued a study claiming to show that more guns = more homicides, which of course got NY Times coverage. John Lott shows how they cooked the books by, e.g., excluding DC, and using data from different years, so they'd get the desired result.

Story that doesn't quite fit the mold

Posted by David Hardy · 23 January 2007 02:47 PM

From the LA Times, a story on "Sheriff traces guns' crooked paths to Compton's streets" -- actually, to the FFLs who first sold them. And the gun end of the story ends there, since there's no indication the FFLs were doing something wrong. More interesting is the note at the end: The sheriff created a task force on gangs that made 1,622 arrests and worked closely with probation and parole officers assigned to Compton.

Gang-related killings fell by 50%. It would probably have been lower, except that midway thru the year someone reassigned all the task force personnel, and gang killings went up again.

Dumb crooks, episode 36,843

Posted by David Hardy · 29 December 2006 02:25 PM

It's probably a bad idea to shoot at a homeowner ... while trying to break into his gun safe.

Rather strange result in a gunfight

Posted by David Hardy · 21 December 2006 06:34 PM

A perp gets into a close-range gunfight with a citizen, and the citizen shoots him between the eyes with a 9mm.

Legal question that arises: in prosecuting the perp, can prosecutors make him undergo surgery to remove the bullet, so that it can then be shown to have been fired by the defender's gun?

I always favored the bigger calibers, and thought of the 9mm as a .45 "set to stun," but this is rather bewildering. He takes a 9mm in the forehead, and is left with a black eye and a knot on his head.

Thought re: crime rates

Posted by David Hardy · 17 December 2006 11:23 AM

Via Volokh Conspiracy comes this WaPo article by gadfly Jeremy Rifkin. He's pointing out the environmental costs (of course!) of dense cities.

Just a thought: crime and in particular homicide rates go up drastically with urbanization, and the larger the city the worse they become. It may be the animal in us -- pack lab rats in densely and they start to fight. How much of the crime rate may be attributable to increasing urbanization might be an interesting question.

It has some local impact here. Channeled by mountains and government land, Tucson has expanded mostly to the Northwest and the East, becoming rather L-shaped. I live in the northeast end, and rarely go downtown (except to court). There's nothing down there, really, and the streets were laid out a century ago, so traffic is slow. We have shopping malls, office supply stores, and everything else here in the east side.

So the local governments are spending millions to "revitalize downtown" in hopes that I would drive 16 miles to go somewhere that has nothing that interests me. Of course it's a boondoggle. But I can't see why revitalizing downtown is a slogan in this context. In some places "downtown" is a crime-ridden slum and improving it might be nice. But here, it's just downtown, narrow streets and old buildings, and most of us have essentially moved away because other places are just more convenient.

Another dumb crook story

Posted by David Hardy · 12 December 2006 06:21 PM

The guy's on the run from charges of theft, sexual assault, and beating an 88 year old woman. But he just has to update his MySpace page daily.

US incarceration rate

Posted by David Hardy · 12 December 2006 10:22 AM

Another article on the subject.

Worst burglar ever

Posted by David Hardy · 19 November 2006 08:07 PM

From Instapundit -- security cam footage of the worst burglar ever. Rather like a real-life Roadrunner cartoon. It builds to the climax, when he realizes that breaking into the convenience mart is only half his task ... he also has to figure out how to break out!

Continue reading "Mass murderer Buford Furrow"

Mass murderer Buford Furrow

Posted by David Hardy · 6 November 2006 10:52 AM

Clayton Cramer has some interesting insights on the killer at the Jewish Community Center a few years ago.

Apparently he was committed to a mental institution (generally requiring a judicial finding that he was a physical danger to self or others) in 1998. He'd cut himself, and told police he had a drive to commit mass murders at a shopping mall. While being evaluated in the institution, he threatened to stab two other patients.

Instead of being committed, he was released, then charged with felony assault after he attacked an attendant trying to get committed again. He said he wanted to be committed because he had a compulsion to commit a mass murder. At the sentencing, he told the judge about his compulsions... and was given six months in the clink, with orders to take his medications while on parole.

The Ninth Circuit solution was, of course, to uphold a suit against a gun manufacturer....

Another dumb crook

Posted by David Hardy · 22 October 2006 04:09 PM

A gang member goes on a burglary run, with his mother driving the car. He breaks in and rushes the lady homeowner, who puts three rounds of .38 into him (excellent shooting -- 3 out of 4 hit). Driving away, and trying to find the way to a hospital, his mother flags down a passing car. To be precise, the sheriff's squadcar responding to the homeowner's 911 call.

Intereting findings re: violence

Posted by David Hardy · 18 October 2006 05:42 PM

Here's a summary of an interesting study of prisoners, which found that when they were fed the right nutrients in-prison violence declined by 37%. Apart from suggesting a rather strong link between nutrition and violence, it would also suggest that jails might be a bit more placid if they actually fed people (a baloney sandwich and a small bag of chips is customary lunch in most of them).

VERY interesting paper on mass killings

Posted by David Hardy · 18 October 2006 09:17 AM

Here's a very interesting short paper (small pdf) on mass slayings, with emphasis on the shootings at Port Arthur.

The gist of it is that, before that massacre, a national TV program had laid out a "how to do it" segment, with features that would predictably have appealed to a potential mass murderer, and ended with "We are going to have a massacre in Tasmania like those elsewhere."

He concludes what is needed for such a killer is rewards and guidance, and the media gives both. It rewards them with publicity, turning a bitter loser into a national figure. It gives guidance on how to do it, and once the first case occurs, lays out just how the killer went about his crimes.

I might add that what's needed for murder-suicide mass slayings is a person with a serious case of narcissistic personality disorder. That involves, not just a big ego, but a mass of inner self-hatred, from which the person is shielded by the enormous ego. Thus the murders satisfy the ego -- they feel godlike, able to strike down people on a whim. The suicide satisfies the self-hatred. The prospect of publicity is very appealing to such killers; it stokes the ego. "Celebrity" defines their idea of heaven -- not to be a hero, that requires heroism, but to be a celebrity, celebrated. In an instant, they can be on every new channel, the cover of Time, be talked of overseas, an experience that would otherwise take a lifetime of hard work and luck. Why, Nobel Prize winners don't become celebrities like that, despite decades of hard work and genius!

Dumb crooks, episode 36.842

Posted by David Hardy · 13 October 2006 05:53 PM

In Mesa, AZ, two crooks try to steal an ATM, using a backhoe and a trailer. They didn't count on the weight of the concrete-encased ATM, and it crushed their trailer. Needless to say, all this made a lot of noise, and a police officer came over to investigate the racket.

Probation for gang shooting

Posted by David Hardy · 29 August 2006 03:09 PM

A 16 yr old shoots at a car because he thinks it has gang members in it (I'd assume he was a gang member himself)... and gets probation.

Not that I'm on a soapbox about sentencing -- the primary effect of "get tough on crime" is to motivate each session of a legislature to up the penalties, to where sentences often exceed anything that is reasonable, and things that should be misdemeanors get classed as felonies. But probation for an apparently gang-related attempted homicide is out of line.

DC crime emergency

Posted by David Hardy · 12 July 2006 03:13 PM

While Florida crime rates are dropping, the District of Columbia has declared a crime emergency "Alan Senitt, was attacked in the Georgetown area on Sunday, his throat was slit and police say the attackers attempted to rape his companion. It was the 13th homicide in the city this month. Robberies are up 14 percent, and armed assaults have jumped 18 percent in the past 30 days."

Study on capital punishment

Posted by David Hardy · 12 June 2006 05:23 PM

(Via Don Kates): Prof. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule have an article in the Stanford Law Review, surveying studies on capital punishment. The great majority of the studies appear to indicate it has a substantial deterrent effect on homicide. The Stanford Law Review site is here: keep scrolling down to issue No. 3. There's also an article in response, and Sunstein & Vermeule's reply to it.

Continue reading "California's revolving door"

California's revolving door

Posted by David Hardy · 14 May 2006 11:15 AM

The LA Times notes that, due to prison overcrowding, California is giving early release even to violent inmates. It cites the case of a gang-banger who committed a murder, was then caught with drugs and a sawed-off shotgun, and served six days. A few meditations in extended remarks below.

John Lott defends "More Guns, Less Crime" studies

Posted by David Hardy · 8 May 2006 01:08 PM

The Raleigh News-Observer has a letter to the editor from John Lott, defending his studies against another letter to the editor that claimed his results did not stand up when others performed similar studies. Lott links to a page listing numerous studies, which he says support his conclusions that liberal CCW reduces crime.

An arrest has been made...

Posted by David Hardy · 18 April 2006 02:39 PM

The Danville PA newpaper is reporting that an arrest has been made in the case of a fake easter bunny who flashed a firearm at several teens.

I'm relieved that they report it was a fake Easter Bunny. I'd hate to think the real one would be this reckless.

Don Kates on Afro-American homicide rates

Posted by David Hardy · 2 April 2006 12:32 PM

Don Kates sent the following -- he ran a book review on History News Network, got a reader query, and composed the following:

MURDER IN AMERICA: A HISTORY (Ohio State U. Press) by the Haverford College social scientist/historian Roger Lane:

Lane's MURDER IN AMERICA emphasizes industrialization as a violence-reductive factor in the Western World: the Industrial Revolution required and produced disciplined, orderly work forces.1 Current American murder rates are driven by the very disproportionate murder rates among some Afro-Americans.2 These disproportionate rates may be attributed to the virtual exclusion of Afro-Americans from major sectors of employment during the post-Civil War period which continued through the mid-20th Century. ]

AFRO-AMERICAN HOMICIDE RATES

As indicated in my article DO GUNS CAUSE CRIME?, murder rates seem to have diminished across Europe from the period before guns existed. The decline was particularly marked in Europe from the 18th Century on.

The major exception to this has been rates of homicide by blacks which are six to eight times higher than white murder rates in both the US and England. Reader Mark Clark (presumably not the general, who is long deceased) queries the reasons.

It should be noted that some studies have suggested that rates of black homicide and other violence are no greater than those of similarly situated (i.e., economically deprived) whites. See, Brandon S. Centerwall, "Race, Socioeconomic Status and Domestic Homicide, Atlanta, 1971-72," 74 AM. J. PUB. HLTH. 813, 815 (1984) (reporting results of research and discussing prior studies). See also Darnell F. Hawkins, "Inequality, Culture, and Interpersonal Violence," 12 HEALTH AFFAIRS 80 (1993). For a discussion assailing racist theories of the prevalence of violence see Jerome A.Neapolitan, "Cross-National Variation in Homicide; Is Race A Factor?" 36 CRIMINOLOGY 139 (1998).

The only time I have treated this matter at any length was in a never-finished article written a few years ago. Though large parts of it have been published elsewhere, the portion on black homicide has not, nor have I revised it here. In fact it is not my own research, but rather relies almost exclusively on the seminal work of historian Roger Lane (see below).

He emphasizes industrialization as a violence-reductive factor in the Western World: the Industrial Revolution required and produced disciplined, orderly work forces. Current American murder rates are driven by the very disproportionate murder rates among some Afro-Americans. Thus John DiIulio argues that "America does not have a crime problem; inner city America has a crime problem." John J. DiIulio, "The Question of Black Crime," 117 THE PUBLIC INTEREST 3 (1994) also quoting 1969 National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence to the same effect; id. at 5.

We have added emphasis to DiIulio's words to focus attention on the geographic limitation which refutes any notion that race per se is the factor underlying the Afro-American homicide rate. It is not Afro-American homicide per se that makes the American homicide rate so enormous, but rather "inner-city" homicide grossly distorts both American and Afro-American homicide rates. As we shall see, urban blacks actually have far less gun ownership than either whites in general or rural blacks. Yet the gun murder rate among young black urban males is 9.3 times higher than among young black rural males. Lois A. Fingerhut, et al., "Firearm and Non-Firearm Homicide Among Persons 15 Through 19 Years of Age: Differences by Level of Urbanization, U.S. 1979-89," 267 Journal of the American Medical Ass'n. 3048, 3049, Table 1 (1992). Obviously, neither guns nor race can account for the fact of homicide being so much less among the well-armed rural Afro-American population than among their relatively poorly armed urban compeers. The obvious lesson is that, whatever their race, the small fraction of (highly aberrant) people who want to murder find guns regardless of how prevalent guns may be in their general community.

Historically, disproprotionate black homicide rates may be attributed to the virtual exclusion of Afro-Americans from major sectors of employment during the post-Civil War period which continued through the mid-20th Century. Lane's seminal research has documented the role of racism in both promoting murder by Afro-Americans and excluding them from the violence-reductive effects of industrial employment: In the post- Civil War period though black murder rates were high, they were far lower than today ... and lower than those of their immigrant Irish competitors while Italian murder rates [when Italians began immigrating] soared well above those of blacks.

[ A]fter the [Civil W]ar both unions and employers, all over the country, combined to drive [blacks out of high paying trades]... [ F]actory work, all across the country was considered too good for black workers.

[ Black homicide is] another social-psychological [deprivation that] resulted from black exclusion from the regimenting effects of industrial and bureaucratic work. These effects are shown in the relatively rapid decline in homicide rates among Irish and Italian immigrants, two other ethnic groups with high levels of preindustrial violence, as their integration into the industrial work force demanded unprecedented levels of sober, disciplined, orderly behavior, which carried over into their private lives.

[ Later when they were] no longer shut out of the urban-industrial revolution, blacks were instead let in too late. During the 1940s and 1950s blacks in effect were piped aboard a sinking ship, welcomed into the urban industrial age just as that age was dying, with industrial cities losing population and jobs.

[ In late 19th Century Philadelphia] blacks consistently outscored their competitors on written tests of all kinds... [] Even the white press generally agreed that black civil servants (and, a historian would add, blacks as a group) were overqualified for the [low level jobs to which they were confined] in this era, as a result of a general refusal to promote them to positions where they might have authority of any kind over white workers.

[ Blacks were acutely aware of the need for education and struggled heroically to attain it. B]lack literacy in the city soared from roughly 20 percent to 80 percent over the final thirty years of the [19th C]entury ...

[Philadelphia blacks included doctors, lawyers and other professionals -- graduates of Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. But] that was no guarantee that they could make a living. As whites would not hire them and blacks could not afford them, licensed black physicians were found working as bellhops.... In the early 20th Century not one of Philadelphia' black attorneys could make a living through his law practice alone.

The lesson blacks learned from this was that for them education had no economic value.

(NOTE: the quotes just given are taken from Lane's MURDER IN AMERICA, pp. 181-85, 298-300 and 327, as well as Roger Lane, "Black Philadelphia, Then and Now" 108 THE PUBLIC INTEREST 35, 42 (Fall, Summer, 1992) and Roger Lane, ROOTS OF VIOLENCE IN BLACK PHILADELPHIA: 1860-1900 (Cambridge, Harvard U.Press, 1986).

New study on gun availability and homicide

Posted by David Hardy · 7 March 2006 03:06 PM

Gary Kleck, Tomislav Kovandzic, and Mark Schaffer have a new study out, entitled Gun Prevalence, Homicide Rates and Causality.

Article on Boston homicides

Posted by David Hardy · 10 February 2006 09:46 AM

An all too typical article on the issue. When Boston homicide rates plummetted during the 1990s, it must have been the gun laws. Now that they're at record rates, it must be the fault of guns coming in from other states. (Why that wouldn't have happened in the 1990s is nowhere explained). Gun traffickers are said to be buying 12 to 20 guns at a time and reselling them (altho how that's happening, with bars to purchases by nonresidents, and the requirement that any multiple handgun sales be reported to ATFE is unexplained).

The article does not explain that contradiction between this, and its statement that crime guns recovered in Boston are difficult to trace because they were sold so long ago.

The article at least acknowledges that there are two other things coming into play here. In the 90s, Boston was part of "Operation Ceasefire," targetting gang members who owned gun illegally. The approach has since been dropped (city officials blame declines in federal funding -- although why Boston can't fund its own police, and thought this was the program to be dropped, is not explained). Boston's police employment has fallen by 10%, even as the gang members locked up in the 90s are now being released. Frankly, it sounds as if the city got complacent. With homicide levels low, it figured it could back off, and scrapped the program that was keeping the levels low.

More on NYC cooking crime statistics

Posted by David Hardy · 30 December 2005 01:39 PM

The Village Voice has an article on how NYC is cooking the books to drive crime figures down. Thefts are being officially logged as "lost property," and even as hospital treatment for assault is rising, assault statistics are falling. Apparently the City wants lower crime so as to look better to tourists and make the city administration look good. If it can't have lower crime, it'll settle for lower reported crime. [Thanks to Budd Schroeder for the story]

And here's a personal experience -- a victim's report of pickpocketing is downgraded to lost property, until he spends several days of investigation and waiting to meet police requirements. (Most interesting is the two police divisions, each of which states it can do nothing until the other accepts a report).

Things like this give revolving door justice a bad name

Posted by David Hardy · 26 December 2005 02:37 PM

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Keith Carter opened fire on a pair of police officers with an illegal (of course) submachinegun, not injuring either but riddling their car with 60 rounds. He fled but was later arrested.

One of the arresting officers (who was also in the pait that were fired upon) had no trouble recognizing him. Six months before, Carter had fired upon him with another illegal submachinegun, and had been arrested for that!

The magistrate let him out with a $5,000 bond. Sounds like a cluster-**** all around. In the first case, assault on an officer wasn't charged, since it wasn't possible to prove he knew his target was an undercover officer. Can't find any articles on what was charged in the first case, but you'd expect attempted murder for starters. Either (a) there was some massive foulup in the charging process, or (b) the judge thought a $5000 bond sufficient for attempted murder, etc.

BTW, he was also free on bond arising from two earlier drug arrests.

Here's an article on the attack, which discusses the housing project in which it occurred. Apparently the place was in the grips of a war between two gangs. Victims of shootings were tight-lipped. Not too surprising, if the attacker could post a $5000 bond and be gunning for snitches tommorrow.

Clayton Cramer on Tacoma mall shooting

Posted by David Hardy · 1 December 2005 09:23 AM

Clayton Cramer has some thoughts on an aspect of the Tacoma mall shooting -- there was an armed CCW permitee within firing range, but he hesitated to fire. Clayton sees this (and his own experiences) as suggestive that CCW holders tend to be all too responsible, rather than trigger-happy.

Continue reading "New York City cooking crime books?"

New York City cooking crime books?

Posted by David Hardy · 3 November 2005 11:52 AM

An interesting report that New York City may be cooking the books on its crime statistics.

It wouldn't be the first time. If memory serves me correction, at one point in the early 1960s the folks who compiled the FBI Uniform Crime Statisics stopped taking reports from NYC, on the grounds that the figures were obviously cooked to make NYC sound safer than it was.