quick n' dirty online felon voting survey

When I checked the little online survey in my felon disenfranchisement page this morning, I noticed that there had been exactly 1,000 responses to my question asking whether convicted felons should be allowed to vote while in prison, on parole, on probation, or after they had completed their entire sentences. So, 1,000 being a nice round number, it seems like a good time to write up the results. With Jeff Manza, Clem Brooks, and the Harris Organization, I conducted a real national poll on the subject in 2002. Jeff and Clem designed some clever question wording experiments, splitting the sample to get clean estimates (a far superior method to the single-item approach I used on my quick n' dirty question). In the Harris poll, we were somewhat surprised to find that most people favored allowing everyone but current prisoners to vote. How do the results from this nationally representative poll compare to those from my online visitor poll?Visitors to the site were decidedly more favorable toward voting rights for all groups, but both polls revealed the same gradient of support -- strongest for ex-felons who have done their time, weakest for current prisoners, with those supervised in their communities on probation and parole falling somewhere between the two extremes. So, the public represented in the Harris poll would favor a system such as Ohio or Illinois, where only prisoners are disenfranchised. Many of the site visitors would go farther and enfranchise prisoners as well, as is currently the practice in Maine and Vermont. Neither group of respondents would prefer a stricter system such as Minnesota's or Wisconsin's, in which probationers and parolees are disenfranchised. Most conspicuously, perhaps, only 20% nationally and 8% of site visitors favored indefinite disenfranchisement of former felons as well as current felons, as is currently the case in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Virginia and other states (note: the map hasn't been updated to include 2005 changes in Iowa and Nebraska).

I'm of course very skeptical of such online poll results (and confess that some of those 1,000 votes came from my computer and many more came from the computers of my students). Nevertheless, I was happy to discover some degree of diversity among site visitors and the same gradient of support for the voting rights of non-incarcerated felons. I'm also grateful that about 1,000 people took the time to read the survey and vote. Thanks!

murder of washington sex offenders

I've written at some length about the hyper-stigma that accompanies the "sex offender" label in the contemporary United States. Whenever I even hint that this stigma may hinder rather than help public safety, as in this AP story in June, I'm swamped with supportive calls and emails from sex offenders and their families and vaguely threatening or accusing mail from others. And, of course, breathless invitations to appear on cable news shows as "liberal punching bag o' the day." [Can you believe it, this guy actually thinks sex offenders have it too tough?] Now comes this story from the Seattle Times and Bellingham Herald:

BELLINGHAM — Last Friday night, a man claiming to be an FBI agent dropped in on three Level 3 sex offenders living together, supposedly to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders. The man was not an FBI agent, but he may have been enforcing a hit list of his own creation. Two of the roommates were found dead early Saturday of gunshot wounds, and Bellingham police are investigating a crime that authorities say may be one of the nation's most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders. The killings also highlight a potential problem about Washington's 1990 law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses so the public can keep track of them.

Yes, if the story checks out as reported, I guess murder qualifies as a potential problem. Given the demonization of sex offenders, I'm certain that few will shed tears over these murders. I'm also sure that the vigilante had never read the Bureau of Justice Statistics report or large research literature showing low recidivism rates of sex offenders relative to other former prisoners. Yet our FBI imposter/wannabe was well-informed on two counts: (1) he knew that "level-three sex offenders" Hank Eisses, 49, James Russell, 42, and Victor Vasquez, 68 could be found at 2825 Northwest Avenue; and, (2) he knew the specific details of their crimes -- offenses that took place in 1997, 1994, and 1991, respectively. Clearly one cannot blame the print or broadcast media, or the state department of corrections, or local law enforcement, or the state legislature for the actions of an accused vigilante. Nevertheless, the case raises troubling questions about whether the policies of each institution are best serving the public interest. To my knowledge, there is no clear evidence of less new sex offending in communities that impose greater stigma. Lacking such evidence, I fear that the moral panic exemplified by current notification procedures is a net loss for public safety.

Even years before their scheduled release, both male and female prisoners have told me they feared "the internet" and public availability of information about them. Rest assured that the Bellingham murder story will quickly make the rounds of every TV room and sex offender unit in state penitentiaries. It is not a story of deterrence that will keep them from future crime. It is not a story of redemption or martyrdom that will give them strength as they work through the tough times. It is instead a story of the hysterical vigilante lying in wait, a story that embodies their fears about life after prison and their dim prospects for ever becoming a normal citizen in a community. And it makes them wonder why the hell they should go to treatment.

ny times editorial on felon disenfranchisement

The New York Times today calls for an end to the practice of disenfranchising former felons after they have completed their sentences, drawing attention to successful reenfranchisement efforts in Iowa and Nebraska. In the latter state, a strong bipartisan legislative coalition decisively overrode a governor's veto. The piece notes that the United States is virtually alone among industrialized nations in restricting the rights of former felons in many states, as well as the racialized history of these laws:
Like so much of what ails America, laws that strip felons of the right to vote are rooted in race. The South enacted these restrictions during the late 19th and early 20th century as part of a sweeping effort to limit black political power. This ugly legacy is painfully evident in statistics showing that black people account for about 40 percent of disenfranchisement cases and only about 12 percent of the population.

I wrote about the racial origins of U.S. felon disenfranchisement with Angie Behrens and Jeff Manza in a recent empirical study and a brief review piece. In my opinion, race continues to be important in efforts to both disenfranchise and to reenfranchise felons. In fact, Jeff and I argue that the reenfranchisement movement today gains its greatest moral authority from the civil rights movement. Attending meetings around the country on the issue, I can see that the leaders are those who have done time fighting for civil rights rather than the professors or liberal foundation folks. I think it is easy to paint activists as jumping on the issue as part of a crude grab for likely Democratic votes. But the civil rights and church leaders (many of whom have been around since before the Voting Rights Act) provide a pure and powerful reminder that the right to vote goes well beyond narrow partisan concerns. Often a small legislative caucus or church-centered group needs to "carry the flag." In Nebraska, for example, the Holy Family Catholic Church of Omaha helped organize and build momentum on the issue. In Connecticut, a Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus helped convince a split legislature and a Republican governor to permit probationers to vote. In short, a "color-blind" reform effort can come off as thin or self-serving. Instead, the racist history of the laws, the problem of contemporary black vote dilution, and the long struggle for civil rights more generally provides a strong moral backbone for reform efforts.

demotion at bureau of justice statistics

The New York Times reported yesterday that "The Bush administration is replacing the director of a small but critical branch of the Justice Department, months after he complained that senior political officials at the department were seeking to play down newly compiled data on the aggressive police treatment of black and Hispanic drivers." Lawrence Greenfeld's demotion at the Bureau of Justice Statistics is the latest in a series of actions which, many criminologists contend, threaten the integrity of the nation's knowledge base on crime and justice. I certainly couldn't do my work without unbiased data on crime rates and incarceration, or unvarnished reports of funded research. I literally visit the BJS site every day and I'm continually astounded at the timeliness and quality of the work produced and compiled by this small agency. And I'm clearly not alone. Judging from the flurry of emails and calls I've gotten about this demotion, I wouldn't be surprised to see some high-profile op/eds and special sessions devoted to the issue at meetings. Fortunately, the large-scale study of police/citizen relations remains available for all to see. Click here for the "uncut and unrated" BJS report by Matthew R. Durose, Erica L. Schmitt, and Patrick A. Langan.

life course / race course

Fall is transition time for academics, especially those in departments emphasizing life course sociology. In addition to career transitions, I've also passed some formal and informal milestones in one of my favorite leisure activities. Last year I formally gained "masters" status at races, a designation based solely upon one's date of birth rather than any accomplishment. Presumably this makes me eligible for fabulous prizes, but I haven't brought home any trophies or hardware yet, "masters" or otherwise. A glorious diversity of ages and body types assemble at every local 5k or marathon, from the elite skinnybutt racers to back-of-the-pack clydesdales like me. After 10 years of such events, I've noticed that my runnin' buddies don't slow down much over time: we started slow, we're still slow, and we couldn't get appreciably slower without running backwards, which would seem to require more effort than we're willing to put into it. In general, however, most older runners are wily veterans, compensating for physical declines by running smarter races than the kids.

As a rapidly aging hipster doofus, I know that ageist remarks quickly come back to haunt me (Oh, the silly things I said in grad school!). Still, it really bugs me to be beaten out in every race by some old guy clomping along, wheezing heavily, listing to one side, sweating profusely through a worn Bjorn Borg headband and diaphenous "lucky" race-T from '78, and throwing off a powerful smell of onions and Old Spice. The mature female runners are pretty much indistinguishable from these guys except for a slight difference in size and aroma. I'll take off feeling strong and purposeful, but the old masters hold their pace, passing me when I slow for water or tie my shoes. In the end, they kick my butt and I have to force a congratulatory smile as they stagger past me at the finish line.

So, here's my precise life course location in August, 2005. I'm chugging along at a race in White Bear Lake, MN. About five miles in, I hear the wheezing, feel the uneven footfalls around me, and, yes, smell the ol' onionspicesweat. I have a quick look around to see who it is this time. Hmmm ... nobody there. Then I notice that the fresh-faced runners nearby are giving me an unusually wide berth and crinkling their little noses as they pass. Aha! I've become that guy! My shirt only dates to the '96 Lake Monona 20k and the cologne is Old Hugo Boss rather than Old Old Spice, but I've definitely joined the brotherhood. It feels a little like getting tenure, so I'm o.k. with it. I suppose I could probably upgrade the wardrobe and lay off the White Castles the night before race day, but I know it would just prolong the inevitable. More than any formal masters designation, this sort of informal deference and nose-crinkling derogation clearly marks my happy (happy, I tell you!) transition from neophyte runner to full-blown crustihood. Now when I pass somebody at the twin cities marathon this october -- and I will pass somebody -- I'll also be passing along the shame and frustration that the wily veterans instilled in me over the past decade. I can't believe that dude is faster than me...

johnson v. bush petition

The Brennan Center for Justice recently filed a petition for certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. Bush, a challenge to Florida's felon disenfranchisement law. As an expert on this case, I wrote a lengthy report on felon voting restrictions, the size and social distribution of the plaintiff class, and the operation of Florida's clemency system. An intriguing "What Would Roberts Do" post is online at Rick Hasen's election law blog. Full details on the Johnson case are available from the Brennan Center. Its lead plaintiff, Thomas Johnson, is also featured in Laurel Greenberg's fascinating Florida election documentary Trouble in Paradise.

feminist criminology

From the crimprof blog: The American Society of Criminology Division on Women and Crime announces a new journal with Sage, titled Feminist Criminology. Judging by the strong editorial board and the division's backing, it will no doubt attract some great scholarship. The division has been a big part of ASC since the mid-1980s, with a large membership, a quarterly newsletter, and coveted awards (including a student paper competition (deadline 9/15)). Anyone interested in Feminist Criminology can sign up for free online access to volume 1 .

stockholm prize in criminology

The big news at the closing of the World Criminology Congress was the Swedish Minister of Justice's announcement of a new international award. The Stockholm Prize in Criminology will be awarded for outstanding achievements in criminological research or for the application of research results by practitioners for the reduction of crime and the advancement of human rights. I know that big awards can sometimes be divisive but I see this as a terrific development for the social scientific study of crime.

Each time I hear the Nobel announcements, I think an award for sociology or the study of social life more generally is long overdue. Seeing James Heckman awarded a Nobel Prize in economics for "development of theory and methods for analyzing selective samples" or Toni Morrison awarded a literature prize for her "visionary force and poetic import" makes me think of the contributions of sociologists worthy of similar recognition. So, who would you nominate for the new criminology prize? Or, for a (yet to be developed) sociology prize?

age and nba arrests

Law Professor Michael McCann has an intriguing post in his sports law blog on age and arrest among basketball players. David Stern and others claim that teen draftees might get into more trouble than well-seasoned college kids. Based on his sample of 84 arrested NBA players, McCann concludes: (1) non-college players are no more likely to be arrested than other players; and, (2) basketball players get into just as much trouble mid-career (or end-career) as they do at the beginning. Comparing college guy JR Ryder with high-schooler Kevin Garnett in Minnesota, the first conclusion doesn't surprise me at all. The second one, however, conflicts with most of what we know about age and crime. So I grabbed his data and plotted some curves.

First, let's plot the raw number of arrests by age group. I tossed out the retired players (we can hardly blame the NBA for them, can we?) and grouped the arrests by age, FBI-style. I then plotted the curves on two separate y-axes for easy comparison. Just click on the graphs to bring up the full-size versions.

By the time they get to the NBA, most players are already past their peak offending years. Still, the NBA peak comes relatively early: 23 versus 19 for US men overall. This made me think about age and selection into pro ball. Sadly, there are a lot more 23-year-olds than 41- year-olds in the NBA these days. So what we really need are age-adjusted rates. Here's what happens when we standardize by the number of players in each age group (using 2003 roster data).

The age-adjusted rate shows the mid-career blip that McCann mentioned. Even without the retirees, older players do get arrested (e.g., Gary Payton's recent DUI). Moreover, McCann seems to be spot-on about the comparatively clean records of 18, 19, and 20 year-olds in the NBA . Still the first two figures are somewhat misleading, since the x-axis shows single years for 16 to 24 but 5-year increments thereafter and the NBA arrests are plotted on a different scale than the US male arrests. So, here's what the age-adjusted arrest curve looks like for NBA players versus the rest of us.

No wonder coaches keep a close eye on their 23- and 24-year-olds. This is the only piece of the distribution where ballplayers are more likely to get arrested than regular Joes. Why? I'm thinking that off-court activities of 18-year-olds center around in-room Playstation. By the early twenties, however, wealthy young athletes probably venture out of the team hotel a bit more. So, the data are a bit sparse, but I think there's enough here to draw two conclusions: (1) the age-crime curve applies to the NBA as elsewhere (it might not be invariant, but ...); and, (2) McCann seems well-justified in challenging the NBA's age floor for 18-19 year-olds.

policy criminology

I spent the last few days at the National Institute of Justice's annual research and evaluation conference, "Evidence-Based Policies and Practices." The idea is to connect policymakers and practitioners to a broad class of "researchers" studying crime and justice. Sociologists, even (or especially) public sociologists, tend to be cynical about applied/policy research, but this is one cool conference. A highlight for me was Del Elliott's plenary address on his "Blueprints" model programs for violence prevention. In some ways, his presentation brought to mind James Coleman's controversial "Rational Reconstruction of Society" 1992 ASA presidential address, or at least one example of the fruits of Coleman's programmatic challenge.

Elliott's group identifies model programs based on classic social science criteria (e.g., randomized trials, sustained effects, independent replication) and then spreads the seed. He argues passionately against sending kids through programs that are known failures (e.g., Scared Straight, early DARE, most boot camps); he even hinted that class-action suits could be filed against courts who continue to do so on grounds of negligence, if not malice aforethought. Mark Lipsey, the master of meta-analysis, explained how monitoring, training, and quality control (or "fidelity," as they say in the business) can successfully replicate and sustain successful programs. [In evaluation research, it turns out that consistent implementation is just as important as what is being implemented. Most teachers know this; many teaching philosophies can "work," but the absence of a philosophy or its inconsistent application usually fails.] He also offered evaluation strategies when practitioners go beyond the data --adapting a model program to a new target group or unusual local conditions, for example. Finally, organizations such as the Washington State Institute for Public Policy and individuals such as (RAND pioneer) Peter Greenwood are conducting increasingly sophisticated cost-benefit analyses to distinguish the best from the lousiest societal investments in public safety.

Of course, such social-sciencey attempts to systematize prevention and rehabilitation programs will surely discipline and punish some creative and difficult-to-evaluate efforts. That said, the progress in documenting successful programs has been astounding in the past decade -- from the "What Works" report to Congress in the late 1990s to the Campbell Collaboration's new library of clinical trials. When I received my Ph.D. in 1995, many experts were still arguing "nothing works" in corrections (and, one might add, "so what if it did"). Today, you'd be laughed out of the room if you made such claims. A real scientific basis for programs such as cognitive behavioral therapy and nurse home visits, for example, is now firmly established. A rational reconstruction of criminal justice, of course, would further require that policymakers attend more consistently to the science. At least we are creating the preconditions for such action -- a base of knowledge that simply did not exist in earlier eras.

ex-felon employment and expungement

The crimprof blog cites the LA Times on ex-offender job fairs. Such fairs are being organized all over the country, with mixed results. In this case and in some others I've seen, few employers or ex-offenders even showed up. Those who did attend, got good news (employers could get tax credits for hiring someone with a criminal record) and bad (many ex-offenders are ineligible for expungement). Such job fairs seem to be most successful in tight labor markets (e.g., 1999-2000 in most areas). On the employee side, turnout might improve by targeting current probationers or parolees, rather than former offenders who are "off-paper" and more difficult to mobilize. Mobilizing employers is more difficult, unless they face a labor shortage or former felons (potential "sponsors") have a good track record in the firm or establishment. There are books and videos available for ex-offenders and organizations such as Chicago's Safer Foundation have a long history of successful job development and placement for this group. Still, I tend to agree with Richard Freeman -- the best jobs program is probably a full-employment economy.

midyear incarceration numbers

The Department of Justice's Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004 arrived in my mailbox yesterday (after 10 years of professin', DOJ still addresses stuff to "graduate student Christopher Uggen"). I'd seen the report online, but always give a little more attention to the hard copies. The national incarceration rate (including jails as well as state and federal prisons), is now at 726 per 100,000 residents. This is quite high by international standards -- about 5 to 10 times higher than other nations similar to the United States (England and Wales have a rate of 141, Canada a rate of 116, Germany 96, Japan 58, and so on). Still, the social distribution of this .7% of the population is the real story:

• A rate of 1,348 per 100,000 for males
• A rate of 4,919 per 100,000 for African American males
• A rate of 12,603 per 100,000 for African American males age 25-29

So, about 13% of the population in the latter age/race/gender category is currently incarcerated. A much higher proportion, of course, is under some form of criminal justice supervision. The probation numbers dwarf prison numbers and still more are supervised on parole in the communities. To these one might add former felons who have served their time -- people currently "off-paper" but with a history of criminal justice supervision. I believe that about 1/3 of the African American male population is currently or has once been under criminal justice supervision. This figure seems unbelievably high to most people, but more credible once they see the current population data.

For 25 years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics has provided high quality U.S. crime and justice data. As in other government agencies, there has been talk of "outsourcing" or downsizing the small staff at BJS. I hope that such ideas are quickly put to rest. "Quick and dirty" crime and justice data collection or, worse, subjecting such data collection to greater politicization, would seriously undermine both criminological research and the public trust.

law of vagrancy 2005

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Police Chief Bill McManus backed off on a plan to require panhandlers to register annually with the city and display a photo ID while they beg. Begging without a license could have resulted in arrest and misdemeanor charges.

"It certainly would be beneficial for downtown businesses and for people who are made to feel uncomfortable by panhandlers," McManus said (in a quote that seems lifted verbatim from Chambliss' crit-classic "Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy"). Chief McManus spearheaded a similar effort in Dayton, OH but neither the Minneapolis city council nor the mayor wanted to carry the flag on this one. As one might imagine, the ACLU points to constitutional problems with criminalizing begging. Restricting physically aggressive panhandling or limiting its time and place are probably constitutionally permissable, but the first amendment likely provides some protection of one's right to ask people for money.

My concern was more personal. As state support shrinks, the Minnversity is searching for new revenue streams. I'm glad I won't have to wear a laminated panhandling license around my neck at my next lunch with potential donors.

causality, voting, and recidivism

Jeremy Freese regularly offers insightful comments about social science research in his blog. Today he had an interesting post about "causal-sounding insinuations of relationships" between felon re-enfranchisement and recidivism, based on this statement from the Iowa governor:

Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa announced yesterday that he would restore voting rights for all felons who have completed their sentences, ending what advocates for voting rights had called one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement laws in the country. Mr. Vilsack, a Democrat who has been called a dark-horse presidential candidate for the 2008 election, pointed to research showing that ex-prisoners who vote are less likely to end up back in prison.

I'm not sure that's a statement of causality, but I guess that's not really the point. I confess that sometimes I slip into causal thinking even when I am careful to avoid making explicit causal inferences in my writing. I offered a (way too) long comment based on a recent law review piece with Jeff Manza.

stigma II

I wrote last month about the extreme stigma of the sex offender designation. Today I'm bracing for the backlash from an AP story by Michael Hill citing me on this point. I referred Mr. Hill to Jill Levenson, who (along with Leo Cotter) published her survey of released Florida sex offenders in an issue of Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice I guest-edited on collateral sanctions (Richard Tewksbury also has a nice piece on this subject in the same issue, using data from Kentucky). Here is Mr. Hill's lead:

Clamps are coming down on released sex offenders like never before. Laws restrict where they can go, Web sites list their names, satellites track their steps. Leery neighbors and bosses force them from their homes and jobs. The full-court press that comes after high profile cases around the nation is being done for public safety. But is it possible to push sex offenders so far to the fringes actually makes them more dangerous to society?

This question seems absolutely fundamental to the scientific study of prisoner reentry and the policy move toward restorative justice. When, if ever, does social control begin to compromise rather than enhance public safety? Todd Clear and others are asking this more generally about the impact of incarceration on communities. But "sex offender" is the ideal type here -- rivaling "terrorist," "nazi," "serial killer," or "satanist" as the most stigmatized designation in contemporary American society. Both the Levenson and Cotter piece and the Tewksbury article find that sex offenders report job losses, housing problems, and threats of harassment today. Criminal justice policy toward them is clearly based on "stigmatizing" rather than "reintegrative" shaming, to adopt John Braithwaite's distinction. Of course, there are some compelling reasons for identifying and supervising this group closely. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study, those convicted of sex offenses do seem to persist later in life than other sorts of criminals. Nevertheless, their 3-year rearrest rate (43% overall, 5% for new sex crimes) is lower than those convicted of other sorts of crime (68% overall, 1% for new sex crimes). So, while the flatter age profile and potential severity of their crimes may justify greater scrutiny, most of the people convicted of sex crimes do not appear to be irredeemable or "life-course persistent" offenders (at least as measured by arrest).

In my view, the application and management of stigma should be getting much more attention from sociologists. I've argued before that if any Durkheims were in grad school today, they might be gathering dissertation data at sex offender community notification meetings (observing distinctions between the normal and pathological, the sacred and profane, the exercise of collective conscience, and the effervescence of crowds). If I were advising a modern-day Durkheim, however, I might try to talk her out of such potential career suicide (steering her to a safer diss topic, such as Suicide!). Whenever an article like this appears, I always get some emails from supporters (thanking me for my "courage"), detractors (asking me how I'd feel if my family were victimized or questioning my motivations), and broadcast media (inviting me to take an indefensible position in a public debate). The issue is clearly a lightning rod, in need of some good sociological scholarship that could help guide policy, or at least help us understand our current practices.

Iowa re-enfranchises ex-felons

The Des Moines Register reports that Iowa will no longer disenfranchise former felons beyond the completion of their sentences, effective July 4. Unlike Nebraska, Iowa didn't mess around with a 2-year waiting period. Nor did it exclude particular categories of felons, as states such as Maryland have done. The article cites a figure of 50,000, but I believe that about 98,000 Iowans will be enfranchised in time for the next election.

3-year-old criminals and the false positive problem

According to Worldnet Daily (via Ann Althouse),

"A leaked 250-page report on proposed crime-fighting strategies, drawn up on instructions of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, recommends training nursery workers to target children as young as 3 years of age as potential criminals... if the[y] exhibit bullying behavior in nursery school or if there is a history of criminality in the immediate family."

This is a classic example of the "false positive" problem. Yes, looking backward, most of the people in prison today had some early history of antisocial behavior. But there is strong evidence from life course criminology that most antisocial children do not become serious criminals as adults (see, e.g., Gove 1985). Worse still, identifying and treating kids at 3 could worsen their prospects by labeling and isolating them from "normals." Although the report proposed "soft" measures such as education (presumably versus hard measures involving institutionalization), how hard would you fight to keep your kid out of the special class for 3-year old bullies? How long would you want the designation to remain on their school records?

decline in family (and nonfamily) violent (and nonviolent) crime

The Department of Justice recently ran a press release noting "the rate of family violence fell by more than one-half between 1993 and 2002, from an estimated 5.4 victims to 2.1 victims per 1,000 U.S. residents 12 years old and older." But violence overall is declining as well, as are property crimes.

• The 2003 rate of reported violent victimization (homicide, rape, robbery, and assault) is half the 1995 rate.
• The 2003 rate of reported property victimization is half the 1992 rate and one-third the 1982 rate.

The report and the rates cited above are all based on high quality data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (the 1993 start date is important because the NCVS had a major redesign in '93 that clearly affected reporting of family violence).

the crime drop continues

I've been teaching juvenile delinquency and criminology since the mid-1990s. Each year, I show my classes how the crime rate has generally declined as measured by household victimization or crimes known to the police. At the end of each term, however, I always get a few papers that lead off by citing "alarming increases" in crime/homicide/violence. The FBI's preliminary numbers for 2004 again show a drop of 1.7% for property crime and 1.8% for violent crime nationally since 2003. For the past 10 years, the news has been great with regard to trend, though crime levels remain unacceptably high in many communities.

Some criminologists have been predicting a crime surge, but I see room for further reductions -- particularly if graduation rates and labor markets improve. I guess a better way to put it is that I haven't been convinced that the pessimistic predictions are justified by much more than regression to the apparent "mean" established in the worst of the bad old days. It is very tough to make crime projections over the long-term, since the effects of things like age structure, economic performance, and incarceration seem to vary quite a bit over time (that is, I think a model predicting crime in the 1960s wouldn't do so well in explaining 1990s trends). In any case, I now warn my classes that I will completely freak out if they cite "alarming" increases without indicating precisely what has increased and when it began to rise.

race and punishment

Minnesota has long had some of the greatest racial disparities in punishment in the nation, with African American incarceration rates over 10 times those of white rates for several years. In fact, whites have represented a minority of prisoners in a state that is 87% white overall. Today's Star-Tribune reports that white prisoners are now back in the majority in Minnesota prisons: 59% of MN prisoners are white today. This is due in large part to a deluge of white methamphetamine cases (only about 1 in 20 meth prisoners is non-white) and longer sentences for sex offenders, who also tend to be white.

Minnesota has historically had a very low incarceration rate, but is experiencing rapid (though not California-style) expansion the past few years. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are now calling for reform, early release, and other programs that would reduce the economic and social costs of incarceration. Now connect the dots: "The surest way to get sentencing reform is to over-incarcerate white people," said Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis..."All of a sudden, folks want to talk about redemption." When I read Ellison's quote, I was reminded of Naomi Murakawa's excellent work on mandatory minimum sentences. The last time that the number of mandatory minimums was actually reduced came in the Nixon administration -- when white college kids were sent away for long prison terms for drug offenses.

morcheeba for milton

In Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court today struck a major blow against medical marijuana use. According to a recent Forbes article, however, 500 economists just signed off on a letter and report advocating marijuana legalization. Notables include Milton Friedman and faculty at many of the top-ranked econ departments. Friedman's support shouldn't be that surprising, given that he's always advocated straight free-market/invisible-hand economics. The cost/benefit analysis in the report seems a bit thin to me (heroic assumptions, sparse data), but the upshot is about a $10 billion net projection annually:

• savings of $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition, most of it at the state and local level
• tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually (or $6.2 billion if we tax pot at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco).

The $10 billion figure could be reasonable if the model accounts for all the "large" effects and if the ceteris paribus assumption (that nothing else changes) actually holds. The toughest thing to model, in my opinion, is whether (and to what extent) legalizing and taxing marijuana would increase use (or decrease it, I guess, depending on tax rates!). If use rates are unaffected, no problem. If use changes by 5% or 10%, then the analysis gets complicated. It would have to put a number on the costs (or benefits?) to long-term health, increased Doritos sales, and myriad other factors that are tough to identify, let alone measure. Lifetime marijuana prevalence rates for high school seniors have fallen since 1997 to about 46% in the 2004 Monitoring the Future data series. I don't hear many people making the "gateway drug" argument these days, but I'm sure that (socially) conservative critics will raise the spectre of increased cocaine, meth, and heroin as well. Though supported by the pro-reform Marijuana Policy Project, I think this study probably understates the costs of the drug war. In addition to the impossible position of those prescribed medical marijuana who remain subject to prosecution, a detailed analysis would need to estimate the intergenerational costs of incarceration to families and communities. It seems as though a pilot experiment (or quasi-experimental comparison of laws across states and time) would help provide some additional traction here. What would Friedman say about banning Sudafed?

stigma and sex offenders

When I visit prisons I'm struck by how many inmates are serving time for sex offenses in the Minnesota system and the degree of stigma that attaches to their crimes -- both inside and outside the gates. Once applied, the "sex offender" label is far more stigmatizing than "murderer" or "arsonist" and incredibly tough to remove. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's editorial staff came out today against the strict proposal being considered by the MN House -- special license plates for former offenders, big sentence increases (automatic life without parole for first- and second-degree sex offenses and prison terms of 20 years to life for recidivists convicted of less serious offenses), and even chemical castration. A few years ago, I wrote an article with Candace Kruttschnitt and Kelly Shelton on the subject. Of 448 sex offenders on probation, only 19 committed new sex crimes within 5 years. I can certainly understand the state's interest in incapacitating rapists and child molesters. Nevertheless, these proposals would be extremely costly and likely provide little payoff in public safety -- particularly in an environment of declining resources for local police forces and state corrections agencies.