Ending smart phone robberies with technology rather than arrests

A great deal of crime is circumstantial and/or opportunistic: Change the circumstances, maybe crime doesn't occur in the first place.

Much has been written about declining crime rates over the past two decades, but one of the few categories where one occasionally sees increases at the local level has been "robberies," and this tidbit from the Washington Post ("Wireless carriers partner with FCC, police on database of stolen cell phones," April 9) perhaps explains that occasional aberration: "Cellphone theft has been rampant in cities across the country. More than 40 percent of robberies in New York involve smartphones. In the District [of Columbia], 34 percent of all robberies are of cellphones, and cellphone theft increased 54 percent between 2007 and 2011."

That's perhaps unsurprising, but not a trend I've heard discussed much. I wonder what percentage of robberies in Texas involve smart phones? To the extent that's a driving factor, a new national initiative may soon all but eliminate smart phones as a motive for robbery. Reports the Post, "Within six months, consumers will be able to call Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile if their devices are stolen and the carriers will block the phones from being used again."

Excellent news. Just like it's easier for homeowners to lock their doors and windows than for police to solve a burglary, it's easier to eliminate the payoff from stealing a smart phone by disabling it than it is to generally deter through punishment alone.

RELATED: From Bruce Schneier, see 'Lost Smart Phones and Human Nature,' and 'Law Enforcement Forensics Tools Against Smart Phones'

Excellent coverage of Travis County specialty courts

From Jordan Smith at the Austin Chronicle, check out this must-read series of stories on Travis County specialty courts:

• Niche Justice: Travis County specialty courts try to break the cycle of crime
• And Now Veterans: 'We Owe Them'
• Recovery Projects: Alcoholism and Mental Health
• Family Violence Court: 'Homicide Prevention'

A key criticism of specialty courts from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers was voiced in the first bulleted article: "'Judges make poor social workers.' The money spent handling social issues in the courthouse would be better spent on front-end services that might make it less likely that these populations would actually end up in trouble with the law."

That's undoubtedly true. But we live in an era where legislative bodies have sought to impose criminal justice solutions on common social problems - from addiction to mental illness - that would be more wisely addressed in other arenas. Until that changes, specialty courts which rely on strong-probation best practices IMO will in many cases continue to get better results and provide better options for defendants and, ultimately, the state than the traditional adversarial system.

NACDL also fears that collaborative approaches favored in such courts in some ways diminish defendant's rights, and while I can see their point, on that question I think the jury's still out. After all, in a plea-mill type system such as ours where less than 2% of all cases go to trial, those adversarial rights aren't getting routinely exercised anyway.

Plus enforcing those rights via the criminal defense bar hasn't stopped the conviction of innocent people, mass incarceration or the erosion of civil liberties. The adversarial system is important, especially when the lawyers are competent and adequately resourced, but it's not the only possible model nor the end-all be-all of justice, nor has it always worked as well as one might hope. That's partially why, as Jordan Smith notes, "in Austin there are surprisingly few" critics of specialty courts: It's not like the old methods were working so damn great to begin with.

Public transit can prevent DWIs

On New Year's Eve, Clayton McLeskey at the Dallas News Opinion Blog offered this astute observation about the Dallas transit system:

Did you hear the news?! The DART trains are running until 2 a.m. tonight!

I hate to break it to the friendly folks over at DART, but 2 a.m. ain't that late. Take a look at the public transit systems in places with world-famous nightlife, like Berlin, where trains and trams runs through the night. In Munich trains run until about 3 or 4 in the morning. That's standard in European cities. It's the key to a vibrant nightlife. You can go out, eat, drink, make merry and then take the train home.

So, whose brilliant idea was it to have the DART trains shut down at the exact same time the bars close on New Years Eve, the night on which even the boring people go crazy? DART should at least keep trains running until 3, so that partyers can catch the train after last call. That'd keep a whole lots of drunks off the road.

That's exactly right. I've always believed that public policy contributes greatly to drunk driving rates. Zoning regulations prevent neighborhood bars and often isolate drinking establishments in districts where most people must leave their home and drive to get there. More importantly, they must drive to get home. (In "dry" jurisdictions, the problem is even worse.) Add to that a failure by most Texas' cities to invest in adequate public transit, and anyone who wants to drink at a bar is virtually required to either drive home or find a designated driver.

More than 5,000 Texans are currently imprisoned at TDCJ for having three or more DWI convictions. Would many of them take public transit if it were convenient, available and ran at the times when they needed it? Not all, but I think many of them would.

Relatedly, Austin is preparing to open a commuter rail that happens to have a train stop just a couple of blocks from my house, ending downtown near the convention center and the entertainment district. When I first saw the proposed route, I thought, "Great! I can take the train downtown when I want to go to a bar and not have to worry about driving home. But the schedule for the train is even less sensible than DART's, entirely fixated on commuters from Austin's suburbs instead of facilitating in-city transit. So the train won't actually run during them times when Austinites might use it to avoid drinking and driving.

The solution to every social problem cannot be cops, courts, jails and prisons. Where non-punitive strategies can prevent crime and promote public safety, that should be the preferred approach.

Jennifer Skeem on Sentencing and Mental Health

Yesterday morning I heard a provocative and informative talk at the Texas Judicial Advisory Council's biennial sentencing conference from Dr. Jennifer Skeem, who is a member of the MacArthur Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment, and Centers for Psychology and Law and Evidence-Based Corrections, on the subject of "Mental Health and Sentencing." Here are some of the highlights from her comments. (All statistics were sourced in her presentation.)

Skeem's big picture thesis: For most mentally ill offenders, especially repeaters, treatment and medication alone usually isn't enough to stop recidivism. Instead, research shows that people with severe mental illness tend to have more criminogenic (crime-causing) risk factors - bad neighborhoods, destructive peer groups, antisocial personality or cognition, etc. - and those correlate much more strongly to recidivism than does mental illness.

Generally stating the problem, said Skeem, people with mental illness are significantly overrepresented in the system. Rates of mental illness among offenders are 3 times the average for men, twice the average for women (who have higher rates generally). Overall, 14% of male defendants and 30% of women suffer from severe mental illness, she said, and 72% of those have a co-occurring substance abuse disorder. Most are supervised in the community on probation and they often "fail." People with severe mental illness are twice as likely to have their probation revoked for technical violations, she said.

In most jurisdictions (73% according to a national survey), sentencing of mentally ill offenders by judges is usually "non-specific," often amounting to checking an additional box on a form - usually labeled "mental health" - that would then authorize whatever treatment package the prison or probation department wants to apply.

There is an "implicit" model in current sentencing practices regarding the mentally ill that Skeem believes is misdirected. Mental illness is seen as the root of offender criminality, so the offender is sentenced to treatment. Once their symptoms are reduced, by this logic, supposedly criminality will decline.

In practice, she said, increased mental-health services often do not result in fewer arrests or recidivism gains, even if they successfully reduce symptoms in the patient. Improved symptoms and functioning typically don't reduce crime, she said (with the notable exception of those whose offenses involve domestic violence). Even "Cadillac" mental health treatment programs don't translate into improved public safety outcomes.

That's because only about one in ten offenses by people with severe mental illness result directly from their mental health condition, she said, citing what she described as "elegant" cutting-edge research. Substance abuse is statistically a bigger contributing factor, but even it doesn't fully explain the data. The real problem, said Skeem, is that mentally ill offenders tend to have more overall risk factors than their counterparts. She emphasized that this insight should not be used as an excuse to avoid treating mental illness and that offenders who needed it should absolutely receive treatment. But mental health treatment shouldn't be seen as a primary way of changing offender behavior, which most frequently stems from other causes.

Skeem encouraged judges not to treat mental illness as some sort of "master status," but instead to target "criminogenic needs" just like the evidence-based practices models designed for regular probation caseloads. In the Q&A afterward, I asked what that position implied for mental health courts and specialized probation caseloads focused on the mentally ill. But Skeem declined to criticize such programs, saying they were important but that their focus should shift.

Indeed, Skeem said that where specialty mental health programming by courts and probation departments had been successful, it was primarily because they're more likely to studiously apply evidence-based practices and problem solving approaches than in regular probation.

In particular, she said, use of "authoritarian" approaches by probation officers tend to produce worse outcomes for all probationers, but particularly those with severe mental illness. Use of threats and punishments by POs measurably affect whether outcomes improve, she said. Negative pressure on probationers predicts failure. So in some instances specialized caseloads have demonstrated success not because they treat mental health needs but because they're more likely to adopt these evidence-based probation approaches.

Skeem said that "stigma" associated with mental illness along with "paternalism" by those in the system led to worse outcomes for probationers with mental illness. Though the public views the mentally ill as scary people, statistically they're no more likely to be arrested than the rest of us, she said. However, once on probation, people with mental illness are much more likely to be revoked on technical violations. Surveys of probation officers show some don't like having the mentally ill on their caseloads and may revoke them or seek to shift them to other programs so they won't have to deal with them.

From the standpoint of reducing crime, the best approach for probationers with mental illness, she said, is to focus on screening and assessment aimed at identifying criminogenic factors generally, then using those specific assessments to inform sentencing, tailoring which evidence-based practices are used based on individual circumstances.

For probation officers, said Skeem, offender visits should become less about "monitoring" and more about discussion of criminogenic needs and risk mitigation. Research by Jim Bonta has shown that just as negative pressure predicts failure, time spent on problem solving and navigating criminogenic factors "correlates powerfully" with reducing recidivism.

If accurate - and Judge David Crain who runs Travis County's mental health court told me most of the presentation jibed with his experience - Skeem's insight about the causes of crime among mentally ill offenders suggest helpful ways to reduce crime overall. "What works" for the mentally ill appears to be pretty much what works with regular probationers, it's just that probation departments don't regularly apply evidence-based practices outside of these specialty caseloads. If those techniques were implemented more widely, it follows, the approach should reduce recidivism among both groups.

RELATED: Go here for links to Skeem's research.

Why do Americans murder?

A New Yorker book review by Jill Lepore explores the question "Why is American history so murderous?" Fascinating stuff. Here's her comparison (based on information in several books reviewed together) of US homicide rates with European nations:

In Europe, homicide rates, conventionally represented as the number of murder victims per hundred thousand people in the population per year, have been falling for centuries. Spierenburg attributes this long decline to what the German sociologist Norbert Elias called the “civilizing process” (shorthand for a whole class of behaviors requiring physical restraint and self-control, right down to using a fork instead of eating with your hands or stabbing at your food with a knife), and to the growing power of the centralizing state to disarm civilians, control violence, enforce law and order, and, broadly, to hold a monopoly on the use of force. (Anthropologists sometimes talk about a related process, the replacement of a culture of honor with a culture of dignity.) In feuding medieval Europe, the murder rate hovered around thirty-five. Duels replaced feuds. Duels are more mannered; they also have a lower body count. By 1500, the murder rate in Western Europe had fallen to about twenty. Courts had replaced duels. By 1700, the murder rate had dropped to five. Today, that rate is generally well below two, where it has held steady, with minor fluctuations, for the past century.

In the United States, the picture could hardly be more different. The American homicide rate has been higher than Europe’s from the start, and higher at just about every stage since. It has also fluctuated, sometimes wildly. During the Colonial period, the homicide rate fell, but in the nineteenth century, while Europe’s kept sinking, the U.S. rate went up and up. In the twentieth century, the rate in the United States dropped to about five during the years following the Second World War, but then rose, reaching about eleven in 1991. It has since fallen once again, to just above five, a rate that is, nevertheless, twice that of any other affluent democracy.

That puts a bit of a different spin on the debate of whether and how much the death penalty acts as a deterrent, doesn't it, when nations that have abolished capital punishment deter murder with greater success?

Lepore also provides an able overview of the antebellum use of capital punishment and three-strikes laws in the United States, including history I hadn't seen before:

Capital punishment has been on the books in Connecticut since 1642. Three strikes has been tried before, too. In Colonial America, many crimes, including murder, were punishable by death and, for lesser crimes, Connecticut, like many colonies, mandated the death penalty for third-time offenders. That began to change on September 7, 1768, when a burglar named Isaac Frasier was hanged in Fairfield. Frasier had shown early evidence of a “thievish Disposition.” “Men go from one degree of wickedness to another,” the town’s minister said in a sermon at the gallows titled “Excessive Wickedness, the Way to an untimely Death.” Convicted of burglary in New Haven, Frasier was whipped and branded and had his ears cropped. Caught again in Fairfield in 1766, he received the same punishment “and was solemnly warned . . . that death would be his punishment on a third Conviction.” When Frasier robbed another house, he was sentenced to death. “The Government of Connecticut have always been remarkably tender of putting persons to Death,” one observer noted. But when Frasier applied to the legislature for clemency, he was denied. Said the pastor at the gallows, “Justice requires that you should suffer.”

An outcry followed. Two weeks after Frasier’s death, a Hartford newspaper published an essay called “An Answer to a very important Question, viz. Whether any community has a right to punish any species of theft with death?” The writer’s answer—an emphatic no—borrowed extensively from Cesare Beccaria’s treatise “On Crimes and Punishments,” published in 1764. Beccaria, an Italian nobleman, argued against capital punishment—which was, at the time, widespread in Europe, too—on two grounds: first, in a republic men do not forfeit their lives to the government; and, second, capital punishment does not deter crime. Beccaria argued (and Kleiman has merely revisited that argument) that punishments, to be effective, must be swift and certain but not necessarily severe. Punishments, he insisted, should be proportionate to crimes, whose dangerousness could be measured, in “degrees,” by their injury to society. For the crime of murder, Beccaria considered life in prison to be both more just and a more effective deterrent than execution.

The first American edition of Beccaria’s treatise was published in 1777, and it reached a wide audience in Connecticut beginning in 1786, when it was serialized in a New Haven newspaper. “If we glance at the pages of history, we will find that laws, which surely are, or ought to be, compacts of free men, have been, for the most part, a mere tool for the passions of some,” Beccaria wrote. This argument held particular appeal for a people who had just finished waging a war against the passions of King George; adopting Beccaria’s recommendations came to seem, in a fundamental sense, American, as if the United States had a special role to play, as a republic, in the abolition of capital punishment. In 1784, the Yale senior class debated whether the death penalty was “too severe & rigorous in the United States for the present Stage of Society.”

In the seventeen-nineties, five states abolished the death penalty for all crimes except murder. By the eighteen-twenties, all Northern states reserved capital punishment for first-degree murder. When incarceration replaced all corporal and most capital punishment, Americans built prisons, and sentenced criminals to jail time. In 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty.

Most of the arguments offered for WHY the United States has higher murder rates seem a little half-baked (a prevalent European theory holds that Americans gained political freedom before we were civilized), but the higher rates are a long-term reality and it's an interesting question why Americans kill each other more often? Go read the whole piece for a taste of the variety of theories offered by different authors to explain the question. Certainly IMO there's a cultural element to it - a distinctly American preference for "honor" over "dignity," as Lepore put it. She also suggests that the wider availability of guns in America contributes. But none of these theories either a) are verifiable or b) completely explain the long-term data, even if true.

Why do you think Americans kill each other more often than citizens of other affluent democracies?

Death penalty deterrent evanescent, symbolic

A couple of readers asked my opinion of a column over the weekend in the Houston Chronicle by Rick Casey ("A murder mystery by the numbers," Nov. 7) analyzing estimates of the death penalty's deterrence value. Here's the bottom line regarding the results of the latest, greatest academic study of Texas-specific data:

They found that many earlier studies had vastly overestimated the effect, but the number of murders did go down in the short-term aftermath of executions.

Based on two different statistical models, they found the effect in the months after each execution to be a reduction of between 0.5 to 2.5 homicides.

That may not sound like much, but as the authors note, “even the estimated .5 deterrent per execution yields an estimated reduction in the expected numbers of monthly homicides of 5 to 10 during the subsequent 12 months, which is substantial.”

I'm sure this isn't the last word on the issue. That's no mystery. Here's the mystery:

This study and previous ones show no correlation between the amount of publicity executions receive and their deterrent effect.

“We have no theory on that,” Teske said on Friday. After a few more questions, he said, “I hear your frustration. If I wasn't working with one of the top guys in the nation, my confidence would be shaken.”

One other mystery: The study shows, as other studies have, more impact on the kinds of murders that don't qualify for the death penalty than on those that do.

So to recap, the study purports to find a deterrent effect in the immediate aftermath, even if no one knows about the execution, and it mostly "deters" people from other kinds of murders.

In my experience, the death penalty's deterrent effect is a lot like the existence of God - you believe in it if you need to believe in it, but it cannot be proven or disproven by available data in a way that will satisfy the culture warriors on either side.

Let's face it: If the death penalty seriously deterred, then Texas as the nation's execution leader would surely see the greatest reduction in murder rates nationally. But our murder rates, though declining, remain above the national average (in line with other southern states), so clearly other factors are more determinative.

In general, people believe harsh penalties deter misbehavior more than they do. (As Mark Kleiman's new book points out, certainty and immediacy of punishment are much more important.) After the Texas Legislature made stealing even the smallest amount of scrap metal a felony, total thefts skyrocketed thanks to the rising cost of copper. The resulting impact on crime from increased penalties is at best (to use a word I learned from Justice Alito this week) evanescent.

It doesn't really matter if the death penalty deters or not because its greatest importance is as a symbol, pro and con. Neither side will budge an inch no matter what this or that new study might find, and the broader public seems profoundly unmoved, as well - at least until the day an individual voter must enter a jury box and decide an individual case.

The Gallup poll question generally cited to show public support for capital punishment asks, "Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder." Here is the data on that question over time - most recently, 65% of the public said they agreed that people convicted of murder should get the death penalty.

But that question comes at respondents completely detached from reality. In Texas, which is the acknowledged national death penalty leader, in FY 2007 we sent just 14 murderers to death row, while a whopping 1,078 entered TDCJ that year based on homicide charges. Even in the Lone Star State, the vast, overwhelming majority of murderers are not sentenced to death. When the question is presented to them directly, Texas' "death-qualified" juries usually don't impose the sentence. In 2007, out of 51 cases where defendants were convicted of capital murder, in 37 of them juries gave sentences of life without parole.

Juries are selected from voter rolls so there's a disconnect when 65% tell pollsters murderers should die but 72.5% of Texas capital juries fail to impose a death sentence. What that means, I think, is that the issue is more complex than it's presented by pollsters and people are smarter than such ill-informed, misleading questions can measure. When confronted with the real-world issues that surround killing by the state, juries balk more often than not, even in Texas.

I'm not inherently against the death penalty, though I certainly share fears that our sloppy justice system might convict and kill an innocent person. (Besides Timothy Cole, I mean.) I think death is an appropriate sentence for lifers who commit murders in prison - tacking on more years simply isn't a meaningful deterrent in that setting. Make me philosopher-king, and I also think it should be used only in cases (which is most of them) where the identity of the killer is not in dispute. At the same time, the cause of "saving" death-row offenders from a fate that awaits us all, when life without parole is the alternative, frankly fails to motivate me.

Perhaps there is some vanishingly small, short-term deterrent effect to the death penalty. Like the existence of a God that created man in His own image, I doubt it but won't rule it out. But in its current form, the death penalty is a political boondoggle and distraction involving a miniscule number of cases - a costly sideshow carnival act of the first order that distracts from more important discussions. Any legitimate cost-benefit analysis would find death-penalty deterrence doesn't measure up compared to underfunded but less-expensive programs that would save more lives and do more to reduce crime and deaths.

Death penalty cases easily can cost the county bringing them upward of $1 or $2 million each before they're said and done. (It'd be easier to justly complain about that cost if Texas didn't screw up so many cases - it literally doesn't matter if the judge slept with the prosecutor, our Court of Criminal Appeals will sign off on the execution.)

Would that money do more to promote safety if, for example, it were used to reduce community supervision caseloads or pay for ignition interlock devices on the cars of recidivist drunks? Almost certainly. But the details of misdemeanor probation conditions are boring things to debate compared to the death penalty, where everyone gets to claim the moral high ground, look down their noses, sneer, and accuse one another of "bias." That's all a lot more fun (and politically useful, one supposes) than prioritizing criminal justice spending on programs that demonstrably reduce deaths and crime.

Praise for PEP

There's a nice column in the Houston Chronicle about a visit by a group of businesspeople to Catherine Rohr's much acclaimed Prison Entrepreneurship Program ("What can we learn from prisoners?," June 7), which apparently made quite an impression:

In five years, 440 prisoners have graduated from the four-month Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP). The majority have landed good, honest jobs within the first month of release. Fifty-eight have started their own business, ranging from landscaping to software development. PEP´s volunteers number more than 450 MBA students and more than 1,000 business executives. ...

While first-time volunteers may have entered with an “It’ll feel good to help these less fortunate souls” attitude, we were all shocked to be learning from them.

The men were so polite and eager to learn, we couldn’t help but open our hearts. You’ve heard before that we have something to learn from everyone. I sincerely think that often, but am seldom able to consistently maintain that view. That day, I went with the attitude of looking forward to sharing my business knowledge. What was I, a business professional, going to learn from a murderer?

PEP is largely about building character. It’s making men act like real responsible men. Participants take classes on etiquette, substance abuse, relationships and fatherhood.

The businesspeople visiting gushed over the program:

The theme from the business leaders was summed up by one volunteer, “I came here in fear for my life, and I leave here dumbfounded at my misconception. Outside these walls are people that are so fearful of everything, especially in this economic condition — and the most joy, love and happiness I have seen in years is within this room. Thank you for your inspiration.”

From everything I've heard PEP is a wonderful but small program with a long waiting list. Particularly given the level of support Rohr has been able to garner from the business community, TDCJ would probably get a lot of anti-recidivism bang for the buck by investing state resources to expand it.

Does a receptive climate toward immigrants reduce crime?

Radley Balko at Reason thinks he has an answer for why El Paso ranks among the safest large cities in America:

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country." ...

What's happening with Latinos is true of most immigrant groups throughout U.S. history. "Overall, immigrants have a stake in this country, and they recognize it," Northeastern University's Levin says. "They're really an exceptional sort of American. They come here having left their family and friends back home. They come at some cost to themselves in terms of security and social relationships. They are extremely success-oriented, and adjust very well to the competitive circumstances in the United States." Economists Kristin Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl argue that the very process of migration tends to select for people with a low potential for criminality.

Indeed, Balko argues that:

An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country.

"Look at Arab-Americans in the Midwest, especially in the Detroit area," Levin says. "The U.S. and Canada have traditionally been very willing to welcome and integrate them. They're a success story, with high average incomes and very little crime. That's not the case in Europe. Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them. And they've seen waves of crime and rioting."

El Paso may be a concentrated affirmation of that theory. In 2007 the Washington Post reported on city leaders' wariness of anti-immigration policies coming out of Washington. The city went to court (and lost) in an effort to prevent construction of the border fence within its boundaries, and local officials have resisted federal efforts to enlist local police for immigration enforcement, arguing that it would make illegals less likely to cooperate with police. "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

Other mayors could learn something from Cook. El Paso's embrace of its immigrants might be a big reason why the low-income border town has remained one of the safest places in the country.

What do you think? Does its receptive attitude toward immigrants explain El Paso's impressive recent record on crime, or is it something else? If so, what? I've often wondered that myself and this is as plausible an explanation as any I've heard.

Early education and crime

While this blog mostly focuses on the mechanics of the criminal justice system, the truth is we must look outside the framework of police, courts and prisons to discover the real causes of crime and identify the full range of possible solutions.

At this point in US history, additional spending on incarceration probably isn't worth the crime fighting bang for the buck compared to other ways that money could be spent - particularly investments in education and mental health care. So I was interested to see a couple of headlines this week here and yon promoting early education policies that seem likely to reduce crime:

• Editorial: Perry should sign pre-K bill
• Officials: Early Education Effort Cuts Crime

The editorial, by United Way of Texas President Karen Johnson, quoted a study out of Texas A&M which "found that for every $1 invested in high-quality pre-k, at least $3.50 is returned to Texas communities. Savings for taxpayers are realized long-term because children who experience high-quality pre-k have higher rates of high school graduation, higher earning power as adults, fewer referrals to special education, and significantly less involvement with the criminal justice system."

The other link is out of Iowa, where law enforcement is pushing early education spending on the grounds:

that high school dropouts are three and one half times more likely to be arrested and eight times more likely to be incarcerated. Nearly 70 percent of state prison inmates nationwide failed to earn a high school diploma, states the report. Officials said that if the male graduation rate increased by 10 percent in Iowa, it's estimated to save $88 million every year.

I wrote recently about the United Way's "Common Good Forecaster," which posited a link between education levels and crime. According to the backup material (pdf) for that web tool:

Rigorous studies show a strong link between more education and reduced rates of violent crime (Lochner 2004). A one-year increase in the average level of schooling in a community is associated with almost a 30 percent decrease in the murder and assault rates (Lochner 2007), results which are particularly reliable through high school. Of course, one important reason is that more school generally brings higher wages and expanded job opportunities and thus less incentive to engage in criminal activities. However, wages and jobs are not the end of the story. Classrooms help instill values that oppose criminality and socialize students to become better citizens. In many cases, schooling may also teach patience, reduce tolerance for risk-taking, and provide a supervised environment that tempers negative interaction among young people. And finally, youth who leave school early risk being influenced by a more negative set of peers, while those who stay are more likely to build a constructive social network and set off on a path toward productive work experiences.

Too often when we talk about crime fighting, the focus is solely on the cops and the courts. But factors like education can be equally critical. Indeed, there's a case to be made that, with prison populations bursting at the seams, the best way to chip away at crime isn't locking even more people up but helping more young kids have a better life.

RELATED: From the Denver Daily News, "Fewer prisoners = more graduates?"

See related Grits posts:

• Back to School: Fight crime, invest in kids
• Education a solution to crimes from murder to graffiti

Education a solution to crimes from murder to graffiti

After many years of criminal penalty hikes and prison building, I've wondered if we may have reached the limits of crime reduction based on incarceration and if other investments in healthcare (particularly mental health) and education might not do more to reduce crime.

So via USA Today, I was interested to see a new website called the Common Good Forecaster (from the United Way and the American Human Development Project) which makes concrete that connection, estimating improvements in various social indicators thanks to more people getting an education.

Noting that more than one in 5 Texans age 25 and over didn't graduate high school, the site focuses on murder rates as its key crime indicator; Texas' rate is 6.6 per 100,000, compared to 5.9 nationally. By their data, if Texas were to increase the number of people who graduate college from 25-32%, it would reduce Texas' murder rate to the national average (and boost median personal earnings by 5%).

But murder may not be the only area where improved education might reduce crime. Another USA Today piece from yesterday says much of the nation finds itself in the grip of increased graffiti crime, though some cities like New York and Dallas are bucking the trend. Texas and other states have responded largely by increasing penalties for graffiti, but I've argued before that erasing a deficit in fine arts education might be a better approach:

While these bills flail with a hammer at the problem (at this point punching holes in the wall instead of pounding a nail), we see a telling item over at the Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics blog which informs us that "Music, fine arts are seeking more respect" at the Legislature, noting that Texas schools have seen the arts de-prioritized to focus on the TAKS test. As a result, Texas experienced "a drop in middle school fine arts participation from 75 percent student participation in 1999 to 66 percent in 2006."

Perhaps relatedly, during this same period in Texas graffiti crimes soared; the amount of graffiti in Austin, for example, increased 400% from 2002 to 2007. So kids are doing less art in school and more out in the streets. But all legislators can think to do is increase punishments, not artistic opportunities.

In that light, I was pleased to see Sen. Florence Shapiro amend her big public schools bill, HB 3, to require fine arts and physical education credits in the state's minimum graduation requirements. To my mind, boosting fine arts in schools may do more to reduce graffiti by youth than any other public policy we could undertake because it provides an artistic alternative. I don't believe the fact that Texas youth are doing less art in school and more in the streets is a coincidence.

Sen. Shapiro, though, didn't mention graffiti but said what convinced her to add the amendment (which she'd rejected when it was offered previously by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte) was a new study from the Texas Cultural Trust released May 1st about the impact of the creative sector on the economy. Said the press release:

An economic study released today shows that the creative sector of the Texas economy is growing faster and paying higher wages than jobs in the non-creative sector. According to the data, creative sector industries such as digital media, film, music, performing arts, visual arts and arts-related tourism have become a cornerstone of the state’s economy and are on a trajectory for continued growth. ...

The data demonstrates a clear link between the cultural arts, a vibrant creative sector and a strong economy. But the study’s findings also imply that the bright spot in Texas won’t last forever if the state stops investing in arts education and the cultural arts.

According to the report, said Shapiro, by 2016 one in 12 Texas jobs will be in the creative sector.

I suspect that promoting arts in school will have at least as great an effect on graffiti - if not more so - than has boosting criminal penalties, which seems to have been an ineffective approach.

Pew urges community supervision strategies to improve public safety

Doc Berman informs us of a new publication from the Pew Center on the States titled "Putting Public Safety First," which suggests "13 Strategies for Successful Supervision and Reentry." Berman quotes from the email announcement:

A new policy brief from the Pew Public Safety Performance Project highlights community corrections strategies that can help policy makers and practitioners improve public safety and make better use of scarce public funds. Putting Public Safety First: 13 Strategies for Successful Supervision and Reentry is part of an ongoing series of policy briefs published by The Pew Center on the States. The 13 strategies outlined in this brief were the consensus findings from two meetings of national experts held over the past year by the Urban Institute, in collaboration with the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) and the JEHT Foundation.

This briefing is a companion piece to a longer report produced by the Urban Institute with the support of the JEHT Foundation, NIC and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The report includes examples from the field and describes each of the 13 strategies in more detail....

We hope you can use this policy brief to help make the case for more cost-effective corrections in your work with policy makers and managers.

Many of the 13 strategies will sound familiar to regular Grits readers and anyone who has followed Sen. John Whitmire and Rep. Jerry Madden's probation reform initiatives over Texas' last two legislative sessions. They are:

1. Define success as recidivism reduction and measure performance
2. Tailor conditions of supervision to the individual
3. Focus resources on higher risk offenders
4. Frontload supervision resources
5. Implement earned discharge
6. Supervise offenders in their communities
7. Engage partners to expand intervention capacity
8. Assess criminal risk and need factors
9. Balance surveillance and treatment in case plans
10. Involve offenders in development of the case plan
11. Engage informal social controls
12. Use incentives and rewards
13. Respond to violations with swift and certain sanctions

See more detail in Pew's public policy brief and the Urban Institute's full report.

RELATED: Ana Yañez Correa from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition had an op ed in the Statesman this week focusing on prisoner reentry strategies that help offenders succeed on community supervision.

Sheriffs privatizing border web cams

Gov. Perry's first stab at his much-ballyhooed border webcams didn't pan out so well, but he and the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition are back for another try, this time with a private sector partner who's attempting to profit from the venture by selling advertising.

The Sheriffs Coalition, spending grant money given them by the Governor, "paid $625,000 for one year of service, parts and materials and agreed to pay other fees for future services," according to the El Paso Times. (Grits readers may recall that one of the 16 members of the Border Sheriffs Coalition was recently arrested for allegedly working in cahoots with the Mexican-based Gulf Cartel.)

But don't expect loads of new arrests to result from the webcams, if history is any guide. Again from the El Paso Times ("Border watch program called waste of money," Nov. 25):

Perry launched a test-run of the border watch site with about a dozen cameras streaming video in November 2006. It got millions of hits and generated more than 14,800 e-mails. But an El Paso Times analysis of reports obtained through the open records requests revealed that all that Web traffic resulted in 10 immigrant apprehensions, one drug bust and the interruption of one smuggling route. ...

John Honovich, founder of IP Video Market Info, said studies of surveillance programs have shown they usually deter crime only temporarily.

"Unless criminals observe and determine that the system is effective, the deterrence effect goes away," Honovich said.

Another example of border policy driven more by PR than public safety. If investigators had to react to 14,00 emails during the pilot program but it only generated 10 immigrant apprehensions, that's a ridiculously low amount of bang for the buck.

This is an utterly pointless exercise, but I'm sure it will be ably spun in the Governor's campaign materials come 2010.

RELATED: A reader points me to today's story by the El Paso Times' Brandi Grissom, who picks up on the fact that in at least two instances, millions from the Governor's border security grants to Sheriffs were spent by people later indicted as drug cartel operatives. She writes that:

Starr County Sheriff Reymundo Guerra and Hidalgo County sheriff's Deputy Emmanuel Sanchez last month became the latest in a long history of border law enforcement officers accused of aiding and abetting the criminals they are supposed to fight.

Those two departments were among the many that have received money from Perry to participate in state-led border security efforts that began in 2005. Records the El Paso Times obtained under the Texas Freedom of Information Act the two counties received more than $4.8 million in state and federal grants from Perry from 2005 to 2008.

Critics of the operations say there are too few accountability measures attached to the border crime funds and worry that corrupt officers could use taxpayer money to help drug traffickers.

"We may as well just send it directly to drug dealers," said state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, long a critic of Perry's border operations. "We've been spending money against our own interests."

Education and low crime rates in Barbados

Having lately discussed a new law enforcement initiative on early education and crime prevention and the relationship between crime rates and the ratio of security spending vs. education in different countries, I was interested to see this note from the London Telegraph about Barbados, which reportedly enjoys the lowest crime rate of all the Caribbean islands. The story begins with the typical tough on crime mantras:

"Police here in Barbados are very, very strict. Wrongdoers get no mercy!” chortles the minibus driver as we cross the island from airport to hotel. “Prison here is kill or cure. Usually kills you, ha ha! But if you do get out you won’t want to go back in again! And that’s the way we like it!”

Fair enough. But there's another, perhaps more significant cause for the low crime rate:

“What keeps Barbados law-abiding? Education, education, education,” says Claire Jordan, an earnest young hotel sales manager over breakfast by the beach. “The first thing our government did after independence in 1966 was to introduce free schooling. Anyone who gets straight As at A-level can go to university anywhere in the world and have the government pay for everything.”

She herself went to Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh, then to an école supérieure in France, while her brother went to Harvard. “So everyone’s educated, employment rates are high — and in general that means very little poverty and very low crime. What crime does exist is often committed by other islanders coming here under the new policy in the Caribbean that lets anyone move anywhere, as in the EU.”

Score another point for education in the education vs. security spending debate.

Granted, this is a travel story. The writer got all her information from taxi drivers and hotel clerks on her way to and from the beach. What's more, Barbados is a tiny place - an island 14 miles wide and 21 miles long with just more than a quarter-million people; the approach would be quite expensive to scale up to an American context.

Still, one imagines the intense focus on subsidized education has a lot to do with the low crime rate. You've gotta admit, that's a pretty compelling reason for kids to focus on their education instead of running the streets.

Neighboring Trinidad and Tobago were already on my personal list of places I'd like to visit; perhaps Barbados will get added to the list.

Harris County candidate forum focused on mental health and criminal justice

A reader points out this Houston Chronicle story describing "a forum on behavioral health and the criminal justice system" in which "Republican and Democratic candidates for county judge, sheriff and district attorney offered ideas meant to divert the mentally ill from jail to treatment."

Read the whole article for the various candidates' views. For my part, I'm amazed and pleased that there was even a forum on this topic, much less that so many candidates attended. That says a lot, I think, about the zeitgeist of the times, and also the budgetary impact of treating mental illness through the justice system: "Harris County spends an estimated $87 million a year to incarcerate and treat mentally ill inmates," reported the Chronicle.

Nearly every community in Texas faces similar local debates. Statewide, 30% of Texas prison inmates are past clients of the indigent mental health system. Indeed, lately I've begun to wonder if lack of health insurance and minimalist mental health coverage for those who are insured might be a significant contributing factor to criminality among the menally ill, just like failure to invest in eduction harms public safety. To the extent mental illness contributes to crime, and it does, expanding access to services before people offend would reduce both monetary and societal costs, as would diverting so-called "frequent flyers" into more stable, supportive environs.

I'm glad to see candidates being called to account on these topics and hope the forum's organizers will continue to remind the victors of their promises once the November elections are done.

Back to School: Fight Crime, Invest in Kids

As Texas kids head back to school today, it's worth raising the question of whether too much public debate is focused on crime and punishment and too little on investments in education and mental health care that might prevent more incarceration.

That's the gist of the "Fight Crime: Invest in Kids" initiative proposed recently by a national coalition of police, prosecutors and crime victims. I agree with Doc Berman that education and crime are too seldom linked in the public discourse. That's not just a "framing strategy," as Dan Filler put it it's a valid interpretation of the data that's become unpopular in recent years because of political arguments labeling its proponents "liberal" or "soft on crime." However, that doesn't invalidate the stance or reduce its import to mere clever political posturing. From the group's press release:

Research shows that high school dropouts are three and a half times more likely than graduates to be arrested and eight times more likely to be incarcerated. Nineteen of the top 25 largest U.S. cities have school districts where 40 percent or more of students do not graduate on time. Nearly 70 percent of all inmates in our nation's prisons failed to earn a high school diploma.

The law enforcement leaders are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national anti-crime organization made up of over 4,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, and violence survivors. They called on Congress and state lawmakers to expand pre-kindergarten, one of the most effective strategies to increase graduation rates.

"If kids get strong start early in life, we can cut our dropout rate and improve our communities," Lynch said. "To help more kids get that strong start, we need to fund early childhood education programs and ensure that every child that qualifies is able to enroll."

The Fight Crime: Invest in Kids members released a report called "School or the Streets," showing that increasing graduation rates by 10 percentage points will prevent 3,000 murders and 175,000 aggravated assaults in America every year.

To the extent those estimates are accurate, failures by Texas public schools on a massive scale contribute mightily to the expanding prison population.

In May, former Secretary of State Collin Powell's organization, America's Promise, issued these data regarding dropout 4-year graduation rates in the largest Texas cities:

Dallas: 44.4%
Houston: 54.6%
San Antonio: 51.9%
Austin: 58.2%
Fort Worth: 55.5%

As Grits argued in reaction to that analysis, there are particular subgroups among dropouts who account for a disproportionate amount of crime and public safety resources:

Straight-up illiteracy is a key criminogenic factor. It's long been known, for example, that while dyslexics make up about 10% of students, they make up 30% or more of those in prison.

As far as reducing crime, an even more important subcategory are kids with incarcerated parents, who tend to be 6-8 times more likely than their peers to wind up incarcerated themselves. Making sure those kids stay in school and have real opportunities to succeed might be the single most important contribution society could make to reducing future crime.

Texas' massive prison system shows it does a good job of holding its citizens accountable (one in 21 adult Texans are in prison, in jail, on probation or on parole), but these high dropout rates show there's been little progress made holding schools accountable for their frankly lousy outcomes.

I spend a lot of time on this blog looking at the back end of the system's failures and how we manage those who've already violated societal rules. But there's little question reducing those massive dropout rates would reduce crime and systemic pressure on the front end better than anything that could be done after people have already offended. Worth contemplating, certainly, as everybody heads back to school.

CCTV proponents should abandon claims that surveillance cameras reduce crime

John Honovich, a consultant on video surveillance and biometrics, says in a meta-analysis of recent studies of CCTV effectiveness that the industry needs to change its marketing pitch. Particularly it must stop promising the public CCTV can reduce crime, primarily because virtually all the research on public CCTV use shows that it fails to reduce crime. As a result, Honovich makes the following suggestion for CCTV proponents:

Recommendation: Abandon emphasis on general crime reduction

Proponents of public CCTV systems should abandon the emphasis and claim that CCTV systems can reduce crime generally. Even if proponents ignore the fact that studies demonstrate this, clinging to this claim only creates greater debate and dissension.

By abandoning this claim, it will heal some of the major discord and allow all parties to focus on better uses of CCTV. Given the vastly improved quality of today's CCTV systems at greatly reduced prices, this should be reasonable to accomplish.

Honovich says CCTVs more important use is in solving crimes, citing the much-different reasons usually articulated for private sector adoption of cameras. So far, he says:

the focus of all quantitative analysis has been on reducing crime.

This is the mirror opposite of the private sector. In the private sector, the overwhelming majority of CCTV systems are justified by their use in solving crime. It is investigations where most private businesses find value and return in their CCTV systems. For businesses, only a very small percentage of CCTV cameras are ever even watched. The systems pay for themselves by periodically being able to identify or prove a criminal activity.

This indicates a failure of expectations for public CCTV systems. In the private sector, when CCTV effectiveness is discussion, the assumption is usually that CCTV is used for investigations. By contrast, the focus on public CCTV effectiveness being determined on reducing crime sets a dangerous expectation that is difficult to achieve and likely to create dissatisfaction within the community.

The problem seems to be the fault of the original advocates of these systems, rather than a deficiency of the testers. The academics and researchers performing these tests were reacting to the expectations that the proponents of these systems made originally.

So Honovich thinks public surveillance proponents have merely framed the problem incorrectly, that the studies showing negligible effects on crime mean that proponents must change their pitch. But if we're to judge CCTV by its effectiveness, what are we to make of news from the UK that in London, the most surveilled city on the planet, surveillance footage is used to help solve only 3% of street robberies?

A British detective writing in 2006 declared "CCTV viewing occupies a dis-proportionate amount of police time with very little tangible result," and that "identification is rarely assisted by CCTV" in police investigations. Typically, he said, the "footage will show that some kind of offence has taken place. It is more than useless for the purposes of finding out who did it."

Video surveillance works better when focused on low-traffic areas and high-value targets, which is how the private sector uses it - to protect specific assets. For example, cameras would have been a useful security measure in recent thefts from southeast Texas police property rooms. Parking garages are another area with low-traffic but high-value targets where studies show cameras provide added protection.

But general public surveillance? Not so much. According to the UK Guardian:

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."

IMO Honovich overstates the case when he says that "Widespread consensus exists that CCTV is effective in reducing premeditative/property crime." I don't think there's evidence that CCTV in public places reduces property crime. Used for specific high-value targets or in areas with limited access (e.g., the car park or police evidence room examples), there's a consensus cameras provide a significant added layer of security, but that's a more limited claim.

Even with Honovich's focus on solving crime instead of reducing it, the cost-benefit analysis for public camera surveillance hardly supports its use by police. Citing how much cheaper cameras have become and reduced costs for transmission systems, Honovich suggests that proponents of CCTV adopt a new metric to promote their product: Cost per camera. He writes:

While most studies cited general cost numbers, the cost per camera was largely ignored. The most frequently cited number is the amount the UK home office has spent on CCTV (500 million pounds). However, only the 2005 UK Home Office study actually broke down the cost per camera. Since the studies were focused on determining if the crime rate was reduced, this element is understandable. Nevertheless, communities could save significant money and improve effectiveness by more carefully tracking the cost per camera.

Understanding the cost per camera is important to recognize changes in technology and to identify waste. The 2005 UK Home Office report indicated that cost per camera ranged from $7,000 pounds to $33,000 pounds for cameras installed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This is a useful but IMO incomplete suggestion. A better metric would be "cost per crime solved using cameras." Simply measuring (or reducing) the cost per camera alone tells us very little about whether those cameras are making us more secure.

The studies Honovich cites have usefully demonstrated that, despite massive public investment in the UK in particular, surveillance cameras do not reduce crime on the front end. We also know that in a small number of criminal cases, they help solve them on the back end, though they're more likely to do so when cameras are focused on high-value targets and/or low traffic areas. Even so, cameras are easily defeated by low-tech means like hats, scarves and sunglasses, and at best provide only a small additional increment of safety when they're deployed.

The question now becomes: Is that increment worth the massive costs associated with installing and monitoring public CCTV surveillance? So far, most of the evidence says "no," but I welcome the introduction of new metrics to measure the question.

Hat tip to Bruce Schneier.

UPDATE: Noam Biale of the national ACLU emails to ask if I'd post a link to the organization's recent white paper on surveillance camera effectiveness, so here you go (pdf).

Does the death penalty deter murder? How about gun control?

Two researchers whose work on death penalty deterrence was misapplied by opposing US Supreme Court Justices in a recent death penalty ruling teamed up today for a Washington Post editorial to clear up the confusion ("A death penalty puzzle," June 30).

The whole thing is well worth the read, but here's the money quote: "the best reading of the accumulated data is that they do not establish a deterrent effect of the death penalty."

RELATED (somewhat): The New York Times yesterday reacted to the Supreme Court's Heller ruling by interrogating evidence that gun control reduces crime. Similarly to the case for death penalty deterrence, the Times reports that "Many criminologists say cultural, economic and demographic factors play a big role in murder rates, and some say the number of guns and the number of murders may well be uncorrelated."

So there's no hard evidence killing people who kill reduces murder, and scant reason to think reducing gun availability does so. These results make you wonder exactly what if any public policies do evidence murder rate reductions?

Juvie crime in Texas IS declining, but "why" is a mystery

Okay, back to the question: Is juvenile crime declining in Texas?

I'd posed the query upon learning that, contrary to official projections, the total youth on probation in Texas remained flat after changes in the law last year redirected repeat juvenile misdemeanants away from the Youth Commission. Through excellent reactions from commenters, listening to additional legislative testimony from officials, a conversation with a TJPC lawyer, and a review of documents submitted along with recent legislative testimony, I think I can hazard an answer:

Yes, juvie crime is declining. The bigger question is "why?" Even more importantly, "what can be done to encourage the trend?"

This decline didn't just begin last year. According to Texas Juvenile Probation Commission director Vicki Spriggs' testimony to the Senate Finance Committee this week (April 22), from 2001 to 2007 overall statewide referrals (meaning juvenile offenders sentenced to probation) decreased by 10%, though the state's juvenile population increased by 6% over the same period.

Mostly this reflects a dramatic drop in juvenile property crime. Spriggs' handout to the committee revealed that although the overall number of juvenile referrals declined 10%, referrals for violent offenses increased by 4% from 2001-2007, and the number of drug offenses increased by 7%. (Said the handout: "Referrals for a violent felony offense accounted for 5.6% of total referrals in 2000 compared to 6.4% of total referrals in 2007.") By contrast, referrals for juvenile property crimes declined a whopping 25% over the same period.

Reduced juvenile crime rates over the last 10 years track national trends, Spriggs said, and are not specific to Texas. I found this interesting, data-filled public policy report [pdf] from 2006 analyzing reasons for juvenile crime reductions in California, which has experienced even more dramatic crime reductions than Texas and has its lowest juvie crime rate in 30 years, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Indeed, over the same period other states saw actual reductions in violent crime, whereas in Texas the increase was merely lower than the population increase - still a positive step, but for whatever reason we're not seeing as much reduction in violent crime as other states.

It's difficult to prove why something doesn't happen, or as Spriggs told Senate Finance, "It's hard to track kids who don't show up," meaning no one really knows why fewer kids enter the system. Since it's difficult to say exactly why these reductions are occurring, let's start by excluding hypotheses that don't explain the facts.

It's not the case that the data reflect more youth being certified as adults. Spriggs told Senate Finance that the number of kids certified as adults increased from 42 in the Jan-Mar '07 to 65 over the same period in '08. That's a significant increase, one that's likely a direct reaction by judges to changes in SB103 to Texas' determinate sentencing law. But it doesn't explain the scale of the aggregate changes. More than 40,600 youth are on probation in Texas statewide, so 100 fewer per year would barely amount to a blip on the statistical radar screen.

It's not a result of TYC's administrative decision to release offenders earlier. That's happening, but it wouldn't impact probation caseloads since those youth would be on parole, not probation. Similarly, a commenter wondered if changes in the law regarding 19-20 year olds with determinate sentences might affect the number, but the changes did not affect juvenile probation, which only runs through age 18.

It's also not a problem with bad data, TJPC attorney Lisa Capers assured me, declaring the agency is confident in local data because most counties scored highly on a recent audit of their data reporting systems. She said juvenile probation data collection was far superior to what she'd seen in adult systems (which wouldn't take much). Certainly the overall total count should be correct and comparable year to year.

Speaking to Senate Finance, Spriggs rightly dismissed the 'soft on crime' explanation, declaring that "law enforcement is not more tolerant" of juvenile crime, and that "schools are not more tolerant." Reinforcing her point about schools, Spriggs supplied the committee with data showing that referrals by schools to "JJAEPs" or "alternative education" programs increased by about 8% from the '03-'04 school year to '06-'07, even as criminal referrals declined over the same period.

The majority of youth sent to JJAEP were "discretionary" referrals, meaning they were expelled based on the school's own authority, not because of a statutory requirement. Of mandatory expulsions during the '06-'07 school year, 57% were for drug offenses according to data provided to the committee.

So schools face more disciplinary problems, but the courts see less. That's an odd conundrum. I wonder what's the relation between those stats?

Spriggs told the committee she couldn't completely explain the overall decline in probation referrals. Part of it, she said, was that in the past 13 years counties developed new infrastructure to handle most juvenile cases in the community, and I agree the importance of this relatively new development cannot be overstated.

Though TYC has 2,300 youth felons incarcerated, according to TJPC attorney Lisa Capers the counties handle about 18,000 felons through community based programs at any one times. These are kids who could be sent to TYC, but judges assign them to community based programming instead that's managed by the probation department.

Spriggs also suggested that many believe there's a "generational" aspect to juvenile crime, that the current crop of youngsters, for cultural and demographic reasons that aren't immediately identifiable, just aren't committing crimes at the rate occurring 15 or 20 years ago. I'm sure she's right such factors explain a large portion of the decline.

So what can we conclude from this discussion:

• Juvenile crime rates in Texas are declining overall, but especially property crimes.
• Violent crimes and drug crimes continue to increase, but at rates equal to or lower than the state's increase in juvenile population.
• Diverting misdemeanants from TYC did not result in the expected boost to local probation caseloads.
• Juvenile crime reductions partially result from a national trend, not per se from Texas' policies.
  

What I take from this data is that Texas has done a good job reducing juvenile property crimes, but hasn't taken advantage of favorable demographic trends to encourage the same reductions in violent juvenile crime seen in other states.

What do readers think of these explanations? And why do folks think the reduction in property crimes has been so dramatic, even as violent and drug crime continue to rise?

Against Despair: Is it time for a 21st-century reinvention of the WPA?

If you've traveled extensively around Texas, you've noticed that many of the nicest spots in the state have been adorned with beautiful buildings, stone fences and walkways built in the 1930s by laborers employed by Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA). Perhaps my favorite is the gorgeous Botanical Garden in Fort Worth (pictured -a must visit whenever you're in Cow Town), but examples abound in every corner of the state, and I'm sure many other states.

Given the nation's economic woes and the difficulties for millions of felons to find employment, recently I've been thinking this program needs to be reinvented for the 21st Century, not just because it would boost the economy but because it would reduce crime.

I could be wrong, but if it was limited, targeted, and short-term, with a job placement component to send workers to the private sector, I doubt the idea would be nearly as controversial with the general public as it would have been during the Cold War era, when every debate on such matters inevitably centered around whether it smacked of "socialism." Sometimes a solution isn't an "ism," sometimes it's just a good idea.

There are strong public safety arguments for considering some version of a 21st century paid government work program.

The notion recurred to me upon reading a thoughtful article by the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial page, Harold Jackson, who delves this morning into the 40-year old Kerner Commission report, which sought to explain the source of dozens of violent riots that devastated US inner cities in 1967. Jackson argues persuasively that many black folks today are still "rioting," just in "slow motion," and I think he's right. What else could explain that one in nine black men age 20-34 are in prison? Wrote Jackson:

The Kerner Commission report (named after its chairman, Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner) was released as March began in 1968. Forty years later, America would do well to review its observations and consider whether current conditions could reproduce race riots....

"Social and economic conditions in the riot cities constituted a clear pattern of severe disadvantage for Negroes compared with whites," the commission said. "Negroes had fewer years of education . . . were twice as likely to be unemployed . . . (and) more than twice as likely to be living in poverty."

We've come a long way since then. The growth of the black middle class is unparalleled by any previous period in U.S. history. And yet. . . .

Today, the black unemployment rate is 9 percent, while it's 4 percent for whites; 24 percent of blacks live in poverty, compared with 8 percent of whites; the median income of black households is $30,858, compared with $50,784 for whites. Among blacks, 20 percent lack health insurance, compared with 11 percent of whites.

So why aren't blacks rioting now? Or Hispanics, whose statistics in many cases aren't much better?...

Perhaps, in a way, they are rioting - but it's in slow motion, so they are not getting the same attention.

"The frustrations of powerlessness have led some Negroes to the conviction that there is no effective alternative to violence as a means of achieving redress of grievances, and of moving the system," said the Kerner Commission.

The report even explained the "Don't Snitch" code that existed 40 years ago and persists today: "To some Negroes, police have come to symbolize white power, white racism and white repression. . . . [Their] cynicism is reinforced by a widespread belief . . . in the existence of . . . a double standard of protection - one for Negroes and one for whites."

It's been said (I can't recall by whom) that in America we have equal protection under the law: Both rich and poor are prosecuted equally for stealing bread and sleeping under bridges. Ain't it the truth? The Kerner Commission told the nation something it was not ready to hear forty years ago: The cause of the riots was despair, an angry, public denial of the verity of the American dream for black citizens, and not just in the South.

Four decades later that has changed to some extent, but not enough. The data from the Pew Trusts that one in nine young black men today is in prison speaks to a lack of hope and opportunity as much as it does the moral failings of those incarcerated - it's the same conundrum that faced the Kerner Commission forty years ago. That won't change with a campaign slogan.

Do you happen to watch the TV show The Wire? I consider it the most realistic crime drama ever produced, almost like a documentary novel of the modern drug trade. In the episode last week, a 15-year old black kid is walking door to door in the business district of West Baltimore looking for work. He's recognized by another kid from the streets, now working at a shoe store, who tells him the boss won't hire anyone under 17. "I guess you'll just have to keep bangin' a couple more years" then try again, he tells the disappointed youth.

Sure, it's just a TV show, but if you don't think that's exactly what's causing so many young black men to migrate to the lucrative drug trade - despair and a lack of other opportunities - you've got another think coming.

I've argued recently for allowing the labor and trade markets to function more freely, and so they should. But support for free markets does not absolve the state from responsibility to redress externalities they cause. At this point, it would be a lot cheaper just to hire and train unemployed young black men or NAFTA-displaced Ohioans en masse, WPA-style - particularly those with felony records who can't find other work - than to pay the price for policing, prosecuting and imprisoning one in nine young black men, and one in 99 out of ALL adults.

If that approach smacks of "socialism" to some readers (it's really "Keynesianism," but many conservatives don't recognize a difference), then how about sentencing low-level offenders to such job programs instead of to prison, transitioning at least part of the current reliance on incarceration to community-based work programs?

In Tyler, for example, Judge Cynthia Kent told the jail symposium in San Antonio recently that when defendants came to Smith County's newly established "day reporting center" (offenders who would have otherwise been sentenced to jail), about 85% were unemployed, but under supervision of the court, about 85% found jobs.

That's terrific news. But what if the county or state ran a paid work program that was an alternative for that 15%, for those first sentenced or who couldn't find work because of their record or some other reason? What if it facilitated day care and transportation so defendants had no excuses not to participate, and training in skills (unlike, say, making license plates) that transfer to the outside world?

As we approach $40 billion per year spent on drug enforcement alone (let alone considering the awesome size of the foreign war debt), the relative size of such employment programs all of a sudden begins to look like small potatoes. In a campaign season filled with talk of "Hope," perhaps it's a good time to remember that we face our greatest enemy not in Baghdad but in the streets of our own cities: It's name is "Despair," which flourishes in jail but can vanish overnight given an opportunity and a J-O-B.

To prevent crime, focus resources on children of incarcerated parents

Because children of incarcerated parents are 6-8 times more likely than their peers to wind up in prison themselves, I've long believed that whenever the state chooses to incarcerate a parent of a minor child, a rational crime prevention strategy would focus significant resources for psych counseling, tutoring, mentoring, and other services for their children.

That's the implication to me of a story in USA Today ("For many of USA's inmates, crime runs in the family," Jan. 29) about the extensive family ties among prisoners.

Crime, just like affluence, tends to run in families. "In Texas, which has executed six sets of siblings, there are two sets of cousins on death row. An additional dozen or so death row inmates have relatives serving time in other parts of the state prison system, spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says."

While I don't believe one's bad childhood should excuse criminal behavior, when we know that childhood influences contribute to crime, particularly among children of incarcerated parents, it makes good sense to focus prevention resources there.

RELATED: An alert reader points out that strategies used by the nonprofit described in this Grits post might be a good model, at least a starting point, for a county level program aimed at children of incarcerated parents.