friend and collaborator tom johnson has announced that he is stepping down as president of the council on crime and Justice.

i’ve worked closely with the council in recent years, as we share the same vision of engaged scholarship and public criminology. tom’s resignation letter well expresses this vision: (1) “to shed a brighter, more informed light on the causes and consequences of crime and violence” and, importantly, (2) to “enhance public safety by bringing about a more just society.”

the strib is marking this transition with an op-ed this morning, praising tom as “a tireless advocate for the disenfranchised and a passionate community leader.” the former minneapolis city council member and county attorney will return to private practice with gray, plant, and mooty this march. fortunately, the new council president will enter with a terrific team in place, including a first-rate research staff.

marc mauer, executive director of the sentencing project, takes a page from the environmental movement in the latest issue of the ohio state journal of criminal law.

his new article on racial impact statements argues that the racially disparate effects of changes in sentencing policy are often entirely predictable. unlike most environmental impact statements, however, we generally have the data at hand to conduct a reasonable racial impact analysis at very low cost to the public.

here’s the abstract:

The extreme racial disparities in rates of incarceration in the United States result from a complex set of factors. Among these are sentencing and drug policies which, intended or not, produce disproportionate racial/ethnic effects. In retrospect, it is clear that many of these effects could have been predicted prior to the adoption of the legislation. In order to reduce the scale of unwarranted disparities, policymakers should address the potential racial impact of proposed legislation prior to enactment, rather than after the fact when any necessary reform is more difficult to achieve. One means of accomplishing this would be through the establishment of “Racial Impact Statements.” Similar to fiscal or environmental impact statements, such a policy would enable legislators and the public to anticipate any unwarranted racial disparities and to consider alternative policies that could accomplish the goals of the legislation without causing undue racial effects.

the ideal-typical example, of course, comes from the marked disparities in punishment for crack versus powder cocaine. more mauer:

Had Congress required that an impact statement be produced, it would have demonstrated that an estimated 4000 defendants a year would be sentenced to five and ten-year mandatory prison terms, 80% of whom would have been African American. A modest amount of additional data from government agencies would have documented that these rates were far higher than the black proportion of crack users or sellers in the general population. The question for policymakers would then have been whether the disparity was “unwarranted” because of the racial effects or “warranted” due to the need to provide public safety resources for the African-American community.

marc then discusses how racial impact statements can address both proportional disparity and population disparity. whereas the former involves a shift in the racial distribution of those serving time for a particular offense, the latter marks changes in the overall race-specific incarceration rate.

for example, if wisconsin passed a law that mandated a year in prison for serving margarine in a tavern, it would likely decrease proportional disparity (e.g., african americans might represent 30 percent of those serving time for this offense rather than, say, 35 percent under the existing discretionary system), but increase population disparity (e.g., it would nevertheless put more african americans behind bars, raising the race-specific incarceration rate from, say, 1,980 per 100,000 to 1,985 per 100,000).

regardless of the standard for assessing disparities, however, racial impact statements are intended to provide a basic context for assessing racial impacts when contemplating measures to protect public safety. why bother? shouldn’t the criminal code be color-blind? well, the rate of incarceration for african american males is currently about 3,042 per 100,000, relative to about 487 per 100,000 for white males. before we take any action that worsens such disparities, it seems reasonable to have a thoughtful discussion about balancing such costs against the likely gain in public safety.

i’ve been visiting sara wakefield at uc-irvine the past couple days, where i’ve enjoyed sunny california weather, a fun presentation, and some terrific conversations about public criminology.

this is just the restorative i needed before embarking on a busy spring semester. as bob’s big boy makes clear, i’ll begin teaching my undergrad delinquency course next week, with a great new teaching assistant on board.

according to the independent (via talkleft), the british ministry of Justice is “planning to implant “machine-readable” microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.”

in fact, i’d even prefer a temporary implant to a bulky ankle bracelet or other external electronic monitoring device. in social interactions, one would be far less stigmatized while wearing an implant — in goffman’s terms, this represents a big move from discredited to discreditable status. temporary is the key qualifier here, of course, with the assumption that any such device would be fully removed at the conclusion of one’s sentence.

according to the fbi’s semi-annual uniform crime report numbers for 1/1/07 to 6/31/07, both violent crime and property crime have declined since 2006. violence and property crime were also down locally, in both minneapolis and st. paul.

one needs to squint pretty hard to find bad news in these data, which is good news in light of a 2005/2006 uptick in violence. here’s hoping that the new numbers, combined with joe biden’s early departure, will keep crime from becoming a crazy-making issue in the 2008 elections.

the press release also offers this disclaimer:

Because of the complexities involved, the FBI makes no attempt to interpret the data, which we leave to criminologists and sociologists.

nice. we’ll do our best to get it right.

i got word from stacey gates and minnversity law graduate reginald mitchell (at left) today about the restore my vote project in florida.

under the leadership of republican governor charlie crist, florida has streamlined the process of voting rights restoration for some former felons. nevertheless, there remains great confusion over who is eligible for which clemency process and whether individuals are actually eligible to vote in upcoming elections. the people for the american way foundation therefore developed the restore my vote website and hotline to help former felons in florida determine whether they are among the 250,000 whose civil rights have been restored. the project also features an outreach component:

While the clemency board attempts to notify ex-offenders that their rights have been restored, election officials throughout the state are not making a concerted effort to add all persons back to the voter registration rolls. PFAWF is attempting to reach these eligible voters, let them know they have the right to vote, give them guidance on how to register, and work with election officials to support their re-enfranchisement. PFAWF is enlisting the help of the media, election officials, the general public, the religious community, and anyone else who can help us to find the people on this list and give them information about registering to vote.

confusion over rights restoration is by no means limited to florida (e.g., a minnesota commenter asked about his eligibility in the this blog today). i’m not sure that a national database is advisable, but i’d like to see every state make their basic eligibility criteria more easily accessible.

i usually rely on european or american examples when teaching the history of punishment (e.g., discipline and punish). if you’d like to move beyond these familiar examples, boing and the digital gallery of the new york public library offer some 200-year-old materials on punishment in china.

i cannot vouch for their historical accuracy, but the punishments of china: illustrated by twenty-two engravings (published 1804) certainly offers grimly compelling images. the library catalog record lists george henry mason as author, but here is the full citation information for the hamstringing engraving shown above.

Creator: Dadley, J. — Engraver
Image Caption: Hamstringing a malefactor.
In: The punishments of China : illustrated by twenty-two engravings : with explanations in English and French. (published 1804)
Library Division:Humanities and Social Sciences Library / Art and Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs
Description:[54] p., 22 leaves of plates : 22 col. ill. ; 38 cm.
Item/Page/Plate Number:Pl. 17
Medium:Engravings
Specific Material Type:prints
Subject(s):Costumes — Chinese
Punishment & torture — China
Collection Guide:Customs and Costume: Surveys and Examples of National Studies, to 1900
Digital Image ID:1565324
Digital Record ID:1056437
Digital Record Published:3-29-2007; updated 10-5-2007
NYPL Call Number:3-MMR+ (Mason, G. H. Punishments of China)

this fall, the debate over offensive team nicknames flared up again at the minnversity. nobody objects to our golden gophers nickname — at least nobody outside the close-knit rodent urophiliac community. nevertheless, many question whether our gophs should continue to take the ice against the fighting sioux of north dakota.

though my childhood hero once led the ‘skins to glory, i’ll be rooting for seattle’s seahawks in tomorrow’s game. i’ll return to washington fandom, however, once the redskin moniker departs — whether by lawsuit or by a new owner who shares my vision.

*i did come across a couple older op-eds: see michael tomasky in american prospect and salim muwakkil in alternet.

via the situationist and ccjrc:

Students commonly assume that, even if Milgram’s famous experiment sheds important light on the power of situation today, were his experiment precisely reproduced today, it would not generate comparable results. To oversimplify the argument behind that claim: The power of white lab coats just ain’t what it used to be. Of course, that assertion has been difficult to challenge given that the option of replicating the Milgram experiment has been presumptively unavailable — indeed, it has been the paradigmatic example of why psychology experiments must be reviewed by institutional review boards (”IRBs”).

Who would even attempt to challenge that presumption? The answer: Jerry Burger, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University. With some slight modifications, Burger manage to obtain permission to replicate Milgram’s experiment — and the results may surprise you…

in my view, the results are less surprising than the fact that the study gained institutional review board approval. apart from the post, i quickly found a number of related classroom-friendly materials online. you can check professor burger’s first-hand account of the irb process, play a 27-minute primetime clip of the new study, and read philip zimbardo’s thoughtful summary, ten lessons from the milgram studies (the latter adapted from the lucifer effect, his 2007 book with random house).

february’s runner’s world offers a fine feature on the 2007 lasalle bank chicago marathon, titled meltdown: what really happened in chicago. i was hoping this might be an eric klinenberg piece, since i learned much from his heat wave: a social autopsy of disaster in chicago and i love his writing.

alas, meltdown was written by david thigpen, a former time correspondent. just as professor klinenberg, however, mr. thigpen dug deep to tell the ecological and institutional story behind another hot day in chicago.

of course, the consequences of the 2007 chicago marathon — which was, after all, a leisure activity — pale in comparison to the hundreds of deaths in the 1995 heat wave. nevertheless, the race was run on the hottest october 7th in chicago’s history. over 36,000 runners began the marathon, 185 visited the emergency room, and one died. since october, there have been allegations of mismanagement, with aid stations running dry, lost ambulances, a breakdown in race-day etiquette (e.g., pushin’ and shovin’ and punchin’), and indecision regarding such basics as who won the race and whether the course was ever officially closed.

runner’s world offered a sidebar to the chicago story, even hotter? same day, same scorching conditions, but no drama at twin cities. if this were a social science article, the twin cities might make for a decent comparative case. according to the sidebar, the rate of medical treatment and hospital transport was actually higher in minneapolis than in chicago. why did similar conditions fail to produce the same drama? there are some critical differences between the races, particularly in the size of the field (twin cities has about 8,100 starters, madison far fewer), but the races share similar weather problems and demographics (with many first-timers and old-timers).

i happened to run the twin cities marathon on october 7th, the slowest of my marathons over the years (for the record, the 2006 madison marathon seemed just as steamy to me). racers were already sharing gallows humor as we lined up in the chute, sweaty already by 7 am. nevertheless, i’ve never had any problems finding enough water on the course in minneapolis or madison, and runners seem to get the medical attention they need. in fact, i actually grumbled in last year’s marathon post about the overattentive twin cities marathon medical folks, saying “i managed to keep my sorry carcass off the meat wagon for another year — they were circling like vultures after mile 21…”

when i ran chicago in the late 1990s, it too seemed well-organized. back then, however, it was significantly smaller. perhaps its rapid growth — from 10,000 total registrants in 1994 to 33,000 in 2000 to 45,000 last year –brought on logistical problems.

i don’t have the data to conduct a social autopsy of the two races, though such an analysis might make for an interesting kinesiology or management thesis. my point is only that good journalism sometimes calls out for sociological analysis. as eric klinenberg recently demonstrated in heat wave, such an analysis can help uncover the social structure guiding events that might otherwise be considered acts of god or individual pathologies.