this week, we are welcoming a wonderful new cohort of graduate students to the department and our community. as a sociological criminologist, they sometimes ask me about the relative safety of various neighborhoods. usually they ask me such questions immediately after they have signed a long-term lease.

i can offer personal impressions, but generally prefer to back them up with some fresh public-use data. official crime reports, however, can be subject to biases in reporting, enforcement, or processing. one alternative data source is the ShotSpotter technology now used to track gunshots in minneapolis. when sensors detect the sound of gunfire, the system triangulates the location of the gunshot. the police department then plots the data and puts their weekly shots fired maps online, along with precinct-specific maps tracking violent crime and other crime. given the potential biases in other sources of crime data, and the common-if-not-universal aversion to neighborhood gunfire, the new gunshot maps might offer a useful tool for apartment hunters. just remember to look before you lease.

links:
gunshot maps
crime maps

like many weary travelers, i mostly encounter usa today when it mysteriously washes up outside my hotel room door. today’s edition features a timely op-ed on the merits of sealing certain types of criminal records. the authors are stephen salzburg and margy love — co-chairs of the american bar association’s commission on effective criminal sanctions. the usa today editorial staff offers a prebuttal, arguing against sealing and expungement.

sure, imprisoning innocent people is not “ideal,” but isn’t the greater tragedy that we’re finding out about it?
– stephen colbert

• they served an average of 12.5 years in prison
• 88 percent were convicted of sexual assault and 28 percent were convicted of murder
• 77 percent were convicted, at least in part, on eyewitness identification
• 62 percent were african american
• 60 percent had spent at least a third of their life in prison or on parole when exonerated
• 45 percent have been compensated financially for their wrongful convictions
• and, in a classic catch-22, many were denied parole because they refused to accept responsibility for crimes they did not commit

for related resources, you might check out the project’s youtube page for some good first-person accounts and the center on wrongful convictions at northwestern law.

*the exoneration total has now climbed to 205.

the st. paul pioneer press has developed a free searchable database for all ramsey county jail bookings. one can quickly and easily search by person, by date, or by offense category. it takes just a few seconds to pull up the full names and birth dates for, say, the 359 people booked for “no proof of insurance misdemeanors” or the 3 robert williams’ arrested since january 1, 2007.

as a ramsey county resident, i’ve gotta admit that i’ll be tempted to use these data. i could easily run a search of the older dudes playing in tor’s bands and i’d certainly want to check out esperanza’s future suitors. as a sociological criminologist, however, this sort of thing makes me very nervous. here’s a bit of background on the site and the potential problems it raises.

the description:

This is a database of individuals who were arrested and booked into the Ramsey County Jail since Jan. 1, 2007. The data, obtained from the Ramsey County Jail, is updated Monday through Friday. You can search the data by either a person’s name, a type of violation or the date of arrest.

the disclaimers:

Individuals might be listed more than one time on the same date if they have multiple charges against them. Being listed here does not mean they have been charged in court with this offense…. Not all violations are listed here. In addition, inconsistencies in how the information is entered into the database may result in some arrests not be[ing] displayed.

the difficulties:

while data on arrests and bookings are generally considered public information, i’m surprised the pi-press and the jail took it upon themselves to publicize this information. aside from the dubious quality of arrest data in most jurisdictions, many of these folks will never even be charged with crimes, much less convicted.

for example, the gentleman in the photo above was arrested and booked many times — for trespassing, loitering, disorderly conduct, traffic offenses, parading without a permit, and other heinous crimes. how do you think prospective landlords or employers will respond when such a long record fills their computer screens? most men in cities, myself included, have been arrested at some point. would the minnversity have hired me if someone in HR stumbled on my (juvenile) arrest record in an online search? and don’t think you have to live in st. paul to be arrested there. those campus kids planning protests of the 2008 republican national convention, for example, have a fightin’ chance of landing in this database as well.

nevertheless, my main problem with the search engine is that it stops with arrest. those landlords and employers would need to do a lot of due diligence to determine whether those arrests ever went anywhere. they won’t do it and i can hardly blame them, because the quick search gives them the only screen they think they’d ever need.

people have been asking me lately about the status of the “second chance act” for ex-felons. i confess to a bit of confusion. as i understand it, however, there are currently two “second chance acts” before congress.

conjugal visits for prisoners have long been suggested as a means to preserve family bonds (with those on the outside) while providing an additional incentive for decent behavior (with those on the inside). i’ve yet to see a methodologically bulletproof test of their effects, but i’d characterize the research evidence on these questions as “spotty.” in this area, as in others, we could use some randomized trials.

nevertheless, i’m definitely taken with the idea of prisoners earning private time with their loved ones, particularly in the weeks and months preceding release. unfortunately, such programs are rare today. in light of prison overcrowding, budget pressures, and concerns about visitors bringing s.t.d.s and contraband into prisons, only a handful of states operate conjugal visit programs today.

where such visits are offered, however, there appears to be a move to extend them beyond heterosexual marital relationships. california recently became the first state to establish overnight conjugal visits for same-sex partners. just this week, institutions in mexico city adopted a similar policy. in california, visits are only permitted for registered domestic partners who are not themselves in custody, and the domestic partnership must have been established before admission to prison. moreover, such visits are not permitted for sex offenders, condemned inmates, or those without a parole date. those with violent offenses against a minor or a family member are also ineligible.

even with such restrictions, the program helps some inmates reconnect with an important source of outside support — and sometimes their only source of outside support. msnbc quoted one california inmate as follows:

“I got to spend 2 1/2 days one-on-one with my partner, my best friend, my confidant, my life partner. It wasn’t about the sex … You can actually just relax and get to know your partner again.”

as a reentry, reintegration, and recidivism-reduction strategy, that’s probably not a bad use of a weekend.

cbs news ran reports this week on gangs in the military and gangs employing military training in their criminal activities. the juxtaposition of military and street gang iconography, as in this picture of marine corporal shavon striggles at parris island, raises all sorts of disturbing and provocative questions.

in discussing gangs in the military, most will look immediately to the 125,000 recent recruits entering the service with criminal records. in making this leap, i’d suggest two cautions:

first, many of these recruits surely had some history of gang involvement, but just as surely had left ganglife behind. the best longitudinal data i’ve seen suggests that gang affiliations are rarely the lifelong commitments suggested in popular culture. relative to other former gang members, those that enter intensive military training might be expected to shed such affiliations especially quickly.

second, while one needn’t look far to find evocative images such as gang graffiti and hand signs around military personnel, the official gang incident numbers remain quite small: 16 reports of investigation (ROI) and 44 other suspected gang incidents in 2006. in short, though i’m glad the military is vigilant on this issue, the rest of us would probably do well to keep such threats in perspective.

while prison is a bad place to live, it is an even worse place to die. if you spend much time talking with inmates, it won’t be long before you hear the phrase, “i don’t want to die in prison.” long sentences and an aging inmate population, however, suggest that rates of prison death are likely to rise in coming years. of course, the vast majority of inmates will ultimately be released to their communities. nevertheless, the specter of dying behind bars is likely becoming more realistic.

if you want to learn more about this phenomenon, the amazingly efficient professionals at the bureau of Justice statistics have developed a useful new deaths in custody site. according to bjs, there were about 15,308 deaths in state prisons from 2001-2005, with illness listed as the cause in most (12,630) of them.

the prison mortality rate ranges from 126 per 100,000 prisoners in north dakota to 410 in louisiana. after looking at the state list, i was taken by the strong geographic patterning of prison mortality. in particular, midwestern states tend to have far lower prison mortality rates than southern states.

i’m not sure to what extent this pattern can be attributed to differentials in sentencing practices, health care, or the sociodemographic characteristics of inmates, but there is strong evidence for some sort of regionalization.

the map below is based on the interquartile range for the state mortality data, with the lowest quartile (fewer than 211 deaths per 100k) shaded yellow and the highest death quartile (more than 275 deaths per 100k) shaded red.

a contiguous line of states from pennsylvania to louisiana and back up to kansas has death rates in the top quartile, whereas a clump of states in the upper midwest all show far lower death rates. this map bears some resemblance to overall incarceration patterns — with maine and north dakota anchoring one end of the distribution and louisiana the other.

note that these statistics do not consider executions. had these been added to the prison death numbers, there would be even stronger evidence of a southern death belt. or, more positively, of a life belt elsewhere. only twelve states are without a death penalty on the books, but eight of these (north dakota, iowa, rhode island, hawaii, minnesota, alaska, wisconsin, and maine) fall into the lowest quartile for prison death rates. of the six states with the lowest prison death rate, none have a death penalty.

the above pattern of results suggests to me that executions and life sentences are complements rather than substitutes. states that categorically refuse to kill prisoners are less likely, rather than more likely, to let them die in prison.

from realcostofprisons.org/writing:

“The Right to Vote for Convicted Felons” By David Hinman, #0025374, Anamosa State Penitentiary, Post Office Box 10, Anamosa, Iowa 52205-0010. Also see Whittling Away the Time, an article about a wood carving of Anamosa State Penitentiary.
“Justice Works! When its principles are not compromised”, A Letter to the Governor by Michael Braae, 270679 W.C.C. AT 105 IMU P.O. Box 900 Shelton, WA 98584
“Indemnification of Prison Guards” By DJ Taylor, #179983 Northern Supermax, P.O. Box 665, Somers, CT 06071.
Letter from Kenneth Keel: Challenging “Three Strikes” Under Human Rights Treaty: International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Concerned USA Citizen’s Support To End Life Imprisonment of Nonviolent Offenders Under California’s ‘Three Strikes’ Law, February, 2007
Letter from F. DeAndre Howard, February, 2007. Contact the author at Reg. #07757-089, Federal Correctional Institution, P.O. Box 5000, Pekin, IL 61555-5000
“Comprehensive Incarcerated Person Reform, Rehabilitation and Reentry Act” and Letter. Please feel free to contact the author with your thoughts and comments: Sheldon N. Messer 00A3204, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, 354 Hunter Street, Ossining, New York 10562
“Anatomy of a Prison Riot” by R.M., November 2006
“Waiting to Die – The American Prison Experience” by R. M., November 2006
“A Call for the Abolition of Prisons” by Tiyo Attallah Salah El
“Prisoner Suicides: The Danger of Manufacturing Hopelessness” by Ed Bowser

from the PEN prison writing program:

Doing Time by Steven Bulleit First Prize, Poetry
Sunday evening Mom and Dad unwind on the couch,/ her full black hair lays against Dad’s shoulder./The iconic stopwatch fills the screen, the second hand/sweeps north, folding its final ticks into silence. [More]
“Feeling(s) Cheated” by J.E. Wantz First Prize, Nonfiction/Essay
From 1995 to 2005 I was on Paxil, a medication that, ostensibly, was to help me in the areas of depression and obsessive compulsive thinking. As I look back on the role that this medication has played in my life for the last 10 years I begin to wonder. [More]
Just Another Death by Christina MacNaughton First Place, Memoir
I sit on my bunk as the minutes tick by. The count should have cleared over half an hour ago. Something’s up. In a place where timing and routine and schedule are the axis upon which the world revolves, remaining locked for so long past the standard count time sends Morse code through the heart of every inmate. [More]
“Confessions of a Jack-Off Artist” by Clifford Barnes First Prize, Fiction
I like cocaine. No, I love it. It can be pure or stepped on with Inositol, B.C. Powder, or Equal. I’ll cook it up, draw it into the rig, and shoot it. I love bumpin’ coke because I get a feeling like when I was twelve and skeeted for the first time, except the rush is ten-times more intense and lasts about fifteen to twenty minutes.[More]