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as a wise sociologist told me in graduate school, “the people won’t tell ya a thing if yer sittin’ way over there in the non-smoking section.” these days, however, smoking is forbidden in public spaces throughout my home state of minnesota.

well, at least one clever smart alec is resisting the status politics of the smoking ban. mark benjamin noticed that the law carved out certain exceptions to the statewide prohibition:

“scientific study participants, native americans, tobacconists, truckers, farmers, actors and actresses and … wait! What was that last one? That’s right. When the smoking ban was debated, some theater-going, latte-drinking, Volvo-driving legislators got their undies all in a bundle that a few performers might not be allowed to smoke cigarettes on stage. Really. They worried that performers might have to suck on straws or pencils or — you know — “act” like they were smoking. Heavens! Whatever would become of The Theatre?”

spotting this loophole, mr. benjamin hatched a novel plan. he was so moved by the specter of heroic old regulars chased out of the state’s vfw’s and american legion halls that he suggested the following:

“if you’re a bar owner and don a beret, declare your bar a stage, hand out scripts and direct your patrons — ahem — performers to fire up some heaters, then you’ve got a bona fide “theatrical production” going on…Our shameless legislators favored the artistic integrity of a few theater owners over the blue-collar work ethic of a few thousand small bar owners. But our bar owners don’t have to take it any longer. If they want, they can put on their very own “Theater Nights,” set up “Acting” and “No Acting” sections, notify patrons that there will be some smoking during the performance and defy the government to define Art. It’s not the Freedom to Breathe Act; it’s the Freedom to Act Act. If you’re a small bar owner, hand out scripts and cigs and tell your patrons to break a leg.

mr. benjamin wasn’t just posing a hypothetical. last weekend, he organized an impromptu production of the tobacco monologues at a friendly bar called barnacles, somewhere in greater minnesota. there’s a video, of course, with a theatrically dressed mr. benjamin waxing poetic about the class politics of smoke-free bars.
though i’ve never smoked and i enjoy the fresh air in modern taverns, i’ve gotta confess that i’m rooting for this guy. of course, i’ll be rooting from the non-acting section.

grant duwe of the minnesota department of corrections emailed today with news of an opening for a research analyst. the department is doing some innovative research these days, so the job would be intellectually rewarding as well as remunerative.

Research Analyst Specialist – Minnesota Department of Corrections (St. Paul, MN)

Open Period: February 11, 2008-March 14, 2008

Position: Full-time permanent

Salary Range: $18.72-$27.46 hourly

Job Duties: This position will be responsible for evaluating correctional programs and conducting research on sex offenders, offender re-entry, and restorative Justice.

Minimum Qualifications Required:
* Graduate degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in the social sciences (Criminology, Criminal Justice, Sociology or similar) with advanced training and/or professional experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods and multivariate statistics.

AND

* Demonstrated ability to write research reports for a variety of audiences, as evidenced by the preparation of legislative reports, program evaluation reports, or publications in peer-reviewed academic journals.

* Demonstrated ability to use SPSS, SQL or Access in combining multiple data sets into one final database to conduct bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses.

* Human relations and strong written/oral communications skills essential to work with department managers and staff, research and corrections professionals in the community and other state agency staff.

* Experience managing multiple research projects.

Preferred Qualifications:
* Experience in the criminal Justice system and field of corrections.

* Knowledge of advanced multivariate statistical techniques (e.g. logistic regression, poisson regression, Cox proportional hazards models) commonly used in corrections research.

* Demonstrated ability to design surveys and use appropriate statistical techniques to analyze and interpret survey data.

To apply: go to http://www.doer.state.mn.us/ and get your resume in Resume Builder. Save it and submit it into the database. Search for Job posting number: 08CORR000034. The job posting can also be found here.

second chance day on the hill is bringing people to the minnesota state capitol to talk about reintegration of those with criminal records. the core principle of the organizers is that “punishment should have a beginning and an end,” which might have been taken straight from beccaria (1767).

sometimes department chairs just gaze in wide wonder at the issues awaiting them on any given morning. i arrived today, for example, to find that someone had broken into the li’l glass bookcase showcasing “new releases” by our faculty.

dang, i really like that case. it is positioned outside some molasses-slow elevators, so it draws great attention to the many fine books written by our faculty. the thieves only made off with about a third of the monographs in the case, so i couldn’t resist trying to suss out why they selected some books and left others behind.

part of me worried that the miscreants were students upset with book costs, but i’m pretty sure it was just kids. unlike the university of chicago, the university of pennsylvania, or other urban campuses i’ve visited, the minnversity maintains a light security presence. i often encounter small groups of males in their mid-teens walking the halls on sundays, sometimes just before i discover smashed-in vending machines or other mischief. i’d long assumed that bitter faculty members had been smashing the candy machines, but now i’m starting to put two and two together.

at least the miscreants broke the lock, rather than smashing the more-costly-to-replace glass case itself. a few mysteries remain:

1. why did they bother breaking into a locked case to steal books when there was a free shelf just five feet away, loaded with books that had greater resale value? the poor saps could’ve taken a free copy of earl babbie’s bestselling methods book, for example, which would have brought a far greater return on their efforts than the more esoteric titles in the case. i think that the locked case probably signaled market value, so we might have been better off leaving our titles on an unlocked shelf and locking up some old telephone directories and 1974 software manuals instead.

2. how did they decide which books to steal? i was outraged (outraged, i tell you!) that they literally reached right past my book but stole both of hartmann’s titles. the nerve! didn’t they read the jackets? c’mon, which of us is out there advocating for the rights of convicted felons? i was getting pretty worked up about this until my research assistant reassured me that, of course, the thieves must have already purchased several copies of locked out: felon disenfranchisement and american democracy. aside from their anti-uggen bias, they didn’t seem to choose hardcover over paperback, or qualitative over quantitative, or brand new over slightly older, or attractive cover art over less-attractive cover art. why didn’t they just grab ’em all? my working theory involves a fargo-like dispute among the co-conspirators, so i wouldn’t be surprised to discover, say, a severed human foot beneath our industrial paper shredder.

3. the replacement costs will be high for the department, but what is the street value of a handful of sociology books? wouldn’t they have been better off breaking into the candy machines again?

4. it looks like i’ve got a decision to make. should we adopt the time-tested but lame method of stapling book jackets to a department bulletin board? or, should we stick to our guns, buy some new books, and bring in a serious security force?

here is another great story, this one from the new york times, about the efforts being made to rehabilitate michael vick’s dogs. vick agreed to pay nearly a million dollars for the evaluation and lifetime care of the 47 pit bulls rescued from his property. the dogs bear the scars of abuse and very tough lives, but only one had to be euthanized for aggression against humans.

for the rest, there is hope of rehabilitation, resocialization and possibly adoption into well-trained and carefully screened families. those dogs deemed unfit for adoption will live the rest of their natural lives in sanctuaries, with efforts made to offer them comfort and happiness. one of their caretakers explained: “These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

i can’t help but be reminded that people are resilient, too. in my interactions with serious delinquents and incarcerated felons, it is all too clear that many of them suffered extreme abuse as children. they survived, were caged, and yet most still hold hope for a better future. i’m glad to see michael vick’s dogs getting a second chance. i hope we can offer our fellow humans the same consideration.

teaching about status offenses in my delinquency class this week, i showed students results of the self-report survey they took on the first day of class. whenever i give such a survey, students always want clarification about whether i’m asking about their current behavior or their behavior before they turned 18.

it always struck me as strange that we criminalize age-inappropriateness. at twelve, i remember thinking that age-graded laws were a complete sham. i understood why cigarettes, pornography, booze, and gambling might be bad for me, of course, but i couldn’t get my head around the idea that they’d suddenly be rendered harmless once i turned 16 or 18 or 19 or 21.*

if you are looking for a 40-second illustration of the contradictions of age-grading, check out this old mojo nixon public service announcement. in the late eighties, mr. nixon appeared in a fine series of revolutionary feel-good p.s.a.s for mtv, directed by ted demme and mark pellington. they are far less profane than mr. nixon’s recordings or his radio shows, so perhaps better suited for classroom use. the libertarian poli-sci major from ohio u now deejays for sirius radio, as the loon in the afternoon, with a saturday night political show titled lyin’ ***ers.

* when i graduated high school, the drinking age was 19 in minnesota, 21 in illinois, but only 18 in wisconsin. this differential was a major topic of conversation during my freshman year in madison.

saturday’s pi-press reported on two local robberies involving a chatline. in each case, dudes traveled to a minneapolis apartment to visit a woman they’d met on livelinks.

insomniacs are likely familiar with late-night television ads for livelinks. these typically feature attractive semi-clothed college-age women writhing flirtatiously while chatting on the phone.

when the local men arrived to meet the woman with whom they’d been speaking, they were greeted by a bat-wielding boyfriend and quickly relieved of their wallets and credit cards. according to the affidavit,

the woman told the man to bring DVDs, vodka and Swisher Sweets cigars. “Once he arrived, the female met him at the door,” the affidavit says. “She asked him for 20 dollars, which he gave her, then a male appeared from another room.” Dude came with a gun in one hand, a bat in the other,” the victim told the Pioneer Press.

fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt. this is a good scam because it is easy to attract men to a female stranger’s apartment, especially when they have visions of late-night commercials dancing in their heads. this is a terrible and short-lived scam, however, because the men are not so complicit that they would be reluctant to contact the police. and, of course, they could provide the police with very good directions to the address.

do you think the cigars were for the sweet talker or for the gun/bat-wielding boyfriend?

i’ve done little blogging about the kids lately, so i thought i’d share these pics of the enormous nonconformist’s recent home improvement project.

see, our garage door keypad froze solid in the subzero temps of the recent cold snap. when tor got off the school bus last week — without coat, hat, or gloves, of course — he found himself locked out at -5 fahrenheit. so, he walked around the perimeter of our well-secured house, searching for an opening.

finding no opening, the lad tried the steel side door on the garage, shown above with the security system sticker and deadbolt. when he gave the door a good shove, the deadbolt held firm. unfortunately, the door’s frame quickly splintered into kindling, as shown in the first picture.

needless to say, hanging the new door will serve as a perfect father-son weekend bonding activity. since he didn’t actually do anything wrong here (better to break in than to freeze to death, i suppose), i won’t ask him to chip in for the new door. nevertheless, i’m not a complete pushover. that fist-sized hole in the drywall that mysteriously appeared after sunday’s packers-giants game? that’s an altogether different matter.

sociological criminologists sometimes point to moral panics and sensational cases as the impetus for sweeping changes in criminal codes. i don’t know whether this is the case in connecticut, but the times and the courant both point to a particularly heinous crime as the motor driving big changes in that state’s criminal Justice system.

the republican-american just flat comes out and says it. here’s their lead:

The legislature’s Democratic majority proposed a package of comprehensive changes to the criminal Justice system in Connecticut today.

The crime bill is a response to last summer’s triple homicide and home invasion in Cheshire. Lawmakers are meeting in special session today to consider the legislation.

hmm. i’m pretty sure that triple homicide is already against the law, even in connecticut, but perhaps the legislature needs to tighten up prohibitions against home invasion. so, some of the changes involved the crimes at issue:

The legislation includes the following provisions:

• Create a new crime of home invasion.
• Revise the burglary statute.

the real problem, in this as in other heinous cases, appears to be a breakdown in the screening process prior to release. by social science standards, criminologists can actually predict which inmates are likely to reoffend rather well. but social science standards — a 95 percent certainty that a given releasee will not commit another heinous offense — just aren’t good enough in such circumstances. so, the CT governor ordered a moratorium on parole for violent offenders, while the legislature went to work to fix the problem. here’s what they came up with:

• Rework the persistent offender statute.
• Reconfigure the Board of Pardons and Parole.
• Mandate secure video connections at state prisons for parole hearings.
• Require the court and prison systems provide 270 additional beds for diversionary and prison re-entry programs.
• Command the court and prison systems provide 24 beds in secured treatment centers for sex offenders.
• Require the prison system to monitor 300 more inmates by global positioning satellite technology.
• Mandate the development of a centralized, integrated criminal Justice tracking and information database.

that’s a long and ambitious list of parole reforms. as is their wont, lawmakers also widened the net just a bit, adding the following provisions and mandates:

• Orders the court, prison and parole systems to devise how to assess the risks of offenders of re-offending.
• Directs the court system to create an Internet registry for outstanding arrest warrants for violation of probation.
• Expands the rights of crime victims and their immediate families.
• Makes juvenile court records available to Board of Pardons and Parole and the Department of Correction.
• Requires the court system establish a statewide automated victim information and notification system.
• Establishes a committee to propose incentives for municipalities to host transitional housing for released offenders.
• Requires annual reporting to the legislature on developments in the criminal Justice system.
• Sets up a diversionary program for persons with psychiatric disabilities accused of crimes or motor vehicle violations.
• Authorizes $19 million in transfers in the state’s two-year, $36 billion budget to finance some initiatives.

i cannot speak to the wisdom of each individual change, but such a package would certainly strike me as a disconnected hodge-podge of requirements and really hard-to-meet mandates. for partisan reasons, the editors of the republican-american probably intended to portray the reforms as a costly boondoggle.

from a distance, however, i believe that the proposed changes are probably well-intentioned efforts to reorganize a system to prevent a single criminal event. unfortunately, such changes are likely to bring with them a broad range of unintended consequences, with unknown effects on public safety.

even in the unlikely event that the proposed changes are enacted, fully funded, and implemented, however, they are all designed to prevent the last heinous crime. this means that, in all likelihood, they will do little to prevent the next heinous crime.

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.