i felt woefully uninformed when i learned that senator larry craig (r-idaho) was picked up for lewd public restroom behavior at my airport. what’s all this about foot-tapping? and blocking the door with one’s luggage? this appears to be a well-choreographed old-school tearoom rather than an ill-timed individual act. there was apparently enough activity in this restroom to motivate the rather extensive sting operation that netted the distinguished senator.

highway rest stops i can understand, since locals can drive there with little cost. but isn’t the high-surveillance post-9/11 airport a strange place for anonymous hookups? i mean, the only folks who can regularly hang out in such restrooms are airport employees (who do not appear to be a particularly randy bunch) and those with overpriced tickets and planes to catch. are there message boards where one posts invitations such as, “hey boys, i’ve got two hours between flights at MSP and i’m looking for a good time in a busy restroom. no liberals.” the social organization of the activity just doesn’t make sense to me, unless there is waaaaay more pent-up demand among weary business travelers than i’d imagined. maybe so, maybe so…

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.

i’m not sure what to think about this article from conde nast’s portfolio.com. it basically offers a list of 10 recommendations for CEOs about to enter prison. at first i thought it might be a joke or at least meant to be read sarcastically, but given the authors’ affiliations, i don’t know…

any thoughts?

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.