ASC Panel on Politics & Crime

This year's ASC Annual Meeting program featured four high-profile "Presidential Sessions" -- panels of interest organized by ASC President Bob Bursik (and advertised by giant blue signs stationed throughout the conference hotel lobby). One of these Presidential Sessions focused on re-entry issues and featured our very own Velma (as well as friend-of-the-blog Tim Bynum). Another one, as I mentioned in my ASC recap, focused on issues related to politics and crime in 2009.

The politics panel was moderated by Ted Gest and included the following panelists: St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, John Jay president and former NIJ director Jeremy Travis, and Charles Wellford of the University of Maryland and the National Academy of Sciences. I thought it was a superbly informative discussion.

Right off the bat, Ted Gest won me over by acknowledging the obvious problem of having a panel on politics and crime with "four white guys." Alas, originally-slated panelists MO Senator Claire McCaskill and University of Pennsylvania Senior Fellow (and former Assistant Attorney General for the OJP) Laurie Robinson had to cancel unexpectedly. So, Mr. McCulloch and Dr. Travis filled in at the last minute, hence the all-(white) male panel.

Mr. McCulloch went first. He began by discussing his tenure on the "Obama Truth Squad" in Missouri, during which time he was (erronously?) accused of targeting for prosecution anyone who made negative comments about Senator Obama during the campaign. Turning to crime policy, he discussed the need to shore up re-entry programs, for example, by funding Byrne grants -- a strategy President-Elect Obama endorses. (Click here for a link to the IACP report in which Obama outlines his commitment to Byrne.) He also briefly discussed another Obama-favored crime policy, drug courts.

Dr. Travis followed Mr. McCulloch. His remarks were, in my estimation, the most influential. The major issues he addressed are as follows:

I. What crime policy challenges should the federal government focus on?

1. Reduce rates of violence. Yes, we have seen some decline in violent crime, but that reduction loses significance when you:
   
   a.) Compare lethal violence rates in the U.S. and Europe
   b.) Consider fluctuations in sub-national/local violence rates
   c.) Disaggregate violence by age, race, gender, and geography
   
   
2. Reduce rates of incarceration. (Consider the Pew 1 in 100 study, for example.)
   
   
3. Address issue of race, crime, and justice.
   
   a.) Racial disparities in the system undermine efforts to move toward racial justice
   b.) The issue is less about disparities per se than the overall impact of disparities on communities of color

II. How should the federal government carry out crime research?

1. Reorganize the federal government, with the help of the new administration, so that NIJ, BJS, etc. exist under the proposed "Office of Justice Research" in the Department of Justice, rather than under the Office of Justice Programs where they currently reside.

Wow. It's not every day that someone sets out to re-structure the federal government, but Dr. Travis has done exactly that. You can read more about his suggestion to create an Office of Justice Research here, and read the full text of his open letter to the ASC detailing his proposal here. Basically, in his letter Dr. Travis argues that scientific research cannot thrive in a unit dominated by programmatic culture. Specifically, he identifies three risks of housing the research arm of the federal government in a program office:

"First, the scientific integrity of the research functions is vulnerable to compromise. Second, the research and development function will never be given the priority treatment that is needed to meet the enormous crime challenges we face in this country. Third, the research agenda on crime and justice will more likely relfect short-term, programmatic needs rather than the long-term need to develop a better understanding of the phenomeon of crime in America and the best ways to prevent and respond to crime."

Fascinating stuff, in my opinion. I couldn't agree more...especially with the recent scandal at OJJDP.

Finally, Dr. Wellford spoke, and in some ways he picked up where Dr. Travis left off. First, though, he began with a brief but useful formula for determining when crime issues are addressed during a presidential campaign. Consider two factors: the presence of a domestic economic crisis and the presence of a foreign national security crisis. When both of those factors score a zero, crime will be addressed during a presidential campaign; if either factor scores a 1, crime will be ignored. (Very true, yes?) Of course, in 2008 both factors scored a 1, so crime issues were especially absent from the national political dialogue, as we've discussed before.

Once that issue was settled, Dr. Wellford encouraged the ASC to become more active in applying its expertise by making policy statements, echoing Dr. Travis' plea to the ASC to formally support his Office of Justice Research proposal. Additionally, Dr. Wellford identified a list of things that we as criminologists should and should not do in the coming 12 months. In 2009, criminologists should not:

1. Lobby for an increase in research funding (let's figure out which of our currently-funded programs work before we ask for more money)
   
   
2. Focus on "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" (e.g., the DOJ is in serious trouble, so let's not worry about minor issues while major crises exist)
   

Conversely, in 2009 criminologists should:

1. Commission position papers identifying crime control policies and strategies that are proven to reduce crime (e.g., Bryne/COPS grants)
   
   
2. Call for a new National Crime Commission (the previous one is nearly 40-years old!)
   
   
3. Focus less on causes of crime and more on improving justice in America (e.g., justice is a "forgotten theme" in the field of criminology, so we need to re-emphasize justice and focus less on correlates of crime)

Once the panelists concluded their remarks the session was opened up for questions from the audience members, including one about the historic reluctance of the ASC to make official policy statements posed by yours truly. All in all, I thought it was easily one of the most topical, interesting, and informative sessions I've ever attended. As someone who teaches drug policy, and who is constantly encouraging students to critically analyze the political context in which various drug policies (especially "get tough" policies like mandatory minimums) are passed, I found the frank acknowledgment of the undeniable relationship between politics and crime policy to be entirely refreshing.