Comments on The General Blog of Crime: Senate GOP Commits Felonious Partisanship

This is yet another example of the Squirrelism tha...

2011-11-03T08:29:12.451-04:00

This is yet another example of the Squirrelism that runs so rampant in our society today. I will never run from nor be ashamed of my inner squirrel. Am I Scooby at my core? Yes, but I will not be bound by traditional Avatar stereotypes that the "man" (or woman as is the case) forces down on me. I am not some lazy-squirrel living on the public dole, I am a working squirrel. Look at the sexy coat, the sophisticated hat...I am a working squirrel. Just a squirrel looking for my nut....Something I will never be ashamed of.

I am not sure what is more funny - considering if my comments have merit given my Avatar, or telling this to someone named "Scooby" and implying that a Scooby-Doo avatar would give more street cred!

Now back to the far less entertaining task of grading graduate research papers. Ugh!

I have a hard time taking comments from Scooby ser...

2011-11-02T17:01:20.186-04:00

I have a hard time taking comments from Scooby seriously as long as he's using the "Secret Squirrel" avatar image.

(Sorry this is so long): 3. Have Researchers and...

2011-10-23T08:40:16.047-04:00

(Sorry this is so long):

3. Have Researchers and Universities Step Up to the Plate: Dr. H., I am a cynic. While I know that Todd Clear (in particular), Jeremy Travis, and their respective universities really care about these issues…let’s not also turn our backs away from the obvious financial incentives. If something like this happens, it means, on the short term, big money for these individuals and their respective institutions. Long term, even more. Look at John Jay’s total research dollars since JT took over. You don’t think his connections to OJP helped out at all? You have to know that part of the reason he was such an attractive President, and with a handsome salary to boot, were those very connections. Some Blue Ribbon panel means big money. It also means that those people and their institutions who played a big role in the “Study,” also are uniquely positioned to experience a windfall in subsequent dollars after agendas are crafted that benefit them. I can anticipate, as if I can read the future, big money would some the way of our friends in the Campbell Collaborative in the aftermath of such an exercise. Let’s not turn a blind eye to their lobbying efforts and the financial incentive. I am NOT trying to imply this is some sort of devious motivations at play, but the predictable outcomes should not be ignored either.
That said, step up to the plate. Have these individuals volunteer time and refuse any funding directly or indirectly to them or their institutions as part of such a Blue Ribbon panel. I do not mean refusing long term research dollars, but it is quite plausible to ask them to take no “consulting money” for being part of any such Blue Ribbon effort. Todd Clear and Jeremy Travis (I mention these only because you did), and the scads of others like them (many of whom we know quite well) already get full time salaries that most part of this blog can only dream of. Have them take 1-2 years of their efforts and high-capacity intellectual efforts to create a current state of affairs. They already get full time salaries. Have the Urban Institutes, Abt Associates, and others, private research firms who have secured hundreds of millions of research dollars, to now give back. I suspect many (although not all) would scatter like bugs if asked to do this.

This all is meant as serious points of debate. In reality, resources are fixed. The real question is what are we willing to sacrifice to take on something like this? Are we willing to give up the scared cows to do real substantive work? When that happens you will convince me. ASC is becoming a real lobbying organization (I fear they need to tone their lobbying down or suffer negative consequences but that, again, is for another time and place) Finally, I am less impressed with the entire concept of “Evidence-based” as it exists today. It reminds me of “community policing” from the 1990s, I think it was Jack Greene who called in “Old Whine in New Bottles.” I have read many federal and state governmental grant applications for agencies purporting to do “evidence based programming” to only see that they are doing the same bad stuff but are better at understanding the necessary grant-funding buzz words.

Peace out.

2. Put a Temporary Hold on ALL OJP Money: Why sh...

2011-10-23T08:39:49.318-04:00

2. Put a Temporary Hold on ALL OJP Money: Why should OJP continue to spend so much money if we are in such a cross roads? Let’s take 1 or maybe 2 years worth of all OJP research money and redirect it at this effort. Let’s take that money and those internal (people) resources and have it be used to really address these issues. We have had 20+ years of exceptional OJP spending (yes, true, regardless of the ebbs and flows of this) – shouldn’t we take a time to now assess where the heck we are before we do another 20 years? Crazy you say? Really, why? In 20 years if we look back to 1 or 2 years of freezes on research spending, do we really think our cumulative knowledge will be so much worse off? I suggest no. But if we redirect, temporarily, this money, resources, and resources of the research community into this worthwhile endeavor maybe we will fundamentally change our future. We need to put our money where our mouth is…if it is critical, do it. Triage the situation but lets not naively think we can continue to do what we want and more with sacrifice. When our roof is leaking in our homes, vacations become discretionary.

Here are some ideas I have to move this situation ...

2011-10-23T08:37:25.091-04:00

Here are some ideas I have to move this situation forward:

1. Webb could identify the low hanging fruit of this agenda. I am simply not convinced some large "Blue Ribbon Panel" (what do these things really accomplish anyway besides make consultants lots of money?) could/would accomplish much - maybe break his plan (which to be fair, I have not read) into discrete subagendas. Unquestionable issues regarding the role of DNA in court processes, correctional treatment, etc could be smaller but substantively more grounded target areas. I am going to go out on a huge limb right now...I don't even think that a Blue Ribbon approach to Policing is most critical at this point in time. Would it be important, sure. But most critical, I really don't think so. There are far more pressing issues facing our criminal justice system today. This could make something like this far more digestible and doable.

Lets assume for a moment that money really is scarce – not too hard for me to assume, but maybe for others (money does really grow on trees, remember, they just happen to be in the central bank of China). Public policy expenditures are about what is most important and about choosing among really worthy ideas. I will go as far as to assume that MOST governmental money goes to very worthy causes….but at the end, it is about prioritizing one really worthy cause over another. So, let’s assume the total volume of money that can go to public safety is fixed (let’s avoid the whole, military, versus education, versus research debate for the time being….it is counterproductive in this case as we will just spin wheels) – let’s assume it is fixed but how it is actually spent is flexible. Let’s assume also that as you suggest, this “Blue Ribbon” panel is singularly the most important thing we could do now – of critical importance considering our current state of CJ affairs (not too much convincing is necessary for me):

Thank you for such an impassioned, but well-reason...

2011-10-21T23:17:24.906-04:00

Thank you for such an impassioned, but well-reasoned response to this vote!