Patch on Wisconsin Public Radio!

Continuing the string of media appearances by GBOCers (see here, here, here, and here), Patch appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio earlier this week to discuss cyberbullying with WPR's Joy Cardin.

You can listen to the full interview here. Naturally, Patch rocked the house.

Being the good friend, colleague, and co-blogger I am, I live-blogged the interview. (Well, it's not really a live-blog because I listened to the recorded interview, but "taped-blog" doesn't have the same ring.) Enjoy! And way to go, Patch!!
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0:10. Wow. Joy has a serious upper midwest accent. ("Ooooooo Claire, Wis-caaaahn-son.")
1:40. He's an associate professor, Joy, not an assistant professor!
1:57. They could have at least checked your microphone before the interview started. ("Whoops! We got a real hot mic here!")
3:01. Ahh. That's better. Now I can hear you, Patch!
4:42. Joy says of bullying in the days of yore: "There were mean girls doing mean things." Hey, somebody should make a movie about that.
5:50. "Now, everybody's in on the joke." You make a great point about the widening of the bullying audience with new forms of communication technology.
6:03. "He's an associate, or an assistant, professor of criminal justice...." Tenure, schmenure.
7:15. Nice fake-out! She seems to be asking you about whether the teens in the Phoebe Prince case ought to face criminal charges, but when she finishes her sentence it's clear she's asking potential callers! LOL! Never mind what the expert thinks!
9:00. First shout out to Pap!
10:10. The first caller says he's read your book!! Is he a plant? ("A plant? I thought men like you were usually called a fruit.")
12:42. You are relaxed, confident, and clear in responding to the first caller. You rock.
14:25. She's asking listeners to comment on Facebook about cyberbullying. Heh.
14:58. Cyberbullying victims should "keep the evidence". Good advice that applies to all types of harassment and victimization.
16:31. The screener should be fired for allowing the call from the 58-year old who wants everyone to make like the Mennonites and ditch their iPods and cell phones. Objection, relevance! Your "pulling the plug is not the answer" response was spot on, Patch, but I think you should have asked him why if he's so opposed to technology he's calling in to a radio phone-in program! LOL!
18:33. I love your point about the increase in MySpace profiles that are set to private. "Teens are listening," indeed.
19:37. Is there a screener? The third caller is veering in his point, too. Why are we talking about torture? Now I'm certain the first caller was a plant!
21:56. First break. You are doing awesome, seriously.
22:23. And we're back. During the break you went from being a "nationally known" expert to being "internationally known" - impressive!! (Yes, but are you known to rock the microphone?)
24:12. She finally got your title correct. "I thought I got demoted." ROFL! I miss you, Patch!
26:58. You do a great job referencing statistics in an organic, conversational way without sounding like you are reading from a cheat sheet you brought with you. Well done.
27:40. Kids can be "emotionally hurt so bad that it turns into physical hurt." That's a great insight, and a terrific quote.
30:02. No, Joy. We can't blame namecalling by peers on Phoebe Prince's suicide, but we may be able to blame her suicide on namecalling by peers. You were very gracious, Patch -- that was not a great question.
30:55 Just once in my life I want to say on the radio, "I'm a trained criminologist." That's so hot.
35:33. The fourth caller's daughter changed districts because the junior high school wouldn't do anything about her bullying victimization? Really? It seems like there's more to the story than that, if only because the school would be loath to lose out on that revenue. "I don't hear too many examples like Missy's." Ah. Very diplomatic response, Patch.
39:40. A studio audience question! Wait, people actually hauled their cookies to a radio studio at six in the morning to hear you talk about cyberbullying? LOL! That's some serious motivation.
41:43. Final caller, and he makes a great point about controlling who is in your social network by blocking friend requests, using privacy settings, etc.
42:40. Your example about the teen girl "friending" her bully because she felt is was safer than blocking her is both sad and frightening. It makes me anxious for my own girls to become teenagers. (I think Baroness Schraeder was right about boarding school!)
43:40. You did a terrific job, Patch. So proud of you!

Great NPR Story on Plea Bargains

Just a quick note to pass along a great Talk of the Nation segment from earlier this week about plea bargains. Not surprisingly, several callers (including defense attorneys who have counseled their clients to take pleas, as well as defendants who have accepted pleas) identified desire to avoid lengthy prison terms as a primary incentive for plea bargaining. The callers and panelists (Loyola Law School Professor Laurie Levenson and Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project) also discussed the leverage plea bargains offer to prosecutors, who often overcharge initial offenses in anticipation of a lesser charge being accepted during a plea deal. (Levenson likened it to haggling with the dealership over the purchase of a new car; I thought immediately of the classic "ask-your-parents-for-a-pony-when-all-you-really-want-is-a-bunny" strategy). Of course, the panelists also noted the absolute necessity of pleas, as the current system is simply incapable of sending to every case to trial.

I thought this was a great discussion, and it would be a great resource for a class discussion on plea bargaining.

GBOC Lightning Round: Friday Morning Edition

Kick off your Friday morning with another GBOC lightning round. As always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

Item 1: "What is the Age of Responsibility?"
Wednesday's Talk of the Nation posed that very complex question to journalist Alan Greenblatt of Governing Magazine and Temple University professor Laurence Steinberg. The conversation came in response to Greenblatt's recent article describing the "mixed messages" young people receive from state and local laws that dictate different minimum ages for different behaviors (e.g., consenting to sex, drinking alcohol, voting, etc.). Of interest to criminologists, the experts discussed both the minimum legal drinking age and the processing of juvenile offenders as adults. In addition, Steinberg -- who appeared on NPR last year to criticize the adultification of youthful offenders -- explained how chronological age restrictions bear little correlation with developmental science regarding the maturation of adolescent brains; however, as meaningful tests for maturity are impossible to develop, chronological age is the only viable proxy for maturity we've got. Finally, the conversation touched on some of the issues we discussed here with respect to LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders. If you've got a few minutes, it's definitely worth a listen (or read).

Item 2: The High Cost of Capital Punishment
Speaking of LWOP sentences, last week the Death Penalty Information Center altered us to a recent NYT editorial encouraging states to abolish the death penalty based on economic considerations:

To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately — we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets...

According to the [DPIC], keeping inmates on death row in Florida costs taxpayers $51 million a year more than holding them for life without parole. North Carolina has put 43 people to death since 1976 at $2.16 million per execution. The eventual cost to taxpayers in Maryland for pursuing capital cases between 1978 and 1999 is estimated to be $186 million for five executions...

A Republican state senator in Kansas, Carolyn McGinn, pointed out that her state, which restored the death penalty in 1994, had not executed anybody in more than 40 years. In February, she introduced a bill to replace capital punishment with life without parole. The bill gained considerable attention but stalled. Similar arguments were made, unsuccessfully, in states such as New Hampshire and Maryland. Colorado considered a bill to end capital punishment and spend the money saved on solving cold cases. But this year, only New Mexico went all the way, abolishing executions in March.

I don't have much commentary about this, other than to add that financial considerations provide lawmakers who oppose capital punishment a more palatable platform for public opposition than, say, moral appeals. Thoughts from others?

Item 3: Say it Ain't So, Joe!
Bad news yesterday for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (he of the pink clothing policies for DUI offenders and, more importantly, the bobblehead on Velma's desk):

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff's department have had an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security since 2007 that allows his department to enforce federal immigration laws. But Arpaio says the federal agency is moving to revise the agreement to limit that power to checking the immigration status of inmates already in his Phoenix jail...

Now he faces a Justice Department investigation into allegations of civil rights abuses, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona is suing the sheriff over immigration raids conducted by his department. The class-action lawsuit alleges that Arpaio has abused the power delegated to him under his agreement with Homeland Security, known as the 287(g) program.

Hmmm. Perhaps "America's Toughest Sheriff" is about to become a little less tough? Interesting to see how this develops.

Item 4: President Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize!
And he's only the third sitting president to do so.

(I'm sure Scooby, in particular, is thrilled.)

The Economy & Academia

Yesterday's Talk of the Nation program featured a discussion of how the current economic crisis is affecting college and university campuses:

For the high school class of 2009 and students trying to complete a degree, the financial calamities of the market have left universities and students scrambling for money. In our occasional series, Your Life on a Recession, we look at how schools are adjusting to financial challenges.

Guests included NPR's education correspondent Claudio Sanchez, and president of Middlebury College (in VT) Ronald Liebowitz. I only got to hear snippets of this program in the car yesterday, so I was glad that I could listen to the entire conversation online. There was some good discussion of various recession-related issues in academia: increasing tuition fees, dwindling financial aid packages, and a growing reliance on part-time and adjunct faculty, among others.

In addition to creating significant challenges for students, both current and prospective, the recession also has adversely affected the academic job market this year, as I (and others) can sadly attest. It seems that many departments lost funding for advertised tenure-track faculty lines (in some cases even after candidates had begun interviewing), or did not hire at all due to hiring freezes.

Finally, questions remain about the status of educational funding in the economic-stimulus package currently being negotiated by Congress, as the Senate version "commits substantially less to state and local education programs than the $819 billion package approved by the House."

All this paints a pretty bleak picture for academia.* So, how has your department tightened its purse strings? Cut travel funding? Placed limits on faculty photocopying? What about at the university level? Are increased tuition costs and/or limited aid packages taking a toll on student enrollment? Have tenure-track searches been terminated? Finally, any predictions for the next few years?

*Though, academics are very fortunate compared to many other workers, especially those in the labor and manufacturing sectors.

More on the economy and crime

For a succinct discussion of crime and the economy, NPR News & Notes had a great discussion featuring the president-elect of ASC. Click here for the program.

In addition, Zimring provides a short primer on crime and punishment here.

The bottom line is that crime is bound to increase during this recessionary period, and there is evidence to suggest that we should see similar patterns in other Western countries. The silver lining (if there is one) is that crime remains at relatively low levels, so we have a long way to go to regain the crime patterns observed in the late 80s to mid 90s.

That said, the aggregate economic and crime data obscure the individual struggles happening in many households and on the street. As the speakers suggest, there is evidence that continued intervention on the individual (the discussion by the loss prevention specialist is very interesting) and neighborhood level may defray some of the consequences of the economic downturn.

Three Reasons Why Pap is the Coolest GBOCer

1. He was interviewed for and quoted in a recent New York Times article about the Megan Meier cyberbullyng case*:

“It will be interesting to see if issues of safety and security will eventually trump the hallmark ideology of free, largely anonymous or pseudonymous participation in cyberspace,” said Sameer Hinduja, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University.

Impressive, no? (Even Scooby, who presumably harbors Colbertian-like disdain for the Times, must agree with that. [Just kidding, Scoob!!])

2. His comments were featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation show yesterday about the verdict in the Meier case, which was decided earlier this week. After responding to my numerous calls and emails to him and Patch encouraging them to call in and share their expertise, Pap's e-mail about the verdict was read on air. (You can hear his comments at the 27:37 mark -- Neal Conan says, "This email from Sameer in Jupiter, Florida...") I was so excited I about drove off of the road. Pap was on TOTN!! And show's guests thought he made a great point!!

3. He's had his picture taken with McGruff. Waaaaay cooler than either the Times or NPR, if you ask me.

*This is rivaled in coolness, of course, by Velma's gun violence research being picked up by Ted Gest.

FYI: Juvenile Justice Issues on NPR Today

If you're by the radio or computer today, the 11:00 hour of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR will feature a discussion about juvenile justice with Laurence Steinberg of Temple University. From the show teaser:

An expert on adolescent development explains why juvenile justice should be grounded in the best available psychological science rather than the harsh and ineffective policies of the past two decades.

Dr. Steinberg is co- author (with Elizabeth S. Scott) of a new book called Rethinking Juvenile Justice.

More on NPR Prison Series

Last week I wrote about the first of a three-part NPR series on the U.S. prison population. That initial segment profiled incarcerated women who are mothers.

The second entry in the series examines the substantial number of inmates who are mentally ill. (Listen to the story here.) An excerpt from the print story:

Until the 1970s, the mentally ill were usually treated in public psychiatric hospitals, more commonly known as insane asylums.

Then, a social movement aimed at freeing patients from big, overcrowded and often squalid state hospitals succeeded. Rather than leading to quality treatment in small, community settings, however, it often resulted in no treatment at all.

As a consequence, thousands of mentally ill ended up on the streets, where they became involved in criminal activity. Their crimes, though frequently minor, led them in droves to jails such as Twin Towers, says Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

"Incarcerating the mentally ill is not the right thing to do," he says....

"They're here, and they're going to be cared for, but is this what we want in the way of a policy? Are we saying the legal system is the solution for the mentally ill in L.A. County? I don't think so. I'm saying criminals belong in jail, not the mentally ill."

The third entry in the series covers first-time offenders, especially drug and alcohol offenders processed in Dallas' "DIVERT Court". (Listen here.) An excerpt:

[DIVERT Court Judge John] Creuzot says what's different about DIVERT Court is the intense judicial oversight. "A person who relapses on drugs needs further treatment. Our responses are research-driven," he says.

The statistics back him up. Two studies by Southern Methodist University show that DIVERT Court cuts the recidivism rate by 68 percent over the regular Texas criminal justice courts. For every dollar spent on the court, $9 are saved in future criminal justice costs....

The courts have been so successful that even the tough-on-crime, Republican-dominated Texas Legislature approves.

Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano), chairman of the corrections committee, says that instead of worrying about the expanding outflow from prison, he wants to choke off the inflow with DIVERT-type courts...

State officials estimate that unless changes are made, Texas will need 17,000 more prison beds just four years from now. Releasing prisoners on parole is politically untenable — which makes "diversion" an increasingly appealing way to avoid what's looking like a $2 billion invoice.

These are short but informative pieces, and would be very suitable for kicking off lectures or classroom discussions about special needs populations in the CJ system or alternatives to traditional crime control policies. Good stuff!

The U.S. Prison Population: Mothers in Prison

NPR calls them "Driveway Moments": times when you are so riveted by a story that you sit in your car and keep listening, even after reaching your destination. This morning on my way into the office I had a double whammy -- a driveway moment that had me in tears.

Today NPR began a three-part series examining our nation's prison population. Today's entry focused on women inmates, specifically those in Ohio. (Click here to listen to the story.)

I was particularly moved hearing about a program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women -- one of only a handful such programs in the nation -- that allows infants of incarcerated women to live with their mothers in a prison nursery:

The Achieving Baby Care Success program began in June 2001. The 12 mothers currently participating live in a special wing of the prison. The babies sleep in identical cribs in their mothers' cells. Between prison roll calls, mothers take their children to the in-house nursery for scheduled activities.

The ultimate goal, says warden Sheri Duffey, is to reduce recidivism and keep the next generation out of prison.

While some people undoubtedly will bristle at the thought of such "preferential treatment" for women who admittedly have made poor choices and have broken the law, I couldn't help but think that this arrangement is far preferable to exacerbating already broken families by keeping babies away from their mothers. Of course, it remains to be seen whether that assumption is borne out by empirical research. The NPR story mentioned "a small study in another state" which suggests that live-in nursery programs can reduce recidivism, which I assume is this 2001 study published by Joseph Carlson in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. Results from a 5-year review of the live-in nursery program at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women reveal that, compared to their counterparts who gave birth in prison and had to give up their babies, mothers whose babies lived with them in the prison nursery had a much lower recidivism rate (33% vs. 9%). Additionally, women who participated in the nursery program had fewer misconducts, presumably because they did not want to lose the privilege of living with their infants.

It is difficult to imagine how agonizing it is for women to be forced apart from their newborn children, regardless of whatever decisions they made that landed them in prison and subsequently resulted in that separation. Listening to audio of incarcerated mothers singing silly children's songs with their babies during one of the regularly-held music sessions, I was overcome by how universal that mothering experience is: but for the prison uniforms and concrete walls, the image of a group of women singing, laughing, and cuddling with their infants could have been taken from any suburban Music Together or Kindermusic class across the country. Though they may be many things -- thieves, prostitutes, often victims themselves, frequently addicts -- at their core these women are mothers who love their kids and want to do right by them, however enormously the odds might be stacked against them. And that just makes me cry.

NPR Series on LA Street Gangs

NPR recently featured a four-part series on Los Angeles street gangs that ought to be of interest to those of you who study gangs and/or law enforcement. From NPR's website:

Crime in America has been on the decline, but gang violence is increasing. Los Angeles has the most gang members per capita than any city in the world. This series zeroes in on the changing nature of Los Angeles gangs and the innovative tactics law enforcement is using to combat them.

Part 1 explores the FBI's crackdown on gang activity in MacArthur Park (Insert your own "MacArthur's park is melting in the dark" joke here.)

Part 2 looks at the incredibly complex organizational structure of gangs, including the tremendous influence and power wielded by so-called "shot callers" even while they are incarcerated.

Part 3 covers law enforcement's increasing reliance on federal charges (and, by extension, parole-free federal prison sentences) in the fight against gangs.

Part 4 examines the longevity one particularly pervasive and persistent gang -- The 18th Street gang.

While I'm on the subject of gangs, National Geographic Channel also has some good videos and information about prison gangs. The documentary Prison Nation offers an excellent overview of the contemporary U.S. prison system, including the extraordinarily high organizational level at which prison gangs operate. It is definitely worthy of consideration for use in corrections and/or gangs classes. (Bonus: the film features commentary by criminologist Joan Petersilia!) For a shorter video on prison gangs, check out "Gangs vs. Guards," a 3-minute clip about Pelican Bay, a supermax prison that houses the most dangerous, violent gang-bangers in California.

Life After Prison: More on Reentry

Today is reentry day on the blog, I guess.

This afternoon's Talk of the Nation on NPR featured a must-listen story for Velma and others interested in prisoner reentry. "Adjusting to Life Beyond Bars" features interviews with several former prisoners who are struggling to establish their place in society after being incarcerated for significant portions of their lives.

The challenges facing each of the guests seemed to center around several key issues: unfamiliarity with modern technology (especially cell phones, it seems), lack of any programmatic transitional support (e.g., no assistance with procuring basic necessities like a photo ID), and not surprisingly, experiencing resistance from potential employers (what one guest called "the conviction question").

It struck me as I was listening to these stories that being released from prison after a lengthy incarceration must be like awaking from a decades-long coma: the world, society, culture -- everything and everyone has evolved and changed in dramatic and often unfathomable ways, leaving those facing reentry feeling bewildered, overwhelmed, and frustrated. Is it any wonder, then, that prisoners who are expected to simply fall into place and "succeed" in a society that is now quite foreign to them -- and who are not provided adequate training, support, and guidance to do so -- end up recidivating?

Where's the Beef?

From NPR -

The USDA recalls 143 million pounds of meat from a California slaughterhouse where some of the cows were crippled. Much of the beef went to schools, and a good bit of it has likely already been eaten.

Hearing this story reminded me of a post by Chris Uggen - see video below.


This video and NPR story raise a few issues -
1) Inmates get better food then our school children. I think this is another example of how mass imprisonment continues to leech from other institutions (like schools).

2) Class and nutrition - public schools offer food services for children of lesser means. For our school, this means that many of the children who are bussed in from Big City are getting food services for breakfast and lunch. I think these programs are fantastic and provide an important service to young children; however, the inadequacy of the food provided to these children is troubling. For a nice discussion of urbanism, class, race, and food - see this book.

3) On a personal note, I really like having the ease of having the big boy eat at school once and awhile. For example, last week I left the brown bag lunch on the counter while getting the kids ready for school. Guess what, big boy - the dogs ate your lunch so you can buy today. He was thrilled. It is hard to be perfect mommy all the time, and watching these videos and reports really makes me concerned. Any brown bag suggestions, friends?

Crime in the STL

Here is an excellent interview from Richard Rosenfeld on NPR On The Media. It is so well done. Truly a model for young scholars. It is perfect for a class discussion.


**Bring on ASC 2008. I will continue this post later with more information on hotels, attractions, etc.

Polygamy, Policing, & Partner Violence

One of the topics on today's Talk of the Nation was polygamy. A few interesting issues were raised.

First, one guest (a polygamist woman) described the advantages for women of being in a polygamous marriage. In her view, the primary benefit women derive from plural marriage revolves around having multiple people to shoulder the burden of home responsibility, whether it be assisting you in homemaking or having someone to watch your children while you pursue an education or employment outside of the home. This may sound far fetched, but actually recalls a recent New York Times article in which career women expressed that what they really need is -- you guessed it -- a wife at home. Does it sound less unorthodox when the NYT says it?

Second, the discussants questioned whether policing and prosecution of polygamists is effective, or even worthwhile. In cases that involve underage girls, the answer is obviously yes...but what about when all parties are legal, consenting adults? Is polygamy among willing adults a victimless crime? This actually recalls for me the similar discussions surrounding the arrest of Senator Larry Craig: is cruising for anonymous sex in public restrooms an offense worth the money and resources invested in a sting, such as the one in the Minneapolis airport? In both instances, one could ask: aren't scarce law enforcement dollars best spent elsewhere? Or, is the threat involved in either behavior worth the effort spent policing them?

Third, the issue of intimate partner violence in polygamous families was raised, which is really what piqued my interest. Though I suspect that IPV in plural marriages just might be the darkest dark figure of crime, I also think that it is a topic well worth investigating. After all, twenty years ago IPV in gay and lesbian relationships was shrouded in secrecy and consequently barely studied, but today scholarship on same-sex IPV is relatively common. Perhaps researchers will be able to make similar inroads in studying IPV in plural marriages. Though the polygamist advocate featured on TOTN suggested that, in her experience at least, patriarchal domination is NOT a fundamental element of plural marriage, one imagines that it must be for some women. I had so many questions: Do polygamist batterers abuse all of their wives? Or only some? Do the sister wives know? If so, do they offer support to one another, or turn a blind eye? Given the tremendous vulnerability polygamous victims of IPV must experience, answering these and other questions seems an important task.