Early last week the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that for the first time since 1980 the federal prison population in the United States has dropped. In the last year alone, the federal prison population decreased by roughly 4,800. With new counts projecting the number of federal inmates to continue to fall by just over 2,000 in the next 12 months and by nearly 10,000 the year after, I ask the questions how, why, and what effect will this change have?

Over the past few years the Justice Department has revealed that crime rates have been dropping. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder aimed to change policies to reflect the belief that increasing the number of people behind bars does nothing to improve public safety. An example of such policies includes The Smarter Sentencing Act — which essentially seeks to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for defendants found guilty of first-time drug offenses — and the more recent Clemency Act, which seeks to release offenders from prison who were unfairly sentenced by mandatory sentencing guidelines. Holder has worked in the last year to reduce a prison population he says is costly and bloated. He was not wrong: in 2014 the country spent approximately $60 billion to incarcerate offenders.

Even as someone who has completed a masters in criminal justice, including a core required course in statistical management (which let’s be honest, was as horrific as it sounds), I still struggle to understand the relevance of the numbers the media is throwing at us. I agree that it is a real achievement that fewer people are being sentenced to time in prison, but I really want society to understand why it is such an achievement, and what this really means.

The decrease in prison population is certainly an incredible start to the potential success of community supervision and its benefits. The one thing these articles fail to point out is just how much further we have to go to protect us as a society, and those who enter into the system. You may be thinking at this point that I am out of my mind for considering the safety and well being of convicted offenders; however, the majority of individuals arrested and convicted are non-violent drug offenders. What the article praising the decrease in the prison population failed to acknowledge is that although certain convicted offenders will not be sentenced to prison, the conditions of their sentence lived in society carry a higher risk of future incarceration than if they were placed behind bars in the first place.

Just because these individuals are not physically locked behind bars does not mean they are not locked behind the transparent bars of social isolation. Rates of unemployment, difficulty securing housing, and loss of family are just some of the hurdles most of these individuals  contend with. Why? Because they have been stigmatized by society with their criminal label. Virtually everyone on community supervision is at risk of being detained or incarcerated upon failure to comply with the conditions of supervision. Would you be able to follow a list of conditions if you felt like no one supported you? In order to support alternatives to incarceration, we really need to welcome the culture of supervision and understand the positives it can bring us. Not only will we be spending less money on the safekeeping of these individuals, but intervention and supervision can be accurately given to each offender to prevent re-offenses, interrupt the cycle of crime in families, and shake up the social disorganization within communities.

Regardless of whether you believe crime is a choice, crime is inherited, or crime is learned, the solid facts are that crime happens. By locking individuals up without any guidance, or even attempting to work on understanding the cause, the likelihood of reoffending is just as high if not worse than it was before that person was put in jail. Legislators clearly have been able to understand the reality that sending people to prison does nothing for public safety, so now it is time they invest money into supervision agencies to aid offenders in the right way. In order for this to happen, well-trained staff, evidence-based programs, and support from others is essential.

It is essential we maintain a safe environment for everyone in our communities. The notable decrease in the overall American incarceration and crime rates is something that hasn’t happened in more than 40 years. This hopefully marks the start of a revolutionary change for the U.S. criminal justice system.

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Hannah Kaye (@HannahSKaye) is originally from London, now living in New York. Recently graduated with an MA in criminal justice from John Jay College. Strong contenders for things she is most passionate about are bagels and cupcakes.

Featured image courtesy of [Viewminder via Flickr]

Hannah Kaye

Hannah Kaye is originally from London, now living in New York. Recently graduated with an MA in criminal justice from John Jay College. Strong contenders for things she is most passionate about are bagels and cupcakes. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Incarceration Figures Drop, But Community Support is Essential to Public Safety appeared first on Law Street.

We are a self-conscious generation. We care way too much of what our peers think of us, which at times is all consuming. We crave likes on our Facebook pictures, strive for the most amount of retweets, and struggle to make our YouTube videos go viral. We seek approval so badly that we will go to great lengths just to get it; and we’re starting to cross the line. Personally, I see nothing wrong with executing a practical and thoughtful prank — what good is life if you can’t laugh, right? But there is a thin line with jokes and pranks, and a very thin line between a tasteful joke and a offensive joke. When you cross that line onto the offensive side, you’ll find it incredibly hard to come back from that.

A group of kids go to the “hood” and find strangers to pull pranks on and showcase them on YouTube: hood pranks. These “pranks” include pulling strangers’ pants up, approaching people with fake guns, pretending to steal people’s phones, and pretending to take pictures of people. The kids go to predominantly black neighborhoods because they know that these are the areas where people will react the harshest.

Of course these people are going to react with violence. They’re bitter, and how could they not be?They’ve been dealt the shittiest hand of cards of anyone in America. They’ve been ridiculed and they’ve been stepped on, and they carry a weight on their shoulders that we as outsiders can never understand. They are the minority of minorities. And these kids think it’s funny to exploit that, but it really isn’t. What some white people don’t seem to get is that we are done with being disrespected. You cannot go into a predominately black neighborhood, pick a fight, and not expect anything to happen. This isn’t the 17th century, we have a little bit more voice now.  And were going to use that voice.

We’re going to use that voice to tell you that these “pranks” need to stop. We’re going to use that voice to tell you that these “pranks” aren’t funny, they aren’t creative, and most importantly, they’re not actually pranks at all. They are intrusive and obscene acts that exploit black culture and they are useless in helping us progress as a society. I understand that we’re a conscious generation, and we feel the need to impress our peers; but there are lines. When we diminish a whole culture for the sake of some laughs, that is definitely crossing a line. And when you cross this line you completely deserve to get your ass kicked.

Mic Drop

Trevor Smith

Trevor Smith is a homegrown DMVer studying Journalism and Graphic Design at American University. Upon graduating he has hopes to work for the US State Department so that he can travel, learn, and make money at the same time. Contact Trevor at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post “Hood Pranks” Are Racist Attacks on the Community appeared first on Law Street.

In the aftermath of the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the controversy over the way in which the police department has dealt with the backlash, accusations of officials on a ‘power trip’ are incredibly poignant. According to Ferguson residents interviewed by CNN, “there’s been friction for years with the overwhelmingly white police department.” This statement is made by both African-American and white members of the community.

Courtesy of Light Brigading via Flickr

In the predominantly African-American town, these individuals are highly over-represented in crime statistics. ‘They accounted for 93 percent of arrests after traffic stops, 92 percent of searches and 86 percent of traffic stops.’ Although it is frankly impossible to hide from the racially discriminatory acts that are taking place, I ask why it has taken such a tragic event to acknowledge such wrongdoing? This idea that power can influence the way people act is not uncommon. Social experiments like the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, the soldiers involved in the leaking of the Abu Ghraib photos, and the recent controversies surrounding the invisible war of sexual assault in the military, are just some examples of how power has an effect on producing and allowing crime to occur.

It is time we stop allowing justifications and rationalizations as reasons why individuals feel they can abuse their power. We blame the police officers for abusing their power with excessive force, but what about those in the riots who took advantage of a tragic situation by looting businesses? What about the thousands of individuals who took to Twitter to verbally abuse and criticize individuals because of their race, or because of their involvement in the incident? To say the issue is the hypocrisy of a country built upon equality and democracy is treating the problem, but ignoring those actions that make us revert back to the Civil Rights era, and back to an age when segregation was mandatory, which is the cause.

In the 21st century we have produced a generation so involved in the use of social media to express their opinions, and so involved in the right to voice our opinions, that we are in a sense our own worst enemies. Instead of working alongside law enforcement to protect our country, we are rebelling; instead of fighting the war against racial discrimination, we are fueling it; instead of maintaining the right to have privacy, we are highlighting more reasons to invade it. One of the first pictures of the fatally shot Michael Brown was posted to Twitter by a bystander before any official evidence was given to the police.

In the aftermath of Ferguson, it was announced that “police departments and their equipment suppliers are outfitting their officers with on-body cameras that promise to eliminate the photographic void we saw in Ferguson.” These cameras will be worn by officers during their shifts and will record all of their encounters with any member of the public they interact with. These videos at the end of each shift are then placed in a vault online, where they will only be examined during legal proceedings.

I don’t know about you, but I interact with police officers daily during my lunch break. I am 90 percent sure it is to do with my British accent and their boredom, but I still don’t know how comfortable I would feel knowing they may have a camera turned on recording me buying my lunch. What about those days that I decide it’s a good idea to buy bars of chocolate and bags of chips, if anything they are uncovering my unhealthy habits!

Courtesy of Mark Kirchner via Flickr

As expected with any new regulation, there are no national regulations on how the cameras will be used, or when they will be turned on and off. This is precisely one of the main problems with treating the problem and ignoring the cause. How to you trust an officer is going to keep the camera on for the duration of his shift? How do you rely on technology to take away the ‘power trip’ mentality? The answer: you cannot.

What makes this whole argument over the abuse of power even more valid is the corruption of relationships within the police force. There needs to be some kind of a change to monitor the performance of corrupt officials to ensure that the public can trust in those who are meant to protect them. The backlash from the community in Ferguson has come about from years of distrust in their law enforcement as protectors, and adding video cameras to police officers’ chests is not going to change that.

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Hannah Kaye (@HannahSKaye) is originally from London, now living in New York. Recently graduated with an MA in criminal justice from John Jay College. Strong contenders for things she is most passionate about are bagels and cupcakes.

Featured image courtesy of [Matt Katzenberger via Flickr]

Hannah Kaye

Hannah Kaye is originally from London, now living in New York. Recently graduated with an MA in criminal justice from John Jay College. Strong contenders for things she is most passionate about are bagels and cupcakes. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Crime of Power: Treating the Problem in Ferguson and Ignoring the Cause appeared first on Law Street.

Paterson, New Jersey erupted last month after a 12-year-old girl was shot and killed. People rallied for an end to the recent violence, demanding a safer city in the wake of Genesis Rincon’s death. The tragedy comes shortly after Jerry Speziale was appointed as the new police director. Advocating community policing, Speziale and Mayor Jose Torres think that dynamic approaches can help with the crime problem in Paterson. This may seem like a interesting new strategy for fighting local crime and violence, but successful community policing programs were successfully used in Paterson not that long ago.

One such community policing program, the Village Initiative, operated from 1998 to around 2010 and had some measurable benefits for local youth. What did the Village Initiative accomplish, can community policing prevent further deaths like Rincon’s, and what can other cities learn from Paterson?

Paterson has long been plagued by high crime rates. The year that the Village Initiative launched, its violent crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants was roughly 67 percent higher than the national average. The Village Initiative responded to the crime problem in Paterson by bringing the community to at-risk juvenile probationers, making them responsible for their court orders, and reducing their chances of committing a crime again.

In an interview, Dr. James Pruden said that it’s important “for [juveniles] to see the government functioning positively in their lives.” An emergency medical specialist at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, Pruden was an active contributor to the Village Initiative who rode along with officers to visit at-risk probationers. Along with police, teachers, and other community leaders, he saw the program in action and witnessed its effects firsthand.

The Village Initiative

The Village Initiative offered important opportunities to minors such as vocational courses; from business training to cosmetology and automotive repair, the courses gave them opportunities to build marketable skills. In addition, there were components that set juveniles up for part-time jobs. These are no longer available, though. Around 2010, the Village Initiative lost much of its funding, likely related to the city’s other budget cuts during the midst of the national recession. Fortunately, the “ride along with a medical evaluation” that Pruden participated in continued after the funding stopped, along with a few other pieces of the program.

“They had this educational piece, they had the medical piece, they had the business piece, all designed to turn these kids in a different direction and to show them that the interest in them was not only because they were misbehaving,” said Pruden. The community was not simply responding to the negativity surrounding the juveniles’ lives, it was about instilling something positive in them. This should be the central tenant of all community policing initiatives.

“It’s not like I’m providing much of a medical service. What I would do was go to the house, find out what was going on, talk to them about their health issues… At the end of it, I would go back with the data the next day and talk to a case manager at the hospital. She would call them up and make sure they made their cardiology appointment, or she would cut through the red tape to facilitate their entry to the teen pregnancy program. And we would do this not only for patients that came to our hospital, we do this for people who go to free-standing clinics or to other hospitals.”

– Dr. James Pruden

The Results

St. Joseph’s Hospital sometimes treats rival gang members simultaneously, and the hospital could become a spot for continued dispute between them. As that conflict can be detrimental to the doctors and families there, Pruden was tasked with making the hospital a neutral zone. Through the social infrastructure of the Village Initiative, he reached out to community leaders to establish correspondence and set up meetings with gang members. After eight months of work,Pruden succeeded in negotiating with the gangs so that St. Joseph’s would be a safer space.

Anecdotes like that help illustrate the positive community relationships formed by the Village Initiative. But what do statistics tell us about its effects? Despite sharing some criticism about how data on the program was collected, Dr. Pruden said that the available information shows impressive results. Prior to the Village initiative, juveniles with first-time probation had a 37 percent recidivism rate; however, kids involved in the Village Initiative had recidivism rates of only 5 percent. But, he reminded me, “then the funding went away!”

As Pruden says, maybe the effects of the Village Initiative could be judged solely by the difference between a 37 percent and five percent recidivism rate. Maybe it could have only made changes in the lives of the specific juveniles who were involved in the program. But it could also be judged by the potential, immeasurable impact that ripples throughout the community, starting with those juveniles.

Lessons from the Village Initiative

From local advocates to national movements, community policing is in high demand now. For instance, more cops are patrolling neighborhoods on bicycles as a part of a community policing initiative in Lowell, Massachusetts. Nationally, the Obama Administration has ramped up the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office under the Department of Justice. A COPS report, Community Policing Defined, states that the approach “promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques.”

However, COPS is sometimes criticized for pushing policing in the opposite direction; reporter and author Radley Balko said that COPS supports many police chiefs who consider SWAT raids “to be a core part of a community policing strategy.” As police aggression only divides the police and the community, there is even more need to prescribe the Village Initiative. If Balko is correct and many have misconceptions, the country should find a model for community policing in the success of Paterson’s project.

Pruden’s work through the Village Initiative was not just a medical house call, but a social checkup. This should be how community policing looks, with community leaders working with one another. Police supervise medical evaluations, doctors help police at-risk youth, and the force of the community creates something positive together. Let’s prescribe the Village Initiative’s community policing in New Jersey to other cities in need.

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Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Featured image courtesy of [City of North Charleston via Flickr]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Community Policing in New Jersey: A Model for Stopping Local Violence appeared first on Law Street.