Category: Rehabilitation

Compulsory Drug Treatment

by · Aug 21, 2025 1:15 pm

As I have noted before on this blog (see, e.g., this post) a major part of the homelessness problem is addiction. Charles Lehman has an article at City Journal titled Compulsory Drug Treatment Works: Activists who say otherwise hide their views behind a cloak of scientific objectivity.

The actual state of the research is not as definitive as that title implies. A big part of the difficulty in evaluating efficacy is the lack of a good comparison group, and there is disagreement as to what comparison is appropriate. Do people compelled to accept treatment do as well as those who seek it out? A “no” answer to that question would prove nothing, as the seekers had a better attitude out of the gate. The actual evidence is mixed.

Is compulsory treatment better than no treatment at all? Lehman cites a couple of studies that find an improvement while conceding that there is a selection bias problem in these studies as well. Random and quasi-random assignment studies are better, and they provide some evidence of a benefit. Continue reading . . .

Ban-the-Box Busted

by · May 14, 2024 9:45 am

Among released criminals, there is a substantial connection between employment and going straight. That is, those who find employment are less likely to commit new crimes. The “ban the box” movement seeks to forbid employers from asking about criminal convictions. A related effort is to expunge criminal convictions. The theory is that by removing this information from employers, more past offenders will find employment, and fewer will return to crime.

But does it work?

This study has recently been posted on the National Bureau of Economic Research site. “We find consistent evidence that removing an existing record does not improve labor market outcomes, on average.”

Add another example to the list of confirmations of H.L. Mencken’s famous observation: “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” Continue reading . . .

California leniency kills 5 young women in Minnesota

by · Jun 21, 2023 11:18 am

Present California policy shaves large amounts of time off prison sentences, even for violent crimes. We are fighting these policies because of the danger they present to law-abiding Californians. But crime knows no boundaries, and these policies also endanger people in other states, as was tragically demonstrated last Friday according to this report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by Paul Walsh

Derrick John Thompson, 27, of Brooklyn Park, remains jailed Tuesday with charges pending on suspicion of murder in connection with the crash late Friday after he sped off an Interstate 35W exit ramp in his full-size Cadillac Escalade SUV and struck a car going through an E. Lake Street intersection….

Killed in the crash were Sabiriin Ali, 17, of Bloomington; Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center; Salma Abdikadir, 20, of St. Louis Park; Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis; and Siham Adam, 19, of Minneapolis.

The crash occurred three years after Thompson was sentenced to eight years in California prison, the story reports. How is that possible? Continue reading . . .

Recidivism of Violent Women

by · Apr 28, 2023 12:48 pm

Say “violent criminal” and most people will picture a man, for the obvious and valid reason that the rate of violent crime is much higher for men than women. But there are violent women as well. Today the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report, Recidivism of Females Released from State Prison, 2012–2017. The press release is here. Using a five-year follow-up period, the recidivism rate for violent women was somewhat lower than the corresponding rate for violent men, but still high — 55% versus 66% for men. Continue reading . . .

Grasping at Statistical Straws

by · Apr 18, 2023 2:11 pm

Graph of California Recidivism Rates

Cal. 3-Year Recidivism Rates for Cohorts Released in 2-Year Periods 2003-2018

This graph shows data on recidivism from the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s most recent report. Each cohort released in a 2-year period is tracked for three years for arrests, convictions, and returns to prison. The blue line is convictions, which CDCR regards as its primary measure. This rate was 44.6% for the 2015-16 cohort. It rose to 47.6% for the 2016-17 cohort. Then for 2017-18 it fell back to where it was for 2015-16. CDCR’s Secretary is crowing that this represents confirmation that post-Prop. 57 “credit-earning opportunities … is [sic] having a positive impact to improve public safety.”

Seriously? Continue reading . . .

What Do Inmates Do After They’re Released?

by · Sep 8, 2021 4:07 pm

That’s one of the most important questions any sensible person would ask in considering whether criminals are sentenced too harshly, or (relatedly) whether their existing sentences should be shortened by mass clemency or other expedients such as First Step Act re-sentencing.  After all, we should be guided by “facts” and “data,” not emotion, right?  Emotion is, after all, the province of revenge-driven right-wing kooks, while reliance on criminal justice “data” is the specialty of the more tempered among us.

Well OK then, let’s look at the data.  What do they tell us?

In brief, they tell us that, in overwhelming numbers, after they’re released, criminals get back in the crime business.  Most of them return fast, and over time, close to all of them return to harming us, our property, and our right to live in peace and safety.

Continue reading . . .

Governor Newsom Releases More Violent Criminals

by · Jun 4, 2021 12:01 pm

Katy Grimes from The California Globe has this story covering Newsom’s announcement on May 28th, “[He} granted 14 pardons, 13 commutations and 8 medical reprieves – for murderers, bank robbers, armed robbers, kidnappers, killers for hire, drivers of get-away-cars for murderers, and assaulters with firearms.” Yet again we are looking at the release of criminals who have been convicted of heinous, violent crimes that would lead any reasonable person to believe pose a threat to the safety and security of the community in which they are released into. 

Continue reading . . .

The Lethal and Racist Dishonesty of the Defense Bar

by · May 13, 2021 8:41 pm

In the post immediately preceding this one, Amber Westbrook wrote of “Another Violent Felon Released from Prison Early to Commit More Crimes.”  The piece I bring you now is in the same vein but much worse.  It’s from the pro-criminal justice “reform” Washington Post.  Its title is, “Released early after a murder conviction, D.C. man is charged in new homicide.”  It’s yet another story of dishonest lawyers, both white, one an advocate and one a judge, who worked hand-in-hand to secure the early release of a violent thug in the prime of his criminal life.  The released convict, Darrell Moore, went on to commit another murder a scant nine months later, by shooting his victim six times in the chest.  The evidence suggests that the victim was black, as Moore’s first victim was.

What we have here is the nauseating combination of the poisons that have been taking over our criminal justice system  —  strutting elitist attitudes and shameless lying masquerading as compassion.  But it’s not compassion.  It’s the opposite.  It starts with self-congratulatory virtue-signalling by elite-type lawyers (the great majority of whom are, as in this case, white).  The next step is pro bono representation of a violent hooligan to obtain early release, thus to shortcut his supposed accountability for an earlier brutal crime.  It proceeds by patently false representations about his New Life and Now Peaceable Character.  The final chapter is another black man in the morgue.  The white lawyers who made it all possible have  —  you guessed it  —  no comment.

Continue reading . . .

A Second Chance……………To Do What? Part I

by · Apr 8, 2021 2:35 pm

Hey everyone!  It’s “Second Chance Month.”  President Biden has said so himself (see this piece at SL&P).  The President is a bit short on specifics, but assures us that, “During Second Chance Month, we lift up all those who, having made mistakes, are committed to rejoining society and making meaningful contributions.”

“Mistakes,” got that?  Fleecing grandma out of her life savings, selling smack to an addicted 16 year-old, raping a first grader  —  look people, don’t be so judgmental.  They’re just “mistakes.”

I’ll be saying more in future posts about the Happy Face, if fact-free, yammering about second chances.  For now, I just want to focus on the one question that cries out to be asked but never is:  A second chance to do what?

Today’s Washington Post, of all things, provides a glimpse of the answer.

Continue reading . . .