Crime & Consequences

Monthly Archive: October 2023

Boston Mayor Shutting Down the “Methadone Mile”

by · Oct 31, 2023 11:39 am

A longtime tent city in a busy industrial district of South Boston has been targeted by the mayor for removal.  Brianna Herlihy of Fox News reports that the encampment, which starts at the corner of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue has for years been dubbed the “Methadone Mile”  where addicts, criminals and the mentally ill have taken over the neighborhood.  The levels of crime, drug use and drug overdoses in the area have at times forced the city to prohibit caregivers from even visiting to protect their safety.  There have been several sweeps to remove tents and addicts from the area since 2019, but after each one the homeless have returned in greater numbers.  The city’s Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu recently announced that as of November 1, the police will begin to remove tents and take occupants to housing, rehab and mental services.

Continue reading . . .

Attorney General Bonta Gives Lip Service on Fentanyl

by · Oct 30, 2023 11:20 am

Progressive California Attorney General Rob Bonta appeared at a recent Placer County press conference to congratulate Placer County’s district attorney for convicting a drug dealer of second degree murder.  Columnist Dan Walters writes in Cal Matters that the dealer, Nathanial Cabacungan knowingly sold a 15-year-old girl a fake Percocet pill containing a fatal dose of fentanyl.  The dealer was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 15-years to life in prison.   Bonta called the prosecution “historic” and told reporters . . . “to me, it’s an example of good law enforcement at its finest, working together, following the facts, building the case.” Bonta cited the alarming increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses among young people, saying, “It’s cheap, it’s potent and it’s lethal.”

Continue reading . . .

Retail Crime Survey

by · Oct 27, 2023 10:08 am

Surveys of crime are worth keeping an eye on, as they help compensate for a major deficiency in official crime statistics. The official stats are generally “crimes known to the police.”  These crimes are undercounted when people don’t bother to report the crimes, and the nonreporting rate tends to increase when policies are adopted that lead people to believe that the police won’t do anything if they do report.

The National Retail Federation has this report on its 2023 Retail Security Survey. Among the results reported are the metropolitan areas identified by retailers as most affected by organized retail crime:

Continue reading . . .

New York’s Revolving Door For Criminals

by · Oct 25, 2023 11:22 am

A mentally disturbed New Jersey man who attacked a woman in front of other commuters at a crowded New York subway station in July, was not arrested although he was well known to police.  Last week the same man pushed another woman into a moving train, nearly killing her.  Michael Ruiz of Fox News reports that Sabir Jones, 39 was observed by dozens of witnesses during the lunch hour at the crowded 53rd Street station as he pushed a 30-year-old woman into the side of a train.  Bystanders pulled the woman off the tracks and she was rushed to the hospital with severe head trauma.  Minutes earlier Jones had punched a man in the face, breaking his jaw.  All of the attacks, including slugging the same poor woman he shoved twice last July, were random.

Continue reading . . .

Crime in the United States and California

by · Oct 24, 2023 4:01 pm

Some years ago, we began tracking the trends in crime in California versus the country as a whole. California has been more aggressive than most states in the “criminal justice reform” movement, a euphemism for reducing the consequences of crime to criminals. See prior posts on the archive blog here and here. (See tech note below if you have difficulties.)

With the release of the 2022 national crime data (see this post), it seemed like a good time to update the data.

Graph of US v California Violent Crime

Continue reading . . .

Another Poster Boy For Second Chances

by · Oct 23, 2023 3:32 pm

As noted in this earlier post, when criminal justice reformers celebrate the early release of serious criminals it doesn’t always work out well.   Today the staff at Liberty Unyielding offer up another example.  This time the case involves a former bank robber who became a Georgetown law professor.  In the late 1990s Shon Hopwood was sentenced to 12 years in prison following a series of bank robberies that he committed in small town Nebraska.  Eleven years later, Hopwood was released after having earned a law degree and, as a jailhouse lawyer, twice got petitions on behalf of fellow inmates accepted for review in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Once free, Hopwood won a clerkship with the DC Circuit, and later took a professorship at Georgetown Law.  He also played a role in passing the federal sentencing reform “First Step Act.”  What a remarkable “second chance” success story.

Continue reading . . .

CA Violent Crime Increases as Arrests Decline

by · Oct 20, 2023 1:52 pm

Fresh FBI data for 2022 indicate that nationally the rate of violent crime dropped slightly.  In California violent crime increased by 5.7% with   aggravated assault accounting for 67%.  Property crime nationally increased by 7.1% while California’s increase was 5.9%.  Matt Delaney of The Washington Times reports that motor vehicle theft continued to increase both nationally and in California, where thefts have increased by 31.6% since 2019.  A report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found that the California counties with the sharpest increases in violent crimes were the bay area counties of Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco.  Sacramento, Riverside, Alameda and Orange counties also saw significant increases.  Major property crime increases were seen in Fresno, Alameda, Santa Clara, Orange and San Bernardino Counties.  One positive note, homicides were down by 6.1% after significant increases in 2020 and 2021.

Continue reading . . .

Analyzing homicide trends: Republican vs. Democratic leadership

by · Oct 19, 2023 1:22 pm

In the ever-evolving landscape of American politics and society, the question of how political affiliation relates to social phenomena remains a topic of enduring interest. One such subject, the fluctuating rates of homicide, serves as a poignant case in point. Numerous researchers, thinktanks, and policymakers have examined the stark variations in homicide rates that have emerged across these political divides. However, with so many factors at play influencing homicide rates, it becomes increasingly difficult to know how much variation is attributable to differences in political affiliation. In this post, I will dissect views from thinktanks on both side of the aisle and attempt to make some sense of this controversy. Continue reading . . .

LA Area Cities Protest Zero Bail Policy

by · Oct 17, 2023 3:40 pm

California’s Constitution has two sections on bail. Both of them begin “A person [shall/may] be released on bail by sufficient sureties” followed by some exceptions. The differences between the two have yet to be worked out (stayed tuned), but two things are clear. First, the Constitution requires “sufficient sureties” for release on bail. Second, own-recognizance release is allowed on a discretionary basis, clearly intended as a case-by-case determination.

The Superior Court judges for Los Angeles County have nonetheless decided that most arrestees will be released with no surety at all, i.e., zero bail, and without any individual determination that the individual arrestee is a suitable candidate for “OR.” Can’t let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of the agenda.

There are 88 cities in this massive county, and some of them are deeply unhappy about this. Continue reading . . .

Sentenced to Death, Sunset Strip Killer Dies of Old Age

by · Oct 16, 2023 2:05 pm

California’s notorious Sunset Strip Killer, Douglas Clark, who was sentenced to death for six grisly murders in 1983, died in a hospital last week at the age of 75.  Chris Eberhart of Fox News reports that Clark was convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering six women over the summer of 1980.  He mutilated the bodies of his victims, decapitating one and keeping her head in a freezer.  His partner in the murders, Carol Bundy, told police that Clark would have sex with some of his victims corpses before dumping the bodies.  The oldest victim was 25, while three others were teenagers.  All of these young women suffered horribly before they were killed and mutilated.  Because of Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom refusing to enforce the death penalty, even after California voters demanded it remain the law, Clark avoided a well-deserved execution and lived out his life, dying of natural causes.