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RECENT PUBLICATIONSGang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety StrategiesSubmitted by Kathleen on Thu, 2007-07-19 22:06.Youth crime in the United States remains near the lowest levels seen in the past three decades, yet public concern and media coverage of gang activity has skyrocketed since 2000. Fear has spread from neighborhoods with longstanding gang problems to communities with historically low levels of crime, and some policy makers have declared the arrival of a national gang “crisis.” Yet many questions remain unanswered. NY Times: The Wrong Approach to GangsSubmitted by Kathleen on Thu, 2007-07-19 22:22.No city has failed to control its street gangs more spectacularly than Los Angeles. The region has six times as many gangs and double the number of gang members as a quarter-century ago, even after spending countless billions on the problem. But unless Congress changes course quickly, the policies that seem to have made the gang problem worse in Los Angeles could become enshrined as national doctrine in a so-called gang control bill making its way through both the House and Senate. Progress and Challenges: An analysis of drug treatment and imprisonment in MarylandSubmitted by Webmaster on Tue, 2006-09-19 16:34.Maryland is making slow progress toward the goal of providing "treatment, not incarceration" to nonviolent substance abusers. The number of criminal justice-referred drug treatment admissions grew by 28 percent between 2000 and 2004, while drug imprisonment dropped by seven percent. But the state still spends too little on drug treatment for patients referred by the justice system - roughly 26 cents for every dollar spent to imprison people convicted of drug offenses. Jurisdictions that relied on drug treatment were more likely to achieve significant crime rate reductions since 2000 than those that relied on drug imprisonment. |
NEWSWashington Post on Gangs and Public SafetySubmitted by Kathleen on Thu, 2007-07-19 22:27.When it comes to fighting gangs, there's the New York City approach, and there's the Los Angeles approach, according to the Justice Policy Institute. And one statistic dramatizes the difference: Two years ago, Los Angeles police reported 11,402 gang-related crimes; New York police, 520. Star.com: U.S. gang crackdowns called a 'tragic failure'Submitted by Kathleen on Thu, 2007-07-19 22:26.More police, more prisons and more punitive measures aren't the answer to reducing gang activity, concludes a new U.S. study that experts here say underscores the need for Canada to reject that approach in favour of investing in jobs, schools and programs for disenfranchised youth. Doing borrowed time: The high cost of back-door prison financeSubmitted by Webmaster on Mon, 2007-01-01 08:00.In the face of tight budgets and growing public opposition to new prison spending, officials in many states have employed a variety of "back-door" schemes to finance new prison construction. The mechanisms vary but the consequences are the same: rapid prison expansion that takes place with little public involvement or oversight. A review of recent prison, jail and detention expansion initiatives shows that such back-door financing mechanisms are becoming more common at the federal, state and local level. Behind this trend is a cottage industry of investment bankers, architects, building contractors and consultants who have made enormous profits by encouraging local and state governments to borrow tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to build prisons and detention centers that the public does not want and cannot afford. |
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