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Sub-Topics
2003
2004
2006
Abuse
Gun Control
Gun Safety
Honor Killings
Human Trafficking
International Crime
Jury Trials
Juvenile Justice
Law Enforcement Officers
Mass Shootings
Police Excessive Force
Riot Control
Safe Schools
Also TryListsMultimedia
- Bullying (Awesome Library)
Provides suggestions on combating bullying. 1-02
- Crime Statistics (US Bureau of Crime Statistics)
News
- Video of Police Shooting Boy with Toy Gun (ABC News)
Provides a video of a 12-year-old boy playing with a toy gun in a park Police arrive and shoot the boy within a couple of seconds of their arrival. The video presents strong questions for the public and police departments. Should police policies and training have prevented such an event? Should toy guns have clear markings (like an orange barrel) that cannot be removed? Should the boy's parents have warned him that it is very dangerous to play with a toy gun outside? 11-14
Papers
- -02-21-10 America's Falling Crime Rate (Time.com)
"Last year's murder rate may be the lowest since the mid-1960s, according to preliminary statistics released by the Department of Justice."
"In his book why crime rates fell, Tufts University sociologist John Conklin concluded that up to half of the improvement was due to a single factor: more people in prison. The U.S. prison population grew by more than half a million during the 1990s and continued to grow, although more slowly, in the next decade. Go back half a century: as sentencing became more lenient in the 1960s and '70s, the crime rate started to rise. When lawmakers responded to the crime wave by building prisons and mandating tough sentences, the number of prisoners increased and the number of crimes fell." 02-10
- -02-28-08 1 in 100 Americans Behind Bars (MSNBC News)
"For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars." 02-08
- -03-10-09 Eyewitnesses and Justice (CBS News)
"Wells has been studying eyewitness memory for 30 years. He says when the real guy isn't there witnesses tend to pick the person who looks most like him." 03-09
- Police and Body Cameras (Time.com)
"For police, cameras have the potential to offer visual evidence of confrontations, which could provide a level of public transparency and potentially save law enforcement agencies millions of dollars in legal fees spent fighting and settling suits brought by citizens."
"But only a few studies have been conducted on the effects body-worn cameras. The most frequently cited came out of the police department in Rialto, Calif., which found an 88% drop in the number of complaints filed against officers and a 60% decline in use of force incidents compared with the year before officers adopted cameras." 11-14
- -11-08-04 USA Prison Population a Record (USA Today)
"Prisons are big in the United States. There are more people behind bars literally, and proportionally, than any time in our history. We have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other nation. And, we keep building more prisons, in fact many locales lobby for new prisons as a tool of economic recovery." 12-03
- -Editorial: Why Police Shoot Young Black Men (MotherJones.com)
On his giant monitor, Amodio shows me a big blob of data, a cluster of points depicting where people score on the Implicit Association Test. The test measures racial prejudices that we cannot consciously control. I've taken it three times now. This time around my uncontrolled prejudice, while clearly present, has come in significantly below the average for white people like me."
"Taking the IAT, one of the most popular tools among researchers trying to understand racism and prejudice, is both extremely simple and pretty traumatic." 11-14
- -Police Fatally Shot 1000 in 2015 (Washington Post)
"In a year-long study, The Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt." 12-15
- -President Bans the Box (MSNBC News)
"On Monday, President Obama is announcing a new order to reduce potential discrimination against former convicts in the hiring process for federal government employees."
"It is a step towards what many criminal justice reformers call 'ban the box' – the effort to eliminate requirements that job applicants check a box on their applications if they have a criminal record. While the rule was once seen as a common sense way for employers to screen for criminal backgrounds, it has been increasingly criticized as a hurdle that fosters employment discrimination against former inmates, regardless of the severity of their offense or how long ago it occurred. Banning the box delays when employers learn of an applicant’s record." 11-15
- -Study: Nearly Half of Males Arrested By the Age of 23 (ABC News)
"Nearly 50 percent of black men and 40 percent of white men are arrested at least once on non-traffic-related crimes by the time they turn 23, according to a new study."
"One of the authors of the study published this month in the journal 'Crime & Delinquency' said the statistics could be useful in shaping policy so that people aren't haunted by arrests when they apply for jobs, schools or public housing." 01-14
- -What Happened When California Released 30,000 Prisoners (Time.com)
"One study from Stanford Law School looked at the more than 1,600 prisoners released in California early under a reform of the state’s 'Three Strikes Law.' Only 1.3% of prisoners released early under that reform would up back in prison, compared with more than 30% of other prisoners." 10-15
- Computer Crime (Department of Justice - Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section)
Provides information on the new cybercrime unit of the Department of Justice. 3-00
- DNA Matching to Find Criminals (KatiesLaw.org)
"In January of 2006, "Katie's Bill", which requires DNA for most felony arrests for inclusion in the database, was passed by the New Mexico state legislature in only thirty days. The bill was signed into law in March 2006 and went into effect on January 1, 2007. After passing "Katie’s Law" in New Mexico, Dave and Jayann dedicated themselves to getting similar legislation passed nationwide."
Editor's Note: The test uses 13 markers. 09-07
- Domestic Problems - Information Sheets (KHL Infosheets)
Provides counselors with data related to various issues, such as abuse, homelessness, and violence.
- Editorial: If the Risk Is Low, Let Them Go (Truth-Out)
"Imagine your grandparents and great-grandparents in shackles or dying behind bars. By 2030, the prison population age 55 and over is predicted to be 4,400 percent more than what it was in 1981. Some state and federal prison systems look at alternatives." 01-14
- Editorial: Rights of Rapists (CNN News)
"It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child." 08-12
- Editorial: Signs of a "Killer Spouse" (ABC News)
"It's always shocking when you hear of someone who has murdered their spouse. But there are signs that a husband or wife is the killing kind, says Dr. Robi Ludwig, psychotherapist and author of 'Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage and the Mind of the Killer Spouse.' "
- Editorial: Supreme Court Justice Describes the Purpose of a Grand Jury (ThinkProgress.org)
"On Monday, Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced that a grand jury had decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown. But that decision was the result of a process that turned the purpose of a grand jury on its head."
"Justice Antonin Scalia, in the 1992 Supreme Court case of United States v. Williams, explained what the role of a grand jury has been for hundreds of years."
"It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor." 11-14
- HIV Behind Bars (PBS News)
"In two very different places - Washington, D.C., and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe - correctional facilities are facing remarkably similar challenges containing the HIV/AIDS epidemic and treating its victims." 07-12
- Homeless Students
- How Common Is "Contagious Shooting" by Police? (ABC News)
"Most police officers don't fire their guns a single time over the course of their careers. But those rare moments when they do pull the trigger are fast, furious and frenetic." 11-06
- How Some Survived a Killer (MSNBC News)
"When faced with an armed assailant who demands you accompany him, don't do it!" "Instead do as two of Nichols' victims did, run away as fast as you can while yelling and screaming for help." "When held hostage by an unknown offender, take the opportunity to talk to your captor, by this humanizing yourself and personally identifying with the offender in some manner, to include making sure he knows and calls you by name." 4-05
- Judge Slams Other Judge on Deaths (ABC News)
"A San Diego judge accused her fellow judges today of mishandling criminal cases and said the murders of Chelsea King and Amber DuBois might have been prevented if their killer had been kept in prison for a prior sex offense." 05-10
- Police Chases and Safety (Christian Science Monitor)
"A hot pursuit may not always be the best way to catch a thief or any other suspect fleeing from the cops, they say, especially on roads filled with law-abiding citizens. The tragic aftermath of many pursuits has sounded an alarm about their safety - and necessity."
"Indeed, about 40 percent of all police chases end in crashes, and many of these result in injuries and sometimes death, according to statistics from the College of Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. This means that almost every day someone in this country dies as the result of a police-pursuit accident." 02-07
- Prisons in America (NOW with Bill Moyers)
"Prisons are big in the United States. There are more people behind bars literally, and proportionally, than any time in our history. We have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other nation. And, we keep building more prisons, in fact many locales lobby for new prisons as a tool of economic recovery." 12-03
- Road Rage Prevention (Adams)
Provides suggestions on how to handle road rage and prevent injury from others.
- School Attendance and Tuancy
- School Discipline
- School Safety (TeacherPathfinder)
- Teen Lifers in the U.S. (New York Times)
"In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter."
"Indeed, the United States stands alone in the world in convicting young adolescents as adults and sentencing them to live out their lives in prison. According to a new report, there are 73 Americans serving such sentences for crimes they committed at 13 or 14." 10-07
- The Anatomy of Violence (MSNBC News)
"Pathological genes, a disturbed mind, social isolation and a gun culture are not enough. Mass murderers also need the individual will to pull the trigger." 07-06
- Women - Violence Against Women (National Geographic)
Provides an essay against the practice of punishing women to "protect family honor" that continues from ancient times in some patriarchal societies. 2-02
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