You’ve heard and seen them. They include some of our elected and appointed officials, wanna be politicians, heads of organizations, and pundits that appear in our news media feeds complaining about crime rates, and the institutions we’ve created and entrusted to respond to this social problem.
They decry the uptick in crime, the brazenness of today’s criminals, and the general moral depravity of society. This loose collection of individuals are quick to blame someone (e.g., an elected politician, single mothers, etc.), an entity (e.g., the family, or a branch of the criminal justice system (CJS), etc.), or some new trend in society (e.g., social media, etc.).
These individuals often argue that what we really need is more laws, police, correctional facilities, lengthier prison sentences, harsher prison conditions, equipping police with better tools, etc. But after a careful review these so-called “solutions” are overly simple. And if their proposals sound new, then they are usually old wine in new bottles.
To be certain, criminal justice related challenges have existed since the creation of laws and organizations designed to respond to individuals and organizations that break them.
Murder, robbery, assault, etc. are not going away anytime soon. And there are no quick fix solutions.
More importantly, we can’t simply delegate the management of crime and people who engage in criminal activity to elected officials like mayors, chiefs of police or public safety, or the individual branches of the CJS, and wash our hands of the problem. This approach is not vigilanteeism or taking the law into our own hands.
So why do so many of our leaders or those who aspire to leadership positions play the blame game?
The public loves quick fix solutions. In fact they are socialized into this way of thinking. Got a medical problem, surely it’s easily diagnosable, and there’s an appropriate drug to take that will give you instant relief. Worried about your state of affairs, seek distraction by grabbing a drink or getting high, rather than confronting the problem.
And why are the previously mentioned targets quickly blamed? It’s easy. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of bad political leaders and heads of criminal justice agencies. But that’s not my point.
Why is blaming politicians, branches of the CJS and the heads of these agencies bad?
It’s an overly simple approach to a real and persistent problem and it’s part of what got us to where we are now. This tactic appeals to people who think that it’s easy to solve the crime and justice challenges of America.
The problem with the new and improved solutions approach is that it takes the focus away from the more labor intense processes and issues, the ones that are harder to solve, like encouraging people to take individual responsibility and stop blaming others, the development of quality interpersonal relations, the improvement of family dynamics, providing adequate resources to schools that teach meaningful content and not to the test or are staffed with instructors whose primary job is classroom management.
How do we change this state of affairs?
In the short term, if we are going to implement meaningful change in the reducing crime and improving the criminal justice agencies tasked with responding to crime and criminals we need to base our decisions on empirical research. It exists and it is conducted by experts. And there are methods to determine who and who is not an expert. The system is not perfect. But we need to avoid a tendency to ignore the results, and the policy recommendations, even when it’s not politically convenient.
This strategy might also consider looking towards those countries that are similar to the United States but have less crime. Indeed there are subtle differences in the ways that those societies are arranged, but maybe we should seriously consider emulating some of the more helpful processes (e.g., ones that encourage social solidarity) in those nations.
In the end, I’m not suggesting some sort of utopian society, but it’s time to stop advocating the quick fixes and choose ones that have been empirically proven to work.
GotCredit
Solution Key
Solution on Keyboard
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/33715651766_299ccda710_o.jpg14762333Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-02-17 18:12:462024-02-04 04:25:02Why quick fix solutions to crime and criminal justice challenges don’t and won’t work
What’s not to like? In general, scooters are a low cost and low environmental impact mobility solution ideally suited for urban environments. Not only do they enable people to get from one place to the other above ground, but they can also provide a needed cheap rush of adrenalin when operators dodge vehicles, parked cars, and temporary structures that restaurants have erected.
Scooters have had a long history, but sales of this item started increasing shortly after 2000 when Micro Mobility systems developed and started selling their collapsible metal razor to the public.
Soon consumers, from toddlers to senior citizens, started using this relatively cheap and convenient recreational toy, as a viable means of transportation.
In 2003, Micro Mobility introduced their electric kick scooter, also known as e-scooters or motorized scooters. Soon cheap imitations were manufactured and sold throughout the world. In addition to individuals purchasers, some enterprising corporations like Bird and Lime bought large numbers of these scooters to rent to users provided they downloaded an app on their smart phone and had a valid credit card.
Shortly thereafter rentable and dockless motorized scooters, just like bikes, started appearing and being used in big cities throughout the world.
In order to operate in the cities of most advanced industrialized countries, the motorized scooter companies that rented out their units needed official-government permission. Thus the businesses negotiated with city councils (or departments of transportation) about regulations considering how many scooters could be on the streets, places where the scooters could be used, and where they could be parked (e.g., docking stations). Today there is considerable variation among the municipal or state level ordinances regulating motorized scooters.
Over a period of time, due to a multiplicity of factors, licenses were extended, or terminated (e.g., New York City), new rental companies entered the market, others folded, or withdrew from certain markets, and the public reacted.
Although the scooters provide alternatives to private and mass transit solutions, despite instructions from the companies to their users, they were parked in lots of inconvenient places (e.g., in the middle of sidewalks, etc.), and frequently driven in a reckless manner (i.e., on sidewalks, in bike lanes, and in vehicular traffic), proving dangerous to users, other vehicle operators, and pedestrians.
In short, the introduction of the motorized scooters created numerous negative externalities, the brunt of which landed primarily on city residents. More importantly these drawbacks were probably predicable.
What kind of lessons can we learn from the rolling out of motorized scooters?
There are probably two main ones:
• First, each new mobility option requires accommodations by the companies who want to enter a new market.
• Second, each municipality needs to do a better job protecting its citizens from the externalities.
As we move towards the adoption of autonomous driving vehicles, cities can’t simply rely on the private sector to know what’s best for the public.
Municipalities must be proactive if they are going to minimize the negative effects of new mobility solutions on the people who not only work in the cities but live there too.
Mobility solutions may look like fun, be relatively easy to access, and have lower impact on the environment, but they can also not be what they are cracked up to be.
Photo Credit
“The site of a car–scooter collision in New York City”
Andrew Henkelman
Electric scooter Crash in New York City, scooter was driving in a bike lane and the taxi was making a left hand turn
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2022-02-10-at-9.15.38-AM.png7041076Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-02-10 14:35:092024-09-22 12:23:37The Plague of Motorized Scooters in our large Cities?
Although criminal law is an important guiding force, most criminal justice practitioners have a considerable amount of discretion how they do their job. For example, police (i.e., patrol officers) make decisions about whether they will stop, question, search, ticket, warn or arrest suspects. Correctional officers decide if they are going to intervene when they see inmates commit institutional infractions. And Prosecutors, typically with the assistance of a grand jury, make decisions regarding if it is worth their while to charge an individual or organization with a crime, and what types of crimes they suspect an entity to be guilty of.
This brings us to the recent case where the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged eleven people, members of the far-right Oath Keepers, with seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
Among the numerous questions that public has regarding the January 6th insurrection, we don’t specifically know why the DOJ prosecutors decided to charge these Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy. In order to answer this question, we would need to directly ask the lead prosecutor and the team. And predictably they are not going to tell us why before a possible trial, and even if they were willing to talk to us, there is no guarantee that they will be honest.
That being said, historically prosecutors have been reluctant to use political crime kinds of charges because they open up lots of complications. Judges and juries are not familiar with these types of criminal offences; they are complicated to explain to a judge or jury, and thus in any charging document more weight is given to more typical kinds of crime (i.e., murder, attempt murder, etc.). More specifically, there is not a lot of precedent in recent years for these kinds of charges, nor convictions connected to them. And there are some pretty common defenses that are percolating in legal circles surrounding this case.
But a skillful prosecution should be able to convince a judge and jury that it’s not a matter of simply exercising free speech.
In short, prosecutors had to choose between sedition and treason and in some respects seditious conspiracy is a compromise charge. In short sedition is “Advocating (typically through speech other kinds of communications) the overthrow of a government.” (Ross, 2012, p. 41) And treason is, “Participating in the overthrow of a government (e.g., engaging in war against your own government, giving aid to enemies of your government)” (Ross, 2012, pp. 44-46).
More specifically, there are probably four reasons why seditious conspiracy charges may have been chosen for the Oath Keepers at this stage of the prosecutions against the Capitol rioters.
1. Over the past year, Democrats, or at least people who supported Biden, have been wondering why no explicitly political charges have been used against participants in the insurrection. The current charging may be a way to mollify this criticism.
2. The prosecution has charged the eleven Oath Keepers with a handful of other crimes and are likely to secure convictions on at least some of them, and the length of sentence is respectable (i.e., quite lengthy).
3. The seditious conspiracy charges may be a way for prosecutors to test these criminal cases to see how things work out because they will learn how to best apply them to bigger fish like former President Donald Trump and his inner circle.
4. Prosecutors may not have had sufficient evidence that they believed was necessary to convict the Oath Keepers until now. Prosecutors have laid charges against the so-called low hanging fruit. And they may be methodically building their case (or at least we hope so) against more important players in the January 6th insurrection.
Other than that we will need to wait and see how these charges play out and what kinds of behind the scenes deals the accused and their lawyers make with federal prosecutors. This will give us a taste of what is to come.
Photo Credit
By Myotus – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104620894
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Oath_Keepers-Billboard_Pine_River_MN_July_2015-scaled.jpg19202560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-02-03 16:57:322022-02-03 16:57:32Making Progress? Why were seditious conspiracy charges used against the Oath Keepers?
Why quick fix solutions to crime and criminal justice challenges don’t and won’t work
/by Jeffrey Ian RossYou’ve heard and seen them. They include some of our elected and appointed officials, wanna be politicians, heads of organizations, and pundits that appear in our news media feeds complaining about crime rates, and the institutions we’ve created and entrusted to respond to this social problem.
They decry the uptick in crime, the brazenness of today’s criminals, and the general moral depravity of society. This loose collection of individuals are quick to blame someone (e.g., an elected politician, single mothers, etc.), an entity (e.g., the family, or a branch of the criminal justice system (CJS), etc.), or some new trend in society (e.g., social media, etc.).
The rhetoric of these critics temporarily standing in front of or holding a microphone (or bullhorn for that matter), may sound credible at the time, allows them to catch a headline or two, score some political points, and maybe even bolster the fledgling ratings of news organizations, but it’s the same old thing. The subtext is elect or appoint me, I will do a better job, I have new ideas, or the guts to do something about the real criminal justice problems where others have failed.
These individuals often argue that what we really need is more laws, police, correctional facilities, lengthier prison sentences, harsher prison conditions, equipping police with better tools, etc. But after a careful review these so-called “solutions” are overly simple. And if their proposals sound new, then they are usually old wine in new bottles.
To be certain, criminal justice related challenges have existed since the creation of laws and organizations designed to respond to individuals and organizations that break them.
Murder, robbery, assault, etc. are not going away anytime soon. And there are no quick fix solutions.
More importantly, we can’t simply delegate the management of crime and people who engage in criminal activity to elected officials like mayors, chiefs of police or public safety, or the individual branches of the CJS, and wash our hands of the problem. This approach is not vigilanteeism or taking the law into our own hands.
So why do so many of our leaders or those who aspire to leadership positions play the blame game?
The public loves quick fix solutions. In fact they are socialized into this way of thinking. Got a medical problem, surely it’s easily diagnosable, and there’s an appropriate drug to take that will give you instant relief. Worried about your state of affairs, seek distraction by grabbing a drink or getting high, rather than confronting the problem.
And why are the previously mentioned targets quickly blamed? It’s easy. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of bad political leaders and heads of criminal justice agencies. But that’s not my point.
Why is blaming politicians, branches of the CJS and the heads of these agencies bad?
It’s an overly simple approach to a real and persistent problem and it’s part of what got us to where we are now. This tactic appeals to people who think that it’s easy to solve the crime and justice challenges of America.
The problem with the new and improved solutions approach is that it takes the focus away from the more labor intense processes and issues, the ones that are harder to solve, like encouraging people to take individual responsibility and stop blaming others, the development of quality interpersonal relations, the improvement of family dynamics, providing adequate resources to schools that teach meaningful content and not to the test or are staffed with instructors whose primary job is classroom management.
How do we change this state of affairs?
In the short term, if we are going to implement meaningful change in the reducing crime and improving the criminal justice agencies tasked with responding to crime and criminals we need to base our decisions on empirical research. It exists and it is conducted by experts. And there are methods to determine who and who is not an expert. The system is not perfect. But we need to avoid a tendency to ignore the results, and the policy recommendations, even when it’s not politically convenient.
In the long term, the real work needs to be done in our personal relationships, families, neighborhoods and communities. Values of equity and fairness need to be emphasized, and we have to question and avoid the winner takes all approach at all costs.
This strategy might also consider looking towards those countries that are similar to the United States but have less crime. Indeed there are subtle differences in the ways that those societies are arranged, but maybe we should seriously consider emulating some of the more helpful processes (e.g., ones that encourage social solidarity) in those nations.
In the end, I’m not suggesting some sort of utopian society, but it’s time to stop advocating the quick fixes and choose ones that have been empirically proven to work.
GotCredit
Solution Key
Solution on Keyboard
The Plague of Motorized Scooters in our large Cities?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossWhat’s not to like? In general, scooters are a low cost and low environmental impact mobility solution ideally suited for urban environments. Not only do they enable people to get from one place to the other above ground, but they can also provide a needed cheap rush of adrenalin when operators dodge vehicles, parked cars, and temporary structures that restaurants have erected.
Scooters have had a long history, but sales of this item started increasing shortly after 2000 when Micro Mobility systems developed and started selling their collapsible metal razor to the public.
Soon consumers, from toddlers to senior citizens, started using this relatively cheap and convenient recreational toy, as a viable means of transportation.
In 2003, Micro Mobility introduced their electric kick scooter, also known as e-scooters or motorized scooters. Soon cheap imitations were manufactured and sold throughout the world. In addition to individuals purchasers, some enterprising corporations like Bird and Lime bought large numbers of these scooters to rent to users provided they downloaded an app on their smart phone and had a valid credit card.
Shortly thereafter rentable and dockless motorized scooters, just like bikes, started appearing and being used in big cities throughout the world.
In order to operate in the cities of most advanced industrialized countries, the motorized scooter companies that rented out their units needed official-government permission. Thus the businesses negotiated with city councils (or departments of transportation) about regulations considering how many scooters could be on the streets, places where the scooters could be used, and where they could be parked (e.g., docking stations). Today there is considerable variation among the municipal or state level ordinances regulating motorized scooters.
Over a period of time, due to a multiplicity of factors, licenses were extended, or terminated (e.g., New York City), new rental companies entered the market, others folded, or withdrew from certain markets, and the public reacted.
Although the scooters provide alternatives to private and mass transit solutions, despite instructions from the companies to their users, they were parked in lots of inconvenient places (e.g., in the middle of sidewalks, etc.), and frequently driven in a reckless manner (i.e., on sidewalks, in bike lanes, and in vehicular traffic), proving dangerous to users, other vehicle operators, and pedestrians.
In short, the introduction of the motorized scooters created numerous negative externalities, the brunt of which landed primarily on city residents. More importantly these drawbacks were probably predicable.
What kind of lessons can we learn from the rolling out of motorized scooters?
There are probably two main ones:
• First, each new mobility option requires accommodations by the companies who want to enter a new market.
• Second, each municipality needs to do a better job protecting its citizens from the externalities.
As we move towards the adoption of autonomous driving vehicles, cities can’t simply rely on the private sector to know what’s best for the public.
Municipalities must be proactive if they are going to minimize the negative effects of new mobility solutions on the people who not only work in the cities but live there too.
Mobility solutions may look like fun, be relatively easy to access, and have lower impact on the environment, but they can also not be what they are cracked up to be.
Photo Credit
“The site of a car–scooter collision in New York City”
Andrew Henkelman
Electric scooter Crash in New York City, scooter was driving in a bike lane and the taxi was making a left hand turn
Making Progress? Why were seditious conspiracy charges used against the Oath Keepers?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossAlthough criminal law is an important guiding force, most criminal justice practitioners have a considerable amount of discretion how they do their job. For example, police (i.e., patrol officers) make decisions about whether they will stop, question, search, ticket, warn or arrest suspects. Correctional officers decide if they are going to intervene when they see inmates commit institutional infractions. And Prosecutors, typically with the assistance of a grand jury, make decisions regarding if it is worth their while to charge an individual or organization with a crime, and what types of crimes they suspect an entity to be guilty of.
This brings us to the recent case where the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged eleven people, members of the far-right Oath Keepers, with seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
Among the numerous questions that public has regarding the January 6th insurrection, we don’t specifically know why the DOJ prosecutors decided to charge these Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy. In order to answer this question, we would need to directly ask the lead prosecutor and the team. And predictably they are not going to tell us why before a possible trial, and even if they were willing to talk to us, there is no guarantee that they will be honest.
That being said, historically prosecutors have been reluctant to use political crime kinds of charges because they open up lots of complications. Judges and juries are not familiar with these types of criminal offences; they are complicated to explain to a judge or jury, and thus in any charging document more weight is given to more typical kinds of crime (i.e., murder, attempt murder, etc.). More specifically, there is not a lot of precedent in recent years for these kinds of charges, nor convictions connected to them. And there are some pretty common defenses that are percolating in legal circles surrounding this case.
But a skillful prosecution should be able to convince a judge and jury that it’s not a matter of simply exercising free speech.
In short, prosecutors had to choose between sedition and treason and in some respects seditious conspiracy is a compromise charge. In short sedition is “Advocating (typically through speech other kinds of communications) the overthrow of a government.” (Ross, 2012, p. 41) And treason is, “Participating in the overthrow of a government (e.g., engaging in war against your own government, giving aid to enemies of your government)” (Ross, 2012, pp. 44-46).
More specifically, there are probably four reasons why seditious conspiracy charges may have been chosen for the Oath Keepers at this stage of the prosecutions against the Capitol rioters.
1. Over the past year, Democrats, or at least people who supported Biden, have been wondering why no explicitly political charges have been used against participants in the insurrection. The current charging may be a way to mollify this criticism.
2. The prosecution has charged the eleven Oath Keepers with a handful of other crimes and are likely to secure convictions on at least some of them, and the length of sentence is respectable (i.e., quite lengthy).
3. The seditious conspiracy charges may be a way for prosecutors to test these criminal cases to see how things work out because they will learn how to best apply them to bigger fish like former President Donald Trump and his inner circle.
4. Prosecutors may not have had sufficient evidence that they believed was necessary to convict the Oath Keepers until now. Prosecutors have laid charges against the so-called low hanging fruit. And they may be methodically building their case (or at least we hope so) against more important players in the January 6th insurrection.
Other than that we will need to wait and see how these charges play out and what kinds of behind the scenes deals the accused and their lawyers make with federal prosecutors. This will give us a taste of what is to come.
Photo Credit
By Myotus – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104620894