Anna Flagg writes Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data: In one of Donald J. Trump’s earliest moves as president, days after his inauguration, he revived the deportation program known as Secure Communities. Proponents argue that it helps prevent crime and also increases the police’s ability to solve crime through collaboration with federal…
Crime
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Crime, Culture, Distraction, Newspapers, University, UW System, Wisconsin
Truth-Telling and Tale-Weaving
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
In conditions of real injury, in which truth-telling is important, tale-weaving about irrelevant matters is worse than wasteful: it’s a misdirection from the significant to the insignificant. Three recent stories illustrate the critical difference between these approaches. As a truth-telling story, Hope Kirwan of Wisconsin Public Radio reports ‘Students Deserve To Be Heard’: UW-La Crosse…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Ethics, Law
‘Keeping Harvey Weinstein’s Secrets’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Harvey Weinstein is responsible – directly and personally – for his actions. Others, however, assisted him in concealing his violent coercion. Astonishingly, as the New York Times reports, some of those who aided Weinstein were – of all people – attorneys who made public careers as victims’ rights advocates. The two podcasts embedded below detail…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Law
Unbelievable
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In December 2015, T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project published An Unbelievable Story of Rape, about a woman (her middle name is Marie) who was raped, pressured to recant her account, and later found herself charged with a misdemeanor offense. In fact, she was raped, her attacker was later…
Crime, Depravity, Nihilism, Resistance, Violence
Why We (Now) Fight
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
American director Frank Capra, among others, was responsible for the Why We Fight series of films during the Second World war. The films helped American soldiers understand what was at stake in a war with the Axis powers. At bottom, it wasn’t Capra’s talent (although he was talented) that supplied the answer to the question why…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Trump
What Trump’s ‘Not My Type’ Defense Means
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Writing at The Atlantic, Megan Garber explains The Real Meaning of Trump’s ‘She’s Not My Type’ Defense (‘The president, in attempting to downplay E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegation against him, isn’t talking about attraction. He’s talking about protection‘): There is, as always, a certain clarity to Trump’s cruelty. The president seems to understand, on some level,…
Bad Ideas, Crime, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Misconduct
From Festival to Alleged Felony
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One now reads – sadly, any normal person might have expected – that the promoter of Jefferson Wisconsin’s shabby Warriors & Wizards festival faces the prospect of felony charges for theft and misrepresentation. See Warriors & Wizards Fest organizer Cramer charged with theft. 1. Unfortunate, All Around. I’ve been a critic of this festival, and those…
Charity, Crime, Immigration, Trump
Charity as Crime
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Courts, Crime, Drug War, Health, Law, Walworth County
Treatment Courts as Practical Success Stories
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Treatment courts, whether for drunk driving or drug abuse, have been successful in jurisdictions across the country. Counties from coast to coast – red or blue – have seen positive outcomes from judicially-overseen treatment programs. Despite this, there’s been opposition to a drug treatment court in rural Walworth County, sadly beset by addictions of various…
Crime, Immigration
No Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Anna Flagg, in Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime?, reports on the latest study finding no such link: A lot of research has shown that there’s no causal connection between immigration and crime in the United States. But after one such study was reported on jointly by The Marshall Project and The Upshot last year, readers…
Crime, Newspapers, Press
Clever? Not Really…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads that the Daily Union, a local paper chasing alleged embezzlement first reported in the Janesville Gazette, has decided to grab the story and add a supposedly clever headline: Honest to goodness, how does editor Chris Spangler expect ordinary people to keep up with a subtle headline like that? One needs to take a…
Crime, Politics, Trump
Why Michael Cohen Is a Key Witness
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Crime, District Attorney, Walworth County
Walworth County D.A. Wiedenfeld’s Charging Push
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a story from the Janesville Gazette about how Walworth County’s district attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld is charging more frequently even as arrests in Walworth County are down significantly. See Walworth County DA charging more cases even though arrests are down. (For a post about Wiedenfeld’s insistence that he have a veto over judicial placements into…
Crime, Law, Trump
Circumstantial Evidence is Often Very Reliable
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Trump’s defenders – many of whom would otherwise support aggressive criminal prosecutions – sometimes argue that the case against Trump is merely circumstantial (no “direct evidence of collusion”). These apologists ignore what in other cases they might acknowledge: that circumstantial evidence can strongly, reasonably support a conclusion. Eric Swalwell and Chuck Rosenberg (as recounted by Natasha…