Not long ago, at a nearby golf course, vandals caused tens of thousands in property damage. A newspaper account reported the damage at about $50,000, and included photos of the scene. I’m not a patron of the course, and don’t know the owners. I have, though, cycled past it many times. The course has always…
Crime
Crime, Health, Walworth County
The Long, Hard Roads
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Over at the Gazette, there’s a story entitled, Walworth County officials hope drug court for heroin addicts will start in June (subscription required). The story, from reporter Andrea Anderson, is about a hoped-for program of rehabilitation for heroin addicts. The program would apply to Walworth County residents, addicted to, and charged with possession of, heroin. If…
Crime, Elkhorn, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Police, Walworth County
The End of the Beginning
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Crime, Daily Adams, Local Government, Official Misconduct, Photography, Police, Technology
Local Policing and Point-of-View Cameras
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a story about my town’s (Whitewater, Wisconsin’s) decision to equip its on-patrol officers with point-of-view cameras. A small video camera will record officer interactions with residents. Reportedly, all interactions will be recorded, and at the end of each shift, officers [will] download all videos into a general file that would get deleted automatically after…
Crime, Government Spending, Local Government, Planning
Is This What Janesville’s Leaders Really Meant by ‘Regionalization’?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
About two months ago, Janesville’s City Manager, Eric Levitt, came to Whitewater asking for money to support a public transit bus to benefit Generac (and anyone else Janesville’s transportation director will undoubtedly throw into the mix to justify ten thousand from Whitewater and hundreds of thousands from taxpayers in total). During his appearance before Whitewater’s…
Crime, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty
The Beatles on Revolution and the Constitutional Order
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Not every election ends as one hopes. That’s true for major-party members, and at least as much for members of third parties. There are millions of people disappointed that Pres. Obama was re-elected, as there were many who were disappointed that Pres. Bush was re-elected. Neither outcome is what many Americans wanted, although in both…
Crime
Needless Risk
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Property crimes, of theft or vandalism, are inherently wrong: they deprive hardworking people of the products of their own efforts, to the benefit of the dishonest, destructive, or shiftless. When those crimes come with a threat of personal violence against their victims, they are even more serious. (Here one speaks of actual, verifiable threats, not…
Crime, Law
How to Tell a Tide’s Turning
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
After National Review repeatedly questions a grand policy, and the Wall Street Journal prints an essay against that same policy, the tide’s turned in a meaningful way. Bonus indicators: (1) defenders of the current policy have to justify it in ways they wouldn’t imagine necessary a decade earlier, and (2) David Frum – self-professed conservative…
Crime, Health, Law
Looking at the Forty-Years’ Drug War
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Wall Street Journal, Nobel laureate in economics Gary Becker and Univ. of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy ask, “Have We Lost the War on Drugs?” Their answer is that we have, and what Richard Nixon began in 1971 has been a forty-years’ failure: President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971.…
Crime, Health, Law, Laws/Regulations
Wisconsin and Marijuana and the Drug War
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Colorado and Washington State are backing away from the Drug War, having recently decriminalized minor marijuana offenses. The long-term prospects for widespread drug prohibition, of the kind we’ve had for a generation, aren’t good: it’s been too much money, and for no lasting gain. It’s a fair guess that by the 2033, the hundred-year anniversary…
Crime, Freedom of Speech, Politics
Simple Standards of Political Discourse
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One may express a few principles of political discourse succinctly: 1. Don’t destroy property. 2. Don’t use force against political opponents, either immediately or while destroying property. Over the last two years, countless Wisconsinites have voted, assembled, and protested with scarcely any property damage or violence. In this way, we have been a good example…
City, Crime
The Crude Illegitimacy of Vandalism
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a story today that a large, illuminated American flag display in Whitewater was vandalized. The worst crimes are, surely, crimes of violence against people. Yet among property crimes, not involving harm to a person, there’s a particularly crude aspect to vandalism. It’s a purely destructive property crime. The large display that was damaged this…
Crime, Law, Liberty
Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail — for Collecting Rainwater on His Property
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Is collecting rainwater that falls on your property a crime? It is in Oregon: A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater. Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal…
Animals, Crime, Poll
Update: Trainer videotaped hitting horse to be cited for animal abuse
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Here’s an update on the story that prompted last week’s poll, Animal Abuse or Necessary Technique?, about a trainer recorded hitting a horse with a plastic bat. Seventy-seven percent of respondents thought that kind of treatment was abusive, about fifteen percent weren’t sure, and nearly eight percent said it wasn’t. Dane county officials will cite…