FREE WHITEWATER

Crime

Over-Criminalization

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Anthony Cotton has an article online about Wisconsin’s criminal law, entitled, “Wisconsin needs to address over-criminalization.” Cotton writes that

A fundamental principle of the American justice system is individuals should not be subject to criminal prosecution and penalties unless they intentionally engage in inherently wrongful conduct or conduct that they know to be unlawful.

With this principle in mind, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, finished a long-term study on the dangers of over-criminalization.

The report, called “Without Intent,” found that by the end of 2007, the United States code included over 4,450 federal crimes. Many of these crimes have weak or no mens rea [intent] requirements. In response to this study, the House Judiciary Crime subcommittee held a hearing on over-criminalization, but to this day little meaningful reform has occurred.

The obvious danger of over-criminalization is that an increasing number of law abiding citizens will inevitably find themselves subject to criminal prosecution for behavior that is not inherently wrong.

….the same problems with over-criminalization exist here in Wisconsin. As evidence, one need only look at the local county jails and Huber (work release) facilities. So many people are locked up for so many offenses, that most facilities can no longer accommodate the inmates.

In response to these problems, many local sheriffs’ departments have elected to release Huber inmates on electronic monitoring. In some counties, such as Milwaukee, Dane and Winnebago, many Huber inmates will never serve a single day in custody – they will be placed on electronic monitoring and be required to remain in their residences during non-working hours.

The constant ratcheting up of criminal penalties has resulted in unintended consequences and a perverse situation the public is largely unaware of: more people face the prospect of more criminal charges (and with that, longer periods of time in jail), yet fewer people are actually serving that time in a jail setting.

When everything becomes a crime, nothing will be meaningfully criminal.

There’s a second problem, of criminal penalties: we are foolish to rely so much on penalties, even Draconian ones, to prevent criminal behavior. We have made, and will continue to make, criminal all sorts of behavior, but injuries from crimes still plague our cities and towns.

We’re well-past time for invigorated preventions efforts.

Every time someone drinks and drives, injuring or killing another, the criminal law has failed to deter an immeasurable and irreparable loss. Nothing the law offers, no human effort, can truly compensate a family or make a person so injured whole again. We use these terms, not for their literal accuracy, but as mere approximations of a justice we cannot deliver

And yet, and yet, we repeat a demand for greater penalties, at great cost to our state, while thinking less of public and private efforts to reform conduct. We will raid house after house, with so many people chasing each other, and stumbling around, but months later we will have the same problems we did before, now more covert, distributed more widely in smaller groups.

I’ll not argue against more stringent penalties, but I’ll wager that no penalties we impose will alone be sufficient.

We have wealth enough to persist as we have persisted for decades yet to come, but that persistence — that stubborn reliance on criminalization and punishment alone — will not prevent countless additional injuries.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.25.11

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Good morning.

It’s thunderstorms ahead for the Whippet City, with a high temperature of fifty-nine.

There are myriad animals and plants on earth, and more species are being discovered all the time.  Arizona State University has dedicated an institute, the International Institute for Species Exploration, to cataloguing new discoveries.  They’re out with their 2011 list of Top Ten Species Discoveries.  Explorers have come upon previously unrecorded animals like a barking spider, pollinating cricket, Louisiana pancake batfish, and a bioluminescent mushroom.

What’s that batfish look like?  Exotic and other-worldly, only it’s from among the diversity of this world:

Image courtesy Arizona State University.

Government Spending, School District

On Whitewater Schools’ Proposed Budget Cuts

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The Whitewater Unified School District has a public meeting scheduled for Thursday, May 26th at 7 p.m. on proposed budget cuts. A list of those proposed cuts appears at the bottom of this post, along with an embedded video of the latest school board meeting (from 5.16.11).

These cuts (the 5.20 proposal) are significant and fair. There’s sure to be someone who’s legitimately upset about a program being cut, but if we are to have prudent governance of this district, these cuts are necessary. It will be a test of board’s resolve to enact them. If even this is not possible, the failure to follow through will be a harbinger of worse problems.

The estimated savings is about one-half million dollars, and nothing is better evidence that the district can cut significantly and still maintain core services. This should be a positive example for the City of Whitewater, where cuts are long overdue (with only two members of council having proposed significant cuts during last year’s budget discussion.)

There’s one note — a considerable one — of caution in the district’s proposal, that emerges after reviewing an earlier version, from 5.06. The 5.20 version properly includes cuts to individual leadership benefits to approximate cuts to individual teachers’ benefits.

(Embarrassingly, the 5.20 proposal calls these cuts ‘voluntary.’ Voluntary: what else would they be? Unless brigands broke into Central Office, and stole from the benefits packages of each and every principal or administrator, of course these leadership cuts would be voluntary.)

Here’s the significant problem of outlook and ethos: these leadership cuts should have been in the first proposal (5.06), and been the first cuts of any kind. One leads by example, and if one is to lead those who experience salary, benefit, or program cuts, then one must accept his or her own cuts first.

This is no trivial matter — to whom much is given, much is expected. The leaders of this district — as with the leaders of the City of Whitewater — should understand that they must be the first to experience cutbacks. There is no principled alternative. There never was, there never will be.

These cuts are a step in the right direction, but as with much else in uncertain fiscal times, they’re likely only a first step.



Budget Reduction Recommendations for the 2011-2012 School Year *

(items appear in alphabetical order)

(revised 5/20/11)

4K and Head Start Program

Restructuring 4K district and UW-W staff $15,000

Additives (language per CBA)

Eliminate MS weight room supervision-$705, HS fitness classroom/weight room supervision- $940, HS W Club -$705- $2,350

Athletics

Reduce 1 varsity football coach – $3,290

Eliminate HS boy’s tennis and HS girl’s golf programs -$6,000

Buildings and Grounds

Eliminate Buildings and Grounds Director (non-represented position) and work with independent contract to devise a district capital plan – $20,000

Lawn care contract renewed at lower rate than the 2010-11 school year – $5,000

Building Budgets

5% reduction of all building budgets – $30,000

5% reduction of central office budget- $6,000

Building Leadership Teams

Eliminate elementary building leadership teams – $8,000

Core Academics

Reduce @HS .83 Science – $62,250

Eliminate Washington school bubble teacher (5th) and create LV multi-age (1st -2nd) classroom – $75,000

District Leadership Team

Voluntarily opened up contracts to contribute to Wisconsin Retirement System ($58,000) and health insurance ($22,000) – $80,000

Diversified Services

Reduce services by $10,000

Physical Education

Do not fill Lincoln PE position, transfer (.75) PE from MS to LN

.50 PE from HS to LV and .50 PE stays at HS

Reduce district wide PE by .25FTE – total of all departmental changes – $90,000 for all adjustments

Related Arts

Reduce FACE @ HS by .25 FTE- $12,750

Reduce @ MS .25 FTE (Introduction to World Cultures at 6th, Spanish and French remain@ 7th/8th) -$18,750

Title II

Receive approval for LINCS multi-age and inquiry based teacher trainer to be funded by Title II – $81,125

Total budget reduction- $525,515

Total FTE reduction district wide – <.50> district wide

*All items listed are predicated on Board approval and pending health insurance rates.

* All FTE calculations except the Title II position were based on a 1.0 FTE @ $75,000.


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Cartoons & Comics, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.24.11

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Good morning.

Our forecast for Tuesday is for a partly cloudy day, with a high temperature of sixty-two degrees.

Whitewater’s Police Commission meets tonight at 6 p.m.  in open session.  The meeting agenda is available online.

Over at Wired, there’s a video in which cartoonist Bobby Boyle of the children’s character Wubbzy shows how easy it is to draw cartoons.  Step-by-step instructions for drawing Wubbzy are available online.  Cartoons are very much a part of our popular culture, and have been for generations.

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Economy, Free Markets

AP: “In free market, seeds of Africa’s food solution”

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There’s an encouraging story about Africa today, from the Associated Press, about the power of free market to overcome chronic famine.

Peter Waziweyi is bouncing around the lush countryside of Mozambique in his 30-year-old truck, visiting his customers’ maize fields and relishing the sight of their rich, ripening crops.

In an East African country that tried and failed to run its economy on Marxist lines, it is now the turn of small-time businessmen like Waziweyi to step forward. Waziweyi is a seed salesman and part of a chain linking scientists and farmers that experts hope will help Mozambique and other African countries solve their chronic food crises.

Waziweyi has gone from aid worker to entrepreneur, producing high-yield, drought-resistant hybrid seeds and selling them through the company he and his wife founded last year, called “Nzara Yapera” – “an end to hunger”….

There is no economic match — in most aspects of life — for the freedom of markets in capital, goods, and labor.

If there is to be a solution to third-world hunger, it will be found no sooner than when formerly socialist, often Marxist, nations liberalize into market economies.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.23.11

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Good morning.

It’s a rainy day ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of seventy-six degrees.

The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that on this day in 1878,

Tornadoes Devastate[d] Three Counties
On this date destructive storms swept through Dane, Jefferson, and Iowa Counties. Accounts of the storms indicate that three separate tornadoes touched down causing damage to farm buildings, land, and livestock. Two people died as a result and many others sustained serious injuries. The property loss was estimated at $63,000 in Iowa County, $43,000 in Dane County, and $23,000 in Jefferson County. [Source: The Wisconsin Mosaic]

Here’s video of a recent tornado, hitting near Sparta on 5.22.11:



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Twitter

Recent Tweets, 5.15 – 5.21

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Hopeless: Gingrich Tells Limbaugh That His Phrase ‘Right-Wing Social Engineering’ Was Not A Reference To Ryan Plan http://bit.ly/mTQMF1
19 May

Amazon now sells more Kindle than print books Amazon News Release http://bit.ly/kBul6I
19 May

Citizen to candidate Newt Gingrich: “Get out now before you make a bigger fool of yourself” YouTube http://bit.ly/iEpzFk
17 May

Does anyone think he had much of a chance anyway? Newt’s Terrible No Good Very Bad Day(s) http://on.msnbc.com/mPcAZ8
17 May

MT @dailywisconsin: Embarrassing if, as Mike Allen implies, Politico scooped WI press: Thompson Plans to Run for Senate http://bit.ly/lA7i1a
17 May

America, you can sleep well tonight: Donald Trump says he is not running for president @Jaketapper http://abcn.ws/jCFBMm
16 May

FDA was *armed* during raid RT @reasonmag: Raw Milk Raid on Amish Farmer Highlights Stupid #FDA Tactics http://bit.ly/lihn36
16 May

RT @davidgumpert: 200 raw milk supporters gathering outside Russell Seate bldg Go Milk!
16 May

Walter Russell Mead offers fine assessment of what’s wrong with American elite Establishment Blues | Via Meadia http://bit.ly/j6XbFc
16 May

Books, Free Markets

Wall Street Journal Book Review: Your Teacher Said What?!

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When asked if it wasn’t hypocritical for a multimillionaire director of Hollywood films to denounce capitalism as “evil,” Michael Moore averred that the free-market economy “did nothing for me.” It was, presumably, a devotion to Sandinista economics that enabled his purchase of an expensive Upper West Side apartment and covered his daughter’s private-school tuition. While Mr. Moore’s gift for self-absurdity is rare, it is common to find capitalism’s beneficiaries bemoaning a system that generously rewards their talent and perseverance.

Such disapproval is not merely hypocritical and incoherent, says Joe Kernen, but wrong on the merits. In “Your Teacher Said What?!,” Mr. Kernen, a co-host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” undertakes to demystify and defend the free market, not least for his 10-year-old daughter, Blake, who frequently peppers him with questions about how prices are set and whether or not greed is good….

Via Book Review: Your Teacher Said What?! – WSJ.com.

Your Teacher Said What? is available ay Amazon, in print and electronic editions.

 

Comment Forum

Weekend Comment Forum: Wisconsin’s Voter ID Bill

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Readers know that I’m opposed to a voter photo ID bill, now on its way to Gov. Walker for signature next Wednesday. See, Gov. Walker to Sign Voter ID Bill on Wednesday.

There are several reasons to oppose the bill: we don’t have a problem that warrants so significant a change, thousands of now-lawful voters will be disenfranchised, vulnerable and minority populations will be disproportionately affected, providing photo identification will cost millions, and one’s fundamental right as a citizen to vote for representatives of an instrumental state is not dependent on any particular document. One is a citizen as a matter of fact, not procedure.

I see nothing libertarian in these restrictions.

Still, these are only a few starting-points. Others may have convincing arguments to the contrary.

There’s a poll, below, for those who’d like to participate that way.

There’s a challenge, too. Of the City of Whitewater’s two state legislators, there is a difference of opinion on this bill: Sen. Tim Cullen of the 15th Senate District opposes this legislation, but Rep. Evan Wynn of the 43rd Assembly District supports it. For those who support this legislation (and advance the supporting legislator prominently at every photo opportunity), here is your chance to defend support of this bill.

This website has more readers each day than another that supports, so to speak, the local legislative supporter of this bill. If one has a case to make on behalf of these voting restrictions, it will find a larger and wider audience here. Now, one may be able to show, convincingly, that I’m wrong about all this, and that voter ID legislation is a good idea. But if one can’t or won’t, well, that’s a powerful case all its own.




The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings is, of course, fine. Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.

The forum will be open until Sunday morning, and this post will stay at the top of the website during that time.

City, Development, Economy

Whitewater’s May 17th Common Council Meeting

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Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, embedded below, included a discussion of Whitewater’s calculation and charges for new construction permits. That discussion takes places from 21:50 to 31:20.

Of that discussion, there were two positive changes to Whitewater’s current policy: (1) that the city should calculate new-construction permit costs by square footage, and (2) that the rate the city charges should be that of our lowest neighboring city (Jefferson). The overwhelming majority of the Council saw the value in these changes. That’s encouraging.

Calculating Fees.

Commercial ordinances should follow business practices. If builders (and other communities) typically calculate by square footage, then fees should be assessed this way. Complicated municipal efforts to calculate fees by supposed value are as much guesswork as anything else. We’ve made the right decision to calculate in a simple way.

Much of the first part of the twentieth century involved an effort to craft commercial codes to reflect actual business practices. That makes sense: commercial ordinances should be written in the language, and address the daily behavior, of businesspeople.

Staying Competitive.

It was sensible to match, at the least, the lowest fee charged nearby. Matching a city of similar size wouldn’t achieve a competitive advantage; it would merely makes us less uncompetitive than presently. Matching the lowest rate charged elsewhere achieves a better competitive result.

Whitewater’s Goal.

Our goal should not be the status-quo goal of matching existing (or confusing) rates elsewhere. It should be that of offering a comparative advantage over rival cities. The way to do this is to match the lowest price elsewhere, and offer superior service through a welcoming approach and streamlined process. Something like this —

WHITEWATER:
The Finest Service at the Lowest Cost

I’m not a slogan-maker, but one sees my point.

The alternative is unappealing, and will get us nowhere:

WHITEWATER:
Our Costs are About Average, But We Know You Really Don’t Care About That Anyway

It’s a serious misunderstanding to think that the rate selected doesn’t make a difference. It does.

Trying to hold on to a certain number of cents per square foot misses a bigger goal: to show the world we strive, each day, for a more efficient and productive result — better service for less than rival places. That should be our goal, and we can only make that claim credibly if we establish a competitive price.

The low price is instrumental to something even more important: a deserved reputation in Wisconsin that no one will offer a better opportunity than Whitewater. That reputation doesn’t happen just by saying we’ll do better — it requires a concrete offer to businesses.

America’s Standard of Success.

We’re prosperous because we’re free, a freedom that offers this opportunity: that we can be productive, and make better products at lower costs. The resulting prosperity is part of the American Dream.

No one ever made a success of himself by saying ‘well, let’s not try harder, customers will pay what we charge, as they’ve no where else to go.’ America’s finest companies — leaders in all the world — are committed to making better products more cheaply and efficiently. Apple, Intel, and Ford offer people more today than last year, at lower costs.

Organizations that say costs don’t matter, value doesn’t matter, and that rates and quality should stay the same don’t succeed. Like GM, they declare bankruptcy, and beg federal taxpayers for bailouts.

Whitewater can do better than other cities, and when she does, and more people recognize the advantages we offer, they’ll join us, enriching all the community.

This was very good decision, in that direction.



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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.20.11

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Good morning.

It’s a cloudy day in the forecast for Whitewater, with a high temperature of seventy-one degrees.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls the participation of Wisconsin soldiers at the the battle of Vicksburg on this day in 1863:

1863 – (Civil War) Forces regroup at Vicksburg

After the unsuccessful assault on Vicksburg the previous day, Union forces regrouped in front of the city. The 1st Wisconsin Light Artillery and the 8th, 11th, 18th and 23rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments joined the 14th and 17th Infantries to prepare for the next attack. While these arrangements were taking place at Vicksburg, the 4th Infantry fought in a skirmish in Cheneyville, Louisiana.