Two statements-and some huge omissions-sum up the obsolete thinking that plagues development of a 21st century crime policy for San Francisco, an issue receiving more attention after new police reports show homicides have increased. “Nothing that I have tried to resolve has been more frustrating and vexing than solving the issue of why a 14-year-old would take the life of a 15-year-old with a weapon of war,” Mayor Gavin Newsom told the Chronicle on January 1. And unnamed community…
Blog Jan 6, 2009
Dreams from the Monster Factory
Sunny Schwartz writes about her extraordinary work transforming the San Francisco jails from “monster factories” that foster violence, rage, and better criminals, into places that could change criminals for the better.
Blog Jan 5, 2009
Media Hype and Distortion
A recent column by Steven Levitt in the New York Times on the subject of homicide is unusual. In this column he is referencing a recent study by James Fox of Northwestern University. Fox is one of the most often quoted criminologists in the country when it comes to homicide (here’s the link to his report ). The media are typically selective in their treatment of the subject of crime. Typical headlines dealing with Fox’s report include this one from the New York Times: “Homicides by Black…
Blog Jan 5, 2009
Remembering Lloyd Ohlin
The death of Lloyd Ohlin in December 2008 was a great loss to the juvenile justice reform world because he was a scholar and a reformer. A University of Chicago trained sociologists, Professor Ohlin was best known for his seminal work Delinquency and Opportunity, which he co-authored with Richard Cloward another prominent sociologist. Published in 1960, the book is considered a classic because it was a thorough examination of the influence of social conditions such as poverty on…
Blog Jan 5, 2009
The Trouble in Antioch
As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white San Francisco Bay Area suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren, the Associated Press reported on December 30. As Antioch’s black population escalated sharply over the last decade to 16% of the city’s 101,000 residents in 2007, “longtime homeowners complained that the new arrivals brought crime and…