Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Marijuana legalization in Colorado: the good, the bad and the ugly
High there! As Virginia politicians scramble to stake out positions on reforming marijuana laws in the Old Dominion ahead of this November’s elections, it is useful to look at the actual experience in Colorado after five years of legal recreational marijuana sales. There is no universally accepted source of truth regarding the success or failure…
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Recidivism Revisited
As has been noted in previous posts on this blog (here and here), the latest three-year recidivism rate of offenders released from the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) was the lowest in the nation. In fact, DOC had the lowest rate in the nation for the last three reporting periods. DOC can justly be proud…
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2018: Murders Fall, Assaults and Sex Crimes Nudge Higher
Virginia media gave scant attention to the publication of the 2018 Crime in Virginia report — perhaps because there were no dramatic headlines to be dredged from the statistics. The most encouraging news is that the murder rate declined measurably — from 5.37 murders per 100,000 population in 2017 to 4.59 murders in 2018 —…
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Virginia-Based Capital One Hacked
Who let the dogs data out? McLean-based Capital One has been hacked in one of the largest data breaches ever. A single hacker with apparent mental health issues managed to copy 100 million credit card applications and accounts. The seeming ease with which the hacker compromised what should have been ironclad security is shocking. The…
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Differences in Arrest Rates for Marijuana Offenses across Virginia Localities
Data exhaust. In a relatively recent BR post “Marijuana arrests and racism in Virginia (especially Arlington County)” I examined the disparity between black and white Virginians when it comes to arrests for marijuana possession. My conclusion that African-American Virginians are disproportionately arrested for marijuana possession came from data generated by a VCU Capital News Service…
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True: Marijuana Arrests in Virginia Still Climbing
Based on data from the latest Virginia State Police “Crime in Virginia” report, Attorney General Mark R. Herring recently noted that Virginia arrests for marijuana-related charges increased 3.5% in 2018, capping off a tripling of marijuana-related arrests since 2002. “While other states are moving to a more sensible approach to cannabis, Virginia is still moving…
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Police Antisocial Behavior, Not Addictions
In an 8-7 vote, a federal appeals court has struck down a Virginia law punishing “habitual” drunks. The law targeted homeless people struggling with alcoholism, thus “criminalizing an illness,” reports the Washington Post. Further, the court found the law to be unconstitutionally vague. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of this issue. Alcohol addiction…
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A Closer Look at the 2018 Hate Crime Data
The Virginia State Police have published their Crime in Virginia update for 2018, and it is worth noting what Attorney General Mark R. Herring is focusing on in a press release issued today — the fact that marijuana arrests increased 3.5% last year, more than tripling since 1999. No mention of hate crimes. Last year…
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2018 Hate Crimes Down
Looks like Attorney General Mark Herring will have to come up with a new campaign theme in his run for governor. It’s bad enough that he got caught up in the blackface scandal. Now the central premise of his campaign launch — that the nation was in the grip of a surge of white supremacist…
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STIs and Crime — a Moderate Connection
In recent days I have been examining correlates between various social/economic indicators and violent crime. I have found only a weak crime-poverty link and a weak crime-teen birth link, but a moderate connection between the percentage of single-parent households in a Virginia locality and violent crime. In this post, I show the connection between, of…
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Teen Births and Violent Crime — a Weak Connection
I’ll be the first to admit, giving me an Excel spreadsheet is the intellectual equivalent of handing a chimp a machine gun. What I don’t know about statistics would, well… it would fill a statistics textbook. But I abuse statistics less than most journalists, commentators, and politicians, who, to paraphrase renowned economist Ronald H. Coase,…
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Pious Platitudes about Poverty and Crime
The City of Petersburg has the highest homicide rate in Virginia, with 53.5 killings per 100,000 residents since 2013 — exceeding Virginia’s other homicide hot spots of Danville, Hopewell, Richmond, and Portsmouth. So reported the Richmond Times-Dispatch in a recent article. In talking to the RTD, Petersburg Police Chief Kenneth Miller was reluctant to blame…
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Herring Wrestles with Root Causes of Crime — and Comes up Short
Michael Herring, who has just announced his resignation as Richmond Commonwealth Attorney to become a law partner at McGuireWoods, has been an effective prosecutor. He has worked hand-in-glove with Richmond police, and the city has one of the highest murder-clearance rates of any inner-city jurisdiction in the country. But he’s become increasingly frustrated. After a…
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Illinois to Legalize Recreational Pot: Implications for Virginia
Legal tokin’ in the Land of Lincoln. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign Illinois’ recreational marijuana legalization bill tomorrow. Illinois, America’s sixth most populous state, will become the 11th state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The District of Columbia has also legalized the possession of ganja. This has implications for Virginia.…
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How Crime-Prone Students Worsen Educational Outcomes for Everyone
Exposure to crime-prone students in school has “large and significant” effects on test scores, school discipline and even adult criminal behavior, finds a new study by Stephen B. Billings and Mark Hoekstra published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Exposure to crime-prone peers in the same neighborhood also has an effect, but the negative influence…