Five Myths about Crime Today

Myself and a prosecutor (I’m a criminal defense lawyer working in a public defender office in Minnesota) spoke to a group of mystery writers last night.  The prosecutor was actually the featured speaker although as we got into issues of criminal justice, the questions flew at both of us.  Here are some of them:

1.  We should just put the criminals in prison and throw away the keys.

Easy to say and it certainly makes us feel good.  People have the impression that most criminals are “getting away” with their crimes and aren’t paying the penalty.  The media feed this idea since they only report the few cases where someone does beat the system.  The reality is that the majority of people charged with crimes are found guilty and do pay the penalty.

Question is, what should the penalty be?

My prosecutor friend brought up several recent empirical studies that show short, intensive punishment combined with rehabilitation efforts tend to have the best results.  Why?

Putting aside the serial murderers and career criminals, I believe it’s because simply locking people away can be counter-productive.  For many of them, the hardest part is when the doors to the jail slam shut.  After months or even years, the deterrent effect of incarceration drops off.  So, it makes sense to send people for a limited amount of time–with supervised probation and release afterward.

2.  Criminals will never change–there’s no hope they’ll reform themselves.

Some psychologists maintain that criminals are people who have chosen to live a life of crime and will continue to do so no matter what we do to them.  I’m not sure this is true all the time.  I think that most criminals balance the risks of getting caught with the rewards of crime.  I believe some can be persuaded to go straight.  The best persuasion is a combination of prison and probation.

3.  Many criminals are drug addicts who commit crime to feed their habits. No.  I would say in my own experience that the majority of crimes are committed when people are high–by far alcohol is the most prevalent–when they commit crimes but they’re not doing the crime to make money to supply themselves with drugs.  And for all the attention to dangerous drugs, alcohol still remains the most widely abused chemical substance that leads to crime.

4.  The crime news in the papers never seems to end–crime is up.  It’s definitely down, especially since a peak during the 1980’s as measured by the FBI.  Violent crime and all types of crime are down significantly.  Why does it seem the opposite?  The news media report criminal acts–not the drop in crime.

5.  “Get tough on crime” laws and longer prison sentences deter crime. I don’t think so.  In my experience dealing with defendants charged with crime, the last thing they think about is getting caught and certainly, they never think about penalties.  The one area that’s different is in drinking and driving crimes.  People do think about that when taking another drink.  But particularly for crimes of passion and anger, very few people stop to think about the penalties–therefore, I don’t think tougher penalties act as a deterrent.

What are you ideas?  Get tougher?  More probation?  More community service?  What can we do?

Public Employee Unions=Too Expensive?

Is a Public Employee’s Union in California raising the cost of the prison system?  Should the prisons be sold to private companies to save the states money?

In my last post, I explored the movement across the country to privatize the prison systems in many states.  We looked at the high cost of maintaining prisons and one of the major reasons why the cost is suddenly so high–longer prison sentences and less chance for parole.

Starting in the 1980’s legislatures across the U.S. decided to “get tough on crime” by adding prison sentences to crimes that previously didn’t call for them and lengthening existing prison sentences, reducing the time on parole.

As a consequence, the prison populations in most states have sky-rocketed and so have the costs.

Before I look at an NPR story, I have to disclose that I am a member of a public employee union along with the prosecutors and public defenders in the county where I work.

A fascinating report from National Public Radio investigated the prison system in California.  See their story at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?

storyId=111843426

Besides the increased prison sentences, they found a curious connection between the California Correctional Peace Officers Association–a public employee union–and the rising costs of the prison system there.  The union has become one of the most powerful political forces in the state.  Over the years, it’s contributed millions of dollars in support of tougher laws and longer prison sentences.  Since these laws passed, the number of union correctional officers has grown from 2,600 to 45,000.  The average salary in 1980 was $15,000.  By 2009 one out of ten officers made over $100,000.

Talk about an increase in costs!

NPR found that most of the funding to support new laws that increased prison penalties came from a political action committee that the union created for the purpose of  promoting a “Victim’s Rights Group.”  Question: why is a public employee union of correctional officers supporting victim’s rights?  And why should locking people away for longer time do much to help victims?

Today in California, most of the Corrections Department budget goes for salaries and benefits of the union employees. (70%) While just 5% goes for education and vocational training for inmates to give them job skills so that when they’re released, they don’t have to commit crime to support themselves.  To me, investing in job skills is actually going to help potential victims since the paroled inmates won’t be committing as many crimes.

I’m not saying that public employee unions have caused the same result in every state–but it sure looks like it in California.

What should we do about it?

400 “Criminals” in One Room!

I just returned from a national writer’s convention in Santa Fe.  It’s called Left Coast Crime and I sat in the middle of almost 400 mystery writers.  Spooky…the only thing that could be worse would be sitting among 400 lawyers!

What would be most interesting for you is the wide variety of people who write mysteries/suspense stories and their ideas.  Almost any crime you could imagine has been written about.  The heroes/heroines include cops, private investigators, archeologists, little old ladies, female NASCAR drivers, cowboys, secret agents, bumbling professors, and even long-dead historical sleuths.

If any of you would like recommendations for books or writers beyond those I’ll list at the end of this post, please let me know.

The quality of the authors also impressed me.  They ranged through all ages and backgrounds.  One writer worked during the Viet Nam war as a  correspondent in Bangkok and was married to an engineer who was supposed to be building military bases in Viet Nam.   She learned from her journalist friends that he was really in the CIA!  (They remained married)  Another writer lived on a catamaran off the coast of England for a time.  Most of them are very intelligent and, even more importantly, curious about the world around them.

This fascination comes through in their writing, making their stories even deeper and more engaging.

Here are some suggestions for your mystery/suspense reading:

Western–  Murder for Greenhorns, Rob Kresge

Historical mystery–  City of Silver, Annamaria Alfieri

Humorous–  The Pot Thief Murder series, Mike Orenduff

Historical mystery–  SPQD, John Maddox Roberts

International mysteries–  The Charlie Fox series, Zoe Sharp

Gritty, street thriller–  Boulevard, Stephen Jay Schwartz

Humorous–  The Albuquerque Turkey, John Vorhous

Medical thriller–  Bone Dry, Bette Golden Lamb/J.J. Lamb

Archeology– Smoking Frog Lives, Pete Goodman.

NASCAR–  Dead Man’s Switch, Tammy Kaehler

Hope you enjoy some of these great authors!!  I can assure you that each one of them is an interesting, dedicated writer.

Let me know your recommendations for favorite authors!

Public Employees–Cut Back??

With all the national discussion about Public Employees, should we cut back on them?

Before you decide, I’ve got a short story to tell.

I have to disclose from the beginning that I am a public employee and anything I post in this blog is my own opinion and not that of any employer.

Several years ago, many studies were conducted in order to determine the costs/benefits of imprisoning convicted criminals.  After all, the United States puts more people in jail per capita than most other countries in the world.  Through the 80’s and 90’s there was a loud cry from the public to “get tough on crime.”  That meant increasing incarceration penalties for many offenses.

The federal government and many states passed legislation called “three strikes and you’re out,” which meant after three convictions for particular offenses, the criminals were committed to prison.

After several years of incarcerating more criminals, studies revealed the high cost of imprisoning people–and many citizens thought the costs to the taxpayer were too high.

Consequently, in the past ten years, many states have relaxed their imprisonment rules and have relied more on closely monitored probation sentences for many offenders.  Of course, the most hard-core murderers, robbers, drug sellers, and rapists still go to jail.  But those convicted of less serious offenses have been moved to probation status.

It made sense to many people since the costs of probation are minimal, particularly compared to prison where the taxpayer picks up the tab for room and board, education, health care, mental health services, and recreation.

However, to place people on probation and be assured the offenders will not re-offend requires a program of close supervision by trained probation officers.  Although the taxpayer pays for the salary and benefits of probation officers, including health and pension benefits, the total cost is a fraction of that spent on jails and prisons.

Makes sense, huh?

The current political move to “down-size” government and cut back on public employees means that a certain number of probation officers may have to be laid-off.  Or if not, no new hires in the coming years.

At the same time we are letting more people out of prison to be monitored by probation officers, the government is threatening to reduce the number of  public employees–which could include probation officers.  For several years, the judicial branch of government has seen drastic cut-backs in funding which translates to cut-backs in the supervision of offenders.

From my own perspective working in the court system, I’ve seen the results of these cut-backs.  Fewer probation officers labor under larger case loads–meaning they have less time to effectively pay attention to those offenders the officers are responsible for supervising.

I guess the easiest way to say it is:  you can’t have your cake and eat it too!  If taxpayers don’t want to pay for keeping offenders off the streets in prison, then they should be willing to fund for the close monitoring of criminals who are living in our communities.

Think about this when you hear people urging cut-backs in public employees.

An Undiscovered Crime

I’m thrilled because my new book Reprisal will be published September 1 and available for purchase in early September.

It’s a thriller/mystery about an undiscovered crime–terrorists plan to use American children as weapons of mass destruction.  Do you remember all the Somali young men who disappeared from the Twin Cities in the past two years?  They were kidnapped by terrorists in order to carry out their plot.

Small pox was eradicated from the planet in 1979.  As a result, no one has been immunized since then and earlier  inoculations have decayed in effectiveness.  Everyone in the world is vulnerable to the disease.  In 1979 two repositories were set up to store active, lethal viruses for future reasearch needs.  One is at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the other is in Russia.

When a radical Islamic terrorist group steals samples of the virus from Russia, they need human hosts to carry the disease into the schools and infect the entire community.   Led by a brilliant scientist embedded in Minnesota, the release is about to explode until one of the conspirators murders a Somali boy.

The lawyer for the accused murderer is a progressive, feminist American who’s a mainstream Muslim woman.  She hates everything her radical client stands for.  As she investigates the case in preparation for trial, she’s entangled in a race against time to save hundreds of children and the whole community.

One of the themes of the book is religious tolerance; the other is a call to action to mainstream Muslims to speak out against the hijacking of their faith.   The story will educate you about what it’s like to be an American citizen and a faithful, moderate Muslim fighting against the popular impression that all Muslims are extremists. In addition to the story, the defense lawyer goes through her days in court, representing a hilarious group of clients.  You’ll see the back room things that go on regularly and the crazy criminal things people really do.  The characters are based on real-life events, although it would be difficult to put these on reality TV since they’re too real for anyone to believe!

Check out my website to see my upcoming events and book signings.  You can also contact me and let me know how you liked the book.  I look forward to hearing from you. 

Enjoy the book!!

What Made Tom Petters Run?

 

In Minneapolis last week, business mogul Tom Petters was found guilty on all 20 counts for running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded people out of over $3 billion.  What kind of a person would do this?

Although I don’t know Mr. Petters, I’ve worked as a criminal defense lawyer for over 30 years and have represented/defended a few criminals like Petters but never anyone stealing such big. amounts.   Unlike other criminals types, these guys have a unique personality type that’s fascinating.  In addition, I had an uncle (long dead) who operated several scams and Ponzi schemes in the Twin City area before he was chased out of town.  I remember him well.

SKILLS;  Most of these types are very attractive–physically and personally.  You can’t help but like them.  They’re wonderful salesmen with all the skills of the best.  Charming and persuasive, they could lie big–without even a tug from their conscience.  Almost all were smart even if they weren’t well educated.

ATTITUDE:  My uncle and others I’ve represented, shared an attitude that combined arrogance with ambition–not unusal in many people.  The difference was the con men couldn’t wait for their ambiitons.  They couldn’t take the time and effort necessary to build a legitimate business.  Instead, they deserved immediate success.  Most thought they were smarter than others, therefore they didn’t have to wait like the rest of us to grow their businesses. 

Many came from poorer backgrounds and I suspect they harbored a deep suspicion that since things were stacked against them anyway, they may as well steal to get what they deserved.  Each sucker or victim they conned represented a score against the “system” the con men were trying to beat–like a game.  Another skill was the ability to lie convincingly to anyone.  The more intimidating the challenge, the greater the “game” was to the con man.

SECURITY:  Obviously, they coudn’t invest the money they stole so they spent it lavishly.  Security was irrelevant to them–they didn’t have any except for their brains and guts to pull off the next con.  I can’t think of many friends who could live peacefully without some security.  Imagine the type of person who has only their ability to score another con for tomorrow’s food.

Surprisingly, the defendants I’ve represented readily admit their crime when confronted but have always had an excuse or a lie about how things happened to avoid the penalty.

Do you know anyone like this?  What’s their story?  Tell me about the personalities.

Go to my web site at www.colintnelson.com

Somali Women Wonder Where Their Boys Went

Not only in Minneapolis/St. Paul are young Somali men (so young, each one is almost a child victim) mysteriously disappearing, it’s happening across the globe.  In a recent article from the StarTribune by James Walsh and Richard Meryhew, entitled, “Jihad draws young men across globe back to Somalia,” www.startribune.com,  it appears that the recruiting of these men is actually world-wide.

The disappearance of almost 20 men here in Minneapolis in the last few years alerted officials and the FBI to the possibility of recruitng to fight in Somalia.  Since Ethiopia (Christians) attacked Somalia (Muslims) some of these men left the Twin Cities to go back to fight in a group called El-Shabaab.  (People think)  It’s a form of human trafficking.

You may ask why law enforcement here was worried about what happened in Somalia.  If the Somali young men could be recruited to fight in Somalia, could they be recruited to fight back here for a war on America.

Having represented the Somali community for many years in the courts, I’ve found them to be warm, intelligent people.  However, they do not trust many others outside their own tribe.  Even within the Somali community, there are disagreements among the tribes, with some people feeling they are better than others. 

If I have difficulty communicating with them (many speak English) because of this distrust, imagine how difficult it is for law inforcement to get reliable, accurate information about the disappearance of the young men.   To a great degree, law enforcement depends on informants for information.  The word sounds bad but can include almost anyone with access to the community. 

So the common theory is the young men are recruited to fight in their homeland.  What if this theory is correct but incomplete?

Could there be more to the disappearances than we’ve discovered so far? 

Let me know if you think there’s more going on than merely freedom fighting in Somalia.  I’ve got an idea that formed the plot for my new book, “The Concealed Enemy,” coming out in Fall of 2010.  What do you think was really going on with the disappearing men?

Can You Imagine?

Try to imagine living in a neighborhood of small homes.  Your neighbors pay attention to each other and have become friendly.  Some even offer barbeque on the weekends in their front yards.

But there are odd things about this neighborhood that you learn after you’ve moved in.  For one thing, your next door neighbor is a sausage making plant, zoned in the middle of single family homes and a duplex.  Many people are unemployed.  Some homes are abandoned except for the scavengers who steal the copper pipe out of the buildings.  A few drug dealers operate on the edges of the neighborhood.

 You’ve even seen the guy next door laying naked on top of a woman in the bushes at the side of his house, during the day.  Your neighbor, standing beside you, asked him what he was doing. The man apologized and disappeared indoors with the woman.  This same man has a lot of women over to his home.  They come and go regularly.

Then, there’s the strange odor.

You and your neighbors assume it’s the sausage making plant on the corner.  You call the city, who checks things out.  The plant cleans every piece of their equipment and even cleans out the sewer leading  from their plant to the street.  Still, the odor persists.

It smells like a dead dog, like sewage, or rotting flesh.  Yet, the smell goes on for years as you live there.  Once again, the city investigates the sausage plant and forces them to do another cleaning of all their equipment.  Still, the smell persists.

One day, the police receive a tip about Anthony Sowell’s house–the guy who was naked in the bushes with the woman.  They investigate the registered sex offender’s home and start to find dead bodies–eleven of them in total–in various states of decay.

Can you imagine?  Living in this neighborhood?

How could this happen without anyone knowing?  If your neighborhood is like mine, the people are friendly and even get together a few times a year for a block party where we close off the street and drink beer outside.  We ask how things are going but there’s always a line beyond which most people won’t cross–we don’t want to be too snoopy.  Most of all, we don’t want to cause any friction on the block by calling the police on someone else.

In my experience, a couple two doors away (years ago) had obvious marital problems.  Many of us on the block suspected the husband of abusing his wife, perhaps even physically.  In private conversations with her on the front lawn, we made vague offers of help.  But none of us went any further.  The verbal fights and smashing sounds traveled down the street on hot summer nights.  They moved and I hope the wife is all right.

The point is, none of us ever called the police.  What would we say to the cops?  What hard evidence did we have?  Shouting and yelling?  Many couples do that without crossing the line into abuse.

Even with the putrid smell, maybe that’s what happened on the unusual street in Cleveland, Ohio.  What do you think?  How could the alleged murderer get away with eleven dead, rotting bodies on his property?  Let me know what you think.

Next post, I’ll talk about what it’s like to defend serial rapists in trials…

How can you defend a guilty person!?

It’s the question I get most of the time:  How can you possibly defend someone you know is guilty?  Especiall if it’s a horrible crime.  It’s easy to say “it’s my job,” “everyone has a right to a trial,” “I have an ethical duty…”  All true but then there’s the human part of every lawyer that is repulsed by the crime and/or client also.  That’s the hard part.  There have been a handful of creeps I’ve represented over the years that would make your/my skin crawl!

Technically, my job defending anyone is to force the State to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  If I have personal doubts as to my client’s innocence, I never even breathe the word “innocent.”  Instead, I remind the jury to evaluate the State’s case; the defendant is presumed innocent by the system.  The funny part is that I’ve rarely had a client admit they were guilty.  Even if it looked pretty obvious, they maintained their innocence.  And the more you get into a case, the murkier facts often become.  So many times, I’m not sure who’s innocent or guilty.

Maybe the best way to let you know how this feels is to tell you a story of a case I tried several years ago.

It involved a young man, about 17, who loved a girl and had a child with her.  They were both poor and struggled to make ends meet, take care of an infant, and try to put food on the table.  They lived together and one night when the boy–I’ll call him Jim–came home after looking for a job during the day, he found his girl having sex with another man on the couch of their apartment.

Jim erupted in anger and pain.  First, he kicked the other man out then turned on the woman.  A fight started and he strangled her to death by choking her with his hands.  That was gruesome enough but afterward, to divert attention from him–the obvious culprit–he stripped her body, spray-painted it in gang graffiti, and left her in the middle of an intersection to make it look like a gang crime.  At her young age, she was a child victim herself.  Talk about true love…

After having been charged with Murder in the 1st degree, he was certified and transferred to adult court where I met him.  Because the crime was so heinous and the proseutor’s case was so strong, they didn’t offer Jim any kind of a plea bargain.  Like any person looking at life imprisonment, Jim found it hard to plead guilty, even though he eventually admitted he killed her.  We set the case for trial, which was his right to demand.

From my standpoint as his lawyer, sometimes the charging decision made by the prosecutor does not fit the crime.  In other words, maybe the accused person is not guilty of Assault 1 but is guilty of Assault 3, a lesser crime with a shorter penalty.  That was the strategy in Jim’s case.  I had two goals:  maybe the jury would have sympathy for the young guy and convict him of something lesser or the facts, as determined in a trial throught he witnesses, wouldn’t warrant the full Murder 1 conviction.  I didn’t know but we launched into the trial with this crime of the heart.

When the Medical Examiner who’d performed the autopsy on the victim testified, he broke the case wide open–to Jim’s favor.

Since I hate to write lengthy blogs, I’ll pause for now and continue the story with my next one.