What causes a 12-year-old girl to commit cold-blooded murder of a random stranger?

by Rod Williams - In February five teenagers murdered Kyle Yorlets, a 24 year old Nashville musician. Yorlets was originally from Carlisle, Pennsylvania but moved to Nashville to pursue his education and music. He was a recent graduate of Belmont University and was a member of a rock band called Carverton.

The accused murderers are three girls ages 12, 14 and 15, and two boys, ages 13 and 16.  Kyle Yorlets was murdered in the yard of his home in the middle of the day.  Police say Yorlets was a random victim. He was not targeted, but just happened to encounter the kids. Reports say the kids were in a stolen pickup truck in an alley that runs behind Yorlets' home. They saw Yorlets outside. At gun point they robbed Yorlets of his wallet, and told him to hand over the keys to his vehicle. Police seem to think that Yorlets was shot when he refused to give the kids the keys to his car.

When I first heard this story, I was shocked.  I have one daughter who is grown but I stopped to recall what she was like at age twelve. That is the seventh grade for most 12 year olds. Most 12 year old girls are just starting to notice boys. They may be too old for Barbie, but not by much. I recalled nieces and nephews and what they were like at ages 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.  That a 12-year old girl is capable of cold blooded murder is so foreign to me.  I know that by age 16, some boys are at a point where it is easy to fall into mischief,  if they have no guidance and discipline.  Even good kids can get into trouble by age 16.  But a twelve year old and a thirteen year old shooting a man in cold blood? It is hard to fathom.  That they were girls even makes it harder to accept.  In general, I think of boys as more capable of doing something like this than girls.

The children have been charged as adults. Following this murder, there has been lots of news coverage and hand-wringing. A lot of attention has been focused on the need for Juvenile Justice reform.  Comments by State Senator Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis reflect what many feel: “When you have children that young participating in that high level of a dangerous crime, I feel like somewhere along the way there was an intervention that wasn’t taken and we failed those kids.”

Who can disagree with that?  Maybe, if we had a more perfect juvenile justice system, these kids could have been turned from the path that led to this terrible tragedy.  Prior to this tragic murder, an 18-member special committee had been created by Governor Bill Haslam to identify gaps in the system and help children before they commit violent crime.  Several people mentioned the work of this committee, hoping it can make meaningful changes that will prevent future juvenile crime. State Rep. Michael Curcio, R-Dickson, said he hoped the group would take a comprehensive approach that extended beyond the courtroom and examined schools, mental health services and the criminal justice system for young offenders.

That is a good goal. We should look at schools and mental health services and the criminal justice system for young offenders.  As reported in the Tennessean, Nashville police Lt. Blaine Whited, who supervises the police department's Juvenile Crime Task Force, said his officers often rearrest the same juveniles over and over again.  He said there is "problem in the system."  Since the police task force was formed last February, 222 minors have been charged with crime and during the year, the Police arrested 101 of them more than once.

There is a "problem in the system," but I think we need to look deeper than the schools, the mental health services, and the justice system.  What is wrong with society, that leads to this?  It is not often that 12-year-old girls commit murder, but juvenile crime in general is a problem and it appears to be getting worse, not better. 

Some would offer a simple answer and say society took a wrong turn when we banned school prayer. I think there may be validity to that. I think starting the day with a solemn acknowledgement of God whose blessing we seek and whose will we should try to follow inculcates a common sense of morality.  It causes people to stop and say to themselves, I ought to try to be a good person.  In a society with so many different religions, however, I don't know how one can acknowledge God without offending others who have a different concept of God. As difficult as it may be to reintroduce prayer into the school without violating Supreme Court ruling, I think it is a goal worth pursuing. it may help.  That may be impossible to achieve, however, and would take a very long time and don't think that in and of itself that would resolve the problem.

A problem I see is that we are so conditioned and intimidated by political correctness that we are in denial of societal problems rather than trying to solve societal problems.  While the problem of crime and violence cuts across class and race lines, we should acknowledge that crime is a problem that plagues the Black community more than others.  Instead, we bend over backwards to make it impossible to acknowledge this.  When schools punish Black kids more than white kids, rather than acknowledge that Black kids may commit more offenses than White kids, we chastise the schools for unequal treatment and racial profiling and accuse teachers of bigotry. A good place to start in addressing problems is to acknowledge the truth.

I don't know anything about the kids who committed this senseless murder other than their sex and age which I read in the paper.  I am going to bet however, that one thing they have in common is that their is no father in the home. This is a problem, about which we are in denial and it is impolite to observe that having intact families makes for a better society.

Fathers matter. Seventy-one per cent of high school dropouts are fatherless. Fatherless children do less well in school, scoring less well on tests of reading, math, and reasoning skills. Eighty-five percent of youth in prison are from fatherless homes. Girls from fatherless homes are more likely to become sexual active earlier and are more likely to themselves become unwed mothers. Ninety percent of  runaway children are from fatherless homes. From drug abuse to sexual abuse to any number of measures of well-being, children from intact families fare much better than children without a father in the home.  The data is easy to find. Father Absence, Father Deficit, Father Hunger by Dr. Edward Kirk writing in Psychology Today provides a good analysis.

If we acknowledge that fatherless children is a problem, what as a society do we do about it?  There are no easy answers. A good starting place is simply to acknowledge it. The welfare system is a problem.  There are public benefits that drive families apart or keep families from forming.  A single women with two children may qualify for benefits such as housing, food stamps, and health care that if she were married to the father of the children, the combined income of the two parents would make the family ineligible for assistance. To qualify for these public benefits, the parents may just live together and get the welfare but not get married. Unmarried parents living together do not prove as stable of a family structure as when the parents are actually married. 

The role of this "marriage penalty" needs to be acknowledges and addressed. One approach would be to abolish all welfare benefits and replace them with a guaranteed national income.  There may be other less drastic solutions but the fact that welfare is a cause of fatherless families should be acknowledged. There are also tax structure issues that could be changed to favor marriage.

Persuasion can go a long way in changing values and behavior.  I think there is a public interest in promoting the value of families.  Just as there was a pubic campaign to persuade people to reduce litter, wear seat belts, and stop smoking, there should be a public campaign to persuade people to wait to have children until after they are married. Advertising campaigns could feature a contrast showing a single mother of two labeled "the face of poverty," and a father, mother and two children labeled "the face of success."  The facts of the devastating impact of father less families should be featured in public service announcements so that everyone knows that children born to single mothers are more likely to do poorly in school, to live in poverty, become runaways, to get pregnant early, and to go to prison.

Also, condemnation and societal pressure can change behavior.  In modern America, one of the things we are most judgmental about is being judgmental.  We have embraced absence of moral values as a moral value. To disapprove of another's behavior and to show your disapproval is considered mean.  We need to began to change that.  Bringing children into the world without a father should be stigmatized.  We have almost made being a single mother a badge of honor and something to be celebrated.  I think it should be something to be condemned and the children pitied.  Single women who have children should be embarrassed and ashamed. Also all "single mothers" should not be put into the same basket. The media always refers to all single women raising children as a "single mother."  We should change that and recognized that there are "widowed mothers," "divorced mothers," and "unwed mothers."  Being an unwed mother should not be a badge of honor.


For more on the murder of Kyle Yorlets and related stories, follow these links: link, link, link, and link.   For more on the issue of fatherless children, follow these links: link, link, link, and link. 

 

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Nashville is 14th most dangerous city in America

by Rod Williams, Feb. 17, 2019 - If you have an impression that crime is getting really bad in Nashville, it is not an illusion.  Often in can be. Media focuses on crime and a few bad episodes, such as the horrific murder of a 24-year old musician by five teens last week, can cause one to think crime is worse than it really is.  However, it really is bad. 

According the travel site EscapeHere, Nashville is the fourteenth most dangerous city in America.  According to the report: "In the year 2017 there were 110 homicides in the Nashville metropolitan area. Also, the crime rate was 1,138 per 100,000 residents and the poverty rate sat at about 18-percent. The murder rate in this city is so bad that the Oasis Center of Nashville which works to help at risk youth in the area called it an epidemic, according to 24/7 Wall St."

Cities with a worse crime rate than Nashville include Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois;  Baltimore, Maryland and the most dangerous city in America, St Louis, Missouri.  Also, surprising to me, two other cities with worse crime than Nashville and among the most dangerous cities in America are Memphis as the second most dangerous city in America and Chattanooga at number 7.  For three Tennessee cities to be among the nations top 14 most dangerous does not speak good for our state. Crime however is a local problem and the state government can not do much to combat it.

Among cities that one may think of as dangerous cities but actually rank as less dangerous than Nashville, is Newark, New Jersey at number 22.  I have a daughter who lives in New Orleans and I have visited the city several times. I love New Orleans.  In many ways it resembles a third world country and it has long had a reputation of a dangerous crime-ridden city. New Orleans is not near as dangerous as Nashville however. It ranks as the 24th most dangerous and it has a violent crime rate of 1,121 per 100,000 residents and 157 homicides. The poverty rate of the city was 26.2-percent. 

None of the cities with which we are often compared such as Austin, Texas or Charlotte, North Carolina  or Raleigh-Durham are on the list.  Neither is Atlanta on the list. Note that the study is called 25 Most Dangerous Cities In The US In 2019, but the data being analyzed is 2017 statistics.  My impression is that crime is considerable worse in Nashville now than two years ago.  It may be an impression that is false but it sure seems to me that things are getting worse.  I also have the impression that whereas in the past, a lot of the crime was Black on Black crime, now it is more general throughout the community. Also, I have had an impression that in the past most crime was either related to interaction between people who knew each other, such as domestic violence crime, or due to things like drug deals gone bad.  Now, there seems to be many more random acts of violence and targeted crime. A front page article in today's Tennessean report that gun thefts from cars was up 85 percent in two years.

We know that cities can be safe and big at the same time. We should not just accept that Nashville has a high crime rate.  Something shoud be done. We know that our police department is undermanned.  I hear complaints when talking to members of the community who are in a position to know, such as councilmen and lawyers, that for non-emergency interactions with the police such as reporting minor crimes, that there are long waits.  Also, the growth in the police department has not kept pace with the growth in tourism and population. 

To address our rising crime, we need new leadership in Nashville, including a new mayor and new council members who will prioritize essential services. Also, while I think Chief Anderson is a good man, it may be time for him to retire. We may need new leadership at the police department.  Since the Chief of Police serves at the pleasure of the mayor, a police chief can only be so vocal in calling attention to the needs of his department, but Chief Anderson could do more to highlight the growing problem of crime in Nashville. Crime is becoming a major problem in Nashville and we need to treat it as such.

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The Tennessean exhibits sexist and gender prejudice in news reporting.

by Rod Williams - In a story in today's Tennessean, it was reported, "Police look for thieves; vehicles had children inside." According to the report, a two year old girl was safe and sound after the incident. A "mother" went into a Citgo on Brick Church Pike to make a purchase and left the car running with her infant child in the car.  Suspects jumped in the car and drove off. By tracking the location of the vehicle, due to the mother also leaving  her cell phone in the car, the police were able to track the vehicle to a location in east Nashville, where the child was found crying standing on the front porch of a home. The thieves and vehicle were not located.

This is the second incident of this nature in a 48 hour period. The other happened at a Mapco on Stewards Ferry Pike the day before and three children were in the stolen car. The thieves later abandoned the car and the children were found unharmed. The thieves in the second vehicle were also identified as male.

The story did not mention the race of the thieves but in the first incident a picture captured from the stores video security camera shows the thieves to be African American.

The official city of Nashville press release did not identify the thieves as "men," but reported the story this way:

Suspect

Detectives are continuing in their efforts to identify the persons responsible for two apparently unrelated car thefts in which children who had been left in the vehicles were briefly taken.       
At 6:20 p.m. Sunday, thieves jumped into a white Hyundai Elantra that had been left running with a 2-year-old child inside while her mother went into Terry’s Quick Stop at 3050 Brick Church Pike.  The persons who stole the Elantra got out of a blue Nissan Versa that was stolen on April 10th from the driveway of a home on Elmore Avenue.  It had also been left unattended and running.  Both the Elantra and the Versa fled the parking lot.  Officers were able to track the victim’s cell phone to East Nashville and located the 2-year-old crying and standing on the front porch of a home in the 1000 block of Pennock Avenue.  She was unharmed.  Officers located the abandoned stolen Versa in an alley between Meridian Street and Pennock Avenue.  The Elantra has not yet been recovered.  

Why did The Tennessean identify the thieves as "males?"  Why, like the Metro press release, did they not call the thieves "persons?" By identifying the thieves as men, The Tennessean is guilty of furthering the stereotype and prejudice that males are more likely to be criminals than are females. Society disproportionately incarcerates many more men than women. Of the prison population 91.7% are male. It would seem that an enlightened policy would strive to have no more men incarcerated than women. Surely there is not a gender difference that would result in more male incarceration than female. Perhaps there should be a moratorium on incarcerating any more men until the ratios reflect the approximate 50% that men and women each represent of the population. As long as our media continues to perpetuate prejudice against men such justice will not be achieved.

Not only are more men incarcerated than women, but police routinely treat men and women differently.  In a routine traffic stop police use more caution and display a firmer attitude when approaching a car with a male driver than a female driver. Police do not treat the sexes equally. Movies and TV crime programs routinely show men more violent and prone to crime than women.

In addition to furthering the societal prejudice that leads to more men being incarcerated than women, The Tennessean report also calls into question the appropriateness of even using the term "male" and "female."  After all, is not sex and gender a societal construct? Even if the thieves appeared to be "male," how do we know they think of themselves as male. Obviously, the reporter did not interview the "men" to ask them their gender preference or gender identity. They could have been male, female, transgender or gender fluid.

In addition to the prejudiced against men, the story also furthered the stereotyping of some women as bad mothers.  Was it necessary to report that the "mother" went into the story to make a purchase and left the child in the car with the engine running?  Why did the story not report that "the parent" or "adult guardian" went into the store.

Many years ago, The Tennessee and other mainstream news outlets began concealing the race of those committing crime. How long must we wait before the same enlighten attitude applies to sex and gender and that prejudicial sexist distinction is also concealed?

Suspects

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But were they Black?

by Rod Williams - There was an article in today's Tennessean, Nashville police: 6 people shot in separate altercations Saturday. The article reports that a total of six people were shot, but none killed, Saturday night in three separate incidents. One of the incidents occured at a Wafffle House on Lebanon pike when people sitting in a black Mercedes van were fired upon by people in a black sedan. No other details are given. In the other two incidents a bag of marijuana was found at the site of one of the incidents and the other is described as "a botched marijuana deal."  The streets where the later two incidents occurred are Hermosa Street and Claiborn Street.

Nowhere in the news article is the race or ethnicity of the victims listed. The addresses of the later two incidents are in predominantly Black neighborhoods. I am going to assume all of the perpetrators and victims of the three incidents were Black. Is it racist to make such an assumption?  Or, based on known data is that a reasonable assumption? 

I think the term "fake news" is overused but I do think there is valid reason not to trust the mainstream press. One has to read between the lines and make assumptions when reading the newspaper. It seems the press is as interested in concealing facts as revealing facts. The press goes out of its way to hide facts if those facts do not fit a political correctness agenda.  In this story, the reporter told me the color of the vehicles but not the people. Why? 

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House approves bill removing barriers to reentry for those convicted of a crime who have served their time

by Rod Williams - This week the Tennessee House of Representatives approved legislation that will remove barriers for Tennesseans who are seeking a fresh start in life.  House Bill 2248 — also known as the Fresh Start Act — is designed to further reduce Tennessee’s recidivism rates by providing a pathway to employment for citizens who are returning to their communities following incarceration.

 

Currently, Tennessee requires licenses for 110 different jobs; many impact those seeking manual labor or other industrial-related work. State licensing boards can deny a license for these professions to individuals with past criminal records, including lower-level forms of crime classified as misdemeanors.  It is bad enough that we license 110 occupations. While I am OK with surgeons and electricians being licensed, I would let hair braiders and those who massage horses and those engaged in many other occupations do it unlicensed. It is bad enough that so many people have to get a license to work in so many occupations, but it is unconscionable that people who have been convicted of a crime are prohibited from even getting the license. The crime maybe something as simple as a long ago DUI.

As passed, House Bill 2248 requires that denials and refusals for license renewals based on a prior criminal conviction are only allowable when the criminal offense directly relates to an individual’s ability to perform duties associated with the occupation or profession they are seeking a licensure for, excluding violent felonies.

 

Additional punishment for individuals who have paid their debt to society is wrong and this bill allows for a person to fix past mistakes and get on with their lives.  According to the Council of State Governments (CSG), nearly 10 million U.S. adults return to their communities following incarceration every year; upon their release, many face significant barriers to securing employment. CSG estimates that occupational restrictions can result in 2.85 million fewer people employed nationally and also raise consumer expenses by more than $200 billion.

Most people convicted of a crime, if sent to prison will get out. It is a fact.  It makes no sense to stack the deck against them so they cannot succeed once they have paid their debt to society. Nearly half of those leaving prison in Tennessee return within three years. This is making our communities less safe and costing taxpayers millions of dollars and it is ruining lives that could be salvaged.

Occupational licensure is only one of the barriers to success after incarceration. We should systematically be looking at those barriers to successful reentry and removing them. In today's hyper partisan environment, there are not many areas where conservatives and liberals can agree. This is one of those areas. Some of the most dedicated proponents of criminal justice reform are Republicans such as Governor Matt Bevins of Kentucky. Here in Tennessee, a group called "The Coalition for Sensible Justice" made up of The Beacon Center, the ACLU, Goodwill, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Tennessee County Services Association, is working together for criminal justice reform. It was this group which worked to pass House Bill 2248. 

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Nashville Murder Rate Nearing All-Time High

Channel 5 - Statistics from Metro Police show 96 people have been murdered in Metro Nashville this year.  A total of 83 homicides were reported in 2016. The city’s all-time homicide record was 112, back in 1997. (link)

My Comment: It seems that major media never ask the questions I want asked. I would like some context.  Who killed who?  How many of the murders were domestic violence?  How many were victims of Black on Black crime?  How many were drug related?  Where the killer is known, how many were illegal aliens?  I don't know, but inquiring minds would like to know. Just because the murder rate is up may be no reason for individuals to feel less safe, if the murders are acquaintance murders or within a demographic to which you do not belong.  

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Jocques Clemmons Shooting: Officer Justified, MNPD Says; DA Plans Press Conference

An internal report from Metro Police released Thursday includes a previously undisclosed eyewitness account of the Jocques Clemmons shooting

By J.R. Lind (Patch Staff) - May 11, 2017 - NASHVILLE, TN — An internal affairs investigation says Joshua Lippert, the Metro Police officer who shot and killed Jocques Clemmons in the James Cayce Homes in February, was justified in firing his gun. (link)

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First Nashville baby of the new year is again a baby born to an unwed mother

The Tennessean reports that the first baby born in Nashville in 2017 was an illegitimate child named Kinston Ashby, born to Mykyla Ashby.  The report does not specifically say the mother is an unwed mother and that the child is illegitimate but no mention is made of a father.  From the details of the story we can assume the mother is unmarried. Since no father is mentioned and the child takes the last name of the mother we may assume the mother does not know who the father is or chose to not make the father take responsibility for his offspring. Why she is having a child as an unwed mother and who the daddy is would seem to be relevant questions, but they are not asked. "Illegitimate birth," and "unwed mother" are terms no longer used in polite society shaped by liberal values and fathers are considered superfluous.

Children born out of wedlock is the leading cause of poverty in America and breakdown of the family is the cause of  crime and various other social ills, especially in the Black community.  According to U.S. Census Bureau out of about 12 million single parent families in 2015, more than 80% were headed by single mothers. Today 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 — a total of about 17.4 million — are being raised without a father and nearly half (45%) live below the poverty line.  In contrast, among children living with both parents, only 13% are counted as poor.

In 2015, out of more than 10 million low-income working families with children, 39% were headed by single working mothers or about 4.1 million. The proportion is much higher among African Americans (65%), compared with whites (36%).  Only one third of single mothers received any child support,and the average amount these mothers received was only about $430 a month.

The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. Seventy percent  of inmates in state detention centers serving long-time sentences were raised by single (never married) mothers.

The birth of a baby to a single mother should not be a cause for celebration but sadness and shame and regret.   For source material follow this link  or simply do a search engine search. The statistics and analysis of the correlation between children born to single mothers and societal ills is readily available. 

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Actually, illegal immigrants bring down the crime rate.

Anti-immigration rhetoric has been a staple of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. He has pledged to build a wall across the southern border with Mexico, has said he would ban all Muslim immigration, and has called Mexican immigrants rapist and drug dealers.

When he declared his presidency he said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you." "They’re not sending you,” he said as he pointed toward members of the audience at his June 16th speech announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president from Trump Tower. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

First of all, of course, Mexico is not sending anyone.  Individual Mexicans are coming to America; not being sent. While there are Mexican immigrants who commit rape and murderer and various other crimes. the truth is that immigrants to the U.S., legal or illegal, are less likely than native born Americans  to commit violent crimes or be incarcerated. Actually illegal immigrants bring down the crime rate.

People have a perception that illegal immigrants create more crime because when an illegal immigrant does commit an especially grievous crime it is highly publicized.  What data is available simply does not support that perception. The data is often incomplete and open to interpretation but the impact on crime of illegal immigrants is minimal. Of course, low income people in general commit more violent crime than middle income and upper income people, and young adults commit more crime than older adults, and men commit more crime than women.  Illegal immigrants tend to be made up of low income people, more younger adults than older adults, and somewhat more men than women.  Despite illegal immigrants being comprised of the demographics that are more crime prone, still the evidence does not show that immigrants commit crime at a higher rate.

There is an old saying that "figures don't lie, but liars can figure," and if one wants to find articles that substantiate the claim that immigrants commit crime at a greater rate than native citizens one can find it.  There are conflicting studies. Many of the studies that do reach a conclusion that illegal immigrants commit crime at a higher rate, compare apples to oranges and the data is cherry picked and the studies are seriously flawed. Some studies include statutory violations such as violating immigration laws, or driving under the influences, or driving without a license, or simple possession of marijuana. If these misdemeanor offense are included, then there may be a higher rate of crime.  Most people when thinking of crime rates are not thinking of minor misdemeanor offenses.

Studies that examine serious crime, felonies such as rape or murder, show illegal immigrants are less crime prone than citizens. Looking into this, I read a lot of news articles and studies trying to determine the truth. You can find conflicting studies, but one of the best studies that explained the methodologies of the studies and explained the data was that by The Cato Institute. Cato found, "with few exceptions, immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates." 

For more on the issue, in addition to the Cato study highlighted above, I suggest the following:
The Mythical Connection Between Immigrants and Crime WSJ  
Illegal Immigration Might Actually Reduce Crime Rates  Pacific Standard  
Debunking the Myth of Immigrant Criminality: Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Men   Migration Policy Institute
Does Crime Drop When Immigrants Move In?  NPR 
 Criminal Immigrants? Reason

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Things are getting better, yet the public thinks the opposite about crime and poverty.

Sometimes what everyone assumes is true is simply not true.  We are accustomed to so much bad
news, people simply are not receptive to good news.  Two areas in which what most people believe is simply wrong is what they think they know about crime and poverty.  Although there are occasional upticks and fluctuations in crime rates, crime has been on a downward trend  in America since about 1990. There was an upswing in crime in the 60's, peaked in 1980, declined and climbed back up and peaked again in 1990 and has been on a steady downward trend and is now at about the same rate as 1968.

There is also great news about poverty. While poverty rates in America are no better than in 1968, world wide poverty has been on a steady decline since 1980 and has fallen by half in the last two decades. Following welfare reform there was a decline in American poverty, but failure to follow the course has resulted in no appreciable poverty decline. World wide however, there has been a major reduction in poverty. The fall of communism brought the blessing of capitalism to many of the world's poor and even Communist China abandoned socialism as an economic system. Socialism has lost its luster in most of the world. Also, some philanthropy and aid, especially that aimed at fighting decease, has shown results. For most of human history until the 1960s, a majority of adults were illiterate; now, 85 percent of adults worldwide are literate. World wide, inequality is on the decline primarily because of gains by the poor in places like China and India. For more on the decline in poverty see this article, The best News You Don’t Know.

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One would think the police would want to know about even minor crime.

Last night my car was broken into. I live in the Woodland in Waverly neighborhood and we have on-street parking. My car was not really "broken into;" I unintentionally left it unlocked. The thief did not do any damage to my car.  They dumped the content of my console and glove compartment onto the front passengers seat. The only thing taken was a GPS. I hardly ever used it anyway, most often using my phone if I need a map and driving instructions. That was no big loss.  I had a little metal container that I keep change in and they did not even open it.  It may have had three dollars in change in it.  I had an old brief case in the car with some old personal documents and junk paperwork. The brief case had been in my car for months and I had just never taken it in.  The thief rifled through it but took nothing. This was a minor annoyance but did not ruin my day.

When I got to work, I thought I should report it and I called the non-emergency police number.  The person on the phone took my name and make of my car and then said they would have to send a police out to take the report.  I said, it was really no big deal and I didn't need to see a policeman, I just wanted to report it.  I was told the police do not take crime reports over the phone. Why? It would seem like as waste of time to send out a policeman to report what I just wrote.

One would think the police would want to know about things like stolen bicycles and broken into cars.  You would think a data base would tell police where minor crimes are occurring and guide them in where extra patrols are assigned or where more education in needed telling people to lock their valuables.  This is not that big of a deal, but one would think the police would accept reports of minor crime by an Internet link or a phone call.  I wanted to report the break-in but did not care enough to wait for a policeman.

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Mayor Barry releases six-point plan to end youth violence

Press release, NASHVILLE, Tenn. – On Thursday, the co-chairs of the Youth Violence Summit, Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway and Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry, presented their findings from the five Summits to Mayor Megan Barry, along with recommended actions that the city can take to reduce youth violence.

“I appreciate the Summit Co-Chairs for helping to produce this report and putting together the recommended actions, which I will review with my team over the coming weeks,” said Mayor Barry. “We’re going to see how we can strengthen existing programs and create new ones where necessary to connect youth to hope and to opportunity.”

“I’m excited about the fact that today we are getting ready to save some lives, we are getting ready to change some lives,” said Criminal Court Clerk Gentry. “Over the past few months, we’ve had the important discussions that we needed to have; now it’s time for action, and I look forward to working with Mayor Barry to make it happen.”

“I’m committed to this cause for somewhat selfish reasons, I’m ready to retire early,” joked Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway. “I want to retire because we’ve put in place the programs and policies that are needed to put an end to youth crime and violence and make my job obsolete. We’re ready to stop talking the talk, and start walking the walk.”

The report includes a summary of the findings and lessons learned over the course of the five Summit meetings and lays out six goals, with accompanying signs of success and recommended actions, which were presented to the Mayor:

• Training & Employment - All youth have the opportunity to participate in career training and job opportunities so they can become college- and career-ready
• Meaningful Youth Engagement - All youth have opportunity to participate in quality after-school and out-of-school activities
• Health Awareness and Access - Reduce the number of youth exposed to trauma
• Restorative Justice and Diversion - Increase the number of youth allowed to remain safely in their communities while under court supervision
• Safe Environment - Youth feel safe and are safer in their homes, on the street and in school
• Education - Youth receive a high-quality education from pre-K through high school

The Summit report is available online.

 Mayor Unveils Six-Point Action Plan To Reduce Nashville Youth Violence 

By Lee Hale, WPLN - Opportunity might be the solution to rising youth violence in Nashville, says Mayor Megan Barry.

"By 2017, I want 10,000 of our youth to have an engaged opportunity that includes a paid internship," Barry told a group at the Oasis Center on Thursday afternoon.

The internships are one of the action items outlined in a new summit report — the result of five community meetings that began last December. The report was prepared by co-chairs Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry and Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway.

Mayor Barry looks for youth violence solutions

 by Joey Garrison, The Tennessean, March 31, 2016 - ....... The numbers are jarring. Over the past five years, 16,955 violent incidents in Nashville involved youth.

Last year, among the country's 50 largest cities, Nashville ranked second in the highest percentage increase in homicides — from 41 in 2014 to 78 in 2015.

Of those, 55 percent of the perpetrators were 25 years old or younger, and half those killed were younger than 25.

African-American males are disproportionately involved in the crimes, according to the report, both in terms of victims and those arrested. .......The report refers to youth violence as an “epidemic” with a range of root causes: joblessness and poverty; poor educational opportunities; a lack of adult role models; barriers to re-entry for those who have been incarcerated; and a cycle of trauma and violence. (link)

I commend the Mayor 

My Comment:  I commend the mayor for recognizing and tacking this crisis. I think the report missed it in identifying root causes however. I am convinced the root causes are out of wedlock births and welfare dependency and those two causes are closely related. Welfare programs made fathers unnecessary which led to the break down of that most basic building block of society- the family. Generational welfare dependency and no fathers in the home let to a distortion of values and a decreased sense of self worth which led to hopelessness and joblessness and crime and more out of wedlock births and more hopelessness and poverty which continued the downward spiral.

We may not be able to correct the root causes and even if we as a society decided to undo the damage of the welfare state, it would take a generation to see the results. So, while we can't fix the root causes anytime soon, that does not mean we should not try to address the immediate problem.  A good mentor, be it a scout leader or coach or boss or teacher can tern lives around. A good education can get a child headed toward college rather than prison.  We have seen this numerous times in which charter schools have produced results that have had every single child in a class of Black disadvantaged kids beat the odds and get accepted to college.

Some years ago, I was working closely with very low income people at the time welfare reform was implemented.  I saw people get their first job and saw the change it made in their lives. They had to be pushed out of the welfare nest but once they discovered the rewards of earning a living their sense of self worth and well being improved. They gained pride in earning a paycheck.  It is too bad we abandoned welfare reform and backtracked.  I have also seen low income people turn their lives around and change their habits and ways of thinking in order to achieve the dream of home ownership.

I oppose programs that subsidize poverty and keep people trapped in despair and make govern dependency a way of life, but we should not just abandon the poor to hopelessness. We should just not accept that it is normal for young Black men to kill each other. I am not sure all of the six points of the mayors program will work to reduce youth crime, and I have not carefully studied the program. Even if a program sounds good on paper, if it is not implemented well, it will fail.  What is proposed may not succeed and have the desired effect, but I think it is right to try. The status quo is not acceptable.

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02/06/16 Mayor Barry Youth Violence Summit

No speaker participating in this summit explicitly identifies the youth violence problem as a Black problem, but the youth panel is all Black young people and Howard Gentry calls attention to the lyrics of rap music and how it encourages violence.  Listening to the members of the youth panel is insightful in understanding how they justify or explain youth violence.

After meeting in small group break-out sessions, the participants come back with their evaluation of the problem and suggestions.  The suggestions are for more recreational opportunities, more ways to get money or earn money, mental health care and health care, more job opportunities for youth and their parents, more involvement by young people in development of programs to serve young people, and a greater effort to connect young people to available services.

I hope these youth summits produce some good results, but I think a good starting point would be a recognition that the Black community is dysfunctional and that the youth violence problem is primarily a Black problem and that the welfare state has created a culture that destroyed the Black family and created an environment of hopelessness and dependency on government. I believe that the product of youth violence is a function of out-of-wedlock births and welfare dependency more than any other cause. Of course, changing course would require a change in national policy and a recognition that single parenthood is a cause of the problem.  Even if there was a recognition of the problem it would take a decade to see changes and as a community we need to take actions that can have some immediate impacts. 

Sometimes, I think we as a community make the problem worse when we create a victim mentality among Black citizens.  When we imply that the reason more Black students get in-school suspension is because of discrimination rather than acknowledge that Black children engage in activity to deserve in school suspension at a higher rate, we create people who walk around with a chip on their shoulder and feel like victims.  When we lament the high unemployment rate among Blacks without acknowledging the lack of skills among many Blacks that make them unemployable, we are not doing them a favor. A good place to start in dealing with the youth violence problem or other Black problems would be by telling the truth. Telling the truth will not get anyone any votes however.

Here is an excerpt from a Tennessean article that describes the youth violence problem in Nashville:

Of the 75 criminal homicides last year, 20 of the victims were teenagers or younger — the highest number of youth deaths to hit Nashville in the past decade. Three of them were infants who died as the result of abuse.
Of the slain teens, 15 were male. All but four were African-American. The youngest was a 14-year-old girl.

I hope community leaders, especially Black middle class people, Black businessmen, and Black clergy will take part in these summits and engage in trying to reduce youth violence. We know that charter schools have produced whole classes of students where the teen girls do not become pregnant and the boys do not go to reform school. We should try to determine why that is the case and see what lessons can be learned from the charter school experiences. Maybe if young fatherless Black men had strong mentors, they would be less likely to become killers. I hope something good can come out of these summits and the attention being giving to the problem of youth violence.

Below is an announcement of the upcoming third summit to occur in the Antioch community.  Follow the link to RSVP.
From Metro.gov:

2/20/2016 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM 
Youth Violence Summit - Reclaiming Young Adults
Details: Community leaders and experts will gather to identify barriers that may be limiting the success of youth ages 19 to 25 who have either experienced violence or are ex-offenders attempting to start a new path in life. Experts will include law enforcement, mentors, educators at the high school and post-secondary level, career development agencies, parents and individuals in this age range who can discuss the challenges they face.

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How's that gun control working for you?

82 shot- 15 fatally- in Chicago over holiday weekend

Between 4 p.m. Thursday, July 3, and 3:30 a.m. Monday, 82 people were shot on the streets of Chicago. Fourteen of them died. McCarthy cited lower numbers- and a shorter time span from 6 p.m. Thursday to midnight Monday - during his news conference.

In eight incidents, Chicago police officers were threatened or shot at and returned fire, McCarthy said. Police wounded five people, killing two of them, in those shootings.

Who are the murderers and their victims? A 2011 Chicago police analysis found 90 percent of murder victims in the city are men, 76 percent of victims have prior arrest records, and the most common ages of killers are 17 and 18 years old.

Eighty-two in one weekend!  That is more than some nations have in a whole year. The report of course does not tell us the race of the perpetrators or the victims, but I would bet it was mostly Black-on-Black crime. The report does not tell us the familial status of the victims or the perpetrators, but I would bet most are children of single mothers. Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation but has one of the highest murder rates. The real crime problem in America is not guns but the break down of the family and the problem of the Black underclass. As long as there are things that cannot be discussed we will not make a dent in the crime problem. Rod

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Wright has been on death row since 1985

"Wright has been on death row since 1985," was the last sentence in a news story in The Tennessean today. The story was that the Tennessee Supreme Court decided this week that they could hear a challenge to the constitutionality of electric chair executions. The State Attorney General had argued that the Court could not hear an inmates challenge to the electric chair given that none of the inmates were immediately facing execution. The challenge to the electric chair was added to a case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection.  In addition to this challenge to the constitutionality of the means of execution, there is also pending a case about whether the names of people in an execution team should be released to the condemned inmates attorneys.

What struck me in this case is that Wright has been on death row since 1985: That is 30 years. That is not swift justice. In 1984, Charles Wright shot and killed two people during a drug deal.

The death penalty is costly. In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment, according to a 2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research. Also 29% of the cases in which a person is given the death penalty the conviction is reversed due to trial errors. The cost of carrying out an execution in 2004 was about $12,000.  Still, the report found that the execution of an inmate saves the state approximately $773,736 for the future imprisonment of the inmate when compared to an inmate sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Charles wright is 60 years old now and has already spent 30 years on death row and still does not have a date of execution. I do not know what the life expectancy of Charles Wright would be if he lived out the rest of his life in prison without parole but I do not see how executing him is saving the state much money.  In 2004 the average time spend on death row was 13 years.  I do not know what is it is now.  Maybe it is time for Tennessee to do another study and see it executing someone does actually save money.  Studies from other states show it does not.

One thing that concerns me about the death penalty is that there is the possibility of executing an innocent person. According to The Innocence Project, there have been 325 post-convictions exonerations due to DNA evidence alone since 1989. Twenty of the 325 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.  Mistakes happen, but when a man is put to death it cannot be undone and executions carried out by the state are done in the name of we the people. Is the risk of killing an innocent person worth the satisfaction or benefit of seeing the guilty executed?

One of the arguments in favor of the death penalty is that it is a deterrent to crime. I doubt it. The 2004 Comptroller report said, "Previous research provides no clear indication whether the death penalty acts as a method of crime prevention. Some research supports the death penalty as a deterrent, other studies support the notion that it is not a deterrent, and still others indicate that the death penalty stimulates acts of first-degree murder." 

Evidence shows that states with the death penalty actually have higher murder rates than states without the death penalty. That may not be conclusive, there may be other factors, but the evidence does not prove the death penalty is a deterrent. If someone is on drugs, or alcohol or burning with the passion of hatred or revenge or greed or is just a totally evil person who can kill without guilt, does he stops to consider: "I live in a state with a death penalty. I better not commit this crime?" Or, do you think he my reasons: "I live in a state without the death penalty. What the heck? The worst I can get is life without the possibility of payroll. I will do it"?  I don't think they reason like that. Also, if Charles Wright is put to death 31years after he committed the crime, do you think that prevents some other person from committing a crime?

I have concluded I no longer support the death penalty.  I have no moral objection to putting to death someone who committed murder. I am not passionate in my opposition. For some especially horrendous murders I could pull the switch myself. Some people are so evil they do not deserve to live. I won't be attending any candlelight vigils for Charles Wright outside the gates of the Riverbend Maximum Security prison. I doubt I will be joining in protest to mourn the life of any specific individual sentenced to death.

As a practical matter however, it seems the death penalty is not worth the trouble or the risk of putting an innocent person to death. Also, while we should not be overly concerned with world opinion, two-thirds of the nations of the world do not carry out executions either because it is legally banned or they do not carry out execution in practice although they may still be legally permitted to carry out the death penalty.  Canada, Mexico, and almost all of Europe have banned the death penalty.  As a nation with a high number of executions we are in the company of North Korea, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. I don't like the company we keep.

I do not think the death penalty is "cruel and unusual."  I don't want the Supreme Court to rule it as such. I don't think we need to amend the constitution to ban the death penalty. I support states rights and believe each state should make that decision. I think, however, Tennessee should join the states that have banned the death penalty, or we should establish new guidelines so it is extremely rare that anyone gets the death penalty and it is reserved for only the most horrific cases, such as cases involving serial murders or murder where the victim is tortured, or an evil person kills a helpless child; not for drug deals gone bad.

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Daniel Horwitz: Meth users need treatment, not prison

Meth users need treatment, not prison

by Daniel Horwitz, The Tennessean, March 14 - Before debating the proper response to Tennessee’s crippling addiction to methamphetamine, there are two universal truths that must first be acknowledged. First, nobody has ever grown up with dreams of becoming a meth addict. Second, if you learned that a loved one had become addicted to methamphetamine, your solution to that problem would not be to have that person arrested and hauled off to Riverbend.
 .....
Tennessee doesn’t need new laws criminalizing further what we have already been unsuccessfully criminalizing for decades. What we need is a dramatic rethinking of our approach to drug policy that focuses on treatment rather than punishment, and we need it soon. Meth addiction in Tennessee is a problem that affects all of us. People’s lives — all of our lives — hang in the balance. (read more)

Daniel Horwitz is an attorney in Nashville and a 2013 graduate of Vanderbilt Law School.

My Comment: This is a thought provoking article from Daniel Horwitz. I am in general agreement that people should not be locked up for drug use. I think addicts should be treated rather than imprisoned. And, we should realize that not every casual user of recreational drugs is an addict needing treatment.  I support legalization of marijuana and small fines for other drugs deemed socially harmful. We should look to the success that decriminalization of drug use has had in Portugal and apply that lesson to the U.S. The "war on drugs" is not working.

Meth, however, seems to be so addictive that I wonder if drug treatment programs can work.  People apparently can become addicted to meth after only one use and are willing to abandon their children, steal from their parents, and destroy their health for the next high. It is not a victimless crime. Can users get off meth in an out-patient treatment program? I don't know.  I would want information that shows that out-patient treatment can work.  Maybe, the only way someone can get off  meth is by locking them up and keeping them away from the drug. However, law enforcement has not been able to stamp out meth use and in some parts of the state it is a terrible epidemic that not only destroys the user but contributes to a crime wave and abandoned children.  If law enforcement has failed, it may be time to try another approach. Maybe if other drugs were more easily available, meth would have less appeal and its use would dwindle.

The process of producing meth however is so dangerous that I would not favor reducing the penalty for production of meth.  Meth cooking can cause explosions and fires and danger to the health of children and other people living in the house where meth is produced and it leaves behind an environmental hazard.

At CPAC this year, issues of prison and sentencing reform were a hot topic.  Issues such as mandatory sentencing, restoring voting rights of convicted criminals who have served their time, real job training and rehabilitation, removing restrictions on what careers and professional licensing ex offenders can pursue, use of drug courts, and drug policy were topics of  speeches and panel discussions. Several organization had exhibition booths advocating reforms.  I think there is a realization on the part of conservatives and the public in general that we lock up too many people in this country and that "tough on crime" and mandatory sentencing has failed. One speaker said prisons are training grounds for criminals and he explained how people convicted of minor offenses can come out of prison socialized to be hardened criminals.  One speaker who had spend a career in law enforcement then ran afoul of the law himself and went to prison, said that before he himself went to prison, he thought all people in prison were bad people.  He said he served time with one person who was in prison for selling a whale's tooth on ebay.

I am not sure what we ought to do about meth users but we should explore alternatives to imprisonment and we need to take a hard look at our whole sentencing and imprisonment system.

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A Conservative Case for Prison Reform

by Daniel Horwitz

In the op-ed section of today’s New York Times, conservative icon Richard Viguerie makes a compelling case that our nation’s criminal justice system offends foundational conservative values and requires comprehensive reform.  Citing the right’s commitment to reining in out-of-control government spending and promoting both public safety and compassion, Viguerie argues that America’s prison system violates several principles that lie “at the core of conservative philosophy,” and calls upon conservatives to subject our national system of mass incarceration “to the same level of skepticism and scrutiny that we apply to any other government program.”  Ultimately coming to the conclusion that our entire criminal justice system is “another government spending program fraught with the issues that plague all government programs,” Viguerie joins prominent G.O.P. leaders like Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and the NRA’s David Keene in demanding “an alternative to government-knows-best programs that are failing prisoners and the society into which they are released.”

Due in large part to the devastating and vastly disproportionate effects that the War on Drugs has had on low-income and minority communities, until recently the case for comprehensive criminal justice reform has primarily been advanced by members of the political left.  Although, as I have previously argued on this blog, there is really no reason why those on the right shouldn’t also be able to support ending America’s drug war, Viguerie’s larger point that conservatives ought to be furious about our bloated, ineffective and inhumane criminal justice system as a whole is an incredibly persuasive one.  Building on the work of the cleverly-titled “Right  on Crime” campaign (which supports overhauling America’s criminal justice system in the name of constitutionally limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, Christianity, and free enterprise), Viguerie contends that “conservatives known for being tough on crime should now be equally tough on failed, too-expensive criminal programs,” and should be demanding “more cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety and the well-being of all Americans.”  Similarly, given the vast number of families that have been torn apart by our overly-incarcerative criminal justice system  (not to mention today’s horrendous allegations of inmate abuse inMississippi), Viguerie’s additional contention that the sheer inhumanity of prisons should shock the conservative conscience seems equally compelling.

Fortunately, according to Viguerie, conservative lawmakers in Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio and South Dakota have already taken the lead in enacting reforms that have expanded alternatives to incarceration, reduced prison sentences for low-risk offenders, and saved taxpayers billions.  Will a conservative lawmaker here in Tennessee step up to the plate and exhibit similar leadership?  Or will our legislature continue to cower to the influence of Tennessee’s private prison lobby and give voters the false sense that we need to imprison non-violent, low-level drug offenders in order to be “tough on crime”?  Regrettably, given how many of our politicians are better  known for being corporate shills thanexhibiting any kind of political bravery, I’m sad to say that I have strong doubts that a meaningful criminal justice reform bill will make its way to Governor Haslam’s desk at any point in the near future.  In light of the growing chorus of conservative voices calling for an end to the madness of mass incarceration, however, perhaps that day won’t actually end up being so far off after all.

Daniel Horwitz is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, where he won the Damali A. Booker Award for legal and social activism and served as the Vice President of Law Students for Social Justice.  He can be contacted at daniel.a.horwitz@gmail.com.

What we think we know about violence in America

While the horror of  the elementary school shooting in Newtown Connecticut should not be minimized, we should nevertheless, not let it lead us to believing untrue things.     

We, nor our children, are at a great risk of being killed in a mass shooting. The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning. You have a much greater risk of being killed in an auto accident or being killed playing football or bicycling or dying from any number of illnesses than you do of being killed in a mass shooting. 

The number of people killed in mass shooting is not increasing. The chart to the right reflects the research of criminologist Alan Fox showing the number of victims, offenders and deaths from mass shooting from 1980- 1910. It shows no trend upward.

This year has been a terrible year for such mass shootings, with the shooting at a movie theater in Auroa Colorado in July, the Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August, a shooting in  Minneapolis in September and then the Connecticut elementary school on December 14. However, one year does not make a trend. 

While criminologist Alan Fox looked at all mass killing including those involving robbery, Mother Jones took another approach and looked only at killing sprees with no rational motive and found an increase in 2012, reflected in the chart to the right.

One could look at this chart and just as validly and observe a 90% drop in mass killings from 1999 to 2000 and no mass killings at all in 2002. Does that really tell us anything of significance? All we know is that we had an unusually high number of mass killings in 2012.


Another thing that this horrific killing in Connecticut has led many to believe is that crime is increasing.  Crime is actually on the decline and has been since about 1980 and has been dropping rapidly since about 1994. This data is available for anyone who wants to know it.

But the rate of firearm homicides is up, is it not?  No, it is not. Firearm homicide is at its lowest point since at least 1981: 3.6 per 100,000 people in 2010. The high point was 7 in 1993.

There are other things people think they know and those things are true. The United States has a higher rate of violence than other modern industrialized countries.  We do not have the highest rate in the world however. Much of the less developed world has a much, much higher crime rate but that is no consolation. We do not want to be compared to South Africa or Columbia but to Europe or Canada and comparing the United States with similar nations finds that U.S. homicide rate almost seven times higher than rates in the other high-income countries.

This, however, needs to be put in some context. We are a very large and diverse country and comparing the US to a homogeneous nation like most of the industrialized nations of Europe is not an equal comparison. Much of our higher crime rate can be attributed to Black-on-Black crime and is really a problem of the Black underclass. If one were to exclude Baltimore, Detroit, Washington D.C and New Orleans from the equation, America would not be that much more violent than the UK. That of course does not explain all of it by any means but is a factor.

I do accept that the ready availability of guns in America and our history and gun culture contributes to a higher violent crime rate and may contribute to the incidents of mass killings. There are other factors which may contribute also such as the state of mental health services, a culture that glorifies violence in movies and video games, a declining religiosity and sense of community, a weakened family structure, and "taking God out of the class room." All of these factors should be examined, but they need to be examined calmly and we should not "do something" just for the sake of doing something. We should not jump to conclusions and make decisions based on emotions and things we think we know, that are not true.

For sources and more discussion see here, here, here, and here.

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Council Budget hearings: The Judicial Branch (part 1)

05/21/12 Circuit Court Clerk

 

 

 

05/21/12 Justice Integration Services




 05/21/12 Criminal Court Clerk



  

 05/21/12 District Attorney








 05/21/12 General Sessions Court





Above are five Council budget hearings.  Expect these to be real boring. I will try to get around to watching them and will summarize what I learn and then update this post, but do not expect any revelations of waste or corruption nor any tough questioning. If you have insomnia or you just can't wait to see the result of the council hearing for these departments, then watch them. If you have an insight or suggestion please leave a comment.

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Thinking about hate crimes

If a man brutally robs and beats a person of the same sex, race, sexual orientation, and religion should he get a lesser sentence than if the victim is of a different sex, race, sexual orientation, or religion. If while committing the brutal beating he calls the victim a "Jew" or "nigger" or "queer" or 'honky' or "bitch" or "spic" should he get an additional ten years added to the sentence?

Why should one victim be deemed more worthy of greater protection than another based on the motive of the perpetrator of the crime. We are not talking about not providing greater protection to the weak, such as children or women or the elderly, but providing greater protection to a victim simply based on the motive of the criminal.   



Hate crimes are criminal acts motivated by bigotry or bias. Often classifying a crime as a "hate crime" adds an automatic additional sentence. An additional ten years is typical. Another way of expressing the same thing is to say if the crime is committed by an “unbiased” person motivated by greed, or lust or pure unadulterated evil, then that person gets a ten year lesser sentence because at least he isn't  prejudice. 

It is my view that thoughts and attitudes should not be punished; actions should be punished. Below are three separate recent incidents where the crime was an alleged "hate crime."  Is there any logic to why these crimes should be considered worse crimes because they were supposedly motivated by bias or prejudice?

Three Occupy Oakland protesters charged with hate crimes

(Reuters) - Three Occupy Oakland protesters accused of surrounding and taunting a woman before stealing her wallet were charged on Friday with robbery and hate crimes, authorities said.

 
Michael Davis, 32, Nneka Crawford, 23, and Randolph Wilkins, 24, confronted the woman on the streets of Oakland in February after she told them not to riot in her neighborhood, the Oakland Police said in a written release.

"She was surrounded by three protestors and battered as they yelled vulgar epithets regarding their perception of her sexual orientation," Oakland Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said. read more

 

 

New York Reverse Mortgage Scam Charged as Hate Crime

Mar 07, 2012 04:18 pm | Elizabeth Ecker

A reverse mortgage fraud scheme directed toward a 81-year-old Brooklyn, New York man will be charged as a hate crime for targeting an elderly victim, Kings County District Court announced today. Sal Lauria and an accomplice were charged with grand larceny ...
read more 

Lawyer: Lesbians’ assault on gay man can’t be hate 
By Richard Weir, Boston Herald 

Three women identified by their lawyers as lesbians were arraigned yesterday on a hate crime charge for allegedly beating a gay man at the Forest Hills T station in an unusual case that experts say exposes the law’s flawed logic “My guess is that no sane jury would convict them under those circumstances, but what this really demonstrates is the idiocy of the hate-crime legislation,” said civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate. “If you beat someone up, you’re guilty of assault and battery of a human being. Period. The idea of trying to break down human beings into categories is doomed to failure.” read more

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