Tag: Criminal Justice System

Thoughts on New York’s Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Day One Memo

Alvin Bragg the Manhattan DA is not the first DA to make a policy manifesto on how their office will run. His is one of the most resent. Bragg is part of a Progressive Prosecutor movement that is moving through some of the most crime ridden cities. Manhattan joins Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles with their progressive movement.

District Attorneys are supposed to be the leading “Law Enforcement Official” in their County. That would put them in the Executive Branch of government. Prosecutors enforce the law they don’t interpret the law and they don’t create the law. If Prosecutors want to change the law there is a process for doing so, it isn’t by improperly charging crimes that are robbery (with a weapon) as simple petit larceny. As a Prosecutor if you don’t like the fact that when someone robs another person by displaying a gun (§ 160.10(2b)) and can get sentenced up to 15 years in jail. It’s not the Prosecutors choice to establish the penalty for the crime, the legislators did that. Again there is a process to change the severity of the penalty through petitioning the legislator, it is not by artificially improperly charging a serious felony robbery to a petit larceny.

For the record petit larceny is a theft of $1 to under $1000 and is a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to 1 year in jail. This compared to a robbery where a the offender brought a gun to aid in the completion of the robbery with a threat of harm if you don’t give up the money. Crazy.

Mare sure to check out DA Bragg’s Police Memo there is much more than what was covered here so far.
See DA Bragg’s Police Memo HERE

Concerns with DA Bragg’s Policy Memo

The Commissioner of NYPD has issue with the policies of the Manhattan DA.
See HERE

The Union for NYPD also see issue with the DA’s policy. See HERE

Here is a link to the New York Constitution and the role and function of District Attorneys in New York – access it HERE

2 Articles from the Manhattan Institute

Looking Beyond Day One

Three steps to minimize the impact of the new Manhattan DA’s soft-on-crime policies.
See HERE

How Much Leniency with Criminals Can We Afford?

Progressive prosecutors claim that a soft-on-crime approach will make us safer, but the evidence tells a different story.
See HERE

Reimagining Judging

My focus in this short essay is only on sentencing. A judge’s role is different at sentencing than her role at other points in a criminal trial, or in other contexts.

The stakes are the highest; it is when state power confronts a person’s liberty. And I write for the most part about what I know best, which is federal sentencing. Federal sentencing has changed over the past forty years and with it the judge’s role. It has seesawed from a period when the purpose of sentencing was rehabilitation, and a judge had virtually unlimited discretion to sentence (Gertner 2010). It then moved to a more recent period when a judge’s power was more strictly cabined by mandatory minimum sentences, and mandatory Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Finally, it has shifted to the present which is—at least on the surface—some combination of both. Today, there is space for more judicial discretion. On the surface, that change—increasing judicial discretion—looks promising.

More judicial discretion might well be an antidote to treating people as Guideline categories or cogs in a three-strikes machine. Reformers sometimes assume that when judges focus on an individual, they will necessarily consider their humanity and the social context of the crime, all factors that have largely been ignored during the past thirty years. But there are reasons to be skeptical.

Access the article at the link below:

squareonejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/CJLJ9284-Reimagining-Judging-report-211215-WEB.pdf

2022 RIPA Board Report

The California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (Board) is pleased to release its fifth annual Report. The Report contains an analysis of the millions of police and pedestrian stops conducted in 2020 under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (“RIPA”) by 18 law enforcement agencies, including the 15 largest agencies, in California. The Report closely examines a wide range of issue areas related to racial and identity profiling, providing context and research to deepen stakeholders’ understanding of the stop data collected under the RIPA. In the Executive Summary, the Board provides an overview of the Report. For ease of reference, there is a separate Recommendations and Best Practices section pulling out the Board’s recommendations in 2022. The Board encourages law enforcement agencies, policymakers, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), community advocates, and individuals to use these recommendations and best practices as a platform for discussion and implementation of reforms that will improve public safety in California. The Board especially recognizes that the community is essential to any police reform and that agencies and government should include diverse community members to work in close partnership with them to improve police services in their communities and across California.


Download the full 2022 Report

The California State Attorney General Office can be found HERE

Past RIPA reports are available HERE

Recent retail crime wave shakes the industry | Security Info Watch

This is an interesting article about ORC (Organized Retail Crime). This topic doesn’t get the attention it deserves because it much of OEC thefts focus on the retailer or law enforcement.

The focus should be on the OFFENDER. In Kindergarten we knew it is not right to steal. There is no excuse for the offender’s behavior. They have to be held accountable. Once offenders are held accountable and fear punishment for theft they will stop. Not all but most.

Retail security expert says it is time to stop the blame game when it comes to battling organized retail crime
— Read on www.securityinfowatch.com/retail/article/21248616/recent-retail-crime-wave-shakes-the-industry

The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change

This is an excellent resource!

A 4 volume set. The link below will take you to a webpage where you can access all 4 volumes. It would be interesting to see how different the Criminal Justice System was in 2000 and were the experts saw it going.

The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change
— Read on www.ncjrs.gov/criminal_justice2000/vol1_2000.html