Place Based Policing

This policing strategy directs daily policing efforts towards those areas that show the highest crime rates, but its focus away from specific criminals could be counterproductive; still it is a thoughtful approach worthy of discussion and continued research.

Here is an article about it from Professor Weisburd.

An excerpt from a recent award news release to Professor Weisburd.

“The 2010 Stockholm Prize in Criminology has been awarded by its International Jury to Professor David L. Weisburd for a series of experiments showing that intensified police patrol at high crime “hot spots” does not merely push crime around.

“This line of research encourages police around the world to concentrate crime prevention efforts at less than 5% of all street corners and addresses where over 50% of all urban crime occurs, yielding far less total crime than with conventional patrol patterns.

“The jury selected Weisburd’s work on spatial displacement as the most influential single contribution of his wider body of work that has helped to bridge the gap between criminology and police practice. The jury noted that Weisburd has been a leader among the growing number of criminologists whose evidence shows how the application of research findings can help to reduce not only crime, but also the unnecessary impositions on public liberty from policing activities that do not address a predictable crime risk.

“Weisburd’s work builds on and adds to other research showing the effectiveness of placing almost all police patrols at street corners, addresses or blocks with high rates of robbery, purse snatching, street fights, or illegal drug markets. Police have generally been reluctant to re-structure most patrols to match the extreme version tested in this research for fear that “spatial displacement” of crime will yield no net reduction in criminal events. This theory holds that, like air in a balloon, criminals and their crimes will simply move from one part of a city to another if pressure is placed on crime at any given location. The competing theory is that most public crime only happens in certain kids of locations, all of which can be made less hospitable to crime by proactive police efforts. Yet until Weisburd’s series of crucial experiments, police have widely accepted the spatial displacement theory by spreading patrol out widely.”

Government Control of Business

In the context of the current political discussion of the American government’s apparent assumption of adminstrative and financial control of some private businesses—in the auto manufacturing and financial industries as two recent examples—it is instructive to reflect on the words of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens: On Human Work.

The point he makes, in the final paragraph, is that you may be merely replacing one monopoly of ownership with another, either of which is bad for the focus of Catholic teaching, protecting the dignity and economic rights of labor, management, and ownership.

An excerpt.

“In the present document, which has human work as its main theme, it is right to confirm all the effort with which the Church’s teaching has striven and continues to strive always to ensure the priority of work and, thereby, man’s character as a subject in social life and, especially, in the dynamic structure of the whole economic process. From this point of view the position of “rigid” capitalism continues to remain unacceptable, namely the position that defends the exclusive right to private ownership of the means of production as an untouchable “dogma” of economic life. The principle of respect for work demands that this right should undergo a constructive revision, both in theory and in practice. If it is true that capital, as the whole of the means of production, is at the same time the product of the work of generations, it is equally true that capital is being unceasingly created through the work done with the help of all these means of production, and these means can be seen as a great workbench at which the present generation of workers is working day after day. Obviously we are dealing here with different kinds of work, not only so-called manual labour but also the many forms of intellectual work, including white-collar work and management.

“In the light of the above, the many proposals put forward by experts in Catholic social teaching and by the highest Magisterium of the Church take on special significance: proposals for joint ownership of the means of work, sharing by the workers in the management and/or profits of businesses, so-called shareholding by labour, etc. Whether these various proposals can or cannot be applied concretely, it is clear that recognition of the proper position of labour and the worker in the production process demands various adaptations in the sphere of the right to ownership of the means of production. This is so not only in view of older situations but also, first and foremost, in view of the whole of the situation and the problems in the second half of the present century with regard to the so-called Third World and the various new independent countries that have arisen, especially in Africa but elsewhere as well, in place of the colonial territories of the past.

“Therefore, while the position of “rigid” capitalism must undergo continual revision, in order to be reformed from the point of view of human rights, both human rights in the widest sense and those linked with man’s work, it must be stated that, from the same point of view, these many deeply desired reforms cannot be achieved by an a priori elimination of private ownership of the means of production. For it must be noted that merely taking these means of production (capital) out of the hands of their private owners is not enough to ensure their satisfactory socialization. They cease to be the property of a certain social group, namely the private owners, and become the property of organized society, coming under the administration and direct control of another group of people, namely those who, though not owning them, from the fact of exercising power in society manage them on the level of the whole national or the local economy.

“This group in authority may carry out its task satisfactorily from the point of view of the priority of labour; but it may also carry it out badly by claiming for itself a monopoly of the administration and disposal of the means of production and not refraining even from offending basic human rights. Thus, merely converting the means of production into State property in the collectivist system is by no means equivalent to “socializing” that property. We can speak of socializing only when the subject character of society is ensured, that is to say, when on the basis of his work each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner of the great workbench at which he is working with every one else. A way towards that goal could be found by associating labour with the ownership of capital, as far as possible, and by producing a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes; they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good, and they would be living communities both in form and in substance, in the sense that the members of each body would be looked upon and treated as persons and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body.”

Daily Saint Stories

One of the benefits of attending daily mass are the daily saint stories, the ongoing revelations of the stories of the men and women who show by their lives in the Church the path laid out by the Lord.

The Catechism says; “The communion of saints is the Church.” (946)

We see that reflected in the apostolate of today’s saint, Irenaeus, who lived in the second century and dealt brilliantly with one of the deepest heresies of all, Gnosticism, still afflicting the Church through its major tenet: that only the elect have access to the secret knowledge that is the foundation of universal truth.

An excerpt from his story.

“The Church is fortunate that Irenaeus was involved in many of its controversies in the second century. He was a student, well trained, no doubt, with great patience in investigating, tremendously protective of apostolic teaching, but prompted more by a desire to win over his opponents than to prove them in error.

“As bishop of Lyons he was especially concerned with the Gnostics, who took their name from the Greek word for “knowledge.” Claiming access to secret knowledge imparted by Jesus to only a few disciples, their teaching was attracting and confusing many Christians. After thoroughly investigating the various Gnostic sects and their “secret,” Irenaeus showed to what logical conclusions their tenets led. These he contrasted with the teaching of the apostles and the text of Holy Scripture, giving us, in five books, a system of theology of great importance to subsequent times. Moreover, his work, widely used and translated into Latin and Armenian, gradually ended the influence of the Gnostics.”

Guns & Criminals

Unfortunately, they are as congruent as students and books, and this story from the Denver Post offers a good look from a study by three professors about the criminal’s perspective on guns.

It also notes the fallacy that gun control laws keep guns from criminals, whereas the only sustainable strategy to see guns and the other artifacts of the criminal life be voluntarily given up by individual criminals, is through an internal transformation from being a part of the criminal world to becoming part of the communal world.

An excerpt.

“Guns offer protection, redress grievances, give power and status and are a ticket to a culture where violence is an acceptable fact of life.

“So say 67 men and six women who were in Colorado prisons in 2003 and 2004 serving time for gun crimes. They were interviewed by three Colorado professors who tell the inmates’ stories in a book arriving in July called “Guns, Violence, and Criminal Behavior: The Offender’s Perspective.”

“The book — underwritten by the U.S. Justice Department’s Project Safe Neighborhoods program — offers an often-overlooked perspective on the motivations behind gun crime, said Mark Pogrebin, professor of criminal justice at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

“It’s an explanation really of what happened before, during and after the crime has been committed,” Pogrebin said.

“Pogrebin’s team included Paul Stretesky, also at the School of Public Affairs at UC Denver, and Prabha Unnithan, professor of sociology at Colorado State University.

“No other alternatives

“Most of the inmates were more than willing to tell their stories, Pogrebin said. They considered themselves average, ordinary people who reacted to circumstances beyond their control, he said.

“Many inmates claimed that they believe that (they) had no other choice in the situation but to use their gun to harm, murder or intimidate another person,” said the authors. “To them, it was the only possible choice they could have made at the moment.”

“While some were steeped in gang or criminal culture, others who used their guns to kill were not, Pogrebin said….

“The interviews indicated that gun-control laws would have had little effect on the study subjects’ criminal behavior. Most got their guns through a variety of ways, including borrowing, stealing and taking them by force, the professor said.”

Spiritual Warfare

In this post from the Catholic Key Blog, the blog, as noted on their site “from the staff of the newspaper for the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph in Missouri,” there is an excellent online discussion of the reality—which some Catholics still have difficulty understanding or accepting—of the eternal spiritual warfare that exists (with the Church as ground-zero in many ways) between good and evil.

The Catechism speaks clearly of the spiritual battle against evil.

“409 This dramatic situation of “the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one”makes man’s life a battle:

“The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.”

An excerpt from the post at Catholic Key.

“A number of recent editorials by Catholic Obama partisans have sought to discredit the U.S. Bishops and the pro-life movement as a whole by grossly misappropriating the words of Kansas City – St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn.

“Sometimes with attribution, sometimes without, but never in context, they have ripped four words, “We are at war,” from a 3,981 word address Bishop Finn made to a pro-life convention April 18, and given it meaning and context of their own making.”

Broken Windows Policing

Two effective criminal justice technologies are broken-windows policing and three-strikes sentencing, and both are based on focusing on the worst crimogenic aspects of neighborhoods and criminals respectively.

One of the foremost proponents of broken-windows policing, William Bratton, has been the police chief in Los Angeles awhile and garnering excellent reviews, as this recent article in the Los Angeles Times notes.

It appears—from this article on one neighborhood in Cincinnati—that broken-windows policing is called for and one hopes they soon bring it.

An excerpt.

“OVER-THE-RHINE – Two streets in this Cincinnati neighborhood have earned the city the top spot in a national ranking of the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods by a personal finance and consumer Web site, according to data from 2005 through 2007.

“According to walletpop.com, Central Parkway and Liberty Street in Over-the-Rhine are the center of the worst neighborhood, with a violent crime rate of 266.94 per 1,000 population and 457 predicted annual violent crimes.

“There is a 1 in 4 chance in becoming a crime victim in that area in one year’s time, the site reports.

“Spokesmen for Cincinnati police and Mayor Mark Mallory did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“According to walletpop.com, the ranking was compiled by NeighborhoodsScout.com, which gathers FBI data from 2005, 2006 and 2007 submitted by all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies and came up with the highest predicted rates of violent crime in America.”

The Lord

One of the truly great Catholic books—and we are fortunate there are so many—I have discovered is The Lord by Romano Guardini, and when he writes about the reception Jesus receives from his own neighbors in Nazareth as he was teaching in the synagogue, well dear reader, I had to share this excerpt with you.

An excerpt.

“In Nazareth, scandal, flickering since Jesus’ very first words, now flares up. Then it glimmers hidden under the ash. At the end, its roaring conflagration closes over Christ’s head: eternal revolt of the human heart against the bearer of its own salvation.

“Scandal—source of the power that Jesus’ enemies organize against him. They use any ‘reasons’ for their hatred that they can find: that he heals on the Sabbath; that he dines with people of ill repute; that he does not live as an ascetic, and so on. The real reason is never given; invariably it is this mysterious, inexplicable impulse of the fallen human heart revolting against the holiness that is God.

“Thus into the hour glowing with the fullness of holy beauty and truth slash the words: “Is not this Joseph’s son?” and Matthew adds:” Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Then where did he get all this” (Matthew 13:55-56)

“Jesus forces the enemy to step from his ambush: You doubt me? You whisper: Why doesn’t he work the miracles he has worked elsewhere here in his own city? Let me tell you! There I could work, because there they believed in me; but you do not believe. And why not? Because I am one of you! Beware, what happened to those nearest Elias and Eliseus will happen to you: their own people refused to believe and fell from grace, and the holiness which they denied was given to strangers!

“But the hour is Satan’s. From those who had just witnessed, amazed and moved, the grace and beauty of Jesus’ words, a paroxysm of rage breaks lose. They thrust him out of the synagogue and through the streets of the city to the precipice of the hill on which it lies, to hurl him from it. Rejection of the kingdom’s eternal, inexpressible abundance has become a living possibility. Already the cross stands waiting.

“However, the hour in which “the power of darkness” has its will entirely has not yet come (Luke 22:53); the incident is turned into a demonstration of spiritual power. The strongest things are the stillest. The scene in the temple before Easter, when Jesus single-handed overthrows the tables of the money-lenders and drives the crowds of bartering pilgrims from his Father’s house is striking enough (John 2:14-17). But what occurs here in Nazareth is an even greater proof of spiritual force. The excited mob, infuriated by neighborly hate and general demonic hysteria, surrounds Jesus, drives him up the hill to the brink of the precipice, and tries to force him over it to his death. Suddenly, in the thick of the clamor and chaos, the quiet words: “But he, passing through their midst, went his way.” No return of violence for violence. Soundlessly, effortlessly, divine freedom walks right through the seething mob, its irresistible force bound by nothing on earth but its own “hour.” (Hardcover Edition, pp. 46-47)

Laity as Co-Responsible with Priests

The Catechism teaches that laity has already been deemed to have a collaborative place with Christ’s kingly, priestly, and prophetic offices within the Church, but in May Pope Benedict offered a deeper and more mature perspective of co-responsibility in a speech in Rome, with special relevancy for the work of lay apostolates such as the Lampstand Foundation.

An excerpt.

“There is still a long way to go. Too many of the baptized do not feel part of the ecclesial community and live on its margins, only coming to parishes in certain circumstances to receive religious services. Compared to the number of inhabitants in each parish, the lay people who are ready to work in the various apostolic fields, although they profess to be Catholic, are still few and far between. Of course, social and cultural difficulties abound but faithful to the Lord’s mandate, we cannot resign ourselves to preserving what exists. Trusting in the grace of the Spirit which the Risen Christ guaranteed to us, we must continue on our way with renewed energy. What paths can we take? In the first place we must renew our efforts for a formation which is more attentive and focused on the vision of the Church, of which I spoke and this should be both on the part of priests as well as of religious and lay people to understand ever better what this Church is, this People of God in the Body of Christ. At the same time, it is necessary to improve pastoral structures in such a way that the co-responsibility of all the members of the People of God in their entirety is gradually promoted, with respect for vocations and for the respective roles of the consecrated and of lay people. This demands a change in mindset, particularly concerning lay people. They must no longer be viewed as “collaborators” of the clergy but truly recognized as “co-responsible”, for the Church’s being and action, thereby fostering the consolidation of a mature and committed laity. This common awareness of being Church of all the baptized in no way diminishes the responsibility of parish priests. It is precisely your task, dear parish priests, to nurture the spiritual and apostolic growth of those who are already committed to working hard in the parishes. They form the core of the community that will act as a leaven for the others. Although these communities are sometimes small, to prevent them from losing their identity and vigour they must be taught to listen prayerfully to the word of God through the practice of lectio divina, as the recent Synod of Bishops ardently hoped. Let us truly draw nourishment from listening, from meditating on the word of God. Our communities must not lack the knowledge that they are “Church”, because Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, convokes them and makes them his People. Indeed, on the one hand faith is a profoundly personal relationship with God but on the other it possesses an essential community component and the two dimensions are inseparable. Thus young people, who are more exposed to the growing individualism of contemporary culture, the consequences of which inevitably involves the weakening of interpersonal bonds and the enfeeblement of the sense of belonging, will also taste the beauty and joy of being and feeling Church. Through faith in God we are united in the Body of Christ and all become united in the same Body. Thus, precisely by profoundly believing we may achieve communion among ourselves and emerge from the loneliness of individualism.”

Drug Legalization

It is an issue that has generated much debate—as we posted on earlier this month—and appears to becoming moot in Mexico which is due to sign a bill allowing possession of small amounts, according to this story in the Los Angeles Times.

An excerpt.

“Reporting from Mexico City — Could Mexican cities become Latin Amsterdams, flooded by drug users seeking penalty-free tokes and toots?

“That is the fear, if somewhat overstated, of some Mexican officials, especially in northern border states that serve as a mecca for underage drinkers from the United States.

“The anxiety stems from the Mexican legislature’s quiet vote to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs, an effort that in the past proved controversial.

“There’s been less protest this time, in part because there hasn’t been much publicity.

“Some critics have suggested that easing the punishment for drug possession sends the wrong message while President Felipe Calderon is waging a bloody war against major narcotics traffickers. The battle between law enforcement authorities and drug suspects has claimed more than 11,000 lives since he took office in late 2006.

“But it was Calderon who proposed the decriminalization legislation.

“His reasoning: It makes sense to distinguish between small-time users and big-time dealers, while re-targeting major crime-fighting resources away from the consumers and toward the dealers and their drug lord bosses.

“The important thing is . . . that consumers are not treated as criminals,” said Rafael Ruiz Mena, secretary general of the National Institute of Penal Sciences. “It is a public health problem, not a penal problem.”

The Little Flower in Prison

The relics of the saint, who wrote the wonderful autobiography, Story of a Soul, and who was made a doctor of the Church—one of three women so honored—by Pope John Paul II, is being brought into an English prison in October, as reported by the Catholic Herald of Great Britain.

An excerpt.

“The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux are to be taken into a high-security London jail as part of a visit to England and Wales this year.

“A casket containing some of the bones of the “Little Flower” will spend October 12 in Wormwood Scrubs.

“The prison is home to nearly 1,300 adult male prisoners, about 300 of whom are Catholic. All are classed as category B on a scale of A to D, meaning it is necessary for prison authorities to make escape “extremely difficult”.

“Mgr Keith Baltrop, the tour organiser, said the idea was to give prisoners a chance to pray for the intercession of St Thérèse, a French Carmelite nun who was described by Pope Pius X as the “greatest saint of modern times”.

“He said it was important to take the relics to “places not just where the faithful gather but where she is most needed”.

“He said: “We are taking her to the big Church of England chapel and the relics are going there for approximately three and a half hours. They will be left there and it will be left for the prison authorities to enable as many people as possible to come and venerate them.”

“He added: “God has made her a particular figure for our modern age. She was extremely humble but she had this sense that she was going to be a great saint. God had chosen her to be a powerful channel of grace…

“St Thérèse, who died in 1897 from tuberculosis at the age of 24, also said that she intended to spend her time in heaven “doing good on earth”.

“She is famous for her theology of the “little way” – carrying out even the smallest and most mundane daily tasks or deeds with love. She was made one of just three women doctors of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

“She is considered such a powerful intercessor that in 1927, as the Soviet Union fell into the grip of Stalinist Communism, she was named by Pope Pius XI as the patron saint of all works for Russia, as well as a co-patron saint of France and co-patron of the missions. Her relics were flown to Baghdad in December 2002 in the hope that her intercession would prevent the Iraq war.”