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Jim Galloway, live-blogging the Georgia Senate runoff for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reports, "The Associated Press has just declared Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss the victor in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia. The Democrats have fallen short of their 60-seat majority."

We can breathe a little easier. The Republicans may be able to block drastic pro-criminal legislation, such as repeal of AEDPA.

At a time when many municipalities are cutting services, comes this notable story by Gabriel Kahn from the Wall Street Journal:

"Shrinking budgets are forcing such cities as Phoenix, Portland, Ore., and San Diego to make deep cuts, including to police. But Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has grown his department with a persuasive argument about the financial costs of crime.

The city is adding 1,000 police officers, pushing its force levels in the Los Angeles Police Department to above 10,000 for the first time. Even as the city faces a more than $400 million shortfall for this fiscal year and next, the police budget -- the city's most costly department -- is emerging largely unscathed."

The article also notes the significant decline in crime in L.A. during the past six years which coincides with a sizable increase in the number of police officers.  While crime is surely a multifaceted problem, perhaps one of the answers is straightforward: more police results in less crime.  As Harvard law professor Bill Stuntz discusses, putting more "boots on the ground" likely is part of the answer to reducing crime in neighborhoods which are often seriously underpoliced.  The LA statistics seem to support this assertion. 

Interesting, Police Chief Bratton also argues that more police results in a fiscal savings for the city:

"Mr. Bratton said he thinks of Los Angeles's crime reduction as money in the bank. "The cost of a homicide to the city is $1 million," he said, citing an estimate based on a study by the National Institute of Justice that takes into account such costs as criminal trials and police salaries. 'We've reduced the homicide rate by nearly 300 in six years," he said. "That's a $300 million annual benefit to the city.'"    

 

 

We plan to move the Crime and Consequences blog to a new host over the Thanksgiving holiday period. During the transition, there may be times when some users are seeing the old blog and some are seeing the new one. In addition, we are upgrading to a new version of the blog software, so there may be a few glitches in that transition process.

Comments will be turned off on the new blog initially. We will turn them on when we iron out a few lingering technical issues.

CJLF's main web site will be down for maintenance for a few hours on Monday. The expected down time is from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Pacific Time.

An important aspect of "broken windows" policing is the enforcement of public order laws, such as the prohibition of public drunkenness. It appears that San Jose is about to take a step backward. Sean Webby has this story in the S.J. Mercury-News. "City officials agreed Tuesday to explore ways to cut back the San Jose Police Department's aggressive use of the public-drunkenness law, following a public hearing at which hundreds of residents turned out to protest city policy."

Why, one might ask. Well, it seems we have "activists" at work, playing that good old reliable race card. "During the hearing, about 50 residents spoke out against the city's aggressive policy, which led to 4,661 arrests by the department last year — 57 percent of them Hispanics. There was little community support expressed for the current policy."

I doubt that a lack of turnout at the meeting is a valid indicator of little support for the policy. More likely, the opponents are organizing opposition and supporters have not made an organizing effort.

[Police Chief] Davis said in his remarks that the city's arrest numbers are higher because San Jose does not have a sobering station, as other big cities do, leaving the police little choice but to arrest people who are publicly drunk. The chief's comments didn't note that some other cities release suspects without charges, while San Jose police bring charges against virtually everyone arrested for being drunk.

Other cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles? Yeah, those are great examples to emulate.

Gallup's annual survey of the public's perception of the ethics of various professions is available here. The medical folks continue to top the chart, while financial professions have taken an unsurprising hit.

Relevant to criminal law, the police do well and far better than lawyers. A whopping 56% of the public rate the police high on ethics compared to only 9% low, just a shade behind the clergy. Lawyers come in on the top of the bottom tier with 18/37. That is low, but higher than congressmen, car salesmen, telemarketers, or the last-place lobbyists.

In today's WaPo, Theola Labbé-DeBose and Robert E. Pierre report on an unusual police strategy:

D.C. police, frustrated that a teenage robbery suspect they have arrested kept getting released, took to cyberspace yesterday in an unusual effort to lobby judges and city officials to keep him off the streets.

Exasperated by the third arrest of the same suspect in a string of 21 robberies, a D.C. police official sent an electronic bulletin to residents of Columbia Heights pleading for them to flood Peter Nickles, the city's top attorney, with calls and e-mails demanding that the suspect not be released.

As of last night, he hadn't been.

Under the subject line "ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT," Inspector Edward Delgado said the teenager allegedly had been sneaking up behind victims, knocking them to the ground and swiping whatever he could: money, cellphones, iPods.

(The title of this post is the headline of the print version of the story.)

The special treatment of juveniles in juvenile court is for the purpose of straightening out kids who have gone astray with minor to midrange offenses such as vandalism and car theft. When they have graduated to major crimes of violence such as robbery, rape, and murder, it's time to take off the kid gloves and prosecute these crimes as crimes. That is particularly true for repeat offenders.

Last night, I attended the annual dinner of the Federalist Society, where the guest speaker was Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Mr. Mukasey gave a strong speech defending the Bush Administration's success in defending the nation from further terror attacks. He rebuked critics who attacked the administration's programs as violating the rule of law even while the critiques were completed devoid of any legal analysis. Finally, he attacked as irresponsible the calls by some members of Congress for criminal prosecution of DoJ lawyers who had simply given their best advice on what was and was not lawful at a time of national crisis.

As he was winding up, his voice began to break up. Most of us thought he was simply getting choked up at the thought of dedicated people in his department being threatened in this irresponsible way. Then he became unable to speak and was obviously going to fall, but his security agents caught him. A doctor in the house (in an evening gown) administered aid until the paramedics arrived in what seemed like a very long time. They took him out to a hospital. Those of us in the audience thought he had had a stroke or heart attack.

Today, this story by Carrie Johnson and Clarence Williams of the WaPo and this AP story by Matt Apuzzo and Lara Jakes Jordan indicate it is less serious than we thought. He is said to be in good spirits with strong vital signs.

We wish him a speedy recovery.

Update: The AG finished his speech by email, quoted after the jump. His prepared remarks are here.

President-elect Barack Obama has served notice that he does not consider himself bound by anything he said during the campaign. The day after winning on a theme of "postpartisanship," he has chosen as his White House Chief of Staff a person who is arguably the most extreme partisan in the entire City of Washington, Rahm Emanuel. I fully expected the moderate, postpartisan mask to come off after the election, but even I didn't think it would come off this quickly.