A Street Corner Analysis of D.C. Crime

"The corner boys, as they are sometimes called, are part of what is perhaps the most visibly anonymous demographic in the country. Young and black, feared and marginalized, they are the ones most likely to be viewed as a suspect in a crime and most likely to become the faceless victim of one.

Nevertheless, if you want to know what's behind the rash of homicides in Trinidad -- 24 so far this year -- and to get a different take on how to stop the killings, these are guys to go to, on their turf and on their terms."

So what Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy did was get out of his car and talk to them. Kudos to you, Mr. Millow.

The whole column is here.

Officials Struggle With Rise in Knife Crimes Among Britain’s Youths

Knife crimes? If only we could be so lucky! The story is here.

For all the panic about rising knife violence in London, let's keep in mind that London has 7.3 million people and about 160 murders a year. That's fewer than New York City. Hell, it's even fewer than Baltimore (population: 650,000)! And it's not that London has a low crime rate. It just has less lethal violence.

London does have strong and effective gun control. Sure, you can kill somebody with a knife, but it's a lot messier.

Bad Person. Bad Judge.

Too many people refuse to believe that there are some truly bad people out there. Some people are just bad. Police know this. Judges don't.

Is it unfair to throw someone in prison for a long time for a technical violation of parole? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on the person.

Just because you can't convict a person doesn't mean he's not guilty. That's when using probation and parole violations become so important.

There's an attempt in Baltimore to crack down on 960 of the most violent people in Baltimore. This is exactly the kind of plan that has worked with great success in other cities to dramatically reduce violence (google: "Boston Miracle). There's a story in today's Baltimore Sun about a bad man, Jerrod Rowlett.

On one hand (the wrong hand) you could see this man as a victim now being locked up for a crime he wasn't convicted of. On the other hand, the correct hand, this is a bad and violent man who can't be convicted because his victims are too terrified to testify about his violent and drug-dealing ways. It's bad that Rowlett shot anybody. But his last shooting is a preventable shame that should (but probably doesn't) rest on the conscience of Judge Stewart's.

Jerrod Rowlett... racked up a dozen criminal charges at a young age and earned such a street reputation that Bealefeld [the police commissioner] knows him by name.
...
Rowlett's first arrest came when he was 16 and accused of first-degree murder, but he was found not guilty. The next year he was convicted of carrying a handgun, but the five-year sentence was suspended. He was found guilty of assault in 2005 and got another five-year suspended sentence.

In April 2006 city police raided a drug corner and charged him with dealing heroin. He made bail, and the following January a witness said Rowlett shot another man
...
Rowlett pleaded guilty in both cases.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Lynn Stewart signed off on a plea deal that suspended the 15-year prison term, allowing him to walk away with only the time he had served while waiting for the deal, and five years' probation. This earned him a place on the state's year-old worst-offenders list.

The judge in Rowlett's case, who had agreed to the plea agreement, had stern words at his August hearing. "The court will work with you," Stewart told him. "But make no doubt about it, sir. If you violate the probation, you're going to be gone for a long time. Do you understand?"

Looking down, he mumbled "Yes."

In April, police arrested Rowlett again on a gun charge, and probation agents jumped at the chance to send him to prison. Prosecutors dropped the charges when the victim, a family member, recanted the story, but the probation agents still sought a violation.

Since Rowlett was in the target program, a state probation agent asked Stewart to imprison him anyway by issuing a "no bail" warrant, saying Rowlett failed to tell his agent about the arrest. Stewart declined to issue the warrant on May 7.

Twenty days later, Rowlett became a suspect in a midday shooting in Northeast Baltimore. He's now charged with attempted first-degree murder for the fourth time in his life, and he is off the streets - being held without bail until his trial.

May he stay off the streets. This is one guy I'm willing to pay for to keep locked up and far away from me.

2nd Amendment

I'm of two minds when it comes to gun control and the 2nd Amendment. I'm not a fan of guns. I would love to live in a society that heavily restricted gun ownership. But I don't.

Say what you want about the 2nd Amendment... and I've always said--just to be provocative to my liberal friends--that if you see the constitution as so broad that it gives women the right to have an abortion, then certainly you can see the 2nd Amendment broadly enough to give a man the right to bear arms. Now the Supreme Court has had their say.

On one hand, it is a huge decision overturning decades of local gun control laws.

On the other hand, gun control fans, it won't matter. Really. Giving law abiding people the right to have a gun in their home isn't so bad. I had a gun.

I'm no fan of the N.R.A., but they do make one good point: we already have laws making guns illegal. If we don't or can't enforce our existing gun laws, it makes no sense to pass more laws making guns more illegal. Must gun control simply prevented non-criminals from having a gun. The problem is criminals with guns. What do we do about them?

One thing I learned as a cop is that there are a lot of illegal guns out there. More than you can imagine. That's a big problem. Gun prohibition isn't a battle worth fighting. Best to save the political capital for something else.

Does cheap gasoline cause crime?

I wish gas were taxed more. Much more. Luckily, I'm not running for political office. I saw this figure in an article in today's New York Times. The point of the article is that gas in the U.S. is still pretty cheap compared to most countries. But when I look at the figure, I see what I think is an inverse correlation between the price of gas and crime. Leaving aside middle-eastern countries that produce oil, countries with cheap gas have higher crime rates and countries with expensive gas have less crime. I haven't actually looked at the crime rates for these countries (and if somebody has the time and desire, please do and let me know), because I don't think this correlation has any real meaning. But it's interesting.

While I'm pretty sure that higher gas taxes won't cut the homicide rate, there does seem to be a pretty strong correlation between expensive gas and safe streets. I'm writing this from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Gas here tops the chart at $10 a gallon. Yet the economy seems to be doing just fine and too many people still drive to work in SUVs.

What does the government do with all this tax money? Along with more police and safe streets, there's also health care, job security, paid vacations, public transportation, bike paths, and a secure system of dikes and levies that actually keeps the country from being flooded. Not bad for a few bucks a gallon.

Don't eat the paint

Why is there so much violence in Baltimore? Maybe it's the lead. Or you could say, "It's the lead, stupid!" There's a lot of lead paint in Baltimore, especially in poor neighborhoods.

Greg Toppo reports in USA Today.

In the academy, a friend and I used to joke that one of our dim classmates had licked the windowsill one too many times. Maybe he had.