A triple shooting in Edgewater-- a double attempted homicide + suicide. I wish BAL had a better stock illos. than that gun pointed at my head, like a photo of the actual people involved.
The tale of politician/crime victim A. Robert Kaufman illustrates the difficulty of putting Quaker beliefs into practice.
The attempted murder, witness intimidation trial of Joseph DiAngelo (the dude who hired the guys to beat a witness with a table leg), originally scheduled for today, has been postponed until November 4 at the request of the defense.
Not-so-Heavenly Creatures: A Bethesda lawyer, Elsa Newman, was found guilty of consipiring with her best friend Margery Landry to kill her ex-husband.
The murder trial of Tyrone Beane, originally scheduled for today, has been postponed until December 15. Judge Lynn Stewart ruled there was cause for this postponement because there were no courts available.
A DC think tank's sobering report on Bmore drug crimes: "four out of five convicted offenders in Baltimore need treatment [for drug addiction]."
2 comments:
You don't like that snazzy stock illus. on wbaltv.com? An in-your-face pistol is so very... Baltimore. I mean, I think it should be the logo for Live Baltimore. Truth in advertising, no?
Anywho, with reference to the fact that 4 of 5 inmates needs treatment, please correlate that with the minimal estimate that one in five Baltimoreans of all ages and circumstances are substance-abusers and Baltimoreans are generically about 5 times more criminally-inclined than Americans at large.
So why is massive treatment not a no-brainer? Because of efficacy issues.
According to an fbi report titled
Federal Prison Residential Drug Treatment Reduces Substance Use and Arrests After Release
,within the first six months after release from incarceration 29% return to using and 12.5% are rearrested.
On the matter of efficacy, those who complete a treatment program are 44% less likely to relapse within 6 months, while they are actually 73% less likely to to be rearrested within the same period. That is, treatment makes them better people, but also better criminals, at least over the short-run.
Outside of correctional facilities, the large-scale Treatment Outcome Prospective Study (TOPS) showed that about one-third of the clients who reported returning to cocaine use in the year after treatment began to do so as early as the first week following treatment termination. Another 25 percent began using the drug within 2 to 4 weeks following treatment termination, for a cumulative first-month relapse rate of 57 percent. Studies of crack cocaine users found that 47 percent dropped out of therapy between the initial clinic visit and the first session; three-quarters dropped out by the fifth session.
The FBI study performed a Heckman test for selection bias, finding that selection bias is material. What this means for nonpractitioners is that drug users who CHOOSE to enter treatment because they feel that they are ready to succeed tend to fare much better than folks who are only being treated because they got caught.
Consequently, drug treatment for offenders may be somewhat less alluring than it initially appears. Slots might be best earmarked for first-time offenders, who have a greater likelihood of exiting the entire lifestyle and not just the habit.
Remember Ronald Scott, who was nonfatally stabbed while in Baltimore City detention just before the death of detainee Smoot? Well it turns out that the case against correctional officers for conspiracy involvement has been dropped because... after the victim was released on bail for felony narcotics charges, he got into a(nother) street fight in East Baltimore and was fatally stabbed. I observe that with or without the contraband narcotics, it should be understood that offenders are engaged in a culture of violence which has a life all its own. Eliminating the focal commodity is a fine idea, but the culture of criminality is yet the greater threat.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.officer08oct08,1,871621.story?coll=bal-local-headlines
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