Baltimore Crime: Is Violence a Virus?

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Is Violence a Virus?

... and if so, how do you send it into remission?
(An NYT article about CeaseFire)

... residents of Armistead Gardens in the NE were forced to stay inside on account of a suicidal, gun-toting loony.

19 comments:

John Galt said...: If it's viral, then Erdman Ave. has an outbreak.; Sun May 04, 06:09:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...: There's actually a three drug cocktail that's very good at putting violence into remission...; Sun May 04, 07:12:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: What I don't understand is why does it take three drugs to whack a person. They killed a 1000 pound horse yesterday at the Derby with one shot.

I think they are making execution too complicated.; Sun May 04, 08:31:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...: It's to make it pretty. The three drugs they use are a barbiturate to knock the inmate out, a paralytic to well, paralyze him, and then potassium to stop his heart. They could just give him a huge dose of barbiturates, but I think it's unpredictable how long it takes someone from ODing on those. That's why they use the potassium to stop the heart, because it does it quickly. The paralytic is given so that the unconscious inmate doesn't flop around. It's administered purely for aesthetic reasons. Really, lethal injection is an asinine way to kill someone. The guillotine is much simpler, kills a person instantly, and leaves his organs available for donation after the execution.; Sun May 04, 08:50:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: And during the French Revolution, the Guillotine beat out American Idol by 50% for Nielson ratings.; Sun May 04, 09:04:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Then why do pets just go to sleep when they are put down? That looks humane and not controversial to me.; Sun May 04, 09:24:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: I was actually pretty impressed with the thoughtfulness of the article on CeaseFire strategies.

It makes clearly the point that CeaseFire is not a good crime-prevention effort, but rather a functional survival mitigation approach.

Suppose, for instance, you could sharply cut the mortality rate in auto collisions by slamming the car with the right-of-way because he's probably much more risk-averse than the wrongful driver?

The fact that you can do it in no way informs the ethical/legal question: "Should you do it?"

I outline below the key passages:

(long)

"Punishment doesn’t drive behavior," he told me. "Copying and modeling and the social expectations of your peers is what drives your behavior."

As a result, the interrupters operate in a netherworld between upholding the law and upholding the logic of the streets. They’re not meant to be a substitute for the police, and indeed, sometimes the interrupters negotiate disputes involving illicit goings-on. They often walk a fine line between mediating and seeming to condone criminal activity. At one Wednesday meeting this past December, the interrupters argued over whether they could dissuade stickup artists from shooting their victims; persuading them to stop robbing people didn’t come up in the discussion.

RELYING ON HARDENED TYPES — the ones who, as Webster of Johns Hopkins says, have some prestige on the streets — is risky. They have prestige for a reason.

(parenthetically)

: they’re violent.

One outreach worker was fired after he was arrested for possession of an AK-47 and a handgun. Another outreach worker and an interrupter were let go after they were arrested for dealing drugs. Word-of-mouth allegations often circulate, and privately, some in the police department worry about CeaseFire’s workers returning to their old habits.

(One supporter of the program admiringly called it "a terrifying strategy" because of the inherent risks.)

He understood that if the interrupters were associated with the police, it would jeopardize their standing among gang members. "If you look at how segments of the population view the police department, it makes some of our efforts problematic," Baltimore’s police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, told me. "It takes someone who knows these guys to go in and say, ‘Hey, lay off.’ We can’t do that."

It’s like cholera: you may cure everyone, you may contain the epidemic, but if you don’t clean up the water supply, people will soon get sick again.

The difference between cholera and criminality is, cholera entails a corrupting organism.

Criminals, however, engage in violence because of volitional decisionmaking, however flawed.

Punishment does drive behavior, but only in a society willing to bear the sometimes costly burden of carrying it out.

Baltimore appears to have conceded the criminals a safe haven (conditional only on sublethal conduct.) which would be inconceivable in a more civilized city.; Sun May 04, 09:29:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Speaking of Baltimore murders, here are this weekend's #1 and #2.; Sun May 04, 09:33:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...: "Then why do pets just go to sleep when they are put down? That looks humane and not controversial to me."

I think that with smaller animals it's much easier to kill them with an OD of barbiturates, although I'm sure LucidSplash would know better than I do.

Part of the reason lethal injection is so screwed up is that it's not like they had a bunch of respected physicians come up with the best way to kill someone. I believe that a couple of doctors came up with the first lethal injection protocol in Oklahoma, and then other states just sort of haphazardly followed their lead. In Maryland the procedures were drawn up in a bit of a rush, since the state switched to lethal injection less than two months before their first post-Gregg execution.; Sun May 04, 10:39:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Mel,

When they put animals down they're usually using sodium thiopental which is, relatively speaking, a weaker barbituate. It only arrests breathing - and actually many state veterinary associations have banned the use of paralytics in combo with the barbituate precisely because it masks any suffering of the animal - ie, you want to be able to tell if the animal is suffering while you're putting it down (if you didn't give it a big enough dose of the barbituate, etc). So the pets you've seen go down with the barbituate may have looked peaceful but that's not always the case. I worked for a preclincal toxicology lab before going back to school and trust me when I say that while usually it is smooth sailing using sodium thiopental, this is not always the case.

It takes awhile for a person to OD from just a barbituate coma. Induced hyperkalemia (the potassium) is MUCH faster and more reliable, assuming the veins hold up - which has been the issue in most of these cases, not necessarily the effectiveness of the drugs.; Sun May 04, 10:45:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Ppatin has a point about the guillotine except that our society's definition of "humane" death informally includes the effect on the witnesses. At the lab, we euthanized the smaller animals (rats, mice) with a CO2 box followed by a guillotine. It took about 90 seconds, if that, but it really wasn't pretty to watch. The larger animals (rabbits, dogs, monkeys) were euthanized using the barbituate, partially because it wasn't as messy, partially because of humane treatment regulations, and partly because it was easier on the staff.; Sun May 04, 10:51:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...: Wouldn't a huge dose of Fentanyl or something similar be a better way to kill someone, or would that have the same possible problems as ODing on barbiturates?; Sun May 04, 11:08:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Fentanyl is an opioid, and opiods can cause respiratory depression in large doses. However, they are generally pretty short-acting, toxic doses can cause pretty severe agitation, and most opioids have pretty wide therapeutic ranges so it can be difficult to gauge what's going to do the trick. With fentanyl especially, the pharmacodynamics are not as well understood as many barbituates, making it an especially poor choice. But really opioids in general are not good choices based on the above reasons.; Sun May 04, 11:43:00 PM EDT
Maurice Bradbury said...: The husband tells me that WBAL reported that the South Baltimore woman was shot because she wouldn't give some moocher a cigarette.; Mon May 05, 12:23:00 AM EDT
Sean said...: Just came up 95 from DC; the southbound side was completely shut down with police etc, and a team was scouring the street for something. Anyone hear anything?; Mon May 05, 01:29:00 AM EDT
Sean said...: MJB - story here - not much detail.; Mon May 05, 01:30:00 AM EDT
ppatin said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; Mon May 05, 07:21:00 AM EDT
ppatin said...: Yet another bullshit appeal from a death row inmate to the Court of Appeals.; Mon May 05, 07:22:00 AM EDT
ppatin said...: Jury selection begins today in the murder trial of Kevin Johns.

According to WJZ:

"Johns allegedly killed 20-year-old Philip Parker Jr., aboard a bus that was taking inmates from Hagerstown to Baltimore in February 2005.

The day before Parker died, he had testified at Johns' sentencing for the 2004 murder of a prisoner at the Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown."

---

I appreciate the fact that this guy is killing other inmates rather than decent people, but he's still a pretty obvious psycho. Why was he in Hagerstown anyways if he'd already killed another inmate? His ass should've been locked up in Supermax.; Mon May 05, 07:24:00 AM EDT

Baltimore Crime

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Is Violence a Virus?

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