Crime
January 20, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Smash and grab robberies are rampant in San Francisco, where authorities do very little to discourage them. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 31,000 people reported smash and grab robberies in the city in 2017 alone. Hoping to document such a robbery, “Inside Edition,” a television program, placed GPS trackers inside items in a car parked in an area well known for theft. The items were a $250
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January 18, 2020 — John Hinderaker
You probably remember the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal that came to light several years ago. Investigations have been ongoing since then, and one just-completed inquiry has made headlines in Great Britain. This is from the London Times: “Rotherham police chief: we ignored sex abuse of children.” A senior police officer admitted that his force ignored the sexual abuse of girls by Pakistani grooming gangs for decades because it was
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January 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
There’s good news and bad news about Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney who dropped all charges against actor Jussie Smollett after he staged a fake racist/homophobic attack against himself. The good news is that, according to the Washington Post, Foxx is facing vigorous challenges to her reelection. The bad news is that her main challenger agrees with Foxx on criminal justice policy. Foxx is part of the wave
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January 9, 2020 — John Hinderaker
In the New York Times, Thomas Edsall has a very long op-ed titled “Trump Wants Law and Order Front and Center.” The piece is a paean to the progressive trend in law enforcement–i.e., not enforcing laws–combined with fretting about whether the Republicans are likely to benefit politically. It does, I think, highlight an issue that will gain increasing prominence between now and November. Unexpectedly, the 2020 presidential campaign is drilling
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January 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In 2019, Washington, D.C. had its highest number of homicides in a decade. The Washington Post, quoting unnamed city authorities, attributes the spike to “a proliferation of the use of firearms to resolve disputes.” This “proliferation” wasn’t confined to Washington. In neighboring Prince Georges County, Maryland, homicides increased by 20 percent. Nearby Baltimore, where murder has been on the upsurge since its police force was demonized by the left and
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December 28, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Kevin Drum is a left-of-center writer who is worth reading at Mother Jones. He often departs from liberal orthodoxy, as we’ve noted here in the past. To end this year, Drum offers “A Few Things Liberals Believe That They Shouldn’t.” Six, to be precise. They are: Head Start (and similar pre-K programs) raise student achievement. American health care is expensive because of private insurance. We have a retirement crisis. The
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December 20, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Which “deep state” figures will be indicted in connection with the scandalous handling of the Russia probe that targeted Donald Trump? I have to believe that Kevin (“Viva la Resistance!”) Clinesmith will be. You can’t let government lawyers get away with making material alterations to documents. Andrew McCabe might also be indicted. In 2018, Michael Horowitz found that the former FBI official “lacked candor” with James Comey, FBI investigators, and
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December 16, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Daniel Horowitz has reviewed ICE’s brand new comprehensive enforcement and removal operations report. ICE reported that it issued detainers on criminal aliens in fiscal year 2019 who were collectively charged with 2,500 murders. To put that in perspective, albeit via an imperfect comparison, Horowitz says that law enforcement agencies only arrested 9,049 individuals in total for homicide in 2018. This source places the total number of murder arrests in 2018
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December 1, 2019 — John Hinderaker
It has been widely reported that Usman Khan, the London Bridge terrorist, was released from prison in December 2018 after serving half of the term to which he was sentenced in 2012. Khan was one of a group of nine jihadists who were arrested in 2010 for plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange. They also contemplated “Mumbai-style” terrorist attacks, and one of the plotters had a hit list
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November 17, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
A foreign correspondent I used to know liked to say that a good test for national decline is the smell of urine. In declining countries, one frequently smells it. Americans in certain jurisdictions can expect to smell more urine soon. Left-wing prosecutors, some financed by George Soros, will be decriminalizing urination in public. This is one of a several “quality of life” crimes the left wants to stop prosecuting. Some
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November 7, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire, succeeded in toppling two fine Northern Virginia prosecutors this year in Democratic primaries. Pouring unheard of amounts of money into local prosecutor races in Arlington and Fairfax Counties, Soros was able to take down Commonwealth Attorneys Theo Stamos in Arlington and Raymond Morrogh in Fairfax. They will be replaced by prosecutors who are borderline qualified, if that, and who very likely will adhere to the
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November 4, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Al Pacino once starred with Ellen Barkin in an underrated movie called “Sea of Love.” Pacino played a New York City cop. Early in the film, Pacino organizes a sting to capture dozens of New York City’s most wanted criminals. He has them invited to a special meet and greet with the New York Yankees. Suspecting nothing, the crooks and thugs arrive. They are duly taken into custody. Bill de
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November 3, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post has a Sunday magazine. This week, the entire magazine, an unusually thick edition, is devoted to the topic of prison. All of the articles are written by people who are incarcerated now or were incarcerated in the past. The illustrations and photographs are also exclusively by this cohort. The lead article is by Piper Kerman. She served 13 months in federal prison for money laundering and drug
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October 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Pharmaceutical companies are taking the blame for the opioid epidemic in America. We’ve all heard the narrative: Americans become addicted to pills prescribed by irresponsible doctors and peddled by unscrupulous drug companies. Many die of an overdose. There’s no denying that this occurs. However, a new study from Massachusetts strongly suggests that it is not the main reason for the opioid epidemic. The study found: Prescription opioids were detected in
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October 8, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
It was bound to happen, and sooner rather than later. Joel Francisco, dubbed by authorities the crown prince of the Almighty Latin Kings gang, was released from prison thanks to the First Step Act. Now, he is now wanted for murder. Francisco was sentenced in 2005 to life imprisonment for trafficking in crack cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced sentences for this crime, but not retroactively. The First
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October 6, 2019 — John Hinderaker
On September 30, the FBI released its annual report on crime for 2018. It showed that violent crime declined over 2017 in every category except rape, where a revised definition was applied. The number of homicides declined by 6.1%; the rate went down by even more than that, to 5.0 per 100,000. The FBI’s good news about crime got very little publicity, and I can’t find a single publication that
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October 3, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The “jailbreak” crowd, which includes far too many conservatives, likes to point to Texas as providing powerful evidence for the merit of releasing felons from prison early. Indeed, the usually sensible Sen. John Cornyn of Texas was a leader of the federal push for lenient sentencing. In support of his position, he liked to cite the Texas experience. That experience didn’t work well this weekend for Houston’s first Sikh officer,
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