I hope that our class will provide you with the ability
to critically understand what is happening in the real
world.
To facilitate your ability to take what you learn in
class and apply it to the real world, I have compiled a
series of current newspaper articles. These newspaper
articles pertain to topics that we discuss in class and are
covered in the textbook. I hope that you can discover the
relevancy of our class discussions through your reading of
these newspaper articles.
I will include questions from the newspaper articles
on your exams to reward those who have attempted to
broaden and deepen their education.
On
Crime
Amnesty International cites
U.S. abuse of jailed juveniles
The report says many of the abuses violate international treaties signed by the United States.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON-An increasing number of children in U.S. courts and prisons are subject to
beatings, excessive detention, solitary confinement and other abuses of their human rights, Amnesty
International will report today.
Many of the abuses, according to the report, violate international treaties. As an example, the nongovernmental organization dedicated to protecting human rights cited California for sentencing
juveniles to life sentences without parole.
The report said 14 prisoners now serving life without parole in California were sentenced when they
were younger than 18. This, according to Amnesty International, violates the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty signed and ratified by the United States. The report cited no
other abuse of accused or convicted juveniles in California.
The organization said it was troubled by the tendency of many states to treat accused juveniles as
adults and try them in regular courtrooms. The report estimated that 200,000 children are prosecuted
in adult courts every year, 7,000 are held in adult jails before trial, and 11,000 are serving their
sentences in adult prisons and other correctional centers.
Roanoke Times, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 1998
RJR affiliate to pay $15 million for being cigarette smuggling front
The smugglers are accused of avoiding more than $2.5 million in excise taxes.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An R.J. Reynolds tobacco affiliate agreed Tuesday to pay $15 million for helping
smuggle cigarettes made in Canada back into that country for sale on the black market.
It is the first time an affiliate of a major tobacco company has pleaded guilty to a federal crime in the United
States, U.S. Attorney Thomas Maroney said. Northern Brands International was set up by RJR specifically for
smuggling, he said. "This company knew what it was doing and knew where its products were going,”
Maroney said.
RJR and other big tobacco firms have long denied involvement in lucrative U.S.-Canada contraband trade.
Maroney declined to comment about whether any RJR officials were involved.
Northern Brands, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., admitted to taking part in a scheme to divert Export 'A' and
Vantage brand cigarettes back into Canada without paying U.S. excise taxes. The cigarettes were made in
Canada and moved into the United States under the pretext they would be shipped to eastern Europe.
The operation took place from mid-1994 to mid-1995 and involved at least 26 tractor-trailer loads of
cigarettes, Maroney said. The smugglers are accused of avoiding more than $2.5 million in taxes.
The company pleaded guilty in Binghamton, N.Y., before U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy, who imposed
a $5 million fine and ordered Northern Brands to pay $10 million in forfeiture.
Sarasota Herald Tribune, December 23, 1998
Chesterfeld County couple face 17 charges, including sodomy, rape
Abusive parents regain custody, arrested again
The pair were arrested in June 1989 after their 13-month-old daughter was found dead in her crib.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHMOND-A mother and father whose infant daughter died of neglect in a filthy crib later regained custody of their other four children and
now have been charged with sexually molesting their remaining daughters.
The Chesterfield County parents, whose names are being withheld to protect the children's identities, were arrested last month and charged with
repeatedly having sex with their two remaining daughters, ages 11 and 14. They face 17 charges, including sodomy, rape and producing
pornography.
Some officials involved with the case say they can't understand how the two managed to get their children back nine years after another child died
in their care.
The parents were arrested in June 1989 after their 13-monthold daughter was found dead in her crib. Court records say the girl's emaciated body
had ulcers from diaper rash and was covered with her own body waste. The judge who convicted the parents described the squalor in the family's
home as the most sickening thing he had ever seen, and Richmond defense attorney Jay Pickus, who had been appointed the mother's attorney,
was granted his request to be dismissed after seeing the pictures.
The parents, then in their 20s, were sentenced to eight years in prison, with four years suspended, for child abuse. The mother was released in
1990 after giving birth to her fifth child while in custody. The father was released in 1993.
Details about how the couple regained custody remain sealed in juvenile court records. However, one Official who asked not to be named told
The Richmond Times Dispatch that the children went to live with their grandmother in her Chesterfield trailer home. The parents moved in after
their release, family friends said.
The family lived together in the trailer until authorities received a complaint that the mother's brother had sexually molested the two girls, the
family friend said. The man, 35, way convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery and sentenced in November to 24 months in jail, with 12 months
suspended.
A social worker told the parents they could eventually regain custody if they could get a house with adequate bedrooms, the family friend said.
The parents rented a house, and the social worker; began bringing the children for visitation; after a few visits, the children stayed, the friend said.
The parents were arrested Oct. 11. They are in jail in lieu of $75,000 bond each and scheduled to appear in court Dec. 10.
"These are very difficult and real complex situations at best," said Sarah Snead, director of Chesterfield's Department of t' Social Services. "We
don't always realize...the abuse that is occurring."
Roanoke Time, November 23, 1998
World: Americas
US prison population hits record high
The number of people in jail has more than doubled in 12 years.
The number of American adults in prison reached its highest ever level last year, with 1.8 million people - one in every 150 residents behind bars. The US Department of Justice reported that the country's prison population up to 30 June, 1998, had risen by 4.4% - or
76,700 inmates on the previous year. In its regular report, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said the nation's incarceration
rate had more than doubled over the last 12 years. The national jail population was 41% white, 41% African American, 16% Hispanic
with 2% coming from other backgrounds. Men accounted for 89% of the total prison population. The trend towards more
incarcerations began in the late 1980s.
Tough sentences
The report gave no reason for the increase, but experts have cited a number of factors, including tough new sentencing laws for
violent criminals and more arrests for drug offences. More criminals serving longer sentences led the prison population to surpass
one million in 1990 and it has continued to rise. The report's author, statistician Darrell Gilliard, said the prison population grew by an
average 6.2% each year between the end of 1990 and mid 1998. Although the growth rate was slower last year, Mr Gilliard said the
difference was not statistically significant. "The numbers have been pretty steady throughout the 1990s."
LA tops the prison league
The Justice Department's report said that prisoners in the custody of the states or the federal government accounted for two-thirds of
the total while the rest - nearly 600,000 people - were held in local jails. The largest jail populations were in Los Angeles, which had
more than 21,000 inmates, New York City with nearly 17,700 inmates and Chicago with over 9,300 prisoners. Jail authorities also
supervised more than 72,000 men and women in the community under programmes such as electronic monitoring, home detention
or work release, the report said. The nation's prisons also added an extra 26,000 beds over the last 12 months, and they were filled
to 97% of their capacity at the end of June, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_296000/296884.stm
Survey finds rape, assault a way of life
WASHINGTON—One in seven American women and one in every 48 men has been raped
during their lifetimes, two federal agencies reported Tuesday.
And, while violent crime rates have fallen for six years, the new study suggests violence is a
normal way of life in the United States. More than half of all women and two-thirds of all men
say they have been physically assaulted at some. point in their lives.
The findings are projections based on a study of telephone interviews with 8,000 women and
8,000 men done for the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services over a seven:
month period in 1995 and 1 99G. ~
The findings double the incidence of rape in America estimated by the Justice Department, but
they are in line with earlier studies by Health and Human Services.
Tuesday's report from the. National Violence Against Women Survey estimates about 876,100
rapes of women and 111,300 rapes of men in the 12 months preceding the survey.
What would Kitsuse and Cicourel say about this?
Head of campus force was fired Tuesday
Police chief who lost job at E&H speaks out
Wallace Ballou, Emory & Henry's police chief since January i997, says college officials didn't want her to enforce the
school's -alcohol policy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EMORY-Wallace Ballou, fired as police chief at Emory & Henry College, said school administrators were upset by her
crackdown on campus drinking.
Ballou said she was fired Tuesday because college officials didn't want her to enforce the school's no-alcohol policy for fear
of offending wealthy alumni who hold tailgate parties at home football games.
"They got complaints from benefactors," she said.
Emory & Henry spokesman Kirk Moore declined Wednesday to comment on the claim.
"The administration has lost Faith in her ability to lead the campus police force, but we consider it a personnel matter, and we
don't want to get into the details," Moore said.
Many state colleges have been trying to curb student drinking since last year, when several students died in alcohol-related
accidents. The efforts include alcohol education programs, stricter underage drinking enforcement and nonalcohol
entertainment options.
Emory & Henry, a 950-student school in Washington County, is affiliated with the United Method Church. Ballou, 41, had
been campus police chief since January 1997, heading a staff of two security guards and 10 part-time officers.
Roanoke Times, Friday, November 20, 1998
Swiss vote on legalizing hard drugs
GENEVA - The Swiss are voting today on whether to legalize everything
from marijuana to heroin and cocaine, a measure that could give
Switzerland the most sweeping decriminalization of drug use, possession
and production in Europe.
Officials said that a yes vote could turn Switzerland into a "paradise for
the Mafia" and a magnet for "drug tourists."
Proponents, led by a group of Socialists and physicians, argue that it
could break up Switzerland's flourishing black market in drugs and save
the country millions in law enforcement.
They propose to give every Swiss resident over 18 an electronic credit
card to purchase a specified amount of drugs from a physician.
FROM WIRE REPORTS, Roanoke Times, November 29, 1998
Tuesday December 1 5:33 PM ET
Study: Boys Sex Abuse Underreported
By TAMMY WEBBER Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) - As many as one in five boys is sexually abused, according to an analysis that tries to put the best number yet on a crime that
often goes unreported.
The analysis, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was based on a review of 166 studies between 1985 and
1997. It concluded that sexual abuse of boys is underreported and undertreated.
When sexually abused boys are not treated, society must later deal with the resulting problems, including crime, suicide, drug use and more
sexual abuse, said the study's author, Dr. William C. Holmes of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
``When they don't get treatment, bad things happen,'' he said.
The earlier studies found that one-third of juvenile delinquents, 40 percent of sexual offenders and 76 percent of serial rapists report they were
sexually abused as youngsters.
The suicide rate among sexually abused boys was 11/2 to 14 times higher, and reports of multiple substance abuse among sixth-grade boys who
were molested was 12 to 40 times greater.
Holmes said a review of the studies leads him to believe 10 percent to 20 percent of all boys are sexually abused in some way.
But widely varying definitions of sexual abuse in the studies and differences in who was being studied make it difficult to accurately gauge the
prevalence of sexual abuse, he said.
Abuse of boys has not been well documented, in part because boys fear they won't be believed or will be labeled homosexual. And what might be
considered abuse of girls, such as sexual touching, often is not reported as abuse when the victim is a boy, Holmes said.
Dr. Marjorie Hogan, a pediatrician at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, said the findings are not surprising. Up to one-third of her
patients are sexual abuse victims, but only 20 percent of those are boys.
``That worries me, because I think we're missing an important segment,'' she said. ``It's such a secret crime and the way we gather information is
fraught with problems. I think the numbers are far higher than we think.
Earlier studies have shown that 25 percent to 35 percent of girls are sexually abused, said Dr. Steven Kairys, chairman of the American Academy
of Pediatrics committee on child abuse and senior dean of clinical affairs at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J.
Yahoo News: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/health/story.html?s=v/ap/19981201/hl/sexual_abuse_1.html
Thursday December 10 1:18 AM ET
Three Strikes' Laws Going Unused
By MICHELLE BOORSTEIN Associated Press Writer
In the five years since ``three strikes'' laws swept the nation, most states don't even use them.
There are, of course, some big exceptions: California has put away more than 40,000 people for second and third strikes since the law passed in
1994 - a quarter of the state's prison population. Of those, 4,400 were sentenced to 25 years to life. And Georgia has sentenced nearly 2,000 under
its law.
But in most places, the laws are written more narrowly and are rarely applied. Most of the 23 states that adopted the laws in the mid-1990s have
put no more than a half-dozen people behind bars under the statutes, which create long and usually mandatory sentences for criminals who
commit new offenses.
``It went a long way on a catchy title,'' said D. Alan Henry, a criminal justice researcher who has written about the ``three strikes'' movement.
``Contrary to what legislatures thought, there weren't awful numbers of cases of people who had committed heinous crimes and were released and
then came back and were treated lightly.''
Critics of such laws say this is proof that they were never really needed and were crafted by conservatives trying to look tough on crime.
E. Michael McCann, a prosecutor from Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, said the laws don't deter criminals and instead spend money keeping
them behind bars long after they've passed their criminally active years. Only four people have been sentenced under Wisconsin's 1994 law.
``Three strikes'' supporters, however, say the laws were always meant to be used sparingly.
``We wanted it to be used only for those most dangerous individuals who offend violently and against people,'' said Washington state Rep. Ida
Ballasiotes, a Republican who became an anti-crime activist and pushed through the law after her 29-year-old daughter was killed by a convicted
sex offender. ``It's worked as we anticipated, which is good.''
Washington state, where the first such law passed in 1993, has put more than 120 people behind bars for life without parole.
Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah,
Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin each have no more than six people locked up under ``three strikes''-type laws. Arkansas, Florida, Indiana,
Nevada and South Carolina are the other states with such laws.
Because the laws are used so sparingly, most ``three strikes'' states haven't studied their effect on state finances or repeat crime.
But a study issued last month by the Washington-based Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy concludes that in the places where the laws are
used, they have raised corrections and court costs - as more people decide to take their chances and go to trial - and have failed to deter repeat
criminals.
Before ``three strikes'' laws, most states had ``habitual offender'' statutes aimed at repeat offenders. But those laws weren't as strong and were
often decades old and had fallen into disuse.
Even now, prosecutors still have the ability in ``three strikes'' cases to plea-bargain the charges down, just as they did before.
California's second-in-the nation law catches the most criminals because it counts more felonies as ``third strikes'' than other states do.
The law also enjoys wide political support in California. It was passed amid public fury over the case of Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old from Petaluma
who was kidnapped from her bedroom and killed in 1993 by a man with a long criminal record. Showing support for the law - and using it remain important for public figures even today.
``The whole initiative movement was built around this one case,'' said James Austin, executive vice president of the National Council on Crime
and Delinquency.
California state officials such as Gov. Pete Wilson and Attorney General Dan Lungren credit the measure with bringing down crime. But recent
studies suggest crime was dropping anyway, and ``three strikes'' had nothing to do with it.
The number of California inmates who went to trial shot up 17 percent in the first two years after the law passed as defendants took their chances
with juries rather than plead guilty to backbreaking sentences, a study found. And criminal justice experts predict a prison population boom down
the line when inmates who would have been released remain locked up.
Yahoo News: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/ap_us/story.html?s=v/ap/19981210/us/three_strikes_2.html
Court Declines Shoplifter's '3 Strikes' Appeal
By Joan Biskupic
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 20, 1999; Page A06
Touching on the controversial "three strikes, you're out" laws that have swept the nation, the Supreme Court yesterday let California impose a 25year prison sentence on a man who stole a bottle of vitamins from a supermarket.
Michael Wayne Riggs was caught taking the pills from a store display rack and putting them in his jacket pocket. If this had been his first offense,
he would have gotten a fine or, under the most harsh circumstances, six months in jail. But because Riggs had a record of drug crimes, robbery
and other felonies, California law required that he spend at least 25 years behind bars.
Riggs appealed through state courts, and although the California Court of Appeal described his crime as "a petty theft motivated by homelessness
and hunger," it upheld the stiff sentence. Last year the California Supreme Court refused to hear the case, leaving Riggs to petition the U.S.
Supreme Court for a hearing.
Had he gotten four justices to agree to hear the dispute, Riggs would have had another chance to make his case. But yesterday the court turned
him down. Only one justice, Stephen G. Breyer, said the appeal should have been heard, questioning how the state could possibly apply such a
penalty "to what is in essence a petty offense." In an unusual move, three other justices also noted concern that such tough mandatory sentences
can so disproportionately punish a repeat criminal that they violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"While this court has traditionally accorded to state legislatures considerable (but not unlimited) deference to determine the length of sentences
for crimes . . . classifiable as felonies," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "petty theft does not appear to fall into that category."
But as much as Stevens, joined in his statement by Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, voiced constitutional worries about
California's three-strikes law, the three justices did not vote to take up Riggs's case. Rather than joining Breyer, they said that the particulars of
Riggs's criminal record were not clear and that they would rather wait until lower courts had established a more definitive record on California's
three-strikes law.
But in declining to accept the case, the three justices also may have wondered whether they could have gotten the requisite fifth vote from any of
the rest of the more conservative justices to build a majority opinion against a tough three-strikes law.
In a climate of rigid law enforcement and longer sentences, the justices have never taken up the question of whether a three-strikes law can be
cruel and unusual punishment, particularly when the third offense is relatively minor. In past cases, the high court has said states may punish a
repeat offender more severely than a first-time offender, but it also has said a sentence cannot be "grossly disproportionate" to the crime.
Over the past decade, more than two dozen states and the federal government have enacted laws that require lengthy prison sentences after a third
felony. California's 1994 law, mandating at least 25 years for the third offense, is among the toughest in the nation. Stevens said the state is the
only one that allows a misdemeanor offense to qualify for such a severe sentence.
In his roughly typed pauper petition to the Supreme Court, Riggs quoted from past court cases and said, "The state, even as it punishes, must treat
its members with respect for their intrinsic worth as human beings. Punishment which is so excessive as to transgress those limits and deny that
worth cannot be tolerated."
But California officials, urging the justices to reject the case of Riggs v. California, asserted that the state court had based its ruling on past
Supreme Court decisions and its general rule of declining to second-guess state sentencing laws. The California attorney general's office
emphasized Riggs's criminal history: convictions for car theft, two counts of possession of a controlled substance, two counts of forgery, two
counts of receiving stolen property, attempted burglary, passing a check with intent to defraud and four counts of robbery.
The state appeals court said Riggs had spent most of the past 15 years behind bars and has had a recurring drug problem. When he was arrested a
syringe was found hidden in his sock.
Separately yesterday, the justices also spurned an effort by Operation Rescue to revive a defamation lawsuit against Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (DMass.), who described the antiabortion group as engaging in firebombing and murder. Lower courts had ruled that Kennedy, as an employee of
the government, is protected from such a lawsuit.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
Yahoo News: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/20/047l-012099-idx.html
Serious Crime Continues Six-Year Decline, FBI Data Show
Violence in U.S. Wanes, Report Says
Associated Press
Monday, December 14, 1998; Page A08
Extending a six-year trend, serious crimes dropped an additional 5 percent in the first half of the year, the FBI reported yesterday.
Citing preliminary figures from police across the nation, the FBI said violent crimes were down 7 percent and property crimes, which are far more
numerous, were down 5 percent compared with the first six months of 1997.
All seven major crimes showed declines, led by drops of 11 percent for robberies and 8 percent for murders.
Both aggravated assault and rape fell 5 percent.
In property crime, auto theft dropped 8 percent, larceny-theft declined 5 percent and burglary dipped 3 percent.
The half-year report comes weeks after the FBI's final 1997 figures, which showed the national murder rate reaching its lowest point in 30 years.
The mid-year report contains only percentage changes in the number of crimes and does not provide national totals for specific crimes or crime
rates per 100,000 residents.
"This is remarkable progress, and it shows that our strategy of more police, tougher gun laws and better crime prevention is making a difference,"
President Clinton said in a statement.
Attorney General Janet Reno said the country has turned a "historic corner" on crime.
"Crime is still too high," she said, "but rising crime rates are not a fact of life."
Academic experts, law enforcement and elected officials have attributed the 6 1/2-year decline to the aging of the baby boom generation beyond
its crime-prone years and police efforts to get guns away from teenagers, especially in big cities.
Other reasons include increased police-community cooperation; stiffer sentences, particularly for violent criminals; prevention programs for
children who have little supervision; the improved national economy; and reductions in crack cocaine use and the warfare between gangs that
peddle it.
The numbers for all seven crimes declined in all regions of the country, except for a 1 percent rise in burglary in the Midwest. Overall, serious
crimes were down 8 percent in the Northeast, 6 percent in the West, 5 percent in the South and 1 percent in the Midwest.
By population, overall crime declined in cities of all sizes, suburbs and rural areas. Cities with more than 1 million residents experienced a 6
percent drop. The largest decline was 8 percent in cities of 50,000 to 99,999. Towns under 10,000 recorded a 3 percent drop.
Suburban counties had 6 percent declines overall, and rural counties reported a 2 percent overall drop.
The few isolated increases were in areas that experts had predicted: an 8 percent rise in murders in small towns of 10,000 to 24,999 and a 3
percent rise in murders and aggravated assaults in rural counties.
Professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University has found that, as crack cocaine gangs matured, they negotiated truces in bigger cities
and increasingly sought new markets in smaller towns and rural areas where police were less equipped to quell the activity.
The drug gangs have been blamed for beginning the arming of teenagers in the mid-1980s with guns. Other teenagers obtained guns to emulate
the gangs or to defend themselves.
The result was that teenage gun homicides soared 169 percent between 1984 and 1993, when the juvenile murder rate peaked. But from 1993
through 1997, the juvenile murder arrest rate has fallen more than 40 percent, according to the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention. Small towns and rural areas have been the last areas to participate in both trends.
© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press
Yahoo News: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/14/057l-121498-idx.html
REPORT RAPS TREATMENT OF FEMALE INMATES
Amnesty International Complains of Rapes, Beatings
March 4, 1999
By Michelle Gotthelf
WASHINGTON (APBNews.com) -- Female inmates in the nation's correctional facilities are routinely raped and beaten by guards,
and expectant mothers often remain shackled during labor, Amnesty International USA charged in a report released today.
Various forms of abuse and neglect are common for women behind bars,the report found, including rape, sexual abuse and in some
cases prostitution, as women are sold by guards to male inmates for sex.
Women are often groped during daily pat-down searches, and male guards observe them while dressing and showering, the report
claims. They allegedly receive inadequate medical care and are placed in maximum-security units without ever posing a threat.
The report also documents cases of medical staff who refuse to authorize treatment for life-threatening illnesses.
'Torture, plain and simple'
"Sexual abuse of inmates is torture, plain and simple," William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said during
a news conference today. "Shackling and medical neglect of women inmates constitutes cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
These human rights violations must not stand.
Although women have long claimed to be victims of sexual abuse, 12 states still offer no legal protections against rape and
molestation behind bars. They are Alabama, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Vermont,
Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Virginia's Legislature just approved a protection law last week, officials said.
Rapid growth of female inmates
Problems for female inmates have come into focus recently because of a rapid growth in the female prison population, according to
the report. Long prison terms, mandatory sentencing laws and minor drug-dealing charges have caused the female inmate population
to quadruple since the mid-1980s.
The number of female inmates tripled between 1985 and 1997 at a much faster rate than the male prison population. But, officials
say, prison facilities have not been able to accommodate the growing female population.
And officials complain that there aren't enough female guards to monitor the jails and prisons. In female facilities, 70 percent of the
guards are men, as compared with Canada, where 91 percent of such guards are women.
Horror stories cited
The report cites a case of a prisoner at the Washington State Corrections Center who was raped and impregnated by a guard. The
guard was never criminally charged, the report says.
In another case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons agreed last year to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by three women who said
they were sexually abused at the Federal Detention Center in Pleasanton, Calif.
One of the women, Robin Lucas, who spoke at Amnesty's press conference today, said that while being housed in a men's facility,
she was nearly raped by a male inmate who was allowed into her cell by a guard. When she complained to authorities, the guard
retaliated by allowing three men into her cell. They handcuffed, beat, raped and sodomized her, and left her lying unconscious in her
cell, she said.
"Rape, brutalities, being prostituted out and unspeakable retaliation are at the extreme end of the spectrum of the brutality. That
encapsulates my story," Lucas said.
Officials have credited her and two other women with securing changes in the prison system, including better training of guards and
medical treatment for inmates who complain of sexual assault. There was a lot of conflicting evidence in those cases, so the
department decided not to prosecute, officials said.
Another allegation of brutality was made by Wernice Robinson, an inmate in Cook County, Ill., who said she was shackled to a
hospital bed during 12 hours of labor. The shackles were not removed until moments before the baby was born, she said. Jail officials
could not be reached for comment.
Schulz complains that the use of physical restraints during labor and delivery often poses a serious health risk to women and their
newborns.
Sherrie Chapman, a 39-year-old woman, claims she was ignored when she told prison officials she had discovered lumps in both her
breasts. For nearly a decade, she allegedly pleaded with the medical staff for attention. She eventually received mammograms,
which confirmed she had breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy.
Dan Dunne, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said authorities take such allegations seriously and have moved to
correct problems.
As of spring 1998, officials in all 94 federal correctional institutions have received training on how to prevent sexual misconduct and
assaults, Dunne said. As part of their prison orientation, inmates are now receiving training on how to report problems confidentially,
he said.
Monday February 14 6:17 PM ET
Brain difference spotted in antisocial personality disorder
By Alka Agrawal, PhD
NEW YORK, Feb 14 (Reuters Health) -- Patients with antisocial personality disorder (APD) are more likely than other individuals to lie, be impulsive and irresponsible, lack
remorse, and commit violence. Study findings suggest that these patients also have less gray matter than normal in the prefrontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain that
plays a role in controlling emotions and behavior.
``To our knowledge, these findings provide the first evidence for a structural brain deficit in APD,'' according to the researchers.
The prefrontal cortex ``is the part of the brain that acts to regulate and control behavior,'' researcher Dr. Adrian Raine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles,
told Reuters Health. ``It's a bit like the emergency brake on a car. If you're very angry, we sometimes get out of control, what pulls us back from acting too much on our
aggressive behavior is this emergency brake, the prefrontal cortex.''
Using a type of magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brain, Raine and colleagues measured gray and white matter volumes in the prefrontal cortex of 21 men with APD.
The researchers compared these results to scans from two 'control' groups -- 26 men with substance dependence and 34 healthy men without APD or substance abuse. They
found that the volume of gray matter, but not white matter, was significantly reduced in APD patients compared with both control groups.
The gray matter are the nerve cells, the thinking part of the brain, and the white matter are the ``connection wires which link the cells together, which allow them to
communicate,'' Raine said. The gray matter is ``sort of where we might expect the deficit to occur. They're a bit like the computers, the white matter are the wires connecting
the computers together.''
Although the 11% difference in the volume of prefrontal gray matter found in APD patients is significant, it is very small. ''A radiologist would not see it,'' he noted.
According to the report, published in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, APD patients also have reduced autonomic activity -- that is, they sweat less and do
not experience an increase in their heart rate when under stress -- unlike normal individuals.
``The prefrontal cortex acts to check on our impulsive behavior and actions,'' Raine said. ``It's important to emphasize that prefrontal dysfunction is just one of many factors
that predisposes to violence. It's not going to account for all of antisocial personality, all of crime and violence, it's one of a number of factors.'' Other factors include social
factors such as drug and alcohol abuse, high levels of testosterone, and birth complications.
He also emphasized that the study only shows an association. ''We've established the link but we're not sure what causes it.'' However, he points out that other studies have
shown that patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex are more likely to become antisocial.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Antonio R. Damasio of the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City cautions that the differences in gray matter volume are
probably not the whole story.
``In the case of antisocial personality disorder, the malfunction of prefrontal circuits is probably accompanied by malfunction (in other parts of the brain),'' Damasio writes.
SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry 2000;57:119-127, 128-129.
In Murder Trends, Benefits for Blacks
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday , October 16, 2000 ; Page A10
African Americans have benefited disproportionately from the nation's steep drop in murder, as their chances of becoming slaying victims
dropped by nearly 50 percent between 1978 and 1997, according to a new Justice Department report.
While African Americans still are far more likely than whites to be victims of murder, their lifetime chances of becoming victims dropped from
one in 48 in 1978 to one in 68 in 1997, according to an annual FBI crime study released yesterday. Murder odds for whites during the same time
period also dropped, but not as steeply. They went from one in 287 in 1978 to one in 410 in 1997.
Overall, the chances of becoming a murder victim in the United States declined sharply in that time period, going from one in 157 to one in 240.
The FBI formula used population statistics, murder rates and life expectancy tables to calculate the murder odds.
The downward trend in murder continued last year, when an estimated 15,533 people were slaying victims, the report said. That figure was 8
percent lower than in 1998 and 28 percent lower than in 1995. Overall, the nation's recorded murder rate of 6 per 100,000 people was the lowest
since 1966, the report said.
The reduction in murder rates among blacks is one that some politicians and criminologists credit to a trend toward more aggressive policing, a
tactic decried by many civil rights leaders who say it too often results in police harassment and brutality. Others, however, attribute the decline in
murder and other serious crime not to policing, but to an improved economy and a waning of the crack cocaine epidemic.
Even with the steep drop in their odds of being murdered since 1978, African Americans remain far more likely to be killed than whites. Blacks,
who make up roughly 13 percent of the nation's population, accounted for 47 percent of the nation's murder victims in 1999, while 50 percent of
the victims were white.
The disparity is most pronounced for black males, who stood a one in 40 chance of being killed in 1997. That was seven times higher than the one
in 280 odds that a white male would be murdered. Black women, meanwhile, have a one in 199 chance of being murdered, while the report said
white women stood a one in 794 chance of being slain.
The report found that it is unusual for murder to cross racial lines. Blacks were slain by black offenders 94 percent of the time in 1999, while 85
percent of white victims were slain by whites. Also, 50 percent of the offenders were black and 45 percent were white, with the remainder being
from other races.
The report found that the largest group of murder victims was people in their mid-twenties, and nearly nine out of 10 murder victims were 18 or
older. Also, men were far more likely than women to be murdered: Three out of four murder victims were male in 1999.
Murder victims were slain by people they knew in 48 percent of the cases in 1999, the report said. Husbands or boyfriends were offenders in 32
percent of the murders in which women were victims, while wives or girlfriends were the offenders in 3 percent of the incidents in which men
were killed. Firearms were used in 70 percent of the murders in 1999, compared to 60 percent in 1998.
The drop in murder nationally parallels a broader reduction in serious crime, which in 1999 decreased for the eighth year in a row. Also, violent
crime has declined 20 percent since 1995.
The FBI report is based on submissions by about 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, with statistical estimates
included for those jurisdictions that do not submit data.
© 2000 The Washington Post