Crime In 2016: A Preliminary Analysis

Earlier this year, the Brennan Center analyzed crime data from the 30 largest cities in 2015, finding that crime overall remained the same as in 2014. It also found that murder increased by 14 percent, with just three cities — Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. — responsible for half that increase. All told, 2015's murder rate was still near historic lows. The authors concluded that reports of a national crime wave were premature and unfounded, and that "the average person in a large urban area is safer walking on the street today than he or she would have been at almost any time in the past 30 years."This report updates those findings. It collects midyear data from police departments to project overall crime, violent crime, and murder for all of 2016

Crime Trends: 1990-2016

This report examines crime trends at the national and city level during the last quarter century. It covers the years 1990 through 2016, as crime rates peaked in 1991. It analyzes data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and from police departments from the nation's 30 largest cities. Data for 2016 are estimated, as full year data was not available at the time of publication.This report concludes that although there are some troubling increases in crimes in specific cities, there is no evidence of a national crime wave

Footstep and Motion Planning in Semi-unstructured Environments Using Randomized Possibility Graphs

Traversing environments with arbitrary obstacles poses significant challenges for bipedal robots. In some cases, whole body motions may be necessary to maneuver around an obstacle, but most existing footstep planners can only select from a discrete set of predetermined footstep actions; they are unable to utilize the continuum of whole body motion that is truly available to the robot platform. Existing motion planners that can utilize whole body motion tend to struggle with the complexity of large-scale problems. We introduce a planning method, called the "Randomized Possibility Graph", which uses high-level approximations of constraint manifolds to rapidly explore the "possibility" of actions, thereby allowing lower-level motion planners to be utilized more efficiently. We demonstrate simulations of the method working in a variety of semi-unstructured environments. In this context, "semi-unstructured" means the walkable terrain is flat and even, but there are arbitrary 3D obstacles throughout the environment which may need to be stepped over or maneuvered around using whole body motions.Comment: Accepted by IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 201

Report from Holly Springs Branch Experiment Station for 1923

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Corn at Holly Springs Branch Experiment Station

Mode of access: Internet

Restorative justice : including victims, offenders and communities in criminal justice dialogue

Restorative justice (RJ), an alternative to the dominant retributive justice system, is a more holistic approach that encompasses the victim, offender and the community. This study supplemented existing research by exploring the perceptions of RJ experts and facilitators on the impact of RJ practices on offender reentry, as well as victim and community satisfaction. The study addressed the following questions: What is restorative justice? What are the major outcomes and challenges? What is the role of social work? The review of the literature compared the retributive justice model with a restorative justice framework for responding to crime. As restorative justice is a relatively new area of research, the study used a flexible research design to understand the emerging phenomenon. Data were gathered through narrative interviews with ten RJ experts and facilitators, including several pioneers in the field. Restorative justice is not simply victim offender mediation, although they often get confused. Fully restorative practices, which involve the victim, offender, and community, have several different applications including victim-offender meetings for less serious crime, serious and violent crime dialogue, circle processes, and community accountability boards. Partly restorative practices, which do not include all the stakeholders, include contacting victims, community service and defense outreach. The study\u27s most significant finding, however, was that specific programs are far less important than the philosophy and principles associated with restorative justice. Study participants reported several outcome criteria including victim and community satisfaction, offender recidivism rates, offender satisfaction, restitution payment, and story-telling. Seven out of ten noted that restorative justice interventions were mostly positive, and struggled to come up with a single negative example. The two factors most likely to contribute to negative outcomes were lack of preparation on the part of the facilitator(s) and inappropriateness of a participant. Although funding was seen as a major challenge, the most significant challenge participants noted was creating a paradigm shift in the way criminal justice is viewed. The U.S. justice system is based largely on a punitive approach, while restorative justice requires systems thinking in which the offender, victim and community all play an important role. Participants felt that a balanced approach—both top-down and bottom-up—was needed to grow and sustain the restorative justice movement. Created largely through grassroots, volunteer efforts, field workers need to collaborate more to share best practices, advocate for greater funding, and educate the public. At the same time, if restorative justice is going to have lasting impact on the justice system, it needs government involvement to provide additional legitimacy, funding and support. Additional research is also needed, along with clearer benchmarks of successful outcomes. Restorative justice values greatly mirror social work values of self determination, individuality, acceptance and accountability. To keep ordinance with the Social Work Code of Ethics, social workers should be aware of this philosophy so they may positively advocate for clients as well as more just and principled statewide and national policies. At the same time social workers should be aware that mixing the roles of therapist and restorative justice facilitator could be detrimental to restorative justice outcomes. Those who wish to facilitate victim offender dialogue should do so carefully

Report from Holly Springs Branch Experiment Station - for 1915 to 1920 inclusive

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Report of the work at the Holly Springs Station for 1907

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Report of the work done at Holly Springs Branch Experiment Station, 1913

Mode of access: Internet