Merry Christmas

Luke 2:11

King James Version (KJV)

11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Best Christmas Present EVER!

Occupy Wall Street Infographic (To View Better CTRL +)

Via: Online MBA Guide

Risk Reduction Justice Delayed

The Penn State sex scandal or a better way to state it, a long running multiple person conspiracy to aid and abet a pedophile in his crimes, has brought to light a growing blight in American culture.  It is the idea of sliding away from duty and obligation and rather standing in the swamp of risk/labiality/benefit analysis. 

 

It can be seen in the multiple civil lawsuit settlements where money was paid out but no fault was claimed.   I have personally heard the justification of “we have done nothing wrong but it will be more expensive successfully defending ourselves than just paying off and getting rid of the problem.”  What is missed is the value of justice, the reward of perseverance and a declaration of an intention to fight rather than capitulate.  The message it really sends is there is no value in right and wrong but rather life is a benefit analysis.  If there is a victim let him/her be properly compensated if it is a false accusation let them be punished.  But there is no change if there is no fault assigned and the actions are not made public.  The organization, whether public or private, learns there is no value in values and justice.  Rather, there is a calculation about the ability to control people and information.  If the information and personnel can be controlled the event or action is buried, if it cannot be controlled a settlement is then rendered, no fault is declared, a gag order is made and everyone moves on.  There is no correction, there is no blame assigned, there is no shame, there is no reward for good and punishment for evil, it is just another entry on the balance sheet.

Now layer this event over and over through the years.   The system rewards tight information control and inaction.  If I don’t know about it then I cannot get pulled into it, happens again and again, till the first response is personal risk exposure minimization becomes the first priority.  It is the first priority because that is what is rewarded.  Identification and notification only increase exposure and ensure punishment.  This is how you get an assistant coach’s first response on a child rape is to call his Dad and have a meeting about what to do, rather than take action, call the police and make notification.

This can best be illustrated by a call that I have responded to hundreds of times.  It’s a theft call at a local business.  I get ushered into the senior manager’s office and told about an employee that they suspect is taking money out of the petty cash fund.  They are concerned and want to know what to do.  I end up interviewing the employee and usually after about ten minutes they confess to most (never all) that they have done and there is a sad story to accompany the story to show that they are really not a bad person, just a person in a bad situation.  I then go back to the senior manager and ask what he would like to do.  I always suggest prosecution, to recoup the money, to create a record of their conduct to make illicit action more difficult in the future and steer the offender in a more positive direction.  The manager listens to me patiently but always asks if that has to be done and I say no.  But I interject is you let them resign they will just go to another employer and do the same thing much like what has already happened to you.   I then am told that firing an employee is a tedious process and expensive.  Further, they do not want to take all the time off work to go to court.    So out the door goes the now ex-employee having resigned and tearful.  Fast forward about six months and I am called to a different business about the same offender and they too opt for resignation rather than prosecution and more victims are created.   The crime is not large and the loss is not great in each incidence but over time added together it ends up with a multitude of victims and a large amount of theft that one person doing the right thing could stop.  But no one does.  This is the society we are living in, here in America.  Where justice is inconvenient, expense is more important than protecting the innocent and silence is awarded.

But that does not have to be that way.  If each of us sides with the truth, protects the victims over expense and inconvenience, refuses to stay silent in the little things, then when the big things come the course of action is clear and people are saved.

Another Surveillance

Statics...some good some bad.

Statics ()=Source

It is estimated that 25% of Police Officers are alcoholics.  ( http://milestonegroupnj.com/?p=142)

 The rate for the population at large is 17.7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism

6% of criminals arrested suffer from severe mental illiness  (http://karisable.com/crmh.htm

The best estimate of suicide in the law enforcement profession is 18.1 per 100,000. This figure is 52% greater than that of the general population but 26% lower than that of the appropriate comparison group (white males between the ages of 25 and 55). (http://www.policeone.com/health-fitness/articles/137133-Police-Officer-Suicide-Frequency-and-officer-profiles/)

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that officers were not wearing a seat belt in 42 percent of fatal car accidents. According to federal numbers,  car accidents are the leading cause of death for police officers throughout the country. (http://www.austinaccidentattorney.com/blog/2011/03/officers-unbelted-in-42-percent-of-fatal-police-car-wrecks.shtml)

Police and detectives held about 883,600 jobs in 2008. About 79 percent were employed by local governments. State police agencies employed about 11 percent. Various Federal agencies employ police and detectives.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, police and detectives employed by local governments worked primarily in cities with more than 25,000 inhabitants. Some cities have very large police forces, while thousands of small communities employ fewer than 25 officers each. (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm

Projections data from the National Employment Matrix

Occupational Title	SOC Code	Employment, 2008	Projected Employment, 2018	Change, 2008-18
				Number	Percent
Police and detectives	—	883,600	968,400	84,700	10
First-line supervisors/managers of police and detectives	33-1012	97,300	105,200	7,800	8
Detectives and criminal investigators	33-3021	112,200	130,900	18,700	17
Fish and game wardens	33-3031	8,300	9,000	700	8
Police officers	33-3050	665,700	723,300	57,500	9
Police and sheriff's patrol officers	33-3051	661,500	718,800	57,300	9
Transit and railroad police	33-3052	4,300	4,500	200	5
NOTE: Data in this table are rounded. See the discussion of the employment projections table in the Handbook introductory chapter on Occupational Information Included in the Handbook.

(http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm)

To date in 2007, 157 Law Enforcement Officers have been killed in the line of duty.

The statistics for the last 10 years are as follows:
2006 - 147
2005 - 159
2004 - 162
2003 - 147
2002 - 159
2001 - 242
2000 - 163
1999 - 151
1998 - 175
1997 - 176

Source - the Officer Down Memorial Page (http://www.odmp.org/index.php )

• In the last decade (since 2000) the homicide rate declined to levels last seen in the mid-1960s.
• Based on data from 1980 and 2008, males represented 77% of homicide victims and nearly 90% of offenders. The victimization rate for males (11.6 per 100,000) was 3 times higher than the rate for females (3.4 per 100,000). The offending rate for males (15.1 per 100,000) was almost 9 times higher than the rate for females (1.7 per 100,000).
• The average age of both offenders and victims increased slightly in recent years, yet remained lower than they were prior to the late 1980s.  (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2221)

• The percent of U.S. residents age 16 or older who had face-to-face contact with police declined from 2002 (21.0%) to 2005 (19.1%) and declined again in 2008 (16.9%).
• White (8.4%), black (8.8%), and Hispanic (9.1%) drivers were stopped by police at similar rates in 2008.
• Male drivers (9.9%) were stopped at higher rates than female drivers (7.0%). (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2229)

• The U.S. murder arrest rate in 2009 was about half of what it was in the early 1980s. Over the 30-year period ending in 2009, the adult arrest rate for murder fell 57%, while the juvenile arrest rate fell 44%.
• From 1980 to 2009, the black forcible rape arrest rate declined 70%, while the white arrest rate fell 31%.
• Between 1980 and 2009, while the adult arrest rate for drug possession or use grew 138%, the juvenile arrest rate increased 33%. Similarly, from 1980 to 2009, the increase in the arrest rate for drug sale or manufacture was greater for adults (77%) than for juveniles (31%). (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2203)

• The estimated 12,575 local police departments operating in the United States during 2007 employed approximately 463,000 full-time sworn personnel.
• Operating budgets of local police departments totaled $55.4 billion for fiscal year 2007, 14% more than in 2003 after adjusting for inflation.
• In 2007, average starting salaries for entry-level local police officers ranged from $26,600 in the smallest jurisdictions to $49,500 in the largest. (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1750)

PS:  I know that the table bled into my margins but I really liked it.  Go to the site to get the whole totally readable one or wait till this post get old enough that it slides down and does not mesh with the side bar.

Judges 8:14
He caught a young man of Sukkoth and questioned him, and the young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven officials of Sukkoth, the elders of the town.

Any way they can get it

I have very low expectations about our ability to combat vice crimes.  It even has its own educational facility...jail.  Prisoners sit around all day scheming up ways to get drugs, sex and the means to improve their ability to successfully attack guards and their fellow prisoners.  The following is an example of a temporally successful scheme to provide sexual services and while funny, its just one example of all the illicit activities happening in each and every correctional facility in the U.S..

Article from the Miami New Times Riptide 2.0 Blog  Source Link

Stripteases, sexual favors, booze, porn mags, and fat stacks of cash would be run-of-the-mill in many Miami strip clubs. But at downtown's maximum security Federal Detention Center?
Multiple attorneys interviewed by Riptide say the FDC visitor rooms have been taken over by South American pole dancers posing as paralegals for wealthy drug lords inside. Lawyers hired by the accused narco dons allegedly list the scantily clad women as "legal assistants," and the FDC lets them in. Meanwhile, attorneys who refuse to go along risk losing their clients to lawyers with busty beauties on staff.

"They take off their tops and let the guys touch them," veteran defense attorney Hugo Rodriguez says. "The majority of these young, very attractive women are noncitizens brought in exclusively for the purposes of visiting the FDC. Any lawyer can sign a form and designate a legal assistant. There is no way of verifying it. The process is being abused."

The accusations are difficult to prove. An FDC spokeswoman declined to comment, and prison officials refused Riptide's requests for any incident reports on faux paralegals being tossed from the facility.

But attorneys swear the scam is ongoing. One "discovery room" normally used to discuss trial strategy was recently closed, they say, after guards caught an inmate and a paralegal "discovering" more than legal documents.

"Everyone knows about it," says a private investigator who is familiar with the FDC and asked not to be named. "We call them the 'little hoochie mamas'... They are making a mockery out of the prison system here."

Among the offenses allegedly committed by so-called paralegals: smuggling in a Playboy, feeding alcohol to an inmate by slipping a straw through a grate, and sneaking in $3,000 inside a purse.

In a scene straight out of a porno, one woman was caught on video stripping for an inmate in the jail's Special Housing Unit, attorneys say. The stripper was banned from the FDC.

Female lawyers say the phony paralegals are an embarrassment.

"I find it offensive," says an attorney who asked to remain anonymous. "This is still kind of a male-dominated profession. We try to be taken seriously, but these women aren't helping."

Not every lawyer is up in arms over the FDC fiasco, however.

"If you want some good people-watching, try the FDC," attorney Marc Seitles says. "It certainly beats paying a cover and waiting on lines to get into LIV."

Mark 7:21
For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,

Some Surveillance yields results others yield nothing...

I was on surveillance the other day.  This was created as a result.  I will let you guess if we yielded positive results or not while we were out there.

Psalm 106:43
Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin.

Silliness...Fantasy Football

I set up my first fantasy football league this year.  I can only name maybe three officers, that I have ever known, that are not enrolled in one league or the other.

So, I am on the bubble.  I have to win last week's game and this week's game to make it into the playoffs of the league I created.

So it comes down to the Monday night football game (11-28-2011).  I only have Victor Cruz (WR, New York Giants) left and he is down to Drew Brees (QB, New Orleans Saints).  My points, 222.20 and his points, 222.50 and the game is in the fourth quarter.  Suddenly the back up quarterback for Eli Manning starts to warm up.  Its over.  I get mad.  Maybe some remotes are thrown and some words were said that should not have been said, it's all a little fuzzy.  So I change my team's name to "The 000's" (Police term for dead) and my team's slogan to "Screw it, I give up, whatever...whatever...let me know where and when I need to be at the winner's dinner."

And....

 Then Cruz catches a pass and runs it into the end zone and I win the week.  Which....launched a flood of texts, emails and calls pointing out I may have jumped to conclusions before it was truly all over.  Which caused me to change my team name again to "Captain Jumps to Conclusions".  I then drew this as my new mascot.

PS:  The birth of a new hero.  My son wants to know why one arm is bigger than the other and I just said it's his super power.  He shook his head sadly and just walked away.