CrimProf Blog

Youth Development Center's closing marks change in juvenile justice approach

The shuttering of the county-run Youth Development Center in Hudson ends an era for a place that has served troubled youths for more than 100 years.

But it also marks a fundamental change in how the county's juvenile justice system will deal with kids who need a time-out from the community.

Previously, those youths - mostly probation violators who had committed crimes like burglary or domestic violence - were sent for months to the 453-acre campus in Summit County.

The change of scenery got some kids away from the city and bad neighborhood influences. But, in the end, they would return home. And that transition, studies showed, did not always go smoothly.

Under a new plan hammered out by county and Juvenile Court officials, juveniles convicted of lower-level offenses can be screened - much like foster children are - and sent to private agencies in Cuyahoga County for up to 90 days of treatment.

Some will be in secure facilities, others in less-restrictive settings.

The county has agreed to spend about $5 million a year on treating 300 juveniles in this way.

The court also has promised to go after available federal money to pay for some of the placements. [Mark Godsey]

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Innocent Man's Conviction Vacated After 27 Years

Today the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court granted William Dillon a new trial based on DNA evidence which demonstrates Dillon's actual innocence of the 1981 murder of James Dvorak in Canova Beach Florida. Dillon's 27 years equals the longest time served by any of the 223 DNA exonerees nationwide. He is the third man to be exonerated in Brevard County in recent years.

 Mr. Dillon, who has always maintained his innocence, was convicted on the basis of unreliable and false evidence including: subsequently recanted testimony of a star witness who was threatened by and having sex with the State's lead investigator; fraudulent scientific testimony of a dog handler; testimony of a jailhouse snitch whose pending rape charge was dismissed after fingering Dillon; and a mistaken eyewitness identification by a man legally blind in one eye.

 "This case is indicative of the culture of corruption in Brevard County," said David Menschel, Legal Director of the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF). "They were more concerned with getting a conviction than convicting the right person. Once they identified a suspect, they were willing to do anything – even manufacture evidence – in order to win."

Dillon's case is particularly troubling because it involved the now-discredited testimony of dog handler John Preston, a man who has been exposed as a fraud by both courts and the national media. But as Melissa Montle, Staff Attorney with the IPF explained, "The only way the dog could do what Preston purported it could do is if someone from the inside was feeding Preston the information." 

Both Wilton Dedge and Juan Ramos were also wrongfully convicted on the basis of Preston's testimony. Seth Miller, Executive Director of the IPF, called for an investigation into the conduct of the Brevard County State Attorney's Office and Sheriff's Office as well as a comprehensive review of the hundreds of cases in which John Preston testified: "Governor Crist needs to take a hard look at what's been going on in Brevard County and restore public confidence in Florida's criminal justice system. Our organization would be happy to assist the Governor in these efforts." [Bobbi Madonna]

Wrongly-jailed men lose compensation bids

Two victims of high-profile “miscarriages of justice” cases lost a legal battle for increased compensation awards today.

Darren Hall was wrongly imprisoned for killing Cardiff newsagent Philip Saunders, and Stephen Miller wrongly served time for the brutal murder of prostitute Lynette White.

Mr Hall, 39, from Newport, Gwent, and Mr Miller, from Clapham North, south London, and their co-defendants, had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal after spending years behind bars.

Total compensation awards in both cases are in excess of £400,000.

But their legal team argued at the High Court in London that they should have received tens of thousands more and their awards were “irrationally low”.

Today the case was rejected when Lord Justice Latham, sitting with Mrs Justice Swift, ruled their argument was “impossible to sustain”.

Both men contended the assessor, Lord Brennan QC, had not applied the law correctly when carrying out his calculations, especially when compensating them for actual loss of liberty.

Mr Hall was awarded £125,000 as part of his total compensation package for that loss. His lawyers argued that if the law had been correctly applied, he would have received closer to £250,000 under that heading. [Mark Godsey]

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L.A. County sheriff's officials acknowledge that genetic evidence in 5,635 rape cases may be untested

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under pressure from county supervisors and watchdog groups to account for its handling of DNA evidence from sexual assault cases, acknowledged Wednesday it did not know whether genetic evidence from more than 5,600 rape cases had been examined.

In response to an inquiry by the Board of Supervisors last month, Sheriff's Department officials tallied 5,635 sexual assault evidence kits -- semen and other DNA samples collected by authorities from victims -- sitting in freezer storage facilities, Cmdr. Earl Shields said. The department must now manually compare that inventory with records from its crime laboratory to determine which kits remain unexamined, Shields told the board Wednesday.

"The bad news is we have 5,635 kits in a warehouse," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "The good news is we now know what has to be done."

The true size of the county's DNA backlog is probably significantly larger, said Sarah Tofte, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has been pressing local law enforcement agencies around the country to address backlogs. The total announced Wednesday does not take into account the unknown number of sex crime kits that are in the hands of the more than 40 small police agencies in the Los Angeles area that rely on the sheriff's crime lab for analysis, she said.

Under a new policy ordered by Sheriff Lee Baca, all sexual assault kits gathered in the future will be tested -- a departure from a long-running practice in which the sheriff's crime lab analyzed evidence only after detectives handling a case requested it. Shields also said the department would analyze evidence from all kits currently in storage that are found to be untested, although he warned that such an effort would require additional funds to hire more analysts as well as outsourcing testing to private labs.
"The bad news is we have 5,635 kits in a warehouse," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "The good news is we now know what has to be done."

The true size of the county's DNA backlog is probably significantly larger, said Sarah Tofte, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has been pressing local law enforcement agencies around the country to address backlogs. The total announced Wednesday does not take into account the unknown number of sex crime kits that are in the hands of the more than 40 small police agencies in the Los Angeles area that rely on the sheriff's crime lab for analysis, she said.

Under a new policy ordered by Sheriff Lee Baca, all sexual assault kits gathered in the future will be tested -- a departure from a long-running practice in which the sheriff's crime lab analyzed evidence only after detectives handling a case requested it. Shields also said the department would analyze evidence from all kits currently in storage that are found to be untested, although he warned that such an effort would require additional funds to hire more analysts as well as outsourcing testing to private labs. [Mark Godsey]

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Repeal of death penalty urged

state commission reviewing capital punishment recommended last night an end to executions in Maryland, prompting hope among death penalty opponents that the General Assembly could soon abolish the 30-year practice.

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted 13-7 to make the recommendation. It found that the death penalty carries the "real possibility" of executing innocent people and may be biased against blacks.

The final report of the 23-member commission is expected to provide additional ammunition to Gov. Martin O'Malley and other death penalty opponents in their uphill fight to stop state executions. Previous repeal efforts have narrowly failed despite high-profile campaigns by O'Malley, a Roman Catholic and ardent opponent of capital punishment.

An O'Malley spokesman said last night that the Democratic governor looks forward to reading the final report, which is due next month. The governor has lobbied for a death-penalty repeal and vowed to sign it if the legislature passes it. [Mark Godsey]

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Put scientists, not cops, in crime labs

The Michigan State Police released a final report late last month on the firearms unit of the Detroit Police Crime Lab. It’s a highly disturbing document.

MSP found, among other deficiencies, that guns and bullets were kept unsecured and unprotected from possible loss and contamination; that essential records were missing in some 90% of the files; that critical scientific equipment had never been properly calibrated; and that many of the firearms examiners were untrained and unqualified.

An audit of 283 of the cases handled by the unit found an error rate greater than 10% – including several cases in which the examiners apparently assumed that the submitted bullets and shell casings came from the defendants’ guns without actually testing all of the evidence. It is likely that errors by this unit have led to many wrongful convictions.

Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym Worthy and Detroit Police Chief James Barren have responded forcefully to this fiasco. In September, after a preliminary version of the report was issued, they shut down the entire Detroit Police Crime Lab. Worthy is also committed to retesting evidence in the hundreds, if not thousands, of cases in which people have been convicted based on results from the firearms unit.

We commend Worthy and Barren for their commitment to seeing that justice is done. Their task will get even harder if the city finds the funds to complete the audit of the crime lab, including the units that deal with fingerprints, DNA evidence and other physical and biological specimens. [Mark Godsey]

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New report details shattered lives of released Guantanamo detainees

Detainees released from U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Afghanistan live shattered lives as a result of U.S. policies in the war on terror, according to a new report by human rights experts at the University of California, Berkeley. The report, "Guantanamo and Its Aftermath: U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices and Their Impact on Detainees," based on a two-year study, reveals in graphic detail the cumulative effect of Bush Administration policies on the lives of 62 released detainees. Many of the prisoners were sold into captivity and subjected to brutal treatment in U.S. prison camps in Afghanistan. Once in Guantanamo, prisoners were denied access to civilian courts to challenge the legality of their detention. Almost two-thirds of the former detainees interviewed reported having psychological problems since leaving Guantanamo.

"The nightmare of Guantanamo did not end with the detainees' release. Men never convicted of crimes or given the opportunity to clear their names are suffering from a lasting 'Guantanamo stigma,' and are unable to find work,'" said Laurel Fletcher, Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law and co-author of the report.

Researchers conducted interviews with released detainees in nine countries. The comprehensive study also includes in-depth interviews with key government officials, military experts, former guards, interrogators and other camp personnel. [Mark Godsey]

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Internet thieves make big money stealing corporate info

An innocuous posting appeared on a Houston-based technology company's internal website on a recent Friday afternoon.

A couple of workers saw it, and obeyed instructions to click on a Web link. The posting seemed trustworthy. It was on an employees-only message board. And the link referenced news about a favorite company charity.

By clicking on the link, the workers infected their PCs with a virus that shut down the company's antivirus defenses, says Don Jackson, director of Threat Intelligence at Atlanta-based SecureWorks, who investigated the break-in. As a rule, tech security firms help clients under non-disclosure agreements.

The virus swiftly located — and infected — some 300 other workstation PCs, silently copying the contents of each computer's MyDocuments folder. It transmitted the data across the Internet to a gang of thieves operating out of Turkey. [Mark Godsey]

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Case Raising Victim Impact Evidence Issue Falls One Vote Short of Cert.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in a case raising the issue of how far prosecutors can go in capital prosecutions in introducing victim impact evidence.  At issue was a video presentation introduced by the prosecutors at trial, incorporating photographs and video footage of the victim from birth to the age of 19 (when she was murdered), and narrated by her mother.  Both Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer issued dissents from the denial of cert., and Justice Souter also indicated his dissent from the disposition, leaving the petitioner one vote shy of the four needed for the Court to review the case.  The video itself was attached to the dissents and can be accessed here in both Real Player and Windows Media Player formats [Mike Mannheimer]

DNA Solves Property Crimes (But Are We Ready for That?)

Results of an experiment using DNA to solve property crimes are in: collecting biological evidence at burglary scenes works.

The study — funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and evaluated by the Urban Institute — compared burglary investigations that used only traditional police practices to burglary investigations in which DNA evidence was also collected and analyzed. The study revealed that, when DNA was added to traditional property crime investigations:

• More than twice as many suspects were identified.
• Twice as many suspects were arrested.
• More than twice as many cases were accepted for prosecution.

The DNA Field Experiment also found that suspects were five times as likely to be identified through DNA evidence than through fingerprints; blood evidence was more effective in solving property crimes than other biological evidence, particularly evidence from items that were handled or touched by the suspect; and evidence collected by forensic technicians was no more likely to result in a suspect being identified than evidence collected by patrol officers.

Another significant finding of the unprecedented experiment — conducted in Orange County, Calif.; Los Angeles; Denver; Phoenix; and Topeka, Kan. — was that suspects identified by DNA had at least twice as many prior felony arrests and convictions as those identified through traditional burglary investigation.

The results of the DNA Field Experiment have the potential to turn a significant component of our criminal justice system on its head. The implications are that dramatic. [Mark Godsey]

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Supreme Court Argument Report: Jack the Ripper in His Armchair

The Supreme Court on Monday considered a case involving whether a defendant's failure to report for confinement after conviction constitutes a "violent crime" under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The justices weighed arguments concerning whether failure to report is an aggressive or a passive act, and contemplated hypotheticals involving a defendant shirking jail time in order to relax in his armchair or to create holiday memories with his family.

Deondery Chambers, who pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, had prior convictions for drug distribution and for robbery and battery. He challenged whether his conviction under an Illinois escape law for failure to report for confinement was a violent felony that supplied the third predicate conviction for enhancement of his sentence under the ACCA.

Attorney Robert N. Hochman, representing Chambers, told the justices that the government had made a "critical error" in "equating breakout, prison escape, with failure to report. They are entirely different."

Failure to report "presents neither a serious potential risk of injury to others nor involves violent and aggressive conduct," Hochman said.

Assistant to the Solicitor General Matthew D. Roberts argued, however, that failure to report carries the risk of violent confrontation between the defendant and police officers who may come to bring the defendant into custody. He compared it to burglary -- an enumerated offense under the ACCA -- calling it "purposeful, violent, and aggressive in the same way as burglary."

Justice David Souter challenged Roberts on this point, stating that "the crime that we are concerned with here is still essentially a passive crime. [The defendant] just doesn't show up."

Roberts responded that "deliberately failing to comply with your legal duty to report to prison ... is not doing nothing, as petitioner says. It's not purely passive. It is a criminal act." [Mark Godsey]

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Cincinnati Patrols, a jail on cut list

Hamilton County's administration is recommending massive layoffs, departmental consolidation and severe public safety cuts to balance the bleakest budget in memory.

Administrator Patrick Thompson on Monday unveiled details of the 2009 plan, which would eliminate 532 county jobs - 18 percent of the county's general fund positions - by the end of February.

The plan would also close the 800-bed Queensgate jail by March and eliminate sheriff's patrols in the county's three largest townships, Green, Colerain and Anderson.

Public safety officials balked at the recommendations.

"The county administrator is jeopardizing the public safety of this county by recommending the cuts to the sheriff's office," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Barnett. Sheriff Simon Leis "is amazed and appalled that the county commissioners list their No.1 priority as public safety, yet on these cuts public safety is absorbing 38 to 40 percent of the cuts."

And, although commissioners insist public safety is a top priority, "there's only so much money to spend and when it's gone, it's gone," said Commission President Todd Portune. "This is an incredibly difficult process. I expect what is presented to us today is going to shock a number of people in terms of the cuts that might be recommended."

Because public safety makes up two-thirds of the county's overall budget, there's no way to balance it without hurting that area, commissioners said.

They stressed that these recommendations are not final. The three-member commission will hold public hearings, meet with department heads and revise the recommendations before adopting a final budget by the end of the year. [Mark Godsey]

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NYPD Starts Collecting DNA from ... the Police

The NYPD has started taking DNA samples from CSI detectives to look for cross-contamination at crime scenes, sources said last night.

Police brass have been pushing for the samples for at least three years. The need was highlighted when a cop's blood turned up, unexplained, on a sink of the blood-soaked apartment of "Realtor to the Stars" Linda Stein.

A crime scene cop had washed his hands in the sink, leaving a near-invisible drop of blood. Accused killer Natavia Lowery's lawyers claimed the DNA belonged to "the real killer" - until the mystery was solved.

The first 11 crime scene detectives provided DNA samples yesterday under a deal negotiated with the detectives union. Lawyers for the Detectives' Endowment Association hammered out language to protect the samples from being accessed for other reasons without a subpoena, sources said.

Some rank-and-file detectives were not so sure.

"Big Brother is here," said one investigator. "To get a DNA sample from anyone else requires a search warrant. They decided the Constitution doesn't apply to cops."

Read full article here. [Brooks Holland]

Court Upholds On-Scene Traffic Discretion During DUI Roadblock

Giving police officers conducting a sobriety checkpoint the discretion to suspend temporarily and then resume their operation of the checkpoint to alleviate traffic caused by the checkpoint violates neither the Fourth Amendment nor its state constitutional counterpart, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Oct. 27 (Commonwealth v. Worthy, Pa., No. 1 WAP 2007, 10/27/08).

From now on, however, administrative requirements for the operation of checkpoints should limit officers' discretion to suspend and resume checkpoints to relieve traffic congestion, the court said.

Guidelines for Checkpoints.

In Michigan Dep't of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a sobriety checkpoint that was conducted according to written guidelines. One of the factors relied upon by the Sitz court was its determination that the stop was only minimally intrusive because it was conducted following written guidelines that limited the discretion of officers to single out individual motorists.
Although the Pennsylvania Constitution affords greater individual privacy protection than the Fourth Amendment in some contexts, it does not when it comes to the constitutionality of sobriety checkpoints. To ensure the sobriety checkpoints in the state are operated in a constitutional fashion, the court has in Commonwealth v. Blouse, 611 A.2d 1177 (Pa. 1992), established a set of state guidelines that include a requirement that “the decision as to which vehicles to stop at the checkpoint must be established by administratively pre-fixed, objective standards, and must not be left to the unfettered discretion of the officers at the scene.”

The sobriety checkpoint that nailed the defendant in this case was conducted according to written guidelines that required officers to stop every car while the checkpoint was operating, but the offices had discretion to suspend their operation of the checkpoint when traffic got heavy. Three times, the lead officer suspended the operation in order to relieve traffic backups caused by the checkpoint.

Substantial Compliance With Guidelines.

The lower state courts decided that the on-the-scene decision to suspend and then resume the operation amounted to the arbitrary and unfettered discretion of the enforcing officers that the guidelines were designed to prevent. The state high court reversed in an opinion by Justice Seamus P. McCaffery.
The court pointed out that it said in Blouse that “[s]ubstantial compliance with the guidelines is all that is required to reduce the intrusiveness of the search to a constitutionally acceptable level.” That meant “substantial—and not complete—compliance,” the court said here.

The court explained a critical consideration in this case was the absence of any allegation or evidence that the lead officer's exercise of discretion to suspend and resume the checkpoint was linked in any way to stopping any one car or driver. The only evidence was that the officer based these decisions on his experience and training regarding traffic conditions, the court stressed.

Read full article here. [Brooks Holland]

How Did Spitzer Dodge Criminal Charges?

All right. He is off the hook. You know who we are talking about, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will not - that's right - not face criminal charges for committing crimes, soliciting high-end prostitutes.

The fed is saying there's no evidence that he misused public or campaign cash. How in the world did Spitzer get off so easy?

Video: Watch the 'America's News HQ' interview on Eliot Spitzer

Obama legal advisers draft plans for Guantánamo

The White House today challenged president-elect Barack Obama to make good on his campaign promise to close Guantanámo Bay saying "it's not so easy" to shut down the notorious detention centre.

Hopes that Obama would move swiftly to dismantle the detention facility rose after the Associated Press reported today that his legal advisers were drafting plans to ship scores of inmates from the offshore prison to the mainland to stand trial in US courts.

Under plans drawn up by Obama's advisers, between 60 and 80 detainees would be put on trial in the US in a mix of civilian criminal courts and the court martial system. About 17 high-level detainees, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would also go on trial but before a new version of a national security court - not the Bush administration's much criticised military tribunals.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately called on Obama to ban torture and rendition as well as close down Guantanámo.

"There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold president-elect Obama's feet to the fire," Anthony Romero, the union's executive director, said in a statement.

But White House press secretary Dana Perino said today: "When you pick up people off the battlefield that have a terrorist background, it's not just so easy to let them go. It's not so easy just to say that you're going to close Guantanámo Bay."

The reproach from the White House saw the Obama camp moving to play down speculation about re-vising the laws dealing with Guantanamo.

"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled." [Mark Godsey]

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What President Obama Can Do to Reduce Gun Violence

President-elect Obama should implement seven tested and proven initiatives that will have an immediate impact on reducing gun related violence, accidents and suicides without affecting the Second Amendment or having any negative impact on responsible and law abiding gun owners.

Of the average 34,000 gun deaths in the US every year approximately 11,000 are homicides, 18,000 are suicides and 5,000 are unintentional accidents. We can change these horrific numbers.

If I were President Obama, one of my first acts would be the immediate implementation the following gun violence prevention initiatives to reduce gun access by children, criminals and terrorists without any undue restrictions on responsible gun owners like myself.

#1 Mandatory criminal background checks for all gun sales

Current Federal law only requires Licensed gun dealers to perform criminal background checks. Consequently in 32 States "private dealers"/individuals can legally sell guns at thousands of annual gun shows, countless flea markets and yard sales, and out of homes, backpacks, car trunks or on street corners without running a background check or asking to see an ID. Only the first gun sale from a "Federally Licensed" gun dealer requires documentation and all "secondary" gun sales are legally allowed to take place without any paperwork or record keeping. As a result, convicted felons and suspected terrorists can and do buy guns simply because there is no background check required or conducted. [Mark Godsey]

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Ninth Circuit Finds CA Child Abuse Database Unconstitutional

California's database of child abusers and suspected child abusers violates due process because it does not allow those named on it to challenge the allegations, the 9th Circuit ruled.

Craig and Wendy Humphries' child alleged that they were abusers, so the county took their other children away. The state dropped the charges after they were disproved by a doctor.

Despite their acquittal, the Humphries were listed on the state Child Abuse Central Index (CACI) with no chance to clear their names.

CACI can be accessed by employers, adoption agencies, and police officers. The information also is available to out-of-state agencies.

Those who have been wrongfully listed on CACI cannot be removed from the list for 10 years.

Judge Bybee reversed the trial court's summary judgment in favor of Los Angeles County.

"We are not persuaded that California has provided a sufficient process for ensuring that persons like the Humphries do not suffer the stigma of being labeled child abusers, plus the loss of significant state benefits, such as child-care licenses or employment," Bybee ruled.

Article and link to full opinion here. [Brooks Holland]

Obama's DOJ Transition Plan

For more than a month, a squad of lawyers has been gathering for the first Justice Department transition in the post-9/11 world. Now that their candidate has won, they're at the gates -- or rather, the 20-foot-high aluminum doors of Main Justice -- waiting for President-elect Barack Obama and President George W. Bush to finalize the rules for information-sharing and access during the transition.

The Justice Department calls its own preparation unprecedented in modern times. Under a 2004 law, the department has been vetting Obama's transition team for security clearances for more than two months. And since at least July, the department has been laying the groundwork for a new administration. Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed his chief of staff, Brian Benczkowski, and Lee Lofthus, the assistant attorney general for administration, to coordinate the transition.

Obama has tapped Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr's David Ogden, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division under President Bill Clinton, to lead the transition team. His deputy, Thomas Perrelli, managing partner of Jenner & Block's Washington office, is another Clinton administration alum. Perrelli worked under Ogden in the Civil Division as deputy assistant attorney general, supervising the Federal Programs Branch.

The transition will be twice as long as the last one and -- it's hoped -- at least twice as disciplined as the one before that. Obama's first task, the selection of the next attorney general, is likely to be fraught with the memories of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, whose botched nominations got Clinton's Justice Department off to a wobbly start.

The most-discussed candidate for the top spot is still Covington & Burling's Eric Holder Jr., one of Obama's top campaign advisers. But when Legal Times asked Holder in June whether he'd accept the job if offered, he said: "That ain't gonna happen." (It's unclear whether he was referring to the overture or his response were an overture to be made.)

Others mentioned are Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, an early Obama supporter who is now a member of his transition advisory board, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who was reportedly on the short list for vice president. Newsweek reports that Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor who mentored Obama, is also in the running.

A dark horse: Judge Merrick Garland, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who served as principal associate deputy attorney general under Clinton.

Read full article here. [Brooks Holland]

S.F. killings seen as centering on gangs, turf

San Francisco's 98 homicides last year, the highest number in 12 years, were anything but random. According to a new study, the violence was concentrated - routinely involving the same gangs and featuring suspects and victims with long rap sheets.

Nearly three-fourths of the 38 suspects arrested so far in the killings had criminal records, according to the study by the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, a research and policy group at the UC Berkeley School of Law. The average suspect had 12 previous arrests.

Homicide victims typically had even longer records, the study found. More than three-fourths had been booked for a felony or misdemeanor at some point, and victims who had records averaged 13 arrests.

Police concluded that almost half the slayings in 2007 were carried out for the benefit of one of the city's 53 identified gangs, the study said.

Some of the findings of the study by researchers Anthony Braga, David Onek and Sarah Lawrence were presented at a recent anti-crime summit at the University of San Francisco. Police worked closely with the authors and intend to use the study to guide policy, but it was not paid for by the city.

"Today's shooter is tomorrow's victim," said Onek, the study group's executive director and a member of the San Francisco Police Commission. "A small number of individuals in a small number of places are responsible for a disproportionate share of the violence. If you can make a difference with that group, you can make a significant impact on violence in San Francisco."

Deputy Police Chief David Shinn, who heads the Police Department's investigations bureau, said the concentrated nature of the violence prompted the department nine months ago to crack down on drugs and gangs in five neighborhoods: the Mission, Tenderloin, Western Addition, Bayview and Visitacion Valley.

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