Criminal Law & Process – Page 45 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Alternatives to Incarceration: The Importance of Local Collaboration and Leadership

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:October 6, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

Last week, the Audit Services Division of the Milwaukee County Office of the Comptroller released a helpful new report, “Electronic Monitoring can Achieve Substantive Savings for Milwaukee County, but Only if Pursued on a Large Scale with Satisfactory Compliance.” Although the voluminous report particularly focuses on electronic monitoring, it also provides a wealth of background information about the recent history of our local jail, House of Correction, and alternatives to incarceration. The report documents a rich array of new or recently reinvigorated programs that are intended to divert defendants from the jail or House of Correction, either at the pretrial stage or post-adjudication. The report also notes widespread support for these initiatives among nearly all major stakeholders in the County’s criminal justice system, with the most significant exception being Sheriff David Clarke.

Media coverage centered on the report’s finding that home detention and electronic monitoring of larger numbers of offenders might save the County more than $2.5 million in costs at the House of Correction. The Office of the Sheriff responded to this finding in a characteristically derisive fashion, particularly criticizing the House’s current leadership for placing drunk drivers on electronic monitoring.

Although the war of words among County officials makes good copy, I think the real story in the report is the extensive and innovative collaboration that has been occurring for the past half-dozen years between court officials, elected leaders, prosecutors, public defenders, and various other stakeholders in order to address Milwaukee’s chronic jail overcrowding and to develop cost-effective alternatives to incarceration.

The Criminology of “Oliver Twist”

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 13, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Legal History Popular Culture & Law Public

Let’s face it. The protagonist of “Oliver Twist” just isn’t a very interesting character. Things start out promisingly enough with his famous request, “Please, sir, I want some more.” And who can resist applauding when he gives the boorish Noah Claypole a well-deserved thrashing? But we’re then forced to endure nearly 400 pages of Oliver as an insufferable milquetoast, passively cast here and there to suit the needs of Dickens’ laughably improbable plot, weeping copiously on cue to amplify the author’s sentimental excesses.

No, Oliver himself gives us no good reason to continue to read past page 50. It’s the villains who really carry the show. Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, of course, supply some darkly memorable comic relief, and they are villains of a sort. Venal and hypocritical public servants, we might think of them as the forebears of some of today’s white-collar criminals. (Mr. Bumble is also the source of a perennially favorite statement about the law; upon being informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction,” Bumble sputters helplessly, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass–a idiot.” (402))

But the real scene-stealers are the criminals of a more conventional sort. Is there any doubt that Fagin is the most memorable and richly realized character in the book, with the murderous Bill Sikes not far behind?

Crime, Art, Sports, and Judge De Sanctis: An Update

Post author:Daniel D. Blinka
Post published:September 11, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public Speakers at Marquette Sports & Law

Last September, the Law School hosted a lecture by the Hon. Fausto Martin De Sanctis, a distinguished federal judge from Brazil. A former fellow at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington D.C. (2012), Judge De Sanctis has spearheaded Brazil’s efforts to crackdown on international and domestic money laundering, among other crimes. In his lecture, Judge De Sanctis described how museum-quality art served as a medium for laundering cash that left only a scant trail for investigators to follow. It is, he said, an international problem that cries for international solutions.

Judge De Sanctis has now published a book on this intricate topic, Money Laundering Through Art: A Criminal Justice Perspective (Springer, 2013).Central to Judge De Sanctis’s argument is the need to lift the secrecy that shrouds many art transactions. While art dealers proclaim the need for confidentiality and the cultivation of a mystique, law enforcement contends that this same secrecy facilitates crime and fraud. The complexities of these crimes, including references to Judge De Sanctis and his (then forthcoming) book, were recently canvassed by the New York Times in a May 2013 story. (See link)