Chicago’s population is about 4.5 times larger than Milwaukee’s, but, surprisingly, the arrest totals in the two cities have been slowly converging for many years. Here are the numbers reported to the FBI since 1980 (omitting a handful of years in which one city or the other did not report arrests):
To some extent, the convergence may result from underlying crime trends in the two cities.
Surely you’ve noticed when flipping through TV channels the reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter on A&E. The show centers upon Duane “Dog” Chapman—a bearded, tattooed, and bemulleted bounty hunter—as he and his family of fellow bail enforcement agents apprehend fugitives in sunny Hawaii. Chapman has gotten a fair amount of publicity outside of his show, including a Paula Deen-esque racial slur controversy (unlike Deen, he had no merchandising empire to lose) that resulted in the temporary cancellation of his show, and for being arrested and briefly imprisoned in Mexico for illegally capturing celebrity fugitive Andrew Luster.
Like most reality shows, Dog the Bounty Hunter follows a set format. It begins with a briefing, where we are introduced to the fugitive’s criminal history. Next comes an investigation, which generally involves phone calls and visits to former neighbors and family members. Each episode’s climax is generally the discovery and capture of the bail jumper. The show then shifts from action to tear-jerking drama, with Dog and family providing homespun advice to the re-apprehended fugitive about taking responsibility for life, finding a job, and quitting drugs. “Smoke brah?” counselor-mode Dog asks, slipping a cigarette into the handcuffed man’s mouth and lighting it for him. Typically, the fugitive’s family is present to provide tearful commentary on exactly where things went wrong. Dog the Bounty Hunter is sleazy, shamelessly tacky, and unquestionably entertaining.
Fast forward to Wisconsin, the summer of 2013.
Culpa in causa. The Latin phrases I learned many moons ago as a law student in the Netherlands rarely enter my consciousness, but these three words kept flashing through my mind while reading about the Zimmerman trial. The term appears to have been coined in the 1930s by Willem Pompe, an influential criminal law professor in Utrecht at the time, who may well have thought that Latin sounds fancier than Dutch. Literally, culpa in causa means “fault in the cause.” The notion is that someone who voluntarily—and wrongfully—places herself in a situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that she may commit a crime cannot successfully invoke defenses to criminal liability. Put differently, the intent or fault that is implicated in creating a risky situation extends to the subsequent crime. A relatively straightforward example of how the doctrine operates is in self-intoxication cases: Under Dutch law, a defendant who commits a crime under the influence of voluntarily consumed drugs can be convicted for crimes that require specific intent, even if the drugs rendered her incapable of understanding her actions.