Bounty Hunters at the Gates: Wisconsin’s Flirtation with the Bail Bonds System

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.

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The Promise

The promise.  It’s long been a staple of political campaigns and it’s easy to understand why.  Candidates need to find a way to connect with voters, to cut through the messaging clutter, and nothing does the trick quite like a simple, direct “this is what I’m going to do” statement.  The promise, after all, is about much more than words.  It reflects a candidate’s vision and confidence.  I mean, who wants to vote for someone who’s not-so-sure what the future holds?  We want our candidates to be bold, decisive, and optimistic.

There’s just one danger.  What if a candidate gets elected and fails to deliver on a promise or falls short of it?  Is a broken promise fatal or do voters today see the promise as a different animal: more a statement of goals and aspirations rather than a contract with (as we say in television) no “outs”?

They’re questions worth asking, because in Wisconsin’s 2014 race for governor, a promise will almost certainly be front and center.  It’s the one Governor Scott Walker made in February of 2010, when he said Wisconsin would create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term in office (fewer Wisconsinites are likely to remember Democratic candidate Tom Barrett’s goal of creating 180,000 new jobs).  Then-candidate Walker based his pledge on numbers that had been achieved by former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson in his first four years, and he repeated it again and again to voters and media around the state.  When Walker appeared on my “UpFront” television show in late February, I asked him, “Is this a campaign promise?  Something you want to be held to?” Walker didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he replied.  “To me, 250,000 is a minimum.  Just a base.”

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Measuring Child Abuse Incidence

Boy with Black Eye Hugging Teddy Bear --- Image by © Guntmar Fritz/zefa/CorbisProbably you are familiar with some version of the old philosophical riddle “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, is there still a sound?”  Today’s question is similar: “If a child is maltreated but the maltreatment is not reported to authorities, does it still count as child maltreatment?”

I do not mean to be flip.

One of the perennial controversies in child protection circles is how high the rate of child maltreatment actually is, and the answer is never straightforward.  It depends on how we define abuse and neglect (physical, emotional and sexual), how we measure it (Third party reports? Self-reports by victims or perpetrators? Arrests? Convictions?), and whom we think it affects (Poor people? Addicts? Members of certain minority groups? Everyone?)  A lot rides on the answers to these questions, from public funding to public attention to the issue, and the answers often vary from time to time and place to place.

There are, however, some areas of agreement. 

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