What is the CSI effect?
secondary to public love for all things CSI
- prosecutors now ask for relevant forensic evidence all the time
ie. crack dealer wasn’t convicted because they didn’t have finger print evidence even though they found crack in his pocket
Podlas study (CSI effect)
- gave details on a mock crime and only purely circumstantial evidence
-asked jurors on basis of evidence would be willing to convict suspect:
14% judged suspect guilty because assumed prosecutors have infallible data even if they don’t present it
what are the top 3 things that cause wrongful convictions?
- eyewitness errors (71%)
- forensic science testing (63%
- police misconduct
March 11 2004
- attacks in madrid spain
- got fingerprints and arrested Gradon Mayfield
- fingerprints matched ones off device and held for months without charge until lawyers were able to say they shouldmt be doing this
who uses capital punishment most?
china
-can be executed for cheating on your taxes
when was the death penalty abolished in Canada?
1976
Who is Isaac Ehrlich?
wrote paper in 1975 that death penalty lead to 7 fewer homicides
-found very many flaws in paper and conclusions could not be drawn from it
What is the brutalization Effect?
States that use the death penalty use it to send a message to citizens that life isn’t worth much
-death penalty states have higher homicides rates than states that don’t
Cost of death penalty
- capital punishment is more expensive than system where life in prison is max. sentence
- average person on death row for 16 years- expensive to end up killing them
what is retribution?
- punishment for committing a crime
ie. if you take someones life, your life should be taken
How foolproof are lethal injections?
not foolproof at all
-3 in 2014 and they all moaned and shit for a long time
Ceteris Paribus
- knowing one variable can predict another
ie. knowing someones height we can predict their weight
oldest man on death row:
- killed after his 76th birthday
- was legally blind, deaf and in wheelchair
- killed with lethal injection
4 way that drugs and violence are related
- violence crimes may be committed to gain drugs or resource to access drugs
- violence is a way of resolving disputes in illegal and inherently unregulated and ruleless business
- violence and drugs can arise because of same factors
- drugs directly make people aggressive
Hoaken and Stewart (2003)
- looked at 7 drugs and if it makes you aggressive
- only one that made people aggressive was alcohol
what are 2 ironies about the cost of policing drugs is justifiable?
- drug we know to induce most violence is legal (alcohol) and is often sold and taxed by state for profit
- greatest amount of drug related violence is likely product of means and regulating illegal and highly profitable industry
What did John Stewart Milk think about drugs?
state state should be in practice of telling us what we can and can’t does long as it doesn’t trespass against another person
netherlands is based on 2 principles:
- drug use is public health issue, not criminal matter
- distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs exist
- less drug use in netherlands b/c they have it legalized
Nutt (drug harm study)
- asked two groups of professionals to rate each drug on 9 different things (acute harm, chronic health consequences)
- experts saw drugs the same way
- some of the most dangerous drugs are legal and the others are illegal
- therefore classification is not accurate
7 tentative suggestions on drugs:
- de criminalize
- re categorize
- regulate
- prohibit by age and other factors
- tax at an obscene level
- use revenues to fund treatment and research
- educate
Nancy Reagan (1980’s)
-data suggests that the ad campaign has its effect that teaching kids that using drugs is normal and will lead to more kids doing them
Montana Meth Project
- before 2005 had huge meth problem
- hired producers to make ads about meth
- one year later all these stats came out about how the meth rate has lowered
- actually found that there was no decrease and the montana meth project hadn’t been effective
Freakonomics
- written by steven Levit
- demonstrated sumo wrestlers cheat to maximize each others salarys
Why did Roe vs. Wade cause crime rate to drop in 1990’s?
- supreme court decision that women would have access to abortion in US
- Steven Levit said it’s because the unwanted children that would grow up to be criminals decreased since abortion was available
