ACLU: Michigan’s public defender system among worst, By Doug Guthrie, May 18, 2011, Detroit News: “Michigan’s system of appointing lawyers to represent criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own is among the worst in the nation, according to a report issued today by the American Civil Liberties Union. Using numerous prior studies by others that condemned the state’s dependence on a patchwork of dissimilar systems run separately by 83 counties, the report blasts a lack of oversight, funding, training and failure to meet national standards…”

Poverty rate paradox: Poverty rises, but FBI crime rate falls, By Patrik Jonsson, September 13, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “The much-studied links between poverty and crime rates - which helped give rise to many Great Society programs - have not materialized so far in the Great Recession. Even with 15 percent of Americans now officially poor, both violent crime and property crime continued to drop in the United States in 2009, the FBI reported Monday. The housing crash’s backwash of foreclosures and high unemployment has pushed some in the middle class and the working poor to the brink of despair and insolvency. Yet crimes reports ranging from murder to carjackings, from graft to purse-snatching, all declined during the same period, forcing social scientists to reexamine long-held assumptions about the causes of crime and how society can best battle back…”

Even the poor make too much to get a public defender, By Steven Elbow, January 25, 2010, Capital Times: “So you’re scraping by on minimum wage, and your hours were cut to 25 per week. You managed to put $300 in the bank, and you drive a beater you bought for $2,000. That puts you in the federal poverty bracket. But according to the state public defender, if you’re arrested, you won’t qualify for a public defender. If your boss cuts your hours to nine, you still wouldn’t qualify. State Public Defender Nicholas Chiarkas calls the standards used to assess whether the poor can qualify for assistance from his office ‘an embarrassment.’ They haven’t been updated or adjusted for inflation since 1987 and are the most stringent in the nation, he says. You have to be dirt poor to qualify. Further, the standards force cash-strapped counties to foot the bill for appointing lawyers for defendants who would undergo substantial hardship if they were forced to pay for their own legal representation. The state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau found that statewide, Wisconsin counties shelled out about $6 million in 2008 - the most recent figures available - to hire attorneys for the poor…”

Despite recession, crime keeps falling, By Devlin Barrett (AP), December 21, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “High unemployment. More folks on food stamps. Fewer owning their homes. Yet for all the signs of recession, something is missing: More crime. Experts are scratching their heads over why crime has ebbed so far during this recession, making it different from other economic downturns of the past half-century. Early guesses include jobless folks at home keeping closer watch for thieves, or the American population just getting older_ and older people commit fewer crimes. Preliminary FBI crime figures for the first half of 2009 show crime falling across the country, even at a time of high unemployment, foreclosures and layoffs. Most surprisingly, murder and manslaughter fell 10 percent for the first half of the year…”

L.A. plans revival for center of crime, poverty, By Jacob Adelman, (AP), September 2, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “Juanita Sims has lived in the notorious Jordan Downs project in Watts for almost four decades, raising eight children behind the barred windows of the cramped barracks-like apartments. She moved in shortly after the Watts riots in the 1960s left almost three dozen people dead and made the South Los Angeles community a national symbol of urban decay. Now Sims fears she’ll have to leave, just as Watts emerges from years of neglect with a proposed urban village of shops, homes and businesses that would force the demolition of Jordan Downs…”

Advocates push to add attacks on homeless to Florida hate crimes law, By Anthony Man, July 7, 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “Horrified by video of teens who went on a rampage beating homeless men in downtown Fort Lauderdale, a state legislator was propelled to push for including attacks on the homeless to the state’s hate crimes law.  It is now state law — in Maryland — because state Sen. Alex Mooney, R-Md., saw what he termed “gruesome” video of the Fort Lauderdale incident. His state is the first to include homeless people as a protected group under its hate crimes statute…”

Constant fear and mob rule in South Africa slum, By Barry Bearak, June 29, 2009, New York Times: “The two robbery suspects had already been viciously beaten, their swollen faces stained with rivulets of red. One of them could no longer sit up, and only the need to moan seemed to revive him into consciousness. The other, Moses Tjiwa, occasionally stared into the taunting crowd and muttered, ‘I didn’t do anything’…”