Right from the beginning, I liked how Anne Milgrim stated, when she became a prosecutor she wanted to know why, who, and the reasoning behind arresting someone. And arresting people was the truly the golden key to making us safer? The biggest thing we talk about in class is locking people up for simple crimes, such as having a little bit of weed on them. Or arresting a parent that aided in helping their children with a crime. The person that committed the crime, know that they were in the wrong and hopefully they learn from their mistakes and won’t do it again or else they will get locked up. Most bigger industry don’t track the smaller crimes being committed. Most high crime places aren’t using data - driven policing which is the main key to finding suspects. Look at past offenses and try to connect the missing puzzle pieces together. Making sure the public is safe is, one of the most important things and top priority. If the public isn’t safe than neither are law enforcement officials. We have twelve million arrests in the United States every year that are for low-crimes such as misdemeanors and low-drug crimes. Violent crimes are only five percent. Right now we have 2.3 million people in our prisons. Two thirds of the people in jail are waiting for a trial to be convicted. This then leads to mass incarceration and the reasons on why our incarceration rates are so incredibly high. This proves that if we change our way of policing to be more data driven and look at statistics of past criminals and convictions we will then be able to reduce crime. With reducing crime, it also means making the environment and the communities we live in a safer and better place. #notaplumber002
Milgram was a very educated woman and you could tell. I also think its very important to ask ourselves, if arresting someone the key to public safety, especially if it is such a low level crime. We spend so much money, when we put someone in jail for a minor drug charge, when we could be spending that money somewhere more useful in our state. I think it is very important that we use data in analytics, to more efficiently police our neighborhoods. All the statistics stated in this video prove that if change our ways of policing, we could ultimately make America communities safer. I-Like-Cereal002
The questions Anne Milgram stated at the begging of the video really stuck out to me. Anne who was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. You can tell she is a very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand, so we can see the trends of crimes being committed, what race is being jailed more, and many more reasons. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing, if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system. Milgram stated that instead of focusing on low level drug crimes, the police department started focusing large state wide cases, that will have a more successful effect on the city of Camden. By using all the data driven policing, using analytics, and focusing more on the bigger crimes, she was able to take her city of the top of list of dangerous cities in America. Milgram reduced the murder rate by 40 percent, and all crime was reduced by 26 percent. Milgram states that public safety is the most important thing of a functional government. If the public does not feel safe the government will ultimately fail. 80 percent of our crimes occur low level, such as misdemeanors. We spend so much money on these low level crimes. Our recidivism rate is also through the roof, data and analytics is our answer to reducing crime. I-like-cereal002
I have to agree with you- the questions she asks at the beginning really do stick with you and make you think. I also agree with you on her level of education and natural intuition- she took something that was once a baseball "scouting" sort of system/prototype and turned the same concept into the way we get our crime statistics. It truly is amazing what kind of results you can get when you have the right people and minds working in the right positions with the right power. I also agree with your closing statement, (at least for a huge part of what we need to do to reduce recidivism), in that crime statistics will seriously impact the recidivism rates and the incredibly high crime areas. GMan003
Her opening sentence stuck with me as well. She really made me think a lot about the people that we incarcerate today. Like who actually deserves to be behind bars and who doesn't? The fact that she came up with a plan and went through with it and had great results was amazing. I strive to be this good at my career. It makes me want to start helping society right now! The statistics that Milgram shared were amazing. She truly is an outstanding individual.-Anchorman003
The work of Attorney General Anne Milgram in New York is truly inspiring. She saw the extremely inefficient way that our law enforcement agencies across every level and department in our country would getting our crime statistics, and sought to find a solution to increase the efficiency. The way she describes it is pretty bluntly- she said, “we were essentially trying to fight crime with yellow Post-notes” and that “we weren’t doing a good job.” The fact that she has the knowledge and insight to not only recognize this problem, but to also seek and produce a better solution, tells me she is in the right line of work. What she did was create a “moneyball” system, which she compared to how the Oakland A’s changed their ways of finding new players to recruit to a smart system in which a rigorous statistics analyzing machine/program was used, rather than the old scout system, to see who was the best statistically. She said they successfully did it with a baseball team, so why couldn’t she with the way we got our crime statistics? So she developed a system of these exact specifications, just using our crime databases and reports instead of baseball stats, to give us a better understanding of what we needed to work on. When she implemented the program into Camden, which was the PD she was currently working with, she managed to reduce murders by 41% (which translated to an astonishing 37 lives being saved), as well as reducing all crime in the city by 26%. Essentially she found a problem, created a solution, and used it to take her city off of the top of the list for the most dangerous places in America. Migram’s work has provided me with a new role model- to have such a large impact on the way we go about our policing and the to change/develop the actual source from where we get our crime statistics is an amazing feat. I hope to be even remotely close to her level of impact one day. GMan003
I really did enjoy listening to this Ted talk and it seems like you did as well. I think the questions that she posed at the beginning of the talk are extremely questions more of this around the nation need to be asking. I mean the statistics speak for themselves because she was able to take Camden of the most dangerous cities in America list by reducing the murder rate play 41% because it he started going after more violent offenders and putting effort into cases with state wide implications. -RHB003
She has worked in a lot of different ways prosecuting crime. When she became attorney general two things changed the way she saw policing. She wanted to understand who they were arresting, charging and who we were putting in our nations jails. She wanted to see if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. She saw that most big agencies were not keeping records of those types of data. After 4 months of tying, they were very frustrated. So they put detectives in a room and they started going case after case to figure it out. After detectives went through case and case files they found out the data wasn’t good. Fighting crime cannot be won by putting yellow posted notes on a board. Fighting crime has to be a team-jointed effort. Police officers and other officials need to be all on the same page plus we NEED the public’s help in that mission. Citizens need to say something if they see something. Meaning that if they see something suspicious call it in or tell the closest first responder and they’ll alert the police or even security. I believe that if more officers were more proactive than we can truly reduce crime. But don’t think that this will shut down all crime and there won’t be anymore crime because there will be. It is impossible for all crime to end because they’re will always be crime. Proactive policing can really help with the smaller crimes and up to the medium crime. Proactive policing can even help with spotting whether it’s someone who's out of place or maybe wearing multiple layers, like a coat, when it’s 90 degrees outside. -chicubs002
I think that police officers are being proactive, it’s the courts who decide if whether an offender should be released or not. A police officer is doing his/her job when arresting someone for possession of drugs or even arresting a person for violent behavior. Yet, the problem is in the judge’s hands to decide. You’re right crime will always be present but it will reduce if the courts would start using scientific data, instead of bias and instincts to decide if someone should be incarcerated. Some police officers can also be more understanding when it come to low level offenses and how that can ruin someone’s life after put in the system. dory002
Anne Milgram wants to help enforce communities to help them better understand why law enforcement officers arrest people. Sixty-seven percent of people end up coming back to prison. The United States recidivism rate is amongst the highest in the world. We have very little rehabilitation for offenders that come out of jail or prison. They then don’t have the necessities to live on their own and end up knowing that they could have a better life if they went back to prison. So past offenders than commit a smaller crime so they can have a roof over their head and three meals to eat every day. Right now we have 2.3 million people in our prisons. Two thirds of the people in jail are waiting for a trial to be convicted. This then leads to mass incarceration and the reasons on why our incarceration rates are so incredibly high. Even though our crime rate is decreasing, many people are still getting incarcerated. Mass incarceration is still a problem today. Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration. There are many low-risk offenders in jail and high-risk offenders not. We are spending more money on taxpayers by sending the low-risk offenders for stealing something small to jail than we would by just letting them go. People get arrested for stealing food because they are homeless or cold on a winter night. But high-risk offenders like murdering someone will only get a few more years than a low-risk offender. Our decision making is often wrong, we need strong data and analytics. Five to ten jurisdictions in the United States use some sort of assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of incarceration rates. If we take Milgram’s ideas and convert them into our communities and they way we police it will change the way the people act and reduce crime. #notaplumber003
To start with a prosecutor is a lawyer who works for a state or government organization and is responsible for starting legal proceedings and then proving in court that the suspect committed the crime he or she is accused of. Anne milgram lecture was educative as she is sharing her experience on prosecution. she actually opened the mind of most us as we proceeding to to this course of criminal justice. She cleared said from beginning that she always wanted to know the reason of arresting somebody and who are this people. This make sense that on her work she was following the right procedure and she wanted the clear evidence before prosecuting someone. criminal case usually get started with police arrest report. The prosecutor then decides what criminal charges to file, if any. some cases go to preliminary hearing where a judge decides if there is enough evidence to proceed.From her lecture i learned that some cases can also start when a grand jury issues a criminal indictment. Anne is a smart prosecutor and such people make the work easier for the judge not to deal minor cases if the prosecutor did his or her job correctly. A citizen can be arrested for a crime if the police have probable cause that the crime has been committed. we also see that a prosecutor can only file a formal charge if there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed.This includes testimony, evidence if believed by the police and prosecutors. sometimes we see the police officers arrest people with multiple tickets but the work of prosecutor is to weigh and decide which case should be dropped and which one should be proceeded. Gusii 003
Anne Millgram has one a great Ted talk along with her data ideas toward public safety and prosecution. She hits on the work she did with Camden Police and the city. I did my own personal research with the city of Camden. Camden is still to this day one of the poorest cities in the United States. Anne made sure the crime rate went down and got off the number one spot. Camden was once at a shooting every 33 hour. Anne made it her top priority to help save a city that had no hope. Millgram made it clear towards the middle of the ted talk that she is very hard on public safety and that showed with what she did in one of the hardest places to do it at. Of the 12 million arrests made in the US 5% of them are violent crimes. Millgram put a great team to great an amazing dashboard for judges, police officers, and prosecutors to use science to help there instinct choices they make on cases. Public safety needs to be a priority over most of cases. Millgram has a great thing going on at the national level the dashboard data being used in the scientific way, this will help many cases and stop recurring offenses and crime rate like it as already has. Millgram did hit on that this will help judges make choices with their instinct choices, stating that this will help but not be a standard choice for it. Criminal justice in the United States needs more people like Anne Millgram she is a devoted attorney general that is by the numbers but cares about the people. Cases will be changed and crime will be dropped as we not in a couple years with her research and team has done. DirtTrack003
The Statistics in Crime reduction video was very informative. The statistics given by Anne Milgram were 12 million arrest in the U.S a year, 75 billion dollars a year spent on state and prison cost, 2.3 million people in jails or prisons in the U.S only five percent are for violent crimes, two thirds of these inmates are waiting for trial so basically just sitting, and 67% come back. Watching this video I feel with the data that has been collected they are missing a major piece in trying to reduce crime and lower the recidivism rate. They are missing the causation of crime. You can collect data and create assessments for judges to go by when determining someone sentences or deciding if they should be released, but until you find out why this person is committing crimes to begin with you will never reduce crime and lower the incarceration rate. Having data on a persons home life, how they were raised, do they live in poverty, do they have children they are trying to take care of? Things like this should be taken into consideration. Once this is known, how do you effectively take action against the causation of crime. Do you decide to keep them incarcerated or do you offer assistance with jobs, schooling, or programs that will help and keep them from committing the same crimes if released. The questions that Anne Milgram initially asked where great, “who are we arresting, who do we charge, and who do we put in prison?” But we should add why did they commit these crimes to begin with? I think by mandating all jails and prisons to include life skills programs and continued education programs the statistics that were given would change drastically. Jadist002
When listening to this video, Anne Milgram has a heart to serve her community. She states that, law enforcement has not been tracking the things that matter. If law enforcement is not tracking the things that matter, then how can law enforcement serve and protect their cities effectively? When policing in a community, law enforcement should be policing for the right reasons. And that is serving and protecting those in their community. The police have many different tools at their disposal to help fight crime. But if those tools are being used in effectively, then what is the point of having them? When law enforcement uses these tools effectively, they are able to reduce violence with violent offenders, gang control, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. The ultimate goal of law enforcement is to keep our communities safe. The vast majority of criminal arrests are for low level crimes at twelve million people. When it comes to violent crimes, it sadly comes in at five percent. When law enforcement is simply focused on low level crimes, our communities are at risk for major violent crimes. When people are not healthy (our society as a whole), one definitely cannot be well educated. Anne talks about a man who stole four blankets on a cold day, to simply stay war. His bail was to high for him to post, and he ended up staying in jail for eight months. Now, if law enforcement would have looked at the date, they would have realized that he is low risk inmate. Since, the date was never looked at, this man costed the state nine thousand dollars for eight months. We spend nearly seventy-five billion dollars a year to house inmates in our local and state jail and or prisons. Many of which are over crowed. Roughly sixty-seven will be arrested again, which averages out to be one in ten. This is why using the data effectively is so important. When it comes to arresting somebody, we must know as much information as we can on who they are. Illinoisgurl002
Statistics, is it smart to use it or not I do not know what AG Milgram is referencing when the judges do have any of this data in front of them. We know that much of determining future behavior is looking at past and immediate behavior as it relates to crime. Even the AG's statistical analysis would indicate that about sixty seven are repeat offenders so that much we know. This one size fits all, universal approach sounds reasonable at first blush but it is an oversimplification of assessing individuals engaged to criminal conduct and anti-social behavior and that is BIG Government at its worse.The AG must know that statistically certain criminals who get caught have previously committed that specific crime dozens of times prior to being caught.One issue is that not all baseball teams use "money ball" scouting. Money ball was created because an owner wanted to get the best team possible using the least amount of money. In fact, if statistical analysis were the best way to calculate risk or winners you would never have to play a single game because the statistical value of the stronger team would determine the winner. The game involves humans with motivations that often lead to decisions that statistically should have not worked and yet they do. Just because they did not use stats, does not mean they are doing a bad job. Milgram provided a data analytics tool to do a better analysis, it is still based on what they have been doing. Without their years of experience and data, your tool is useless. By joining together and creating a new system, you are not only proving that crime deterrence is possible no matter who you are, but also that there is always room for improvement. It just takes some time. Batman002
I totally agree with your analogy. Statistics can not account for every aspect in criminal behavior. The reason someone committed a crime should be taken into consideration. As Dr. White stated in class if there was a need to feed his family and he had no money he would steal. He is not stealing because he is a bad person but because he is a father wanting to feed his family. So as a judge would you sentence him harshly without taking this into consideration? People who do drugs there is a reason they commit crimes to feed there habit. So would you sentence this person to a prison with no treatment? So when he is released he will return to the same environment and pick up the same habit, or sentence him to a rehabilitation facility where he can detox, receive counseling, and life skills training? Jadist002
Just because they did not use stats, does not mean they are doing a bad job. Milgram provided a data analytics tool to do a better analysis, it is still based on what they have been doing. Without their years of experience and data, your tool is useless. By joining together and creating a new system, you are not only proving that crime deterrence is possible no matter who you are, but also that there is always room for improvement. It just takes some time. Statistics, is it smart to use it or not I do not know what AG Milgram is referencing when the judges do have any of this data in front of them. We know that much of determining future behavior is looking at past and immediate behavior as it relates to crime. Even the AG's statistical analysis would indicate that about sixty seven are repeat offenders so that much we know. This one size fits all, universal approach sounds reasonable at first blush but it is an oversimplification of assessing individuals engaged to criminal conduct and anti-social behavior and that is big Government at its worse. The AG must know that statistically certain criminals who get caught have previously committed that specific crime dozens of times prior to being caught.One issue is that not all baseball teams use "money ball" scouting. Money ball was created because an owner wanted to get the best team possible using the least amount of money. In fact, if statistical analysis were the best way to calculate risk or winners you would never have to play a single game because the statistical value of the stronger team would determine the winner. The game involves humans with motivations that often lead to decisions that statistically should have not worked and yet they do. Batman003
Anne Milgram is an every educated woman. She has held multiple law enforcement position, such as was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. She believes that if law enforcement agencies do not use crime driven data analysis, we are failing as police departments and as a country. I agree with her if we do not study our crime data, and trends, we ultimately do not who we are putting in our jails, and who we are even investigating for that matter. Most of the people put in our jails are being locked up for low level crimes, like using marijuana or having small amounts of drugs on them. Milgram believes that we should shift our focus statewide crimes, and working with agencies, to become a more proactive police department. The city of Camden New Jersey, where Milgram worked used to be one of the most dangerous cities in America. But with the use of crime data, and studying crime trends she reduced the cities murder rate by 40 percent, and reduced the overall crime rate by 26 percent. Also going back to the beginning of the video Milgram asked certain questions that she wanted to know and study. Milgram asked who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. Those questions are what all police department, and all federal agencies need to ask themselves. We need to know who we are locking up, we need to know who the repeat offenders are. Milgram also stated that for a government to be successful, the public needs to feel safe. If the public does not feel the safe the the government will end up failing in the end to the lack of security. I-Like-Cereal003
Anne Milgram, had taken a very interesting approach in viewing the criminal justice system. She wanted to know two simple questions, the first being who are we arresting. Secondly, who are in the jails and prisons and did we make these decisions to make the community safer? These two basic questions sent her through years of paper work and case files. The organization who had employed her had hardly any data as a whole. She found that the city of Camden had worked tons of low-level drug cases through the years but had almost neglected the high violence cases. Camden, New Jersey was the most dangerous city in the United States for several years. Anne Milgram wanted to understand why this phenomenon was occurring. She started to work with some of the police agencies; through this she found an over all lack of shared data. This lack of sharing information was critical in solving crimes. She released this lack of information was affecting how efficiently the officers were doing their job. Through this, she wanted to bring statistical data into the system. With this new approach they were able to reduce the murders by 41% which is about 37 lives saved. The over all crime rates also decreased by 26%. By adding numerical data to the justice system, they were able to make informed decisions that changed countless lives in the process. With more data, they also made changes on how they prosecuted. Instead of directing their attention on non-violent drug cases they shifted their focus to more state-wide crime and more violent crime. Public safety is the most important job of the government; without safety, education and health cannot flourish. She continued, her captivating presentation with displaying a slide on the total arrests in the U.S in one year. The slide mentioned that 12 million people are arrested in a year while only 5% of that number are in violent crimes. I found this short video highly interesting as it added statistical data into the criminal justice system. Through this information we are able to proceed with informed decision and we are less likely to make the same kind of mistakes in the future. -CoalRoller003
I too, very quickly picked up on her two questions. I think she has a very solid point and case as to why is the government really arresting people. If we are able to decrease mass incarceration by giving people fines, or decreasing their sentences because they were found guilty of a misdemeanor that reduce it. Having rehabilitation centers for people that get out of jail is also a good way to make sure they don’t end up in the same place. These past offenders, just need a little extra help getting their life together in order to get a job and start making a new life for themselves and their family. #notaplumber002
This video really has some good information and some alarming statistics as well. From the video Anne Milgram says that there are on average about twelve million arrests made every year and she is talking about how we can make things better and what we should be doing to get there. Of these twelve million arrests made in a year, only about five percent of these arrests are for violent crimes. Only five percent? That is a crazy low number for the amount of violence that there is in this country. We are arresting a lot of low level crimes as they say in the video and it is true and we do need to think about things like that. Something that I think is interesting about the video though to me was when Anne was talking this man in Texas that got arrested for stealing four blankets out of a store. He was then arrested and taken to jail and is bail was set to $3500 and he could not afford that so he sat in jail for eight months waiting for his court date to come. Now I am not sure if she was getting at the man should not have been arrested because this is a low level crime or if she was saying that there was a lot wrong with the way we are handling the criminal justice system. We have to get better and faster with these court dates. I know that it is easier said than done but at the same time, it seemed like she was saying that it was not worth arresting him because it was such a low level crime. The tax payers spent over nine thousand dollars on him in those 8 months in jail. But he broke the law, even though it was just four blankets that he stole, he is still stealing the sales away from the business owners, and there should be a punishment for it, we just have to find ways to resolves crimes such as this so that they do not spent eight months and nine thousand dollars to take care of these small crimes. -Steel003
Anne Milgram the Attorney General for New Jersey raised some valid questions. Who are we arresting, who are we charging and who are we putting in our jails and prisons? One question that I feel is missing is why are these individuals we are arresting committing these crimes. I might be biased in a sense that I just do not feel like doing statistics on Anne’s three questions are good enough. To keep the community safe you have to find out why people are committing crimes. We have 2.3 million people in our jails in the U.S. why is this? We then are wasting money, 75 billions dollars on the state and prisons instead of putting this money to good use on programs, education and different trades to lower the recidivism rate. Judges can be given the risk assessment tools to use but in the end a majority of the decisions that are made are based on opinion and not facts. I have witnessed judges say “you have been in my court room to many times” and sentence someone out of irritation for the inmates continued returned and without factual data or an inmates upbringing and life background taken into consideration. So where will that statistics help? If you do not have people in places that are willing to be that person to make a change and start with the root of the problem the “statistics” will continue to grow and mass incarceration will never end. I agree public safety is an important function in government but we should not be overloading our prisons in the process. You can then lower the 67 percent return rate. Jadist003
I watched the Ted Talk video called “Why smart statistics are the key to fighting crime”. The speaker, Anne Milgram, became an attorney general in 2007 for the state of New Jersey. Before she was an attorney general, she was a criminal prosecutor. Originally for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and then for the United States Department of Justice. When she first became an attorney general, two things happened that made her change her outlook on criminal justice. The first one being she asked more essential and underlying questions. The who, what, where, and why’s essentially. Anne wanted to know who was getting arrested, charged, and put into the nation's prisons. The second thing that happened was that the speaker spent a day in Camden, New Jersey Police Department, which was one of the most dangerous cities in America at the time. Both of these things made her realize that fundamentally we are failing. We didn't know who was in our criminal justice system, there was no data, and no data or analysis was shared to help us make better decisions to reduce crime. Knowing all of this, Anne Milgram changed the way the criminal justice worked. She and her team were able to take Camden off of the list of the most dangerous cities in America. Murders were reduced by 41 percent, and overall crime was reduced by 26 percent. They went from doing low level drug crimes to doing cases that had statewide importance, on things like reducing violence, prosecuting street ganges, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. All of these changes matter, because public safety is one of the most important aspects of criminal justice. Overall, their goal is to get every judge in America to use a universal risk assessment tool. She wants the judges to use there instinct and experience, along with the risk assessment tools to change the criminal justice system. There’s a lot of work left for her and her team to do, but fortunately they know it works. It’s how we can make the world a safer and better place for everyone. It will change the criminal justice system in America. -pizza002
RIght off the bat the speaker talks who in in our jails and prison, why are they in there, and what is the reasoning to why they got arrested. These are the questions every needs to ask to understand why the United States is the most jailnous country. Most of the big criminal justice agencies did not track the things that matter. I like how this speaker made it a mission to get the right statistics. She had a couple of people look into 5 years of cases, one of the things that stood out is the most of the crimes were low level drug offenses. Some of the cases were just down the street from where they worked. With the use of the statistics that they found they were able to take Cambden of the most dangerous list. They were able to drop murders by 40 percent. 37 people were saved by using statistics instead of just instinct. The entire nation needs to start using more statistics because we are locking up people for the simplest of crimes. What would should be a slap on the wrist or a fine is now charge as a major crime. A person who is caught with some weed does not need to be sent to jail to be told that he should not do that. All that person needs is a fine, that will hurt him more than wasting space in a jail cell. In the prison and jail system there are 2.3 million people that are locked up. Yes, some of these people need to be in their but most of them do not. We as a nation arrest 12 million people a year, most of those arrested are low level offenses. Only about 5 percent of the arrested are violent crimes. -ClarkKent002
It is interesting that law enforcement does not track the things that are important. In order to lower crime rates, data has to be collected and analyzed. I think that the use of Maps would be of a great benefit to law enforcement. Once crimes are mapped out clearly, law enforcement would be better equipped at fighting crimes. We as a society are constantly locking up people who are committing petty crimes. I think that if we had programs that center towards rehabilitation, it would lower crime rates. This is why statistics in very important. We must not waste the tools that are given to law enforcement. Illinigurl002
We as a nation arrest 12 million people a year, most of those arrested are low level offenses. Only about 5 percent of the arrested are violent crimes. In the prison and jail system there are 2.3 million people that are locked up. Yes, some of these people need to be in their but most of them do not. In this video rIght off the bat the speaker talks who in in our jails and prison, why are they in there, and what is the reasoning to why they got arrested. These are the questions every needs to ask to understand why the United States is the most jailnous country. Most of the big criminal justice agencies did not track the things that matter. I like how this speaker made it a mission to get the right statistics. She had a couple of people look into 5 years of cases, one of the things that stood out is the most of the crimes were low level drug offenses. Some of the cases were just down the street from where they worked. With the use of the statistics that they found they were able to take Cambden of the most dangerous list. They were able to drop murders by 40 percent. 37 people were saved by using statistics instead of just instinct. The entire nation needs to start using more statistics because we are locking up people for the simplest of crimes. What would should be a slap on the wrist or a fine is now charge as a major crime. A person who is caught with some weed does not need to be sent to jail to be told that he should not do that. All that person needs is a fine, that will hurt him more than wasting space in a jail cell. -ClarkKent003
This was a great video but also frustrated me a little bit. The idea of using smart statistics is obviously a great one but it begs the question...why haven’t we been doing this already? It seems so obvious that this would be a smart move to make that I find it difficult to believe it hadn’t crossed someone’s mind before, thank goodness Anne Milgram has actually stepped up to push for something like this. While I was watching the video I was concerned about about how she pointed to the judges subjective decision making as one of the factors in causing the problem of jailing low level offenders and releasing violent ones because it reminds me of mandatory sentencing laws which remove a lot of judge discretion. I’m glad she said she wanted to use the two together in order to create a better system for determining risk factors. The fact that such a huge percentage of our jail population is just people waiting trial and for non-violent offenses is really indicative of a failure of our system in this country. I’m glad that steps are being taken in the right direction to rectify this but it seems to me that when people are currently suffering we should probably be moving at a quicker pace. However, these things do take time and it’s important to make sure the steps we are taking are ones that work and make sense. I believe using statistics is a great way to help but I think it would also help to take a look at current laws and seeing if there is something we can do to lower our prison and jail population. Avatar002
Anne was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office, attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. The three questions she asked herself was very important and opened a lot of eyes. She mentioned how she wanted to moneyball criminal justice by using smart data and statistics to figure out how to pick players that will help them win games. They used that system and caused them to take camptin off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America they reduced murder there by forty one percent which meant thirty seven lives was saved and they reducedALL crime in the city by twenty six percent including them changing the way they did criminal prosecution, they went from doing low level drug crimes that was outside their building to doing cases of statewide importance like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking and police brutality. She made a stated and said public safety is the most important function of government and if we are not safe we can’t be educated, can’t be healthy, and can’t do any of the other things we want to do in our lives. We have 12 billion arrest in the U.S the majority of those crime was low offenses seventy to eighty percent and five percent was violent crime arrest.Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration.-KenzieLand002
The video started out with a woman named Anne Milgram stating she wanted to know who, why and the reasoning behind arresting someone and was arresting people the truly the golden key to making us safer? Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , the Attorney General of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. Right off the bat you can tell she is an very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand. By understanding those principles of why, we can then see the trends of crimes being committed and what race is being jailed more. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing. She states “if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system.” Some jurisdictions in the United States use some form of an assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of the incarceration rates. Taking and adopting some of Milgram’s ideas and converting them into our own communities and the way we police it will change the way the people act and hopefully reduce crime. They is always going to be crime, but these ideas could surely go a long way to lowering the rates. -CUBSFAN002
The video started out with a woman named Anne Milgram stating she wanted to know who, why and the reasoning behind arresting someone and was arresting people the truly the golden key to making us safer? Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , the Attorney General of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. Right off the bat you can tell she is an very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. She states “if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system.” The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand. By understanding those principles of why, we can then see the trends of crimes being committed and what race is being jailed more. Some jurisdictions in the United States use some form of an assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of the incarceration rates. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing.Taking and adopting some of Milgram’s ideas and converting them into our own communities and the way we police it will change the way the people act and hopefully reduce crime. They is always going to be crime in our communities, but Milgram’s ideas could surely go a long way to helping them get to lower number of occurrences.-CUBSFAN003
I do think that data should be used for solving crime versus picking up the local Phonics dealer to generate city revenue. Their in long run more money to be made off of drugs vs high risk crimes. sadly that is the world we live in. if we focused on the data and incarcerate those who are a high risk to the community we just might have a safer place to live. maybe a lower recidivism rate. Those who are being incarcerated for drugs need rehabilitation not a prison. They need help. casket003
Anne Milgram, who is now the Attorney General of New Jersey, has a mission to find out the simple answers to the criminal justice system. Or so she thought they were simple answers. These were things like who is in the prison systems. She soon realized that many departments were not doing a good job of using statistics and analytics to fight crime. In the new change, they reduced murders by 41 percent and reduced all crime by 26 percent. They realized that they needed to focus more on the bigger picture rather than the low and less violent offenders around the corner. Milgram realized that they were arresting people for very low level crimes rather than bigger ones. Milgram was so surprised the realize the revolving door was a real thing in the criminal justice system. She stated that 67 Percent of those released will come back into the system. Low risk offenders make up 50 percent of the entire criminal justice system. Now talking to many judges, they will state they they take low risk, non-violent offenders and let them go and focus on incarcerating high risk/ violent offenders. The judges really do believe this. Yet they did not have any data to back this up. Now looking at the statistics that low risk offenders make up 50 percent of the prison population, would you believe that to be true? And on the same token, taxpayers are paying for this low risk offender to stay in jail until trial, due to them not being able to afford to small amount for bail. It is all around a sad situation to find yourself in.If Milgram's ideas are set into place, I feel like there could be a big reduction in crime and how we view it. -AS003
This video called “Why Smart Statistics Are The Key To Fighting Crime” gave a lot of good information. The speaker Anne Milgram, became the Attorney General in the state of New Jersey in the year of 2007. Before that she was a criminal prosecutor, first in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and then United States Department of Justice. She wanted to understand who we were arresting?, who we were charging?, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons?. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way to make things safer?. I was always aware that many people get put in jails and prisons for minor offenses like she said low level drug cases from right around the corner from where she works at. But I did not know and realize that they did not track things that mattered. There were many crimes that they did not have a suspect for because they were too busy catching people for low level crimes. The crimes with no suspect were major crimes like a robbery or shooting. They were not using data driven policing and just using post it notes. There are 12 million arrest in the United States. Only 5 percent of that number are violent crime arrest. This is not good and it is not safe for the people in our communities. We are locking people up for minor things and those are the people who are most likely not going to commit a violent crime. We are then letting the people who are committing violent crime out on the loose. This is unsafe like I said for the people in our communities. We spend $75 billion dollars a year on state and local corrections cost. Our recidivism is one of the highest in the world, there are 2 thirds of people in jail just waiting for their trial and have not been convicted of a crime. This shows how slow courts are with peoples cases and should try to work more faster so there isn't as many people sitting in jails waiting for months. -brooklyn003
Anne Milgram, in 2007 was the attorney general of the state of New Jersey. Before that she had been a criminal prosecutor, and the first in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Then she worked at the United States Department of Justice. When she first became New Jersey’s attorney general, she said that two things happened that changed the way that she saw the criminal justice system. She asked, what she thought were basic questions. To quote her, “I wanted to understand who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons”. She also wanted to understand, quote, “if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer”. What she found out was that most big criminal justice agencies, like her own, did not track the things that mattered. What happened was, quote, “So after about a month of being incredibly frustrated, I walked down into a conference room that was filled with detectives and stacks and stacks of case files, and the detectives were sitting there with yellow legal pads taking notes. They were trying to get the information I was looking for by going through case by case for the past five years. And as you can imagine, when we finally got the results, they weren't good. It turned out that we were doing a lot of low-level drug cases on the streets just around the corner from our office in Trenton. The second thing that happened is that I spent the day in the Camden, New Jersey police department. Now, at that time, Camden, New Jersey, was the most dangerous city in America. I ran the Camden Police Department because of that. I spent the day in the police department, and I was taken into a room with senior police officials, all of whom were working hard and trying very hard to reduce crime in Camden. And what I saw in that room, as we talked about how to reduce crime, were a series of officers with a lot of little yellow sticky notes. And they would take a yellow sticky and they would write something on it and they would put it up on a board. And one of them said, "We had a robbery two weeks ago. We have no suspects." And another said, "We had a shooting in this neighborhood last week. We have no suspects." We weren't using data-driven policing. We were essentially trying to fight crime with yellow Post-it notes”. Both of those things made her realized that we were failing and we don’t even know who is in our criminal justice system. So she got a team together to make this data base on how likely a person is to reoffend. I think that it is a pretty easy data base to use; at least it looks like it can be. She’s hoping that in the future, hopefully near, that every judge in the U.S. will be able to have access to the data base and can use it. –Adventureflight002
This Ted talk is by Anne Milgram who has been the attorney general for the state of New Jersey. She talks about smart statistics and how we need more of them to help fight crime. Anne says that when she was the attorney general she noticed that they would have post it notes up that said they didn’t have any suspects for these crimes that just happened. These crimes were serious ones such as armed robbery. She says that we aren’t fighting crime with statistics but instead with post it notes. She also said that she was making decisions based on what she believed and used her personal experiences. This is what everyone was doing and it wasn’t working, she soon learned. What she did was moneyball the statistics, which is what the Oakland A’s used. They used this to find statistically the best players for their team using data that was gathered over time from them and other players. She put this into effect in her work, and reduced crime a lot. I think that this is a great idea because statistics can really tell us a lot. If we can find better statistics on when crimes happen and where crimes happen then we can better prevent them in the future. We can also look at statistics on people, and what type of people offend in what type of situations. We can use that to better control crime because it will give the police a real idea of the crime they need to look out for. I think that we should do more statistics training in police academies so that the officers know how to look at statistics and can be able to predict where crime is going to take place. If we can start there, I think that the future will have less crime. Celtics002
This ted talk is about how statistics can be used to better fight crime. Moneyballing is a term that she used in the video which was first used by the Oakland A’s. The Oakland A’s used intense analytics and statistics to determine who would be the best players for their team and they went on to pursue them. She took this policy and implemented it in a criminal justice system and had amazing results. The murders went down by so much that she saved a total of 37 lives statistically. I think that she is really on to something here with the statistics. Statistics are used in pretty much every form of life in some way, and if they aren’t they could be. Statistics are real life results from previous years, so what better reference for a police crew. I think that we should teach more about statistics and analytics in the police academy, so that the police know how to read them and make educated guesses. I think that if more police in the US looked at statistics and trends then they could better stop crime. I work at Target and the security there uses statistics on when to schedule their security based on the most popular times that crime happens. Why would we waste their time on days that crime almost never occurs? It’s really cool to see the patterns that happen in theft because they usually stay consistent throughout years to come. This should be the same with police, in the sense that where they’re located should be based on the statistics and crime rate in that area. Cops are already doing this in smaller ways such as being on the roads to control speeding during rush hour and things like that. Celtics003
Anne Milgram became an attorney general in 2007, she asked basic questions about who they were arresting and who they were charging, and who was being out in jail and prisons. Things weren’t being tracked that truly mattered. instead of using data policing they were using sticky notes. Crimes that were being focused on were low level drug crimes. Jails were overflowed with people who have yet not been charged with a crime they are still waiting for their day in court. We do need to look at the low risk offenders who are in jail and the high-risk offenders who are in jail. The lower risk needs to be fined instead of filling up the bed for those who truly need to be occupying that bed because of their crime such as rape or murder. The Risk Assessment tool is to help identify the risk the offender poses to the community on how likely are they to return to court for trial, how likely they will reoffend once they are let out jail. Anne Milgram wants to ensure that we have a “Fair Smart Just system” She wants a data system to be safer when it comes to solving crime. There are 12 million arrest in the united states a year majority of those arrest are for low level crimes and less than 5 percent of those 12 million are violent offenders. Our recidivism rate is 67% rate amongst the highest level in the united states why because we let those with the high-risk crimes out and those with low risk crime in the system with a bail impossible to pay. Instead of being subjective we need to be objective and use tools that are presented in front of us a and use data science. Casket003
Using statistics to try and figure out who is at risk is a brilliant move and something we should have been doing for a long time. It ties into evidence based policing in that we should be doing things that are proven to work and it seems obvious to me that using stats and figures to help make decisions from the judges seat would be beneficial. And according to this video it has worked where it has been implemented. But I think using statistics is important in everything we do in criminal justice. For example she mentions how she uses statistics to see what kind of people are being locked up in the context of people who are being held awaiting trial and cannot afford bail. But we should also look at statistics in the context of who we are convicting and for what. We know that minorities make up a huge percentage of our prison population even though it’s shown in data that we all commit crime at roughly the same rate based on our population size. It might be useful to look at that and see what changes we can make so that we are unfairly convicting people based on race or class. Also I think it’s important to use statistics in looking at who is committing what crimes and where so we can find better strategies for policing. I imagine detectives could benefit from this kind of data as well. If they were investigating say a bank robbery they would do well to look at other recent bank robberies and see if there was anything nearby that matched the methods used in the one they are currently investigating and perhaps they could find a trend. It’s a different form of statistics but still a statistic and I think applying that kind of thinking all over would be beneficial. Avatar003
I think using statistics and understanding offenders is very important and I do not think enough light has been shed on it. I am really intrigued by the risk assessments. I think it is absolutely amazing what is out there and what this truly brings. For these offenders, the ones who are trying so very hard to get out of the situations they are in. These assessments are so meaningful and are important to the future. -holywaffles002
Anne had a very great ted talk she was first a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office, attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. The three questions she asked herself was very important and opened a lot of eyes. She mentioned how she wanted to moneyball criminal justice by using smart data and statistics to figure out how to pick players that will help them win games. They used that system and caused them to take camptin off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America they reduced murder there by forty one percent which meant thirty seven lives was saved and they reducedALL crime in the city by twenty six percent including them changing the way they did criminal prosecution, they went from doing low level drug crimes that was outside their building to doing cases of statewide importance like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking and police brutality. She made a stated and said public safety is the most important function of government and if we are not safe we can’t be educated, can’t be healthy, and can’t do any of the other things we want to do in our lives. We have 12 billion arrest in the U.S the majority of those crime was low offenses seventy to eighty percent and five percent was violent crime arrest.Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration.-KenzieLand003
I agree that smart statistics is the key to fighting crime. In the past we learned better ways to fight and prevent crime. A good place to look is the uniform crime reporting program which we have discussed in class, under that you will find NIBRS which stands for National Incident Based Reporting System. NIBRS improves overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, this program collects things like the time and date of the incident, location, victim types, property descriptions and so much more. This is a major help because it tells that department what crimes they should be worrying about/ which crimes happen more often where they live. It also helps them know if that person is a harm to society. This is what Anne was talking about. How crime statistics can really help break down crime, she gives an example of how she “moneyballed” criminal justice. By doing this they reduced murders by forty-one percent in Camden city, which meant that thirty-seven lives were saved and it reduced all crime by twenty-six percent. She says “So I decided to focus on using data and analytics to help make the most critical decision in public safety, and that decision is the determination of whether, when someone has been arrested, whether they pose a risk to public safety and should be detained, or whether they don't pose a risk to public safety and should be released” she points out that the point of jails is to keep dangerous people in and let non-dangerous people out but if you look at the data collected it will show that our jails are majorly overpopulated because they are keeping people locked up, by using data from statistics and crime analysis it can help judges make decisions on if someone should get out of jail or if someone should stay in. She states in here that she and a team built “ a universal risk assessment tool, so that every single judge in the United States of America can have an objective, scientific measure of risk”. People who think of these things and put together a group of people with great minds are helping build stronger communities, fight crime, and make the very tough job on law enforcement and judges a little easier. Ark002
Since the very beginning of law enforcement we have been learning new and improved ways of fighting crime, ways to make the job easier to help stop crime or get justice for crime. Anne talked about how smart statistics are the key to fighting crime and I believe that’s true. We have many programs that have statistics and crime data collection which gives information like the time and date of crimes/incidents, the victim type, the location, the type of offense, and so much more. A good example of one of these programs is NIBRS which collects data like that to show which non-violent and violent crimes need to be focused on. This kind of data shows us which crimes will be harder to stop and prevent and it gives of tools and general locations as to where to crack down on these sorts of crimes. Anne and a group of people came up with a universal risk assessment tool for every judge in the United States to use so they can be more objective and measure risk of people by science. She noticed that jails were overpopulated because since we were fighting crime, we have been putting more and more people away even for tiny offenses, this has become a problem because the sole purpose of jails is to keep the violent people behind bars and the non-violent should be let go. Making tools like this help us grow in law enforcement, and it lifts judges of some of the burden that is put on their shoulders to make decisions like if someone should be let go or if they should stay. It can often be a tough choice to make. People who come up with these great ideas are the people of the future, it can be hard to find solutions when it comes to fighting crime and to know something is out there that works is always nice to know, this can help us focus on the true problems at hand.Ark003
Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor at the Manhattan’s district attorney's office, then a criminal prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, then an attorney general in the State of New Jersey. The questions that she had were very encouraging. She wanted to know who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. She sounds like she really cares and she sounds really compassionate. Our recidivism rate is one of the highest in the world. Seven in ten people who were released will be rearrested. Fifty percent of high risk offenders are being released. She noticed that there was no data being shared and there was no data about the things that mattered. She wanted to introduce data, analytics, and statistical analysis. She wanted to transform the way they did criminal justice in New Jersey. She built a team of data scientist, researchers, and statistic technicians so they could build a universal risk assessment tool. She wanted the judges to see an objective scientific measurement of risk. It’s a data driven risk tool that the judges can see and determine if this person is a high or low risk offender. They’re also trying to create one for prosecutors and police officers. Once she introduced all of these things, Manhattan was not longer the most dangerous city in America. They were able to lower crime and murder rates. She believes that they can transform the criminal justice system and make the streets safer. There are a lot of people in jail or prison that are low risk offenders. There are a lot of people in jail or prison that won't cause harm to people in society. There are also some people that don’t deserve to be released. The tool that was created does sound thoroughly researched and put together productively. If this tool will help determine whether or not this person is a high or low risk offender, maybe we should give this a shot. Our jails and prisons are so packed, this might help lower the population. -Soccer002
This was a very interesting Ted talk and I really enjoyed listening to Anne Milgram. She started out the video by saying she wanted to know three basic questions and those questions were, she wanted to understand who they were arresting in her district. She also to know who we were charging? Lastly she wanted to know who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons? She wanted to know if we were making decisions to make our nation safer. She quickly found out that large criminal justice organizations according to her or not tracking the details that mattered. As attorney general of New Jersey she wanted to introduce data and statistical analysis to criminal justice. We took Camden off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America. We reduced murders there by 41 percent, which actually means 37 lives were saved. And we reduced all crime in the city by 26 percent. We also changed the way we did criminal prosecutions. So we went from doing low-level drug crimes that were outside our building to doing cases of statewide importance, on things like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. Haystack that she showed on her presentation that really surprised me what is that out of 12 million arrests in the United States only about 5 percent are violent crimes. We also spend $75 billion a year on state and local corrections costs and we have 2.3 million people in our jails and prisons. We also have close to the highest recidivism rates in the world around 67% of people go back to jail or prison after they have been released. With all of this in mind she decided to focus on using data and analytics to make the determination of whether individuals pose a risk or do not pose a risk to public safety and whether they should be detained or set free. -RHB003
I watched the Ted Talk video called “Why smart statistics are the key to fighting crime”. The speaker, Anne Milgram, became an attorney general in 2007 for the state of New Jersey. Before she was an attorney general, she was a criminal prosecutor. Originally for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and then for the United States Department of Justice. When she first became an attorney general, two things happened that made her change her outlook on criminal justice. The first one being she asked more essential and underlying questions. The who, what, where, and why’s essentially. Anne wanted to know who was getting arrested, charged, and put into the nation's prisons. The second thing that happened was that the speaker spent a day in Camden, New Jersey Police Department, which was one of the most dangerous cities in America at the time. Both of these things made her realize that fundamentally we are failing. We didn't know who was in our criminal justice system, there was no data, and no data or analysis was shared to help us make better decisions to reduce crime. Knowing all of this, Anne Milgram changed the way the criminal justice worked. She and her team were able to take Camden off of the list of the most dangerous cities in America. Murders were reduced by 41 percent, and overall crime was reduced by 26 percent. They went from doing low level drug crimes to doing cases that had statewide importance, on things like reducing violence, prosecuting street ganges, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. All of these changes matter, because public safety is one of the most important aspects of criminal justice. Overall, their goal is to get every judge in America to use a universal risk assessment tool. She wants the judges to use there instinct and experience, along with the risk assessment tools to change the criminal justice system. There’s a lot of work left for her and her team to do, but fortunately they know it works. It’s how we can make the world a safer and better place for everyone. It will change the criminal justice system in America. -pizza003
Attorney General Milgram made really good points when it comes to judges and how they sometimes subjectively measure risk levels through instincts. She explained that is how the system fails in a way people it is putting low level offender in prison that are not violent and putting the violent one out. The problem with who we are arresting, charging and putting in jail. Starts with the public safety and how it can be affected. She made a program that involved data and analytics for judges to help for sentencing.It is called Risk Assessment Tool, is able to distinguish the level that an offender might commit another crime of violence if released from prison. She did state that instincts isn't 100% taken away form this assessment but a tool to help with data and scientific facts. They tried this in a city that was known to be the most violent in the country. Reducing murders by 41%, which is basically save 37 lives. Also, the crime rate in the city decreased 26%. They initiate that because they started looking at case file and picking one that were most important that were associated with violence, gang violence and even political corruption. She came up with this idea because of the overpopulation of inmates with low level offense that are being kept in prison longer than other high risk offenders. A lot of those inmates in jail are waiting for their trial because they weren't able to afford bail which is two out of three people. It becomes a cycle when arresting the same people for petty crimes, which statistics show seven out of ten people are rearrested. dory002
There were many interesting points that Attorney General Milgram made about who we are arresting, charging, and incarcerating. That the how the system has been failing for many years and has been going in circles on not being able to accomplish the main reason for it. Which is public safety. They looked at case files that were mostly people with low level offenses and that were nonviolent offenders. She stated stats about how there are 12 million arrest every year and that 70% - 80% are mostly misdemeanors. There are more arrest for people that are trying to make ends meet than those that are high risk to our public safety. They looked into the most dangerous city in the nation and came up with a program that functioned with data and analytics. The Risk Assessment Tool helps predict the act of violence, if an offender were to be released what level of risk would they be at comparing it with past records. I think that using this assessment could help lessen the use of judges bias and instincts when convicting an offender. They would stop looking at the individual and the crime subjectively because they re using data and scientific facts. They used this program in the city, which decreased the murder rate 41% (saving 37 lives) and crime rates went down 26%. Instead of focusing on the petty crime, they looked at more high risk case files that would become a problem to public safety. If there is violence in the community then there is no safety which destroy lives around us. yellow003
It is no secret that our jails are overpopulated and for no good reason because just as you pointed out there are more people arrested for just trying to put food on the table, provide for themselves and others than those who are high risk to our communities safety. Coming up with more programs like these is crucial for law enforcement growth. It helps show where we've been and show where we're headed, statistics give us scientific evidence that proves if were moving in the right direction or the wrong one. Eventually, we will critique these programs to perfect them, growing day by day. Ark002
She wanted to understand the people who were being put away instead of just throwing them in and calling it good and working through the system. There is absolutely no data driven policing happening either. Electronics and other ways of communicating are so incredibly popular now days and we are not taking the full advantage of it like we could. She said that after working on data driven policing and figuring out the people we are putting away such as having a better understanding, she said she has helped reducing Camden murders by 41% and reducing crime by 26%. There are 12 million arrests yearly in the united states and majority are in the low level offenders at a 70-80% rate with misdemeanors. 5% of these people are offenders of violent crime. $75 billion on state and local corrections is being spent yearly on offenders over food and housing and other medical expenses. There are 2.3 million people in jail and in prison. 2/3 of the people locked up are still waiting for trial. 50% of these offenders that are locked up are mainly low risk offenders. She said the start of these risk assessments have truly helped and she said they have started this around the united states in an attempt to understand these offenders and the likelihood of re-offending and where they currently sit at along those risks. I for one, believe in people not getting caught back up in the illegal activities they have once done. I believe people can get better and do better. I am curious where we will end up with all these new inventions and opportunities. -holywaffles002
I liked how you mentioned the statistics which she shared. Isn't it incredible what she was able to achieve. She is an absolutely amazing woman. The fact that she was able to come up with a plan and use it to reduce crime by 26% was amazing. I think that it is important to figure out how we can stop incarcerating individuals and locking them up for these low level, nonviolent crimes. These people do not need to be in the system. They just need help. It is not right for us to put these people with some of the murderous monsters in the system. -Anchorman002
Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor at the Manhattan’s district attorney's office, then a criminal prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, then an attorney general in the State of New Jersey. The questions that she had were very encouraging. She wanted to know who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. As I was listening to her talk, it sounded like she really cared and it also sounded like she really wanted to solve this problem. Anne Milgram explained how a team and herself created a universal risk assessment tool and this can help give judges an idea on whether or not this offender is violent or nonviolent. She was able to create this team and this team had data scientists, researchers, and statistic technicians. She wants to help and keep the community safe. There are a lot of people that are in jail or prison that won't cause harm to our society. This tool that was created will help give people a better idea on whether or not they are violent or nonviolent. She brought up an example on how there was a guy that stole a couple of blankets because they had no money. They got arrested and they were not able to make bail. That is not someone we need to be afraid of or worry about. Seven out of ten people that were released would be rearrested. Fifty percent of high risk offenders are being released and we should be more worried about them. As time went by they were able to lower crime and murder rates in Manhattan. Manhattan was no longer the dangerous city in America. This sounds like a lot of research has gone into this and if this would help lower the population that is incarcerated and keep the streets safe, I say it’s worth a try. -Soccer003
The way that Anne Milgram started her speech really made me think deeply. The first thing she mentioned and was questioning was who are we putting behind bars and who are we arresting. When she said this, I began to think about what we talked about in class about how most people in jail and in prison are mainly nonviolent, low level offenders. Most of which were arrested and incarcerated for drugs and have mental illnesses. This statement also made me question the fact that do these individuals even really need to be in jail or in prison. I personally think that it is unnecessary to place low level offenders in jail or prison. The reason that I believe in that is because I think that instead of incarcerating them, we should be trying to help them get better in a cost effective way. It is understandable for us to incarcerate violent and gang affiliated criminals because they are out in society trying to do harm to others, but nonviolent offenders do not belong in this system with these monsters. They need help. It is extremely important to know who we are incarcerating and for what reasons we are doing so. Milgram knows what she is talking about in this video and is extremely educated on the subject. She not only came and talked about the question, but she also provided an answer and solution to the problem with our criminal justice system. One thing that shocked me was some of the statistics she mentioned. The fact that she was able to reduce that amount of crime in the city which she was working is amazing. Now because of her, the city she works in no longer is one of America's most dangerous cities. -Anchorman003
Statistical analysis in criminal justice should be something that is completely non-controversial. This is quite possibly the most dangerous industry in America, and it’s certainly the most exposed to the malevolence of the human heart. This is a game played at higher stakes than baseball could ever be, since lives are at stake. Lives trump any millions of dollars that one can throw at a game, period. I really don’t see how one could object to the observation and recording of the factors that make someone higher risk. I suppose that the objections, at least those from law enforcement and the criminal justice system, probably stem from the difficulty. Nobody enjoys paperwork and creating whole new data tables to try and preempt offenders from reoffending has a much less visceral appeal to man’s innate sense of justice. How could some pencil necked analyst tell who’s a threat and who’s not? But statistics, and in the future, machine learning, can and do predict the future. Big Brother vibes or no, their accuracy has become something that gut instincts can no longer reckon with. 41% reduction The other possible objection that I can imagine would probably come from groups concerned that this technology, which seems to come right out of Minority Report, might just be used to report on minorities. This certainly isn’t without basis. Especially within the more southern states, I could see this being used to justify harsher treatment and sentences for people of color, but given its racially neutral presentation, it seems that it would be difficult to warp to such purposes, at least in its present state. An ounce of crime prevention is worth a pound of crime cure, and I think this is a tool that gives us about five pounds of prevention at one go. I look forward to seeing more technology like this used for smarter policing in the near future. ~ Arsenal002
Anne Milgram came in to this speech to share her experiences and her plans. The first statement that she made was unbelievable and made me think about the truth that she just spoke. She said do we really know who we are arresting and do we know who we are locking up? When she said this, I stopped and thought about the fact that there are people who definitely need to be locked up and there are also those who do not need to be in the system at all. In my own personal opinion, I think that those who commit minor crimes such as misdemeanors or any low level, nonviolent crime should not be in the system. Many people within the system were arrested and incarcerated for crimes such as drugs. In my opinion, this is wrong. Instead of incarcerating them for their problems, we need to help them. Put them on probation and make them get treatment. If they don't get treatment, then they don't get off probation. They lost their rights when they made the decision to go against the law and now they have their rights of complete freedom taken away but they can be free if they show the world that they care about their wrongs and try and better themselves. One thing that really stuck out to me during the video was the fact that she made such a large change in her community. Not only did she reduce crime in the city which she works in, but she also saved lives doing so. I love how she went about her plan. She made her plan, she went out and used it, and came back with results which decreased crime. She is a hero. We need more people like her in the criminal justice system. I strive to be like her. -Anchorman002
Right from the beginning, I liked how Anne Milgrim stated, when she became a prosecutor she wanted to know why, who, and the reasoning behind arresting someone. And arresting people was the truly the golden key to making us safer? The biggest thing we talk about in class is locking people up for simple crimes, such as having a little bit of weed on them. Or arresting a parent that aided in helping their children with a crime. The person that committed the crime, know that they were in the wrong and hopefully they learn from their mistakes and won’t do it again or else they will get locked up. Most bigger industry don’t track the smaller crimes being committed. Most high crime places aren’t using data - driven policing which is the main key to finding suspects. Look at past offenses and try to connect the missing puzzle pieces together. Making sure the public is safe is, one of the most important things and top priority. If the public isn’t safe than neither are law enforcement officials. We have twelve million arrests in the United States every year that are for low-crimes such as misdemeanors and low-drug crimes. Violent crimes are only five percent. Right now we have 2.3 million people in our prisons. Two thirds of the people in jail are waiting for a trial to be convicted. This then leads to mass incarceration and the reasons on why our incarceration rates are so incredibly high. This proves that if we change our way of policing to be more data driven and look at statistics of past criminals and convictions we will then be able to reduce crime. With reducing crime, it also means making the environment and the communities we live in a safer and better place. #notaplumber002
ReplyDeleteMilgram was a very educated woman and you could tell. I also think its very important to ask ourselves, if arresting someone the key to public safety, especially if it is such a low level crime. We spend so much money, when we put someone in jail for a minor drug charge, when we could be spending that money somewhere more useful in our state. I think it is very important that we use data in analytics, to more efficiently police our neighborhoods. All the statistics stated in this video prove that if change our ways of policing, we could ultimately make America communities safer.
DeleteI-Like-Cereal002
The questions Anne Milgram stated at the begging of the video really stuck out to me. Anne who was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. You can tell she is a very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand, so we can see the trends of crimes being committed, what race is being jailed more, and many more reasons. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing, if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system. Milgram stated that instead of focusing on low level drug crimes, the police department started focusing large state wide cases, that will have a more successful effect on the city of Camden. By using all the data driven policing, using analytics, and focusing more on the bigger crimes, she was able to take her city of the top of list of dangerous cities in America. Milgram reduced the murder rate by 40 percent, and all crime was reduced by 26 percent. Milgram states that public safety is the most important thing of a functional government. If the public does not feel safe the government will ultimately fail. 80 percent of our crimes occur low level, such as misdemeanors. We spend so much money on these low level crimes. Our recidivism rate is also through the roof, data and analytics is our answer to reducing crime.
ReplyDeleteI-like-cereal002
I have to agree with you- the questions she asks at the beginning really do stick with you and make you think. I also agree with you on her level of education and natural intuition- she took something that was once a baseball "scouting" sort of system/prototype and turned the same concept into the way we get our crime statistics. It truly is amazing what kind of results you can get when you have the right people and minds working in the right positions with the right power. I also agree with your closing statement, (at least for a huge part of what we need to do to reduce recidivism), in that crime statistics will seriously impact the recidivism rates and the incredibly high crime areas. GMan003
DeleteHer opening sentence stuck with me as well. She really made me think a lot about the people that we incarcerate today. Like who actually deserves to be behind bars and who doesn't? The fact that she came up with a plan and went through with it and had great results was amazing. I strive to be this good at my career. It makes me want to start helping society right now! The statistics that Milgram shared were amazing. She truly is an outstanding individual.-Anchorman003
DeleteThe work of Attorney General Anne Milgram in New York is truly inspiring. She saw the extremely inefficient way that our law enforcement agencies across every level and department in our country would getting our crime statistics, and sought to find a solution to increase the efficiency. The way she describes it is pretty bluntly- she said, “we were essentially trying to fight crime with yellow Post-notes” and that “we weren’t doing a good job.” The fact that she has the knowledge and insight to not only recognize this problem, but to also seek and produce a better solution, tells me she is in the right line of work. What she did was create a “moneyball” system, which she compared to how the Oakland A’s changed their ways of finding new players to recruit to a smart system in which a rigorous statistics analyzing machine/program was used, rather than the old scout system, to see who was the best statistically. She said they successfully did it with a baseball team, so why couldn’t she with the way we got our crime statistics? So she developed a system of these exact specifications, just using our crime databases and reports instead of baseball stats, to give us a better understanding of what we needed to work on. When she implemented the program into Camden, which was the PD she was currently working with, she managed to reduce murders by 41% (which translated to an astonishing 37 lives being saved), as well as reducing all crime in the city by 26%. Essentially she found a problem, created a solution, and used it to take her city off of the top of the list for the most dangerous places in America. Migram’s work has provided me with a new role model- to have such a large impact on the way we go about our policing and the to change/develop the actual source from where we get our crime statistics is an amazing feat. I hope to be even remotely close to her level of impact one day. GMan003
ReplyDeleteI really did enjoy listening to this Ted talk and it seems like you did as well. I think the questions that she posed at the beginning of the talk are extremely questions more of this around the nation need to be asking. I mean the statistics speak for themselves because she was able to take Camden of the most dangerous cities in America list by reducing the murder rate play 41% because it he started going after more violent offenders and putting effort into cases with state wide implications.
Delete-RHB003
She has worked in a lot of different ways prosecuting crime. When she became attorney general two things changed the way she saw policing. She wanted to understand who they were arresting, charging and who we were putting in our nations jails. She wanted to see if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. She saw that most big agencies were not keeping records of those types of data. After 4 months of tying, they were very frustrated. So they put detectives in a room and they started going case after case to figure it out. After detectives went through case and case files they found out the data wasn’t good. Fighting crime cannot be won by putting yellow posted notes on a board. Fighting crime has to be a team-jointed effort. Police officers and other officials need to be all on the same page plus we NEED the public’s help in that mission. Citizens need to say something if they see something. Meaning that if they see something suspicious call it in or tell the closest first responder and they’ll alert the police or even security. I believe that if more officers were more proactive than we can truly reduce crime. But don’t think that this will shut down all crime and there won’t be anymore crime because there will be. It is impossible for all crime to end because they’re will always be crime. Proactive policing can really help with the smaller crimes and up to the medium crime. Proactive policing can even help with spotting whether it’s someone who's out of place or maybe wearing multiple layers, like a coat, when it’s 90 degrees outside.
ReplyDelete-chicubs002
I think that police officers are being proactive, it’s the courts who decide if whether an offender should be released or not. A police officer is doing his/her job when arresting someone for possession of drugs or even arresting a person for violent behavior. Yet, the problem is in the judge’s hands to decide. You’re right crime will always be present but it will reduce if the courts would start using scientific data, instead of bias and instincts to decide if someone should be incarcerated. Some police officers can also be more understanding when it come to low level offenses and how that can ruin someone’s life after put in the system. dory002
DeleteAnne Milgram wants to help enforce communities to help them better understand why law enforcement officers arrest people. Sixty-seven percent of people end up coming back to prison. The United States recidivism rate is amongst the highest in the world. We have very little rehabilitation for offenders that come out of jail or prison. They then don’t have the necessities to live on their own and end up knowing that they could have a better life if they went back to prison. So past offenders than commit a smaller crime so they can have a roof over their head and three meals to eat every day. Right now we have 2.3 million people in our prisons. Two thirds of the people in jail are waiting for a trial to be convicted. This then leads to mass incarceration and the reasons on why our incarceration rates are so incredibly high. Even though our crime rate is decreasing, many people are still getting incarcerated. Mass incarceration is still a problem today. Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration. There are many low-risk offenders in jail and high-risk offenders not. We are spending more money on taxpayers by sending the low-risk offenders for stealing something small to jail than we would by just letting them go. People get arrested for stealing food because they are homeless or cold on a winter night. But high-risk offenders like murdering someone will only get a few more years than a low-risk offender. Our decision making is often wrong, we need strong data and analytics. Five to ten jurisdictions in the United States use some sort of assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of incarceration rates. If we take Milgram’s ideas and convert them into our communities and they way we police it will change the way the people act and reduce crime. #notaplumber003
ReplyDeleteTo start with a prosecutor is a lawyer who works for a state or government organization and is responsible for starting legal proceedings and then proving in court that the suspect committed the crime he or she is accused of. Anne milgram lecture was educative as she is sharing her experience on prosecution. she actually opened the mind of most us as we proceeding to to this course of criminal justice. She cleared said from beginning that she always wanted to know the reason of arresting somebody and who are this people. This make sense that on her work she was following the right procedure and she wanted the clear evidence before prosecuting someone. criminal case usually get started with police arrest report. The prosecutor then decides what criminal charges to file, if any. some cases go to preliminary hearing where a judge decides if there is enough evidence to proceed.From her lecture i learned that some cases can also start when a grand jury issues a criminal indictment. Anne is a smart prosecutor and such people make the work easier for the judge not to deal minor cases if the prosecutor did his or her job correctly. A citizen can be arrested for a crime if the police have probable cause that the crime has been committed. we also see that a prosecutor can only file a formal charge if there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed.This includes testimony, evidence if believed by the police and prosecutors. sometimes we see the police officers arrest people with multiple tickets but the work of prosecutor is to weigh and decide which case should be dropped and which one should be proceeded. Gusii 003
ReplyDeleteAnne Millgram has one a great Ted talk along with her data ideas toward public safety and prosecution. She hits on the work she did with Camden Police and the city. I did my own personal research with the city of Camden. Camden is still to this day one of the poorest cities in the United States. Anne made sure the crime rate went down and got off the number one spot. Camden was once at a shooting every 33 hour. Anne made it her top priority to help save a city that had no hope. Millgram made it clear towards the middle of the ted talk that she is very hard on public safety and that showed with what she did in one of the hardest places to do it at. Of the 12 million arrests made in the US 5% of them are violent crimes. Millgram put a great team to great an amazing dashboard for judges, police officers, and prosecutors to use science to help there instinct choices they make on cases. Public safety needs to be a priority over most of cases. Millgram has a great thing going on at the national level the dashboard data being used in the scientific way, this will help many cases and stop recurring offenses and crime rate like it as already has. Millgram did hit on that this will help judges make choices with their instinct choices, stating that this will help but not be a standard choice for it. Criminal justice in the United States needs more people like Anne Millgram she is a devoted attorney general that is by the numbers but cares about the people. Cases will be changed and crime will be dropped as we not in a couple years with her research and team has done. DirtTrack003
ReplyDeleteThe Statistics in Crime reduction video was very informative. The statistics given by Anne Milgram were 12 million arrest in the U.S a year, 75 billion dollars a year spent on state and prison cost, 2.3 million people in jails or prisons in the U.S only five percent are for violent crimes, two thirds of these inmates are waiting for trial so basically just sitting, and 67% come back. Watching this video I feel with the data that has been collected they are missing a major piece in trying to reduce crime and lower the recidivism rate. They are missing the causation of crime. You can collect data and create assessments for judges to go by when determining someone sentences or deciding if they should be released, but until you find out why this person is committing crimes to begin with you will never reduce crime and lower the incarceration rate. Having data on a persons home life, how they were raised, do they live in poverty, do they have children they are trying to take care of? Things like this should be taken into consideration. Once this is known, how do you effectively take action against the causation of crime. Do you decide to keep them incarcerated or do you offer assistance with jobs, schooling, or programs that will help and keep them from committing the same crimes if released. The questions that Anne Milgram initially asked where great, “who are we arresting, who do we charge, and who do we put in prison?” But we should add why did they commit these crimes to begin with? I think by mandating all jails and prisons to include life skills programs and continued education programs the statistics that were given would change drastically. Jadist002
ReplyDeleteWhen listening to this video, Anne Milgram has a heart to serve her community. She states that, law enforcement has not been tracking the things that matter. If law enforcement is not tracking the things that matter, then how can law enforcement serve and protect their cities effectively? When policing in a community, law enforcement should be policing for the right reasons. And that is serving and protecting those in their community. The police have many different tools at their disposal to help fight crime. But if those tools are being used in effectively, then what is the point of having them? When law enforcement uses these tools effectively, they are able to reduce violence with violent offenders, gang control, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. The ultimate goal of law enforcement is to keep our communities safe. The vast majority of criminal arrests are for low level crimes at twelve million people. When it comes to violent crimes, it sadly comes in at five percent. When law enforcement is simply focused on low level crimes, our communities are at risk for major violent crimes. When people are not healthy (our society as a whole), one definitely cannot be well educated. Anne talks about a man who stole four blankets on a cold day, to simply stay war. His bail was to high for him to post, and he ended up staying in jail for eight months. Now, if law enforcement would have looked at the date, they would have realized that he is low risk inmate. Since, the date was never looked at, this man costed the state nine thousand dollars for eight months. We spend nearly seventy-five billion dollars a year to house inmates in our local and state jail and or prisons. Many of which are over crowed. Roughly sixty-seven will be arrested again, which averages out to be one in ten. This is why using the data effectively is so important. When it comes to arresting somebody, we must know as much information as we can on who they are. Illinoisgurl002
ReplyDeleteCorrect Handle Illinigurl002
DeleteStatistics, is it smart to use it or not I do not know what AG Milgram is referencing when the judges do have any of this data in front of them. We know that much of determining future behavior is looking at past and immediate behavior as it relates to crime. Even the AG's statistical analysis would indicate that about sixty seven are repeat offenders so that much we know. This one size fits all, universal approach sounds reasonable at first blush but it is an oversimplification of assessing individuals engaged to criminal conduct and anti-social behavior and that is BIG Government at its worse.The AG must know that statistically certain criminals who get caught have previously committed that specific crime dozens of times prior to being caught.One issue is that not all baseball teams use "money ball" scouting. Money ball was created because an owner wanted to get the best team possible using the least amount of money. In fact, if statistical analysis were the best way to calculate risk or winners you would never have to play a single game because the statistical value of the stronger team would determine the winner. The game involves humans with motivations that often lead to decisions that statistically should have not worked and yet they do. Just because they did not use stats, does not mean they are doing a bad job. Milgram provided a data analytics tool to do a better analysis, it is still based on what they have been doing. Without their years of experience and data, your tool is useless. By joining together and creating a new system, you are not only proving that crime deterrence is possible no matter who you are, but also that there is always room for improvement. It just takes some time. Batman002
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your analogy. Statistics can not account for every aspect in criminal behavior. The reason someone committed a crime should be taken into consideration. As Dr. White stated in class if there was a need to feed his family and he had no money he would steal. He is not stealing because he is a bad person but because he is a father wanting to feed his family. So as a judge would you sentence him harshly without taking this into consideration? People who do drugs there is a reason they commit crimes to feed there habit. So would you sentence this person to a prison with no treatment? So when he is released he will return to the same environment and pick up the same habit, or sentence him to a rehabilitation facility where he can detox, receive counseling, and life skills training? Jadist002
DeleteJust because they did not use stats, does not mean they are doing a bad job. Milgram provided a data analytics tool to do a better analysis, it is still based on what they have been doing. Without their years of experience and data, your tool is useless. By joining together and creating a new system, you are not only proving that crime deterrence is possible no matter who you are, but also that there is always room for improvement. It just takes some time. Statistics, is it smart to use it or not I do not know what AG Milgram is referencing when the judges do have any of this data in front of them. We know that much of determining future behavior is looking at past and immediate behavior as it relates to crime. Even the AG's statistical analysis would indicate that about sixty seven are repeat offenders so that much we know. This one size fits all, universal approach sounds reasonable at first blush but it is an oversimplification of assessing individuals engaged to criminal conduct and anti-social behavior and that is big Government at its worse. The AG must know that statistically certain criminals who get caught have previously committed that specific crime dozens of times prior to being caught.One issue is that not all baseball teams use "money ball" scouting. Money ball was created because an owner wanted to get the best team possible using the least amount of money. In fact, if statistical analysis were the best way to calculate risk or winners you would never have to play a single game because the statistical value of the stronger team would determine the winner. The game involves humans with motivations that often lead to decisions that statistically should have not worked and yet they do.
ReplyDeleteBatman003
Anne Milgram is an every educated woman. She has held multiple law enforcement position, such as was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. She believes that if law enforcement agencies do not use crime driven data analysis, we are failing as police departments and as a country. I agree with her if we do not study our crime data, and trends, we ultimately do not who we are putting in our jails, and who we are even investigating for that matter. Most of the people put in our jails are being locked up for low level crimes, like using marijuana or having small amounts of drugs on them. Milgram believes that we should shift our focus statewide crimes, and working with agencies, to become a more proactive police department. The city of Camden New Jersey, where Milgram worked used to be one of the most dangerous cities in America. But with the use of crime data, and studying crime trends she reduced the cities murder rate by 40 percent, and reduced the overall crime rate by 26 percent. Also going back to the beginning of the video Milgram asked certain questions that she wanted to know and study. Milgram asked who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. Those questions are what all police department, and all federal agencies need to ask themselves. We need to know who we are locking up, we need to know who the repeat offenders are. Milgram also stated that for a government to be successful, the public needs to feel safe. If the public does not feel the safe the the government will end up failing in the end to the lack of security.
ReplyDeleteI-Like-Cereal003
Anne Milgram, had taken a very interesting approach in viewing the criminal justice system. She wanted to know two simple questions, the first being who are we arresting. Secondly, who are in the jails and prisons and did we make these decisions to make the community safer? These two basic questions sent her through years of paper work and case files. The organization who had employed her had hardly any data as a whole. She found that the city of Camden had worked tons of low-level drug cases through the years but had almost neglected the high violence cases. Camden, New Jersey was the most dangerous city in the United States for several years. Anne Milgram wanted to understand why this phenomenon was occurring. She started to work with some of the police agencies; through this she found an over all lack of shared data. This lack of sharing information was critical in solving crimes. She released this lack of information was affecting how efficiently the officers were doing their job. Through this, she wanted to bring statistical data into the system. With this new approach they were able to reduce the murders by 41% which is about 37 lives saved. The over all crime rates also decreased by 26%. By adding numerical data to the justice system, they were able to make informed decisions that changed countless lives in the process. With more data, they also made changes on how they prosecuted. Instead of directing their attention on non-violent drug cases they shifted their focus to more state-wide crime and more violent crime. Public safety is the most important job of the government; without safety, education and health cannot flourish. She continued, her captivating presentation with displaying a slide on the total arrests in the U.S in one year. The slide mentioned that 12 million people are arrested in a year while only 5% of that number are in violent crimes. I found this short video highly interesting as it added statistical data into the criminal justice system. Through this information we are able to proceed with informed decision and we are less likely to make the same kind of mistakes in the future. -CoalRoller003
ReplyDeleteI too, very quickly picked up on her two questions. I think she has a very solid point and case as to why is the government really arresting people. If we are able to decrease mass incarceration by giving people fines, or decreasing their sentences because they were found guilty of a misdemeanor that reduce it. Having rehabilitation centers for people that get out of jail is also a good way to make sure they don’t end up in the same place. These past offenders, just need a little extra help getting their life together in order to get a job and start making a new life for themselves and their family. #notaplumber002
DeleteThis video really has some good information and some alarming statistics as well. From the video Anne Milgram says that there are on average about twelve million arrests made every year and she is talking about how we can make things better and what we should be doing to get there. Of these twelve million arrests made in a year, only about five percent of these arrests are for violent crimes. Only five percent? That is a crazy low number for the amount of violence that there is in this country. We are arresting a lot of low level crimes as they say in the video and it is true and we do need to think about things like that. Something that I think is interesting about the video though to me was when Anne was talking this man in Texas that got arrested for stealing four blankets out of a store. He was then arrested and taken to jail and is bail was set to $3500 and he could not afford that so he sat in jail for eight months waiting for his court date to come. Now I am not sure if she was getting at the man should not have been arrested because this is a low level crime or if she was saying that there was a lot wrong with the way we are handling the criminal justice system. We have to get better and faster with these court dates. I know that it is easier said than done but at the same time, it seemed like she was saying that it was not worth arresting him because it was such a low level crime. The tax payers spent over nine thousand dollars on him in those 8 months in jail. But he broke the law, even though it was just four blankets that he stole, he is still stealing the sales away from the business owners, and there should be a punishment for it, we just have to find ways to resolves crimes such as this so that they do not spent eight months and nine thousand dollars to take care of these small crimes. -Steel003
ReplyDeleteAnne Milgram the Attorney General for New Jersey raised some valid questions. Who are we arresting, who are we charging and who are we putting in our jails and prisons? One question that I feel is missing is why are these individuals we are arresting committing these crimes. I might be biased in a sense that I just do not feel like doing statistics on Anne’s three questions are good enough. To keep the community safe you have to find out why people are committing crimes. We have 2.3 million people in our jails in the U.S. why is this? We then are wasting money, 75 billions dollars on the state and prisons instead of putting this money to good use on programs, education and different trades to lower the recidivism rate. Judges can be given the risk assessment tools to use but in the end a majority of the decisions that are made are based on opinion and not facts. I have witnessed judges say “you have been in my court room to many times” and sentence someone out of irritation for the inmates continued returned and without factual data or an inmates upbringing and life background taken into consideration. So where will that statistics help? If you do not have people in places that are willing to be that person to make a change and start with the root of the problem the “statistics” will continue to grow and mass incarceration will never end. I agree public safety is an important function in government but we should not be overloading our prisons in the process. You can then lower the 67 percent return rate. Jadist003
ReplyDeleteI watched the Ted Talk video called “Why smart statistics are the key to fighting crime”. The speaker, Anne Milgram, became an attorney general in 2007 for the state of New Jersey. Before she was an attorney general, she was a criminal prosecutor. Originally for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and then for the United States Department of Justice. When she first became an attorney general, two things happened that made her change her outlook on criminal justice. The first one being she asked more essential and underlying questions. The who, what, where, and why’s essentially. Anne wanted to know who was getting arrested, charged, and put into the nation's prisons. The second thing that happened was that the speaker spent a day in Camden, New Jersey Police Department, which was one of the most dangerous cities in America at the time. Both of these things made her realize that fundamentally we are failing. We didn't know who was in our criminal justice system, there was no data, and no data or analysis was shared to help us make better decisions to reduce crime. Knowing all of this, Anne Milgram changed the way the criminal justice worked. She and her team were able to take Camden off of the list of the most dangerous cities in America. Murders were reduced by 41 percent, and overall crime was reduced by 26 percent. They went from doing low level drug crimes to doing cases that had statewide importance, on things like reducing violence, prosecuting street ganges, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. All of these changes matter, because public safety is one of the most important aspects of criminal justice. Overall, their goal is to get every judge in America to use a universal risk assessment tool. She wants the judges to use there instinct and experience, along with the risk assessment tools to change the criminal justice system. There’s a lot of work left for her and her team to do, but fortunately they know it works. It’s how we can make the world a safer and better place for everyone. It will change the criminal justice system in America. -pizza002
ReplyDeleteRIght off the bat the speaker talks who in in our jails and prison, why are they in there, and what is the reasoning to why they got arrested. These are the questions every needs to ask to understand why the United States is the most jailnous country. Most of the big criminal justice agencies did not track the things that matter. I like how this speaker made it a mission to get the right statistics. She had a couple of people look into 5 years of cases, one of the things that stood out is the most of the crimes were low level drug offenses. Some of the cases were just down the street from where they worked. With the use of the statistics that they found they were able to take Cambden of the most dangerous list. They were able to drop murders by 40 percent. 37 people were saved by using statistics instead of just instinct. The entire nation needs to start using more statistics because we are locking up people for the simplest of crimes. What would should be a slap on the wrist or a fine is now charge as a major crime. A person who is caught with some weed does not need to be sent to jail to be told that he should not do that. All that person needs is a fine, that will hurt him more than wasting space in a jail cell. In the prison and jail system there are 2.3 million people that are locked up. Yes, some of these people need to be in their but most of them do not. We as a nation arrest 12 million people a year, most of those arrested are low level offenses. Only about 5 percent of the arrested are violent crimes. -ClarkKent002
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that law enforcement does not track the things that are important. In order to lower crime rates, data has to be collected and analyzed. I think that the use of Maps would be of a great benefit to law enforcement. Once crimes are mapped out clearly, law enforcement would be better equipped at fighting crimes. We as a society are constantly locking up people who are committing petty crimes. I think that if we had programs that center towards rehabilitation, it would lower crime rates. This is why statistics in very important. We must not waste the tools that are given to law enforcement. Illinigurl002
DeleteWe as a nation arrest 12 million people a year, most of those arrested are low level offenses. Only about 5 percent of the arrested are violent crimes. In the prison and jail system there are 2.3 million people that are locked up. Yes, some of these people need to be in their but most of them do not. In this video rIght off the bat the speaker talks who in in our jails and prison, why are they in there, and what is the reasoning to why they got arrested. These are the questions every needs to ask to understand why the United States is the most jailnous country. Most of the big criminal justice agencies did not track the things that matter. I like how this speaker made it a mission to get the right statistics. She had a couple of people look into 5 years of cases, one of the things that stood out is the most of the crimes were low level drug offenses. Some of the cases were just down the street from where they worked. With the use of the statistics that they found they were able to take Cambden of the most dangerous list. They were able to drop murders by 40 percent. 37 people were saved by using statistics instead of just instinct. The entire nation needs to start using more statistics because we are locking up people for the simplest of crimes. What would should be a slap on the wrist or a fine is now charge as a major crime. A person who is caught with some weed does not need to be sent to jail to be told that he should not do that. All that person needs is a fine, that will hurt him more than wasting space in a jail cell. -ClarkKent003
ReplyDeleteThis was a great video but also frustrated me a little bit. The idea of using smart statistics is obviously a great one but it begs the question...why haven’t we been doing this already? It seems so obvious that this would be a smart move to make that I find it difficult to believe it hadn’t crossed someone’s mind before, thank goodness Anne Milgram has actually stepped up to push for something like this. While I was watching the video I was concerned about about how she pointed to the judges subjective decision making as one of the factors in causing the problem of jailing low level offenders and releasing violent ones because it reminds me of mandatory sentencing laws which remove a lot of judge discretion. I’m glad she said she wanted to use the two together in order to create a better system for determining risk factors. The fact that such a huge percentage of our jail population is just people waiting trial and for non-violent offenses is really indicative of a failure of our system in this country. I’m glad that steps are being taken in the right direction to rectify this but it seems to me that when people are currently suffering we should probably be moving at a quicker pace. However, these things do take time and it’s important to make sure the steps we are taking are ones that work and make sense. I believe using statistics is a great way to help but I think it would also help to take a look at current laws and seeing if there is something we can do to lower our prison and jail population.
ReplyDeleteAvatar002
Anne was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office, attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. The three questions she asked herself was very important and opened a lot of eyes. She mentioned how she wanted to moneyball criminal justice by using smart data and statistics to figure out how to pick players that will help them win games. They used that system and caused them to take camptin off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America they reduced murder there by forty one percent which meant thirty seven lives was saved and they reducedALL crime in the city by twenty six percent including them changing the way they did criminal prosecution, they went from doing low level drug crimes that was outside their building to doing cases of statewide importance like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking and police brutality. She made a stated and said public safety is the most important function of government and if we are not safe we can’t be educated, can’t be healthy, and can’t do any of the other things we want to do in our lives. We have 12 billion arrest in the U.S the majority of those crime was low offenses seventy to eighty percent and five percent was violent crime arrest.Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration.-KenzieLand002
ReplyDeleteThe video started out with a woman named Anne Milgram stating she wanted to know who, why and the reasoning behind arresting someone and was arresting people the truly the golden key to making us safer? Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , the Attorney General of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. Right off the bat you can tell she is an very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand. By understanding those principles of why, we can then see the trends of crimes being committed and what race is being jailed more. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing. She states “if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system.” Some jurisdictions in the United States use some form of an assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of the incarceration rates. Taking and adopting some of Milgram’s ideas and converting them into our own communities and the way we police it will change the way the people act and hopefully reduce crime. They is always going to be crime, but these ideas could surely go a long way to lowering the rates. -CUBSFAN002
ReplyDeleteThe video started out with a woman named Anne Milgram stating she wanted to know who, why and the reasoning behind arresting someone and was arresting people the truly the golden key to making us safer? Anne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office , the Attorney General of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. Right off the bat you can tell she is an very educated woman who knows all kinds of things about the criminal justice system. She states “if you don't keep, and use accurate data, you will not be able to keep up with who you are arresting, and who is even in your criminal justice system.” The questions she asked, and wanted to understand is who are we arresting, who are we charging, and who are we putting in our jails. I think those a very important things to understand. By understanding those principles of why, we can then see the trends of crimes being committed and what race is being jailed more. Some jurisdictions in the United States use some form of an assessment tool to gather data to get a better understanding of the incarceration rates. Milgram states that police departments will fail if they do not use data driven policing.Taking and adopting some of Milgram’s ideas and converting them into our own communities and the way we police it will change the way the people act and hopefully reduce crime. They is always going to be crime in our communities, but Milgram’s ideas could surely go a long way to helping them get to lower number of occurrences.-CUBSFAN003
ReplyDeleteI do think that data should be used for solving crime versus picking up the local Phonics dealer to generate city revenue. Their in long run more money to be made off of drugs vs high risk crimes. sadly that is the world we live in. if we focused on the data and incarcerate those who are a high risk to the community we just might have a safer place to live. maybe a lower recidivism rate. Those who are being incarcerated for drugs need rehabilitation not a prison. They need help. casket003
DeleteAnne Milgram, who is now the Attorney General of New Jersey, has a mission to find out the simple answers to the criminal justice system. Or so she thought they were simple answers. These were things like who is in the prison systems. She soon realized that many departments were not doing a good job of using statistics and analytics to fight crime. In the new change, they reduced murders by 41 percent and reduced all crime by 26 percent. They realized that they needed to focus more on the bigger picture rather than the low and less violent offenders around the corner. Milgram realized that they were arresting people for very low level crimes rather than bigger ones. Milgram was so surprised the realize the revolving door was a real thing in the criminal justice system. She stated that 67 Percent of those released will come back into the system. Low risk offenders make up 50 percent of the entire criminal justice system. Now talking to many judges, they will state they they take low risk, non-violent offenders and let them go and focus on incarcerating high risk/ violent offenders. The judges really do believe this. Yet they did not have any data to back this up. Now looking at the statistics that low risk offenders make up 50 percent of the prison population, would you believe that to be true? And on the same token, taxpayers are paying for this low risk offender to stay in jail until trial, due to them not being able to afford to small amount for bail. It is all around a sad situation to find yourself in.If Milgram's ideas are set into place, I feel like there could be a big reduction in crime and how we view it. -AS003
ReplyDeleteThis video called “Why Smart Statistics Are The Key To Fighting Crime” gave a lot of good information. The speaker Anne Milgram, became the Attorney General in the state of New Jersey in the year of 2007. Before that she was a criminal prosecutor, first in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and then United States Department of Justice. She wanted to understand who we were arresting?, who we were charging?, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons?. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way to make things safer?. I was always aware that many people get put in jails and prisons for minor offenses like she said low level drug cases from right around the corner from where she works at. But I did not know and realize that they did not track things that mattered. There were many crimes that they did not have a suspect for because they were too busy catching people for low level crimes. The crimes with no suspect were major crimes like a robbery or shooting. They were not using data driven policing and just using post it notes. There are 12 million arrest in the United States. Only 5 percent of that number are violent crime arrest. This is not good and it is not safe for the people in our communities. We are locking people up for minor things and those are the people who are most likely not going to commit a violent crime. We are then letting the people who are committing violent crime out on the loose. This is unsafe like I said for the people in our communities. We spend $75 billion dollars a year on state and local corrections cost. Our recidivism is one of the highest in the world, there are 2 thirds of people in jail just waiting for their trial and have not been convicted of a crime. This shows how slow courts are with peoples cases and should try to work more faster so there isn't as many people sitting in jails waiting for months. -brooklyn003
ReplyDeleteAnne Milgram, in 2007 was the attorney general of the state of New Jersey. Before that she had been a criminal prosecutor, and the first in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Then she worked at the United States Department of Justice. When she first became New Jersey’s attorney general, she said that two things happened that changed the way that she saw the criminal justice system. She asked, what she thought were basic questions. To quote her, “I wanted to understand who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons”. She also wanted to understand, quote, “if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer”. What she found out was that most big criminal justice agencies, like her own, did not track the things that mattered. What happened was, quote, “So after about a month of being incredibly frustrated, I walked down into a conference room that was filled with detectives and stacks and stacks of case files, and the detectives were sitting there with yellow legal pads taking notes. They were trying to get the information I was looking for by going through case by case for the past five years. And as you can imagine, when we finally got the results, they weren't good. It turned out that we were doing a lot of low-level drug cases on the streets just around the corner from our office in Trenton. The second thing that happened is that I spent the day in the Camden, New Jersey police department. Now, at that time, Camden, New Jersey, was the most dangerous city in America. I ran the Camden Police Department because of that. I spent the day in the police department, and I was taken into a room with senior police officials, all of whom were working hard and trying very hard to reduce crime in Camden. And what I saw in that room, as we talked about how to reduce crime, were a series of officers with a lot of little yellow sticky notes. And they would take a yellow sticky and they would write something on it and they would put it up on a board. And one of them said, "We had a robbery two weeks ago. We have no suspects." And another said, "We had a shooting in this neighborhood last week. We have no suspects." We weren't using data-driven policing. We were essentially trying to fight crime with yellow Post-it notes”. Both of those things made her realized that we were failing and we don’t even know who is in our criminal justice system. So she got a team together to make this data base on how likely a person is to reoffend. I think that it is a pretty easy data base to use; at least it looks like it can be. She’s hoping that in the future, hopefully near, that every judge in the U.S. will be able to have access to the data base and can use it. –Adventureflight002
ReplyDeleteThis Ted talk is by Anne Milgram who has been the attorney general for the state of New Jersey. She talks about smart statistics and how we need more of them to help fight crime. Anne says that when she was the attorney general she noticed that they would have post it notes up that said they didn’t have any suspects for these crimes that just happened. These crimes were serious ones such as armed robbery. She says that we aren’t fighting crime with statistics but instead with post it notes. She also said that she was making decisions based on what she believed and used her personal experiences. This is what everyone was doing and it wasn’t working, she soon learned. What she did was moneyball the statistics, which is what the Oakland A’s used. They used this to find statistically the best players for their team using data that was gathered over time from them and other players. She put this into effect in her work, and reduced crime a lot. I think that this is a great idea because statistics can really tell us a lot. If we can find better statistics on when crimes happen and where crimes happen then we can better prevent them in the future. We can also look at statistics on people, and what type of people offend in what type of situations. We can use that to better control crime because it will give the police a real idea of the crime they need to look out for. I think that we should do more statistics training in police academies so that the officers know how to look at statistics and can be able to predict where crime is going to take place. If we can start there, I think that the future will have less crime. Celtics002
ReplyDeleteThis ted talk is about how statistics can be used to better fight crime. Moneyballing is a term that she used in the video which was first used by the Oakland A’s. The Oakland A’s used intense analytics and statistics to determine who would be the best players for their team and they went on to pursue them. She took this policy and implemented it in a criminal justice system and had amazing results. The murders went down by so much that she saved a total of 37 lives statistically. I think that she is really on to something here with the statistics. Statistics are used in pretty much every form of life in some way, and if they aren’t they could be. Statistics are real life results from previous years, so what better reference for a police crew. I think that we should teach more about statistics and analytics in the police academy, so that the police know how to read them and make educated guesses. I think that if more police in the US looked at statistics and trends then they could better stop crime. I work at Target and the security there uses statistics on when to schedule their security based on the most popular times that crime happens. Why would we waste their time on days that crime almost never occurs? It’s really cool to see the patterns that happen in theft because they usually stay consistent throughout years to come. This should be the same with police, in the sense that where they’re located should be based on the statistics and crime rate in that area. Cops are already doing this in smaller ways such as being on the roads to control speeding during rush hour and things like that. Celtics003
ReplyDeleteAnne Milgram became an attorney general in 2007, she asked basic questions about who they were arresting and who they were charging, and who was being out in jail and prisons. Things weren’t being tracked that truly mattered. instead of using data policing they were using sticky notes. Crimes that were being focused on were low level drug crimes. Jails were overflowed with people who have yet not been charged with a crime they are still waiting for their day in court. We do need to look at the low risk offenders who are in jail and the high-risk offenders who are in jail. The lower risk needs to be fined instead of filling up the bed for those who truly need to be occupying that bed because of their crime such as rape or murder. The Risk Assessment tool is to help identify the risk the offender poses to the community on how likely are they to return to court for trial, how likely they will reoffend once they are let out jail. Anne Milgram wants to ensure that we have a “Fair Smart Just system” She wants a data system to be safer when it comes to solving crime. There are 12 million arrest in the united states a year majority of those arrest are for low level crimes and less than 5 percent of those 12 million are violent offenders. Our recidivism rate is 67% rate amongst the highest level in the united states why because we let those with the high-risk crimes out and those with low risk crime in the system with a bail impossible to pay. Instead of being subjective we need to be objective and use tools that are presented in front of us a and use data science. Casket003
ReplyDeleteUsing statistics to try and figure out who is at risk is a brilliant move and something we should have been doing for a long time. It ties into evidence based policing in that we should be doing things that are proven to work and it seems obvious to me that using stats and figures to help make decisions from the judges seat would be beneficial. And according to this video it has worked where it has been implemented. But I think using statistics is important in everything we do in criminal justice. For example she mentions how she uses statistics to see what kind of people are being locked up in the context of people who are being held awaiting trial and cannot afford bail. But we should also look at statistics in the context of who we are convicting and for what. We know that minorities make up a huge percentage of our prison population even though it’s shown in data that we all commit crime at roughly the same rate based on our population size. It might be useful to look at that and see what changes we can make so that we are unfairly convicting people based on race or class. Also I think it’s important to use statistics in looking at who is committing what crimes and where so we can find better strategies for policing. I imagine detectives could benefit from this kind of data as well. If they were investigating say a bank robbery they would do well to look at other recent bank robberies and see if there was anything nearby that matched the methods used in the one they are currently investigating and perhaps they could find a trend. It’s a different form of statistics but still a statistic and I think applying that kind of thinking all over would be beneficial.
ReplyDeleteAvatar003
I think using statistics and understanding offenders is very important and I do not think enough light has been shed on it. I am really intrigued by the risk assessments. I think it is absolutely amazing what is out there and what this truly brings. For these offenders, the ones who are trying so very hard to get out of the situations they are in. These assessments are so meaningful and are important to the future. -holywaffles002
DeleteAnne had a very great ted talk she was first a criminal prosecutor in Manhattan's District Attorney's office, attorney general of New Jersey, and a criminal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. The three questions she asked herself was very important and opened a lot of eyes. She mentioned how she wanted to moneyball criminal justice by using smart data and statistics to figure out how to pick players that will help them win games. They used that system and caused them to take camptin off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America they reduced murder there by forty one percent which meant thirty seven lives was saved and they reducedALL crime in the city by twenty six percent including them changing the way they did criminal prosecution, they went from doing low level drug crimes that was outside their building to doing cases of statewide importance like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking and police brutality. She made a stated and said public safety is the most important function of government and if we are not safe we can’t be educated, can’t be healthy, and can’t do any of the other things we want to do in our lives. We have 12 billion arrest in the U.S the majority of those crime was low offenses seventy to eighty percent and five percent was violent crime arrest.Authorities are still looking for programs to help prevent a constant cycle of crime incarceration.-KenzieLand003
ReplyDeleteI agree that smart statistics is the key to fighting crime. In the past we learned better ways to fight and prevent crime. A good place to look is the uniform crime reporting program which we have discussed in class, under that you will find NIBRS which stands for National Incident Based Reporting System. NIBRS improves overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, this program collects things like the time and date of the incident, location, victim types, property descriptions and so much more. This is a major help because it tells that department what crimes they should be worrying about/ which crimes happen more often where they live. It also helps them know if that person is a harm to society. This is what Anne was talking about. How crime statistics can really help break down crime, she gives an example of how she “moneyballed” criminal justice. By doing this they reduced murders by forty-one percent in Camden city, which meant that thirty-seven lives were saved and it reduced all crime by twenty-six percent. She says “So I decided to focus on using data and analytics to help make the most critical decision in public safety, and that decision is the determination of whether, when someone has been arrested, whether they pose a risk to public safety and should be detained, or whether they don't pose a risk to public safety and should be released” she points out that the point of jails is to keep dangerous people in and let non-dangerous people out but if you look at the data collected it will show that our jails are majorly overpopulated because they are keeping people locked up, by using data from statistics and crime analysis it can help judges make decisions on if someone should get out of jail or if someone should stay in. She states in here that she and a team built “ a universal risk assessment tool, so that every single judge in the United States of America can have an objective, scientific measure of risk”. People who think of these things and put together a group of people with great minds are helping build stronger communities, fight crime, and make the very tough job on law enforcement and judges a little easier. Ark002
ReplyDeleteSince the very beginning of law enforcement we have been learning new and improved ways of fighting crime, ways to make the job easier to help stop crime or get justice for crime. Anne talked about how smart statistics are the key to fighting crime and I believe that’s true. We have many programs that have statistics and crime data collection which gives information like the time and date of crimes/incidents, the victim type, the location, the type of offense, and so much more. A good example of one of these programs is NIBRS which collects data like that to show which non-violent and violent crimes need to be focused on. This kind of data shows us which crimes will be harder to stop and prevent and it gives of tools and general locations as to where to crack down on these sorts of crimes. Anne and a group of people came up with a universal risk assessment tool for every judge in the United States to use so they can be more objective and measure risk of people by science. She noticed that jails were overpopulated because since we were fighting crime, we have been putting more and more people away even for tiny offenses, this has become a problem because the sole purpose of jails is to keep the violent people behind bars and the non-violent should be let go. Making tools like this help us grow in law enforcement, and it lifts judges of some of the burden that is put on their shoulders to make decisions like if someone should be let go or if they should stay. It can often be a tough choice to make. People who come up with these great ideas are the people of the future, it can be hard to find solutions when it comes to fighting crime and to know something is out there that works is always nice to know, this can help us focus on the true problems at hand.Ark003
ReplyDeleteAnne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor at the Manhattan’s district attorney's office, then a criminal prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, then an attorney general in the State of New Jersey. The questions that she had were very encouraging. She wanted to know who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. She sounds like she really cares and she sounds really compassionate. Our recidivism rate is one of the highest in the world. Seven in ten people who were released will be rearrested. Fifty percent of high risk offenders are being released. She noticed that there was no data being shared and there was no data about the things that mattered. She wanted to introduce data, analytics, and statistical analysis. She wanted to transform the way they did criminal justice in New Jersey. She built a team of data scientist, researchers, and statistic technicians so they could build a universal risk assessment tool. She wanted the judges to see an objective scientific measurement of risk. It’s a data driven risk tool that the judges can see and determine if this person is a high or low risk offender. They’re also trying to create one for prosecutors and police officers. Once she introduced all of these things, Manhattan was not longer the most dangerous city in America. They were able to lower crime and murder rates. She believes that they can transform the criminal justice system and make the streets safer. There are a lot of people in jail or prison that are low risk offenders. There are a lot of people in jail or prison that won't cause harm to people in society. There are also some people that don’t deserve to be released. The tool that was created does sound thoroughly researched and put together productively. If this tool will help determine whether or not this person is a high or low risk offender, maybe we should give this a shot. Our jails and prisons are so packed, this might help lower the population. -Soccer002
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting Ted talk and I really enjoyed listening to Anne Milgram. She started out the video by saying she wanted to know three basic questions and those questions were, she wanted to understand who they were arresting in her district. She also to know who we were charging? Lastly she wanted to know who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons? She wanted to know if we were making decisions to make our nation safer. She quickly found out that large criminal justice organizations according to her or not tracking the details that mattered. As attorney general of New Jersey she wanted to introduce data and statistical analysis to criminal justice. We took Camden off the top of the list as the most dangerous city in America. We reduced murders there by 41 percent, which actually means 37 lives were saved. And we reduced all crime in the city by 26 percent. We also changed the way we did criminal prosecutions. So we went from doing low-level drug crimes that were outside our building to doing cases of statewide importance, on things like reducing violence with the most violent offenders, prosecuting street gangs, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. Haystack that she showed on her presentation that really surprised me what is that out of 12 million arrests in the United States only about 5 percent are violent crimes. We also spend $75 billion a year on state and local corrections costs and we have 2.3 million people in our jails and prisons. We also have close to the highest recidivism rates in the world around 67% of people go back to jail or prison after they have been released. With all of this in mind she decided to focus on using data and analytics to make the determination of whether individuals pose a risk or do not pose a risk to public safety and whether they should be detained or set free.
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I watched the Ted Talk video called “Why smart statistics are the key to fighting crime”. The speaker, Anne Milgram, became an attorney general in 2007 for the state of New Jersey. Before she was an attorney general, she was a criminal prosecutor. Originally for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and then for the United States Department of Justice. When she first became an attorney general, two things happened that made her change her outlook on criminal justice. The first one being she asked more essential and underlying questions. The who, what, where, and why’s essentially. Anne wanted to know who was getting arrested, charged, and put into the nation's prisons. The second thing that happened was that the speaker spent a day in Camden, New Jersey Police Department, which was one of the most dangerous cities in America at the time. Both of these things made her realize that fundamentally we are failing. We didn't know who was in our criminal justice system, there was no data, and no data or analysis was shared to help us make better decisions to reduce crime. Knowing all of this, Anne Milgram changed the way the criminal justice worked. She and her team were able to take Camden off of the list of the most dangerous cities in America. Murders were reduced by 41 percent, and overall crime was reduced by 26 percent. They went from doing low level drug crimes to doing cases that had statewide importance, on things like reducing violence, prosecuting street ganges, gun and drug trafficking, and political corruption. All of these changes matter, because public safety is one of the most important aspects of criminal justice. Overall, their goal is to get every judge in America to use a universal risk assessment tool. She wants the judges to use there instinct and experience, along with the risk assessment tools to change the criminal justice system. There’s a lot of work left for her and her team to do, but fortunately they know it works. It’s how we can make the world a safer and better place for everyone. It will change the criminal justice system in America. -pizza003
ReplyDeleteAttorney General Milgram made really good points when it comes to judges and how they sometimes subjectively measure risk levels through instincts. She explained that is how the system fails in a way people it is putting low level offender in prison that are not violent and putting the violent one out. The problem with who we are arresting, charging and putting in jail. Starts with the public safety and how it can be affected. She made a program that involved data and analytics for judges to help for sentencing.It is called Risk Assessment Tool, is able to distinguish the level that an offender might commit another crime of violence if released from prison. She did state that instincts isn't 100% taken away form this assessment but a tool to help with data and scientific facts. They tried this in a city that was known to be the most violent in the country. Reducing murders by 41%, which is basically save 37 lives. Also, the crime rate in the city decreased 26%. They initiate that because they started looking at case file and picking one that were most important that were associated with violence, gang violence and even political corruption. She came up with this idea because of the overpopulation of inmates with low level offense that are being kept in prison longer than other high risk offenders. A lot of those inmates in jail are waiting for their trial because they weren't able to afford bail which is two out of three people. It becomes a cycle when arresting the same people for petty crimes, which statistics show seven out of ten people are rearrested. dory002
ReplyDeleteThere were many interesting points that Attorney General Milgram made about who we are arresting, charging, and incarcerating. That the how the system has been failing for many years and has been going in circles on not being able to accomplish the main reason for it. Which is public safety. They looked at case files that were mostly people with low level offenses and that were nonviolent offenders. She stated stats about how there are 12 million arrest every year and that 70% - 80% are mostly misdemeanors. There are more arrest for people that are trying to make ends meet than those that are high risk to our public safety. They looked into the most dangerous city in the nation and came up with a program that functioned with data and analytics. The Risk Assessment Tool helps predict the act of violence, if an offender were to be released what level of risk would they be at comparing it with past records. I think that using this assessment could help lessen the use of judges bias and instincts when convicting an offender. They would stop looking at the individual and the crime subjectively because they re using data and scientific facts. They used this program in the city, which decreased the murder rate 41% (saving 37 lives) and crime rates went down 26%. Instead of focusing on the petty crime, they looked at more high risk case files that would become a problem to public safety. If there is violence in the community then there is no safety which destroy lives around us. yellow003
ReplyDeleteIt is no secret that our jails are overpopulated and for no good reason because just as you pointed out there are more people arrested for just trying to put food on the table, provide for themselves and others than those who are high risk to our communities safety. Coming up with more programs like these is crucial for law enforcement growth. It helps show where we've been and show where we're headed, statistics give us scientific evidence that proves if were moving in the right direction or the wrong one. Eventually, we will critique these programs to perfect them, growing day by day. Ark002
DeleteShe wanted to understand the people who were being put away instead of just throwing them in and calling it good and working through the system. There is absolutely no data driven policing happening either. Electronics and other ways of communicating are so incredibly popular now days and we are not taking the full advantage of it like we could. She said that after working on data driven policing and figuring out the people we are putting away such as having a better understanding, she said she has helped reducing Camden murders by 41% and reducing crime by 26%. There are 12 million arrests yearly in the united states and majority are in the low level offenders at a 70-80% rate with misdemeanors. 5% of these people are offenders of violent crime. $75 billion on state and local corrections is being spent yearly on offenders over food and housing and other medical expenses. There are 2.3 million people in jail and in prison. 2/3 of the people locked up are still waiting for trial. 50% of these offenders that are locked up are mainly low risk offenders. She said the start of these risk assessments have truly helped and she said they have started this around the united states in an attempt to understand these offenders and the likelihood of re-offending and where they currently sit at along those risks. I for one, believe in people not getting caught back up in the illegal activities they have once done. I believe people can get better and do better. I am curious where we will end up with all these new inventions and opportunities. -holywaffles002
ReplyDeleteI liked how you mentioned the statistics which she shared. Isn't it incredible what she was able to achieve. She is an absolutely amazing woman. The fact that she was able to come up with a plan and use it to reduce crime by 26% was amazing. I think that it is important to figure out how we can stop incarcerating individuals and locking them up for these low level, nonviolent crimes. These people do not need to be in the system. They just need help. It is not right for us to put these people with some of the murderous monsters in the system. -Anchorman002
DeleteAnne Milgram was a criminal prosecutor at the Manhattan’s district attorney's office, then a criminal prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, then an attorney general in the State of New Jersey. The questions that she had were very encouraging. She wanted to know who we were arresting, who we were charging, and who we were putting in our nation's jails and prisons. She also wanted to know if we were making decisions in a way that made us safer. As I was listening to her talk, it sounded like she really cared and it also sounded like she really wanted to solve this problem. Anne Milgram explained how a team and herself created a universal risk assessment tool and this can help give judges an idea on whether or not this offender is violent or nonviolent. She was able to create this team and this team had data scientists, researchers, and statistic technicians. She wants to help and keep the community safe. There are a lot of people that are in jail or prison that won't cause harm to our society. This tool that was created will help give people a better idea on whether or not they are violent or nonviolent. She brought up an example on how there was a guy that stole a couple of blankets because they had no money. They got arrested and they were not able to make bail. That is not someone we need to be afraid of or worry about. Seven out of ten people that were released would be rearrested. Fifty percent of high risk offenders are being released and we should be more worried about them. As time went by they were able to lower crime and murder rates in Manhattan. Manhattan was no longer the dangerous city in America. This sounds like a lot of research has gone into this and if this would help lower the population that is incarcerated and keep the streets safe, I say it’s worth a try. -Soccer003
ReplyDeleteThe way that Anne Milgram started her speech really made me think deeply. The first thing she mentioned and was questioning was who are we putting behind bars and who are we arresting. When she said this, I began to think about what we talked about in class about how most people in jail and in prison are mainly nonviolent, low level offenders. Most of which were arrested and incarcerated for drugs and have mental illnesses. This statement also made me question the fact that do these individuals even really need to be in jail or in prison. I personally think that it is unnecessary to place low level offenders in jail or prison. The reason that I believe in that is because I think that instead of incarcerating them, we should be trying to help them get better in a cost effective way. It is understandable for us to incarcerate violent and gang affiliated criminals because they are out in society trying to do harm to others, but nonviolent offenders do not belong in this system with these monsters. They need help. It is extremely important to know who we are incarcerating and for what reasons we are doing so. Milgram knows what she is talking about in this video and is extremely educated on the subject. She not only came and talked about the question, but she also provided an answer and solution to the problem with our criminal justice system. One thing that shocked me was some of the statistics she mentioned. The fact that she was able to reduce that amount of crime in the city which she was working is amazing. Now because of her, the city she works in no longer is one of America's most dangerous cities. -Anchorman003
ReplyDeleteStatistical analysis in criminal justice should be something that is completely non-controversial. This is quite possibly the most dangerous industry in America, and it’s certainly the most exposed to the malevolence of the human heart. This is a game played at higher stakes than baseball could ever be, since lives are at stake. Lives trump any millions of dollars that one can throw at a game, period. I really don’t see how one could object to the observation and recording of the factors that make someone higher risk. I suppose that the objections, at least those from law enforcement and the criminal justice system, probably stem from the difficulty. Nobody enjoys paperwork and creating whole new data tables to try and preempt offenders from reoffending has a much less visceral appeal to man’s innate sense of justice. How could some pencil necked analyst tell who’s a threat and who’s not? But statistics, and in the future, machine learning, can and do predict the future. Big Brother vibes or no, their accuracy has become something that gut instincts can no longer reckon with. 41% reduction The other possible objection that I can imagine would probably come from groups concerned that this technology, which seems to come right out of Minority Report, might just be used to report on minorities. This certainly isn’t without basis. Especially within the more southern states, I could see this being used to justify harsher treatment and sentences for people of color, but given its racially neutral presentation, it seems that it would be difficult to warp to such purposes, at least in its present state. An ounce of crime prevention is worth a pound of crime cure, and I think this is a tool that gives us about five pounds of prevention at one go. I look forward to seeing more technology like this used for smarter policing in the near future. ~ Arsenal002
ReplyDeleteAnne Milgram came in to this speech to share her experiences and her plans. The first statement that she made was unbelievable and made me think about the truth that she just spoke. She said do we really know who we are arresting and do we know who we are locking up? When she said this, I stopped and thought about the fact that there are people who definitely need to be locked up and there are also those who do not need to be in the system at all. In my own personal opinion, I think that those who commit minor crimes such as misdemeanors or any low level, nonviolent crime should not be in the system. Many people within the system were arrested and incarcerated for crimes such as drugs. In my opinion, this is wrong. Instead of incarcerating them for their problems, we need to help them. Put them on probation and make them get treatment. If they don't get treatment, then they don't get off probation. They lost their rights when they made the decision to go against the law and now they have their rights of complete freedom taken away but they can be free if they show the world that they care about their wrongs and try and better themselves. One thing that really stuck out to me during the video was the fact that she made such a large change in her community. Not only did she reduce crime in the city which she works in, but she also saved lives doing so. I love how she went about her plan. She made her plan, she went out and used it, and came back with results which decreased crime. She is a hero. We need more people like her in the criminal justice system. I strive to be like her. -Anchorman002
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