St. Louis CofCC Blog

Jury selection begins today for his new trial.

Today:  30,695
Yesterday:  30,660

From Mayor Slay’s latest post.  Those posts are often removed, so the graph has been placed here for the sake of posterity.

And now his text:

There are plenty of urgent reasons to devise after-school programs that enlighten and engage our City’s young people. Researchers at the St. Louis Police Department recently sent me an excellent graphic representation of one very good reason.

The chart above shows the times that City youth and City police tend to meet up.

Look at the drops when kids are in school. Look at the spikes when schools let out.

No, it doesn’t drop when kids are in school.  It starts rising at 6:30 AM, and climbs steeply until mid-morning, then gradually until mid-afternoon.  So it doesn’t look like actually being in school necessarily stops juvenile crime, so Mayor Slay’s demand for more after-school programs won’t help, either.

P-D: Durbin wants greater federal role in battling so-called superbug infections

Judging from Durbin’s support of soft amnesty for illegal aliens, he wants a greater Federal role in importing superbug infections.

WND: University [of Delaware] to students: ‘All whites are racist’

If it’s that “hopeless,” then why even bother with the treatment? The original headline does not say “of Delaware,” but you can insert just about any university in the world, and the headline would still be true.

Columbia Missourian: More money does not affect student achievement, economists say

But more money does affect the NEA’s size, budget and power.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Illinois children accused of crimes often don’t receive adequate legal help and regularly plead guilty before a defense can be made, according to a new statewide study to be released today.

The net result is that more kids than necessary are incarcerated, and those youngsters are also then more likely to run afoul of the law later in life, say the authors of the Illinois Juvenile Defense Assessment Project.

(snip)

The authors also believe that early and excessive pleas “compromise the judicial process.” According to the research, between 70 percent and 100 percent are resolved by plea deals.

(snip)

“Kids don’t even understand that getting a probation officer means a conviction,” Crawford said. “The fact that they don’t know what’s happening is appalling to me.”

Contradictory — they’re trying to say that excessive incarceration and excessive use of probation as a result of plea deals are both problems at the same time.  And it should be noted that a very high percentage of adult criminal charges are pled out.

The authors involved in the project recommend a host of changes that would benefit children in the system.

Some simple fixes such as not using shackles in the courtroom and new language for court instructions that kids can understand.

Lawyers talking to each other in simple English?  Good luck with that.

Lost in all of this is a very simple solution — juveniles should stop committing crimes.  That way, they won’t have to worry about jail, probation, shackles, court-appointed lawyers, and plea deals.