Crime and Technology

The New Technology of Crime, Law and Social Control, edited by James M. Byrne and Donald J. Rebovich. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press, 2007.

Reviewed By Timothy P. Cadigan Washington, DC

This book presents an excellent opportunity for exploration of the many issues raised by the expanding role of technology in the criminal justice system. To meet this goal, the editors take a very comprehensive approach both in terms of breadth and scope. After a short introduction the editors begin with the impact of technology on criminality itself and then march through a discussion of each phase of the criminal justice system, from crime prevention to policing, courts, institutional corrections, and finally, community corrections. Another aspect of the work’s structure that I enjoyed is the focus on two specific areas at each level of the system, specifically hard and soft technologies. The terms “hard and soft” were defined as you might expect, with “hard” representing equipment-type technologies while “soft” primarily represented technological advancements in software. The editors have chosen a wonderfully deep and comprehensive topic in need of exploration and developed a great plan to guide that exploration. Let’s delve into the substance and analyze the product they have assembled.

“The Impact of Technology on Criminality,” written by Kip Schlegel and Charles Cohen, opens with the recognition that offenders have been using the technology of the day to separate us from our money since the beginning of time, so in a sense little has changed. They begin with the standard look at the many enormously incomplete statistics that have been developed in an effort to document or prove the vast impact of current technology on criminality, and reach a refreshingly frank conclusion, “Perhaps the safest conclusion one can draw from these numbers is that the extent of crime that involves modern technology is arguably worth writing about.” While they attempt to categorize the impact in a variety of ways, I think their most significant contribution occurs in the section titled, “Framing the Role of Technology in Offending.” There they borrow from the 1981 work of Richard Sparks and categorize technology crimes into three areas: 1) Crime as Work; 2) Crime at Work; and 3) Crime After Work.

Simply stated, “Crime as Work” depicts those criminal activities that represent a way of life, that is, as a means of economic support and survival. “Crime at Work” represents those criminal events that take place in the context of one’s (usually legitimate) occupation. And “Crime After Work” represents those events, often viewed as deviant, that are generally unrelated to one occupation and typically involve (for lack of a better word) illegal forms of leisure.

The discussion proceeds to incorporate motivation and opportunity, and the authors ultimately conclude that we have much to learn about the impact of technology on crime, which my own experience tells me is quite accurate.

“Technology, Crime Control and the Private Sector in the 21st Century,” by Donald J. Rebovich and Anthony Martino, attempts to bring a very real phenomenon—the expansion of private sector companies into resolving what has been perceived as public sector problems—into the criminal justice literature. As a manager charged with outfitting 5,000 federal law enforcement officers with technological innovations, from ChoicePoint to electronic monitoring systems, from 1995 to 2003, I appreciate the vital need for the discussion this section presents. At that time there was real concern about issues like the erosion of privacy regarding personal records, and essentially no place to look for reasoned thought on the various topics. This chapter provides excellent insight and discussion, at least alerting today’s managers to the many issues raised by the privatization of these previously public sector functions.

“Crime Prevention and Hard Technology: The Case of CCTV and Improved Street Lighting,” written by Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington, initially seemed to me too limited in scope to suit the broad approach the book as whole is aiming for, because it focused on only two hard technologies: closed circuit television and improved street lighting. However, I found the chapter tremendously well researched; thorough and complete; and very well written for such a technical piece. While my general knowledge of crime prevention and hard technology was not vastly expanded, I learned a great deal about closed-circuit television and improved street lighting and felt relatively certain of the author’s assertion that these are the only proven hard technologies in crime prevention.

“Crime Prevention and Soft Technology: Risk Assessment, Threat Assessment and the Prevention of Violence,” by Andrew J. Harris and Arthur J. Lurigio, delivers what the title promises: a focused look at using risk and threat assessment devices to prevent violence. As a community corrections professional in an agency that is actively pursuing risk assessment, I only wish I had received the text earlier. The authors have put together an excellent, focused, and comprehensive look at risk assessment that will benefit all community corrections professionals who read it. Threat assessment is something much less familiar to me and I learned a great deal about its core principles, the difference between it and risk assessment, and the need to expand its empirical base.

“Policing and Hard Technology,” by Don Hummer, focuses on advances in weapons technology and discusses the next generation of non-lethal weaponry designed to increase officer safety and minimize damage to offenders taken into custody. To all law enforcement officers and anyone who has ever watched COPS, particularly the classic “Tazed and Confused” episode, the advances in weapons technology presented here have an inherent common-sense appeal when confronting violent offenders who are not armed with a firearm. In the above episode, a literally monstrous human being wants to take his bad day out on a much more modestly sized police officer, but before any of that can take place the offender is turned into a meek, mild and unhurt jail inmate through the use of a TAZER. In addition to pointing out the many officer safety benefits, the author also discusses the benefits of this hard technology for law enforcement programs, noting how it lends itself to the ideals of community-based policing and reduces costs associated with lawsuits from lethal force interactions. The author presents a wide range of relevant topics and concludes that these advances have saved the lives of and reduced injuries to both perpetrators and officers.

“The Police and Soft Technology: How Information Technology Contributes to Police Decision Making,” by Christopher J. Harris, argues that not since the advent of the telephone, two-way radio, and police car has law enforcement undergone such a significant revolution as it has embarked upon today by capturing, storing, manipulating, analyzing, sharing, and deploying data. From problem and community-oriented policing to COMSTAT and Crime mapping, numerous approaches are defined and debated in the article that, if implemented appropriately, will most likely enhance operations. The authors also discuss a number of technological and organizational issues and ultimately conclude that, while these methodologies have huge potential, there is little evidence that any information revolution has yet been achieved.

“The Courts and Hard Technology: Applying Technological Solutions to Legal Issues,” by Eric T. Bellone, and “The Courts and Soft Technology,” by Ronald Corbett, Jr. had what I felt were the most difficult distinctions to draw in defining “hard” and “soft” technologies, and it seemed that the authors took greater pains to define the distinctions. One example is evidence presentation systems, which clearly rely on “hard” technology screens, computers, pointers, and “soft” technology such as presentation software. Given the inter-reliance of the technologies, both authors do an excellent job of drawing the distinctions in a more clouded picture. As a member of the Administrative Office of United States Courts for 20 years, with nearly half of those years devoted to system development in the federal courts, I note with sadness that there is much truth to the conclusion cited in the Corbett piece: “excessive parochialism on the part of court administrators... requiring only customized solutions that are very expensive and often beyond the means of the average system.” I think all of us who have been in the business for a decade or more can call to mind, at least to ourselves, a data system that fits the above conclusion.

Jacob I. Stowell’s “Institutional Corrections and Hard Technology,” was the first chapter to employ an introduction based on the larger field of study, in this case institutional corrections, and its current state and needs as a springboard into discussing technology to address those needs. The author looks at facility monitoring; inmate/officer interaction; and other applications. Since institutional corrections is not my area of expertise, I found the article very interesting, but lack the more complete understanding of the material to provide readers of this journal with more relevant feedback.

“Institutional Corrections and Soft Technology,” by James M. Byrne and April Pattavina, and “Community Corrections and Soft Technology,” by April Pattavina and Faye S. Taxman, both demonstrate the similarities among assessment, classification, data needs, reentry, and performance measurement that exist in community corrections and institutions. The similarities of needs and frequent exchange of offenders, from community corrections to institutions and from institutions to community corrections, should prompt us to do more to achieve synergy in our soft technologies.

This book is rounded out with “Community Corrections and Hard Technology,” by Patricia M. Harris and James M. Byrne and “The Engineering of Social Control: Intended and Unintended Consequences,” by Gary T. Marx, both of which are excellent explorations of their topics. Byrne and Harris offer a complete and inclusive discussion of the many hard technologies available to community corrections professionals in three primary areas: electronic monitoring, alcohol-involved offenders, drug testing, and sex offender management. Finally, Harris and Byrne bring their extensive research knowledge and excellent writing ability to bear on these topics. Marx provides an excellent culmination to the work by identifying and discussing six strategies that hard and soft technologies employ to enhance social and crime control. Those strategies are target removal, target devaluation, target insulation, incapacitation, exclusion and offender motivation reduction. While the concepts are certainly not new, Marx does an excellent job of presenting them in the larger context of the book and frankly does that well enough that the chapter might have been more effective earlier in the work.

Overall, the editors and each of their individual authors have done an excellent job of creating a book that works as a whole and also as a collection of 16 individually informative chapters. The New Technology of Crime, Law and Social Control presents a comprehensive discussion of a vast and almost limitless topic, providing readers with insight into the big picture as well as into its individual pieces. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the current criminal justice scene.

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Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity, by Steven F. Hayward. New York: Gramercy Books, 2004. 182 pages.

Reviewed by Michael Eric Siegel Senior Education Specialist, FJC.

There are far too many parables of leadership on the market today—a recent one offered the “leadership secrets of Santa Claus.” But this engaging, insightful book springs from a premise that is difficult if not impossible to dismiss: There is a great deal to learn about leadership from the life and career of Winston Churchill. Liberally supplied with examples of Churchill’s unique personality and oratory, the book makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the tough business of managing and motivating others. Author Steven Hayward quickly establishes the challenges that all leaders have in common, whether the context is the workplace or the world stage: “A senior business executive,” Hayward says, “no less than a political executive finds it necessary to inspire and persuade, to reorganize, to probe after details and to delegate responsibility, to deal with the egos and the character flaws of individuals, all the while having in mind how all the pieces of the organization and the plans fit together.” Hayward identifies the four keys to Churchill’s leadership style that set him apart from ordinary political leaders: candor and plain speaking, decisiveness, the ability to balance attention to details with big-picture thinking, and what can be called a keen “historical imagination.”

Candor

A considerable amount of research, including Kouzes and Posner’s findings summarized in The Leadership Challenge, confirms the fact that followers value honesty and candor in their leaders. Churchill embraced this principle more than most politicians. He disdained politicians who “had the habit of saying smooth things and uttering pious platitudes and sentiments to gain applause, without relation to the underlying facts.” As prime minister during WWII, Churchill summoned the British people to resist the Nazis by telling them the truth. Edward R. Murrow once remarked that “Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” In 1940, in the context of the Nazi air raids on London, Churchill confessed, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” continuing, “in the end I know we will prevail!”

“Tell the truth to the British people,” Churchill advised a colleague. “They are a tough people, a robust people. They may be a bit offended at the moment, but if you told them exactly what is going on you have insured yourself against complaints and reproaches which are unpleasant when they come home on the morrow of some illusion.”

Churchill was equally candid in his criticism of political contemporaries. He bitterly opposed Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s policy of disarmament in the 1930s, commenting, “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”

Decisiveness

Churchill abhorred the tendency of politicians to temporize. He liked to say, “Ponder and then act!” In his many administrative posts (including Board of Trade president, home secretary, first lord of the Admiralty, Munitions minister, and chancellor of the Exchequer, in addition to prime minister), he adhered to one goal: Facilitate the making of clear decisions and their prompt, efficient execution. When something needed to be done, Churchill got it done. As he said,

Though he was decisive, Churchill did not minimize the importance of deliberation and debate, however. If he tended to dominate meetings, he also encouraged a complete discussion of issues and never penalized or fired anyone for openly or vigorously disagreeing with him. On his first day back at the Admiralty in 1939, he sent his initial thoughts to senior staff with a concluding wish: “The First Lord submits these notes to his naval colleagues for consideration, for criticism and corrections, and hopes to receive proposals for action in the sense desired.” [Churchill’s emphasis]

Balance

Churchill focused steadfastly on the big picture, on attaining what some modern management experts have labeled BHAGs—big, hairy, audacious goals. (See the review of Built to Last.) Early in his tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he said, “I want this government not to fritter away its energies on all sorts of small schemes. I want them to concentrate on one or two things which will be big land-marks in the history of Parliament.”

Churchill did not ignore small details of public policy, on the other hand. In his first few weeks as prime minister, when the war crisis was at its worst, his concerns ranged from the size of the flag flown outside the Admiralty to whether anyone was looking after the animals in the London Zoo during the German air raids. He was even interested in the code names given to each military operation. In another dimension of detail work, Churchill apparently always found the time to say or write a few words of appreciation to staff, even in turbulent times.

Imagination

“The longer you look back,” Churchill once famously observed, “the farther you can look ahead.” Churchill possessed the uncanny ability to see the world with bifocal vision that included a view of the past and a glimpse into the future. His study of history gave him confidence that his nation would prevail over the totalitarian threats during WWII. During the war he asserted that “Hitler should study English history and contemplate his doom.” Looking forward, he foresaw how nuclear weapons would change warfare—20 years before the production of the first atomic bomb. He also anticipated the danger posed by Soviet power after the war, well before most of his contemporaries.

Hayward outlines Churchill’s views on personnel and information management, as well as public administration. Perhaps more intriguing are the personal qualities he describes—the incessant cigar smoking and scotch drinking, the proclivity for dictating memoranda from the bathtub—and their relationship to Churchill’s enduring optimism, magnanimity, and self-criticism. On the last point, Churchill once remarked, “Every night I try myself by court martial to see if I have done anything effective during the day.”

Churchill always managed to find humor in the most challenging situations. A colleague in the House of Commons once chided him, “Must you fall asleep every time I speak?” To which Churchill responded, “No, it is a totally voluntary act!”

There are many fine biographies of Winston Churchill, some running to several volumes. The benefit of Hayward’s book is that it distills the leadership lessons of this remarkable statesman to less than 200 pages.

Reprinted with permission of the Federal Judicial Center, from their intranet site available (to federal court personnel) at http://cwn.fjc.dcn/newweb/jnetweb.nsf/ced! OpenFrameSet in Book Review for Court Leaders, October 2006.

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What is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11, by Kenneth J. Feinberg. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. 204 pages.

Reviewed by Michael Eric Siegel, Senior Education Specialist, FJC

On one level autobiography, on another meditation on human nature, Kenneth Feinberg’s What Is Life Worth? makes compelling reading for anyone placed in the role of mediator or administrator. The book recounts Feinberg’s administration of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and his struggle to balance administrative precision with empathy for the victims’ survivors.

The Formula

On September 22, 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act. Drafted by Congress within days of the 9/11 attacks, the law provided loan guarantees and other financial protections to keep the airlines in business. It also discouraged lawsuits against the airlines by requiring that 9/11 families who wished to sue the airlines could do so only in New York federal courts, not in their hometowns. In addition, the law placed a cap on the financial liability of the airlines, limiting their exposure to $6 billion, $1.5 billion in insurance for each of the four hijacked planes. A final provision, Title IV, created a tax-free compensation fund for the victims of 9/11 with the stipulation that the money would come from general revenues rather than a specific appropriation. In the end, this fund paid out almost $6 billion in tax-free compensation to 97 percent of eligible families.

The statute creating the fund also authorized the Attorney-General to appoint a special master, without confirmation by the Senate, to oversee the program and to ensure equity in the disbursements. The master would carry out his duties without any oversight by Congress and with the support of Attorney-General John Ashcroft. Feinberg, who had a reputation as a skilled mediator in high-profile settlement cases of Agent Orange and Dalkon Shield, informed Ashcroft that he would serve without compensation.

The law also established what Feinberg characterizes as a “vague” three-part formula for computing individual awards based on:

• Economic loss suffered by the death or physical injury of a 9/11 victim
• Non-economic loss, i.e., the pain and suffering of the 9/11 victims and subsequent economic distress of surviving family members
• Collateral sources of income—life insurance, pension payments, workers’ compensation, etc.

While Feinberg appreciated the Congressional “compassion” inherent in the fund, he was reluctant to adhere to a strict interpretation of the fund’s allocation formula. Feinberg hoped to circumvent problems with the definition of economic loss and the disparities that would certainly arise, such that some lives were evidently valued more than others. He foresaw that families of bond traders would receive more money than those of dishwashers. Feinberg vividly expresses the difficulty—ultimately the impossibility—of making Solomonic judgments about individuals’ pain and suffering. Nonetheless, he and his staff strove to cultivate consistency and transparency. They were determined to treat everyone equally, whether claimants arrived alone or with a high-priced attorney, even helping grieving individuals complete a 31-page application form. To achieve transparency, fund administrators convened over 100 town hall meetings. They also developed a straightforward user-friendly website explaining the program.

The group faced heavy criticism anyway. Experts say that a mediator must sometimes play the scapegoat, and Feinberg did. Viewing him as a representative of the government, families bombarded him with hard questions: What did the President know about the terrorist attacks, and when did he know it? Why is my son dead? Because the CIA was asleep at the switch? My neighbor and I were both wives of policemen who had the same salary and belonged to the same union, yet she gets $1.2 million when I only get $865,000?

Feinberg mostly took it on the chin, but he admits he wasn’t perfect:

Through his work as a special master, Ken Feinberg learned a great deal about himself and what he calls the “soul” of America. Upon completing this book, readers will better understand not only the mechanics of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, but the struggles Feinberg and his team faced in administering it. Readers will also learn that traditional leadership techniques may not suffice in times of extreme trauma. These times, says Feinberg, call for “compassionate leadership.”

In a recent article in the journal Organizational Dynamics (2004), Professor Peter Frost notes: “Leaders of people in pain listen. They listen with attention and compassion to someone else’s pain providing a moment of human connection.” In the words of an executive Frost interviewed, “I didn’t say much, but I would look them in the eye and do a lot of nodding.”

Inevitably, readers of What Is Life Worth? will be reconnected to the depravity and pathological hatred of the terrorists, and reminded of the pervasive feeling of vulnerability with which Americans struggled after 9/11. They will also be reminded of the vast outpouring of love that followed the terrorist attacks, the sense of renewal and hope that subsequently emanated from Ground Zero, and the inspiring spectacle of a nation coming together in a moment of crisis. More specifically, those who are called on to mediate conflicts in the judiciary, who make tough budgetary decisions where fairness is an issue, or who have come to the aid of traumatized staff will find valuable insights into the role of compassion in leadership.

Reprinted with permission of the Federal Judicial Center’s online (intranet) “Book Review for Court Leaders” department, at http://cwn.fjc.dcn/newweb/jnetweb.nsf/ced!OpenFrameSet]

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