Franklin Zimring quoted in Chicago Tribune, September 30, 2013
“I am deeply suspicious of them,” University of California at Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring said of the idea. “The net effect of a mandatory minimum is simply to shift power from judges to prosecutors. … It is a fabulous plea bargain cudgel.”
Franklin Zimring quoted in Newsday, September 26, 2013
The problem for the new mayor and police commissioner, Zimring said, is that the phenomenally good results so far in 2013 set a high standard. If homicides increase in 2014, some may view it as a failure, he said. “If 240 homicides in almost nine months of New York experience becomes the new benchmark, I am not running for commissioner,” Zimring said.
Franklin Zimring quoted in the Los Angeles Times, September 14, 2013
“It doesn’t isolate the big cities in California, it isolates one city in California,” said … Franklin Zimring. “It says, ‘OK, Oakland, you’ve got a big problem now, let’s see what you want to add to the existing California policy that responds to the nature of firearms violence Oakland-style.'” The Oakland experiment, Zimring said, could serve to “test the waters of local control and to see whether the political process that produces city-level gun policy can get inclusive and responsible, and whether it can get specific and selective in ways that can solve the problem.”
Franklin Zimring quoted in Newsday, September 5, 2013
The sky hasn’t fallen as stop-and-frisks declined, raising doubts about a close relationship between the activity and crime levels, Zimring said. “It may be more subtle or it may take more time,” he said of the crime trends. “But the easiest kind of cause and effect inference to come from the data, doesn’t seem to be there.”
Franklin Zimring quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 2013 (registration required)
“OK, Mayor Quan; OK, police chief du jour, you tell me what you are doing and how it is working, and you have to tell me in a convincing fashion,” said Zimring. “Eight arrests are a big deal, but what are those eight arrests doing to decrease gunshots in Oakland? And if we don’t know, how will we know and when will we know?”
Malcolm Feeley and Franklin Zimring quoted in Contra Costa Times, August 29, 2013
“What the judge did was perfectly reasonable in my judgment,” said UC Berkeley law professor Malcolm Feeley. “It’s just one of the tragedies with a criminal justice system that presumes innocence before guilt and allows bail. Some people take advantage of that.”
Criminal law professor Frank Zimring questioned why White’s 2009 criminal case had not been litigated more promptly. “Why the hell wasn’t this case disposed of years ago?” he said. “If you want to remove him from the streets, go convict him.”
Franklin Zimring cited in The Washington Post, August 20, 2013
Frank Zimring at Berkeley Law credits hot spot policing with much of the city’s progress in his book, The City that Became Safe. But he’s also said we don’t know if stop and frisk works.
Franklin Zimring interviewed by KQED Forum, August 13, 2013
“Attorney General Holder is signaling the U.S. attorneys to stop the flow of prisoners (who could go to state systems) into the federal system. The state prisons have grown about 700 percent over the period since 1974, but the federal system has actually been growing faster than that. This is the first attempt of an attorney general to push back on that growth process.”
Franklin Zimring writes for TIME, Viewpoint, August 13, 2013
The most important reform to stop-and-frisk tactics will be reducing the hostility and indignity of the process. Most of the young men stopped on the street are not committing crimes. Only badly trained cops need to make street stops into contests of domination. Street policing can be firm but polite and respectful, and the very concentration of such efforts in those neighborhoods most impoverished for municipal respect makes a polite police force even more necessary.
Franklin Zimring quoted in Associated Press, July 6, 2013
Frank Zimring, a University of California-Berkeley law professor who has written widely on crime and politics, noted that crime rates appear to have leveled out after a two-decade decline. He called the recent GOP efforts “the test run as to whether there could be a resurgence in hard-right, punitive” crime politics. In California, the Republican Party has no statewide office-holders and less than one-third of the seats in the state legislature. In those circumstances, Zimring said, “you consult your greatest hits playbook from previous eras.”