Franklin Zimring

Jeanne Woodford, Franklin Zimring Fault Schwarzenegger’s Prison Policies

The Associated Press, May 24, 2011 by Don Thompson
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/may/24/schwarzenegger-had-mixed-record-on-prison/?print=1

“My frustration was that the governor just didn’t want to address sentencing reform or implement the kind of policies that made sense,” said Jeanne Woodford, who briefly served as Schwarzenegger’s corrections secretary in 2006 before abruptly resigning. “(By the end), he came to see that criminal justice reform was absolutely crucial.”

“In the first two years you have reform appointments made, you have moderation in rhetoric and you have some notion of trying to reintroduce reform,” said Frank Zimring, a University of California, Berkeley law professor who has studied California prisons for nearly 30 years. “Everyone was waiting for the reform agenda to get specific, and it didn’t…. The governor’s political capital never got invested in that reform.”

Franklin Zimring Says Drop in Crime Puzzling

The New York Times, May 23, 2011 by Richard A. Oppel Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24crime.html?scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt

For those who believed that higher incarceration rates inevitably led to less crime, “this would also be the last time to expect a crime decline,” he said. “The last three years have been a contrarian’s delight—just when you expect the bananas to hit the fan,” said Mr. Zimring…. But he said there was no way to know why—at least not yet.

Franklin Zimring Criticizes Sex Offender Law

Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2011 by Victoria Kim and Sarah Peters
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sex-offender-ban-20110406,0,2962934.story

Franklin Zimring, a UC Berkeley law professor, said the law was overly broad and misdirected…. “It’s trying to solve a problem nobody knows exists,” he said, adding that laws imposing restrictions on sex offenders are snowballing because they are politically popular. “Who’s going to lose votes being against child molestation?” he said.

Franklin Zimring, Justin McCrary Examine Crime Stats

The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 6, 2011 by Lauren Sieben
http://chronicle.com/article/5-Minutes-With-Where-More/126612/

Mr. Ludwig is a gun-policy researcher and an editor, along with Philip J. Cook, of Duke University, and Justin McCrary, of the University of California at Berkeley, of Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.

Frank Zimring is a law professor at Berkeley who wrote a terrific book in the late 90s where he points out that if you look at cities in the United Kingdom and you look at cities in the United States, the overall levels of fights and robberies and other crimes aren’t very different.

Franklin Zimring Analyzes Drop in NYC Crime Rate

The New York Times, February 3, 2011 by Al Baker
http://nyti.ms/hnYFN2

As his paper says, one surprise from the city’s experience is that “the city made giant strides toward solving its crime problem without either winning its war on illicit drug use or massive increases in incarceration.”

“So,” it continues, “the great success in this city is a challenge to the two dominant assumptions of crime control policy in modern America.”

Franklin Zimring Thinks It’s Premature to Predict Bay Area Crime Rate

San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2011 by Heather Knight
http://bit.ly/edkLkv

Though city officials are taking note of the number of homicides, it’s far too early in the year to worry, according to Franklin Zimring…. “It’s the height of hysteria to start making long-range predictions or having long-range anxieties when last year’s (five)… homicides are this year’s eight homicides,” he said.

Franklin Zimring Corroborates NYPD Crime Reports

The Wall Street Journal, NY Crime blog, January 25, 2011 by Sean Gardiner
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/01/25/checking-the-stats-how-to-verify-nypd-data/

Zimring said his research found that over the past 20 years, New York City’s crime rate reduction is twice the national average and has lasted twice as long. And what is especially impressive about that crime drop is that since 1990 the number of people police locked up from New York City has declined by 28% while nationally the incarceration figure has gone up 65%.

Franklin Zimring Says Crime Drop Unexpected

-San Jose Mercury News, January 1, 2011 by Sean Webby and Mark Gomez
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_16983897?nclick_check=1

The homicide rate in San Jose is “as low as American big cities ever go,” Zimring noted. “More important, it’s way down during a year when nobody had any reason to expect that.

-United Press International, January 2, 2011
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/01/02/Murder-rate-falls-in-Chicago/UPI-20571293977546/

Chicago’s murder rate for 2010 was the lowest in 45 years, with 435 recorded homicides…. “That is an astonishing and big drop,” said Franklin Zimring.