Southwest PA Self-defense Network Blog

  Our justice system is set up so there are two options  - restitution where the criminal and the victim agree on some standard of making it right and state imposed punishment or rehabilitation.  I wish to focus on the later. Although it sees like a nice idea, let's toss out the idea of rehabilitation. It doesn't happen and only naive, pollyannaish views believe that it does. So let's focus on punishment.  We have set up in our country a system of laws where, if someone does something there is a prescribe outcome of punishment, whether it be jail time or fines, which if unpaid, eventually lead to jail time.   At some point in time, law makers have prescribed those jail times...two days, a month, a year, 10 years, 25 to life, life without parole, etc.   Sometimes these times are set in the legal terms.. " a misdemeanor punishable by not less that X days in jail " and sometimes the judge can set those terms.  And some point in time we have set ...

 In Context: Understanding Police Killings of Unarmed Civilians by Nick Selby, Ben Singleton, Ed Flosi 437 pages c2016 This book was an interesting but tough read. Not because of gruesome details but statistics and more statistics !  The book was based on a research project of StreetCred Software - The StreetCred Police Killings In Conext (PKIC) for incidents in 2015.  They examined 153 cases that fit the parameters of unarmed civilians killed by police or that died while in police custody.  The study collected information and then broke down all kinds of demographics such as age, race, were narcotics involved, what was the prior information, what did the officers do, etc.  They spent a fair amount of time explaining what criteria they used to include or exclude and what sources they pulled from. The last section of the book they analyzed all 153 cases broken down by month, an amazing catalog.  The book did not present an agenda just a careful analysis of w...