Preventing crime in free society

By John M. CRISP

Tribune News Service

The 2002 film “Minority Report” postulates a future in which a special police unit can detect crimes before they occur and thereby both prevent the crime and punish its perpetrator. Certainly preventing crimes is better than pursuing, prosecuting and punishing criminals, but two recent, related news stories illustrate how difficult this is in a free culture like ours.

Gilberto Valle, a former New York City police officer, is the “Cannibal Cop.” In March 2013, he was convicted of conspiring with others in Internet chat rooms to kidnap, torture, rape, cook and eat young women, including his wife.

His lawyer contended that her client never intended to carry out his perverse fantasies, that the crimes were only imagined inside of Valle’s bizarre mind. She said, “These are thoughts, very ugly thoughts, and we don’t prosecute people for their thoughts.”

The jury didn’t see it that way. Nevertheless, a year later a judge overturned the guilty verdict, citing insufficient evidence that Valle’s chat room activities were anything other than “fantasy role play.” Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit affirmed the judge’s opinion by a 2-1 vote.

It’s complicated. Had Valle actually committed any of the gruesome crimes that he fantasized, his online activities would have been damning evidence against him, an after-the-fact answer to the question, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

On the other hand, the case of the Cannibal Cop doesn’t entirely settle this basic question of the Internet age (as expressed by the New York Times): “When does a plot discussed in Internet chat rooms cross the line into actual criminality?”

Privacy

Nevertheless, I’m happy to live in a culture that values the privacy of each citizen’s mind, no matter how gruesome and unseemly, that we spend time and energy addressing questions like these.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, crime prevention is taking an only slightly less-complicated tack. On Nov. 26, the city council voted to authorize the city attorney to consider a proposal to collect license plate numbers of cars seen in areas known for prostitution and to send the car owners Dear “John” letters.

According to an Associated Press report, similar letters used elsewhere are typically written in a “cordial tone,” reminding recipients that prostitution isn’t a “victimless crime,” nor is it “an act between two consenting adults.”

I’ll decline to take a position on these two efforts to prevent crimes before they happen, except to note the complexity, controversy and tinge of sanctimony embodied in both.

And to wonder, if we want to prevent crime, why we don’t go for the lower-hanging fruit.

For example, the notion that more-educated citizens are much less likely to wind up in prison is thoroughly intuitive. It’s also borne out by study after study. The relationship between education and crime can be expressed in a number of ways, but here’s an example from The American Prospect:

In 2008, Texas spent $175 million to imprison residents from just 10 neighborhoods in Houston. Of the six Houston schools evaluated “lower-performing,” five are in the neighborhoods with the highest rates of incarceration. Of the 12 higher-performing schools, eight are in the lowest-incarceration neighborhoods.

Yet while Texas spends more than $21,000 per year to keep an inmate incarcerated, it spends around $9,500 to educate each student. Other examples abound.

John M. Crisp, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.