Free Republic

Allyn Walker, a former professor at Old Dominion University who identifies as non-binary, resigned last month following criticism stemming from Walker’s views on pedophilia. Walker argued that pedophiles should be destigmatized by identifying them as “minor-attracted persons” (“MAPs”) rather than the pejorative term “pedophile,” because attraction to children is a sexual orientation and not immoral.The pretense is that pedophiles are more likely to seek treatment if their sexual proclivities are destigmatized. Instead of relying on empirical evidence to determine the reasons for those proclivities or strategies that will keep children safe, Walker relies on queer theoretical tools to argue that...

“White privilege” conveys the idea that white people have impunity. They can abuse, even kill, people of color without consequence. Yet, it is white officer Chauvin who is in jail charged with the murder of black George Floyd, while the two black Maryland teenagers who murdered 59-year old white John Weed at the county fair for not giving them a dollar were sentenced by white female judge Julie Stevenson Solt to “anger management training” and “behavior modification” but otherwise unpunished. Here is the report—https://www.revolver.news/2020/08/black-teens-kill-white-man-county-fair/ . The story was covered locally (for example, https://aminerdetail.com/outrage-over-frederick-fair-murder-sentencing/ ) but kept out of national news...

Dr. Williams is a well known conservative economist and longtime John Olin Chair faculty at George Mason University in eastern Virginia, author of 12 books and syndicated columnist. In the past, he has been substitute host on the Rush Limbaugh radio program. He is almost like family to me, and I have benefited from his essays and books over the years. This past week, I saw and read his essay on disparities in crime rates among races that was picked up by Military in its October 2019 issue. What got Dr. Williams going was the article by Matthew DeLisi of...

The history of academic criminology is one of grand pronouncements that don’t often prove out in the real world. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, criminologists demanded that public policy attack the “root causes” of crime, such as poverty and racism. Without solving these problems, they argued, we could not expect to fight crime effectively. On this thinking, billions of taxpayer dollars poured into ambitious social programs—yet crime went up, not down. In the 1970s and 1980s and into the 1990s, as crime rates continued to spike, criminologists proceeded to tell us that the police could do little to...

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to be guilty of conveying a death-threat that results in a murder is itself a capital offense.Let's reverse that principle: Any citizen should be granted the same immunity as sworn officers, who justifiably uses lethal force to defend a Law Enforcement Officer himself suffering the threat of lethal force in the performance of his duty.

Dear CRM 381 Students: Welcome back! I just wanted to write and let you know that the syllabus is up and running on the departmental web page. I have been instructed to direct you to the link rather than distribute individual copies. The university needs to save money on paper so the LGBTQIA Office can continue to offer orgasm awareness seminars and so the Women's Resource Center can continue to promote abortion. Remember kids, the more trees we save, the more babies we can kill! In addition to going over the syllabus on day one, I plan to introduce each...

Jobs have fled, lawbreaking hasn’t risen—and criminologists are scratching their heads.During the seventies and eighties, scarcely any newspaper story about rising crime failed to mention that it was strongly linked to unemployment and poverty. The argument was straightforward: if less legitimate work was available, more illegal work would take place. Certain scholars agreed. Economist Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, a Nobel laureate, developed a powerful theory that crime was rational—that a person will commit crime if the expected utility exceeds that of using his time and other resources in pursuit of alternative activities, such as leisure or legitimate...

A movie starring Anthony Hopkins explores exorcism. The man who wrote the book behind the film talks about what chasing the devil really entails. Matt Baglio’s curiosity was piqued. An exorcism course at a Vatican-affiliated university in Rome? It was an unusual topic. As an American journalist living in the Eternal City, he thought it might make for an interesting article; as a non-practicing Catholic at the time, he approached it with some skepticism. Taught by exorcists and experts in theology, satanic cults, criminology and psychology, the course he took challenged many of his assumptions. But what really intrigued him...

The new TSA airport scanners have justifiably garnered a lot of attention and criticism. Frankly, the entire scheme is nothing more than a cheap contrivance to give the impression that Democrats care deeply about national security. Insofar as Democrats actually care about national security, it could not be more obvious that it is a mere afterthought to their main agenda of turning America into a tawdry imitation of socialist Europe. It is only an uninterested administration that views national security as a perfunctory and unserious task that, as a response to radical Islamic plane hijackers, would conceive of fondling every...

Hopewell police said today they are still working on extraditing a Las Vegas man who has been accused in the 1964 strangling of his wife. Hopewell Police Chief Steven Martin told reporters that new witness information came forward, allowing authorities to bring the first-degree murder indictment against Donald James Long in the death of Naomi Long. Martin, however, declined to elaborate on the new information. Several members of Naomi Long's family were present at the news conference and thanked Hopewell police and law enforcement for their work on the case. Butch Fulcher, a brother of the victim, said the new...

After struggling for years to treat young criminals in razor wire-ringed institutions, states across the country are quietly shuttering dozens of reformatories amid plunging juvenile arrests, softer treatment policies and bleak budgets. In Ohio, the number of juvenile offenders has plummeted by nearly half over the last two years, pushing the state to close three facilities. California's closures include a youth institution near Los Angeles that operated for nearly 115 years. And one in Texas will finally go quiet after getting its start as a World War II-era training base. The closures have juvenile advocates cheering. "I can tell you...

Journal removes paper from website after company threatens legal action. Lie detection — an emotional issue. The Swedish Research Council is wading into an escalating row over academic freedom after a peer-reviewed journal removed a published paper — penned by two Swedish academics — from its website following a threat of legal action from the company whose technology the research criticized.The controversial paper1, entitled 'Charlatanry in forensic speech science: a problem to be taken seriously', was first published in the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law in December 2007. In it, speech scientists Francisco Lacerda of Stockholm University...

But family environment can tip the balance for better or worseTALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Birds of a feather flock together, according to the old adage, and adolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers, according to a landmark study led by Florida State University criminologist Kevin M. Beaver. "This research is groundbreaking because it shows that the propensity in some adolescents to affiliate with delinquent peers is tied up in the genome," said Beaver, an assistant professor in the FSU College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Criminological research...

It's another bit of bad luck for a Marine who lost an arm and a leg in Iraq. Lance Corporal Mark Beyers was mugged and robbed outside a restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last month. The Marine from western New York was dining out with his wife, Denise, while finishing up rehabilitation at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As they left the restaurant, five men approached them and asked for a cigarette. Denise Beyers tells The Buffalo News they gave the men a cigarette -- but the men grabbed her purse, kicked her and knocked the couple to the ground....

Some women still party as if invulnerable It's midnight at Pravda, a trendy Manhattan bar where graduate students from nearby New York University are jammed into leather booths. A group chants, ''Another vodka! Another vodka!" A young woman named Jovana is in the corner, kissing a young man she met hours earlier. Days after the brutal rape and murder of a 24-year-old graduate student from Boston who had been drinking at a bar two blocks away, the scene is notable for an absence of fear. ''It happens here," Barbara Klen, a 24-year-old NYU student, said of the slaying. ''It happens...

CONSULTANTS have been appointed to draw up plans to build the world's first "crime campus" in the west of Scotland, The Scotsman can reveal. Four brownfield sites in Strathclyde are understood to have been identified as a potential home for the groundbreaking campus, which would pull together law enforcement organisations such as the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency (SDEA), the National Crime Intelligence Service and Crown prosecutors. Property consultants Drivers Jonas will report to the Scottish Executive next month on various options on the location and scale of the facility, which was initially priced at £40 million, although the final cost...

Television shows such as CSI dramatize the work of forensic investigators and glamorize their high-tech toys that help catch criminals. Now real-life criminologists might soon be adding a new weapon to their crime-fighting arsenal: a visualization technique for spotting fingerprints that uses x-ray vision. Results of early tests of the novel approach will be unveiled this week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego. In the standard approach to lifting fingerprints from a crime scene, known as contrast enhancement, a sample is treated with a substance--either vapor, liquid or powder--that adds color to a...

<p>During Riley's presentation, another agent will dash into the room, pretend to rob him of his wallet, and flee. Riley then asks the students to recall something about the suspect. Sometimes they can't even agree on whether the robber was white or black.</p>