ArcaMax

January 2020 ushered in a unique new law in New York state that abolished cash bail for defendants arrested for nonviolent crimes. Activists in the bail reform movement called it landmark legislation that stops judges from locking up the poor while they await trial simply because they can't afford bail.

Others, many in law enforcement, are ...Read more

This column might win me no fans on college campuses, but there is something that must be said.

Universities across the country are unconstitutionally punishing those accused of sex-based misconduct with no regard to the civil rights guaranteed of due process. They say they are acting lawfully under the so-called Title IX law of 1972. But the ...Read more

It has never been easier to be an undetected serial killer in the United States.

That's the opinion of two experts in the field of collecting murder data in America. And both men say that as you read this, there are thousands of active serial killers roaming the U.S. Some operate in big cities; others prefer the wide-open spaces of rural ...Read more

This will not start out as a good year for professor Nick Flor of the University of New Mexico. Beginning Jan. 1, he will be suspended from this tenured position, without pay, for a full year. He is not allowed to get another full-time job; the multimillions of dollars in grants he has received will dry up; and his ability to win new grants will...Read more

As we near the end of this decade, it is a good time to reflect on where we stand at this moment in history. It's not really standard cheerful holiday fare, but here goes.

Half the country hates or doesn't want the duly elected president. The other half likes or tolerates him.

The two main political parties remain locked in a pathetic, never-...Read more

"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime." -- Aristotle

Aristotle had a point, but there are many factors that contribute to crime. Experts have told us about them for a long time. Poverty; unemployment; lack of education or adequate housing; the breakdown of the two-parent family; mental illness; drug abuse; and sexual exploitation of ...Read more

Among the most powerful people in the justice system are prosecutors and the judges to whom they present their cases. The way our system is set up, judges must rely on whatever facts a prosecutor puts forth inside their courtroom.

It is the prosecutor who weighs the evidence police have gathered and then decides who is charged with a crime. ...Read more

There are some citizens who, in this season of Thanksgiving, believe America is going to hell in a handbasket. I am not one of them.

From my perch in the world of crime and justice, I find more than 686,000 reasons to be thankful. That's the number of full-time law enforcement officers in the United States: 686,665 sworn officers, to quote the ...Read more

What do you think of when you hear the word "whistleblower"? Perhaps "tattletale" or "snitch" pop into your mind. Maybe the word conjures up the image of a person who, at great personal risk, comes forward to reveal illicit activity the public needs to know. Either way, as you have likely noticed, the term whistleblower has been in the news a ...Read more

Here's a word from the field of crime I'm betting you've never heard before: hybristophilia. It's pronounced HIGH-briss-toe-feel-ee-uh, and it's such an obscure word some dictionaries don't even include it -- yet.

Expert criminologists and mental health professionals define hybristophilia in a scientific way: a syndrome in which sexual arousal ...Read more

Rep. Katie Hill didn't have to resign, but she did. She had not been found guilty of sexual impropriety, although the House Ethics Committee had launched a formal investigation into whether the married California representative had engaged in an affair with a congressional staffer.

Hill denied the affair with her male staff member, but after ...Read more

Remember the name Ed Stack. As the CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, a chain of 727 stores nationwide, he has shown more leadership in trying to solve the nation's gun violence problem than all the politicians in Washington combined. Stack, 65, isn't just talking the talk, he's walking the walk down the path of citizen involvement -- even though it ...Read more

As odd as it might seem, suicide used to be against the law in the United States. How in the world could you punish a dead person for taking that final, fatal act? Still, some states continue to have laws on the books labeling attempted suicide as a criminal act, although prosecutions have been rare.

The latest statistics show more than 47,000 ...Read more