Maybe this is something some folks might like to share or try in retail shops, schools, around bike racks, etc. to reduce "lawlessness". Might improve tips too! - JY
BACKGROUND SITUATION
- 1. National heroin abuse epidemic
- 2. INCREASED LAW ENFORCEMENT- Increased Drug and Sex Trafficking
- 3. ALTERNATIVE SENTENCING - Pre-Trial Drug Court Formed
- 4. ABOUT “the Nudge”
- 5. “EYES WATCHING”
National Heroin Abuse Epidemic
Rutland Vermont has adopted a
response to the local heroin epidemic which closely models the most effective
response in the nation as outlined in the Pew Charitable Trust Public Safety
Performance Project assessment of research.
July 1, 2015 – Public
Safety Performance Project (Pew Charitable Trust) – “Policymakers at all levels
of government are attempting to address a nationwide increase in heroin abuse.
Using the drug has tripled over the past decade paralleling widespread misuse
of prescription opioids, and overdose deaths have increased nearly threefold in
the past seven years.”
“Available research suggests
that the most effective response to the growth in heroin abuse is a combination
of law enforcement to curtail trafficking and limit the emergence of new
markets; alternative sentencing to divert nonviolent drug offenders from costly
incarceration; treatment to reduce dependency and recidivism; and prevention efforts
that help identify individuals at high risk for addiction.” (9)
VERMONT: INCREASED
LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INCREASED DRUG AND SEX TRAFFICKING
August 20, 2015 – “T** B** of Rutland
was arrested on August 20, as law enforcement executed a warrant obtained by
the Vermont Drug Task Force authorizing a search of Barnes’ residence. Police
found approximately 200 grams of heroin – nearly half a pound – at Barnes’
residence.”
September 15, 2015 – Twelve People
Charged With Heroin Trafficking After Statewide Multi-Jurisdictional
Investigations, FBI, Albany Division
“The
United States Attorney’s Office has charged 87 defendants with heroin-related
federal crimes in the first eight months of 2015, compared with 56 defendants
during the same period last year., an increase of nearly 60% Those increases
are directly attributable to the combined work of law enforcement officers and
prosecutors.” (1)
September
15, 2015 – “Three Drug Busts Yield A Dozen Arrests, Break Up Of Heroin ring
In Caldonia County” (11)
October 19, 2015 – Law Enforcement
Seizes 88 Pounds of Heroin in Vermont Bust – VT DIGGER
“The heroin has a street
value of ‘significantly more’ than $5 million and could have filled more than 1
million individual dosage bags…” (10)
November 2, 2015 - Vermont
launches new campaign to stop sex trafficking linked to drug trade
A new campaign in the Green
Mountains is asking for the public's help eradicating what U.S. Attorney Eric
Miller calls a problem "in the shadows" of Vermont's battle against
heroin.
Miller says that problem is
exploiting a person's addictions and vulnerabilities to force them into selling
sex or drugs for money. A host of organizations and law enforcement members
across the state want the public to know the problem is bigger than they
realize. (13)
December 13, 2015 – Indictments In Fatal Drug Deal show Criminal
Gang Activity In Vermont” – VTDIGGER –
A federal grand jury last week
indicted two New York City men on a charge of distributing a controlled
substance that resulted in a death. The victim was Gary Bashaw, 54, of South
Burlington. The fatal substance was fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate…. The
case provides a window into two troubling trends in the drug crisis in the
Northeast: The rise in popularity of fentanyl and the extent to which criminal
gangs from New York run operations in Vermont using a local network of drug
users and other accomplices, often women.”
“For every dealer our office
charges there’s a circle of people, charged and uncharged, who make that drug dealing
activity possible and profitable,” Cowles said. In a review of the largest drug
cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cowles found that women are
more likely than men to support drug dealers by providing housing, cars,
contact lists, transporting drugs and doing minor dealing. Often they are also
being trafficked for sex, she said.
Seventy-five percent of the
people who provided support to drug dealers are women. Sixty percent were under
30, some as young as teenagers, and almost all of them had addictions, most
prevalently to heroin, Cowles said. One-quarter of the women reported having
some kind of romantic relationship with their dealer.
DeLena said his experience has
led him to believe that young people have fewer inhibitions about injecting
drugs than ever before. At the same time, the shame and stigma that their
families feel in confronting addiction persists stubbornly even as public
figures, such as Gov. Peter Shumlin, increasingly frame it as a disease and public
health issue.
“The psychological fear isn’t
there for the user but it is there for the parents,” DeLena said. “They can’t talk
about it. That’s what needs to change.” (12)
ALTERNATIVE SENTENCING
– NEW PRE-TRIAL DRUG COURT PROGRAM
April
2015 – PRE-TRIAL DRUG COURT IN RUTLAND (5)
“A post-sentencing
drug program has been in place in Burlington since 2009, but the one in Rutland
is the only pre-trial program in Vermont and handles offenders from across the
state.”
“…it’s a cooperative effort of the U.S.
District Court, the U.S. attorney’s office, Probation and Parole, and Evergreen
Treatment Services. And those in the program are represented by Natasha Sen, a
Brandon attorney.”
“Those referred to
drug court are primarily low-level drug traffickers who have already pleaded
guilty to felony charges but have not yet been sentenced.”
“The way (U.S.
District Judge Geoffrey W.) Crawford explains it, this is a staged process. As
someone continues to succeed, there are fewer visits to drug court. And,
conversely, if someone continues to test positive for drugs, the first time
they might have to write an essay, the second time there is a frank discussion
and the third time might mean a weekend in jail.”
“…I always worry about
the ones that fall out but counselors say they’ve learned, they have gained
ground.” (Crawford said) (5)
ABOUT “THE NUDGE”
DESISTANCE – “In the field of criminology, desistance
is generally defined as the cessation of offending or other antisocial
behavior.” Oxford Bibliographies – Criminology - www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/.../obo-9780195396607-0056.xml
ABOUT THE “Nudge”
“In (their
book) Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass
Sunstein take a step toward realism about it (economics vs. psychology). ...
The authors start off by differentiating “Econs” from “Humans”. The former are
efficient calculators imagined in economic theory, able to weigh multiple
options, forecast all the consequences of each, and choose rationally. The
latter are ordinary people… who operate by rules of thumb that often lead them
astray… prone to generalize, biased in favor of the status quo, more concerned
to avoid loss than make gains, among other shortcomings.” …A Nudge as they conceive it, means some
change in the “choice architecture” surrounding personal decisions that will
cause Humans to choose differently and better, even though an Econ would be
unswayed.” (3)
2013 - NUDGE PRESENTED AT NATIONAL CRIMINOLOGY CONFERENCE
John H. Laub, Department of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, University of Maryland; Jim Bueermann, Police Foundation presented The Nudge at the 2013 xx
The top 5 reasons to Nudge:
(1) Helps control crime before it occurs (2) Enhances public confidence in
policing (3) Advances community policing (4) Healthier for cops (5) Focuses on
the “spirituality” of policing. (4)
WATCHING EYES EFFECT
From The Abstract:
“Displaying images of eyes causes people to behave more pro-socially in a
variety of contexts. …Our data therefore
support the hypothesis that images of eyes induce more pro-social behavior,
independent of local norms. This finding has positive implications for the
application of eye images in combating anti-social behavior.”
“A good reputation
increases the likelihood of being favoured by others for inclusion in future
mutually-beneficial interactions. Being observed increases the reputational
consequences of an action, hence, people are psychologically sensitive to
whether they are observed or not, and will always increase their level of
pro-sociality when observed over their level when not observed. Artificial
watching eyes exploit this sensitivity.” (8)
SURVEILLIANCE EFFECT
THE OBSERVER EFFECT
“Human behavior is strongly influenced by the presence of
others. Obtaining a good reputation or avoiding a bad one is a powerful
incentive for a plethora of human actions. Theoretical considerations suggest
that reputation may be a key mediator of altruistic behavior that are uniquely
human.” (6)
WATCHING EYES WORK AND BUILD PRO-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
“…we believe that images of eyes motivate cooperative
behavior because they induce a perception in participants of being watched.
…the human perceptual system contains neurons that respond selectively to
stimuli involving faces and eyes (Emery 2000, Haxby et al 2000), and it is
therefore possible that the images exert an automatic unconscious effect on the
participants’ perception that they were being watched. Our results therefore
support the hypothesis that reputational concerns may be extremely powerful in
motivating cooperative behavior.”
“Even if very weak, subconscious cues, such as the
photocopied eyes used in this experiment, can strongly enhance cooperation, it
is quite possible that … the self-interested motive of reputation may be
sufficient to explain cooperation in the absence of direct return.” (7)
AUTOMATIC, UNCONSCIOUS “NUDGE” BECOME“MY CHOICE” AND BUILD
SELF ESTEEM
“The experience of self-agency,
that is, the feeling that one causes one’s own actions and their out comes –
has an intimate relationship with self-awareness and constitutes an important
building block for our concept of free choice and our belief that our behavior
is governed by “consciousness” or some other type of inner agent, such as “the
will” or “the self. How then can we have much of our behavior unfold outside
conscious awareness if we have these pervasive agency experiences?” (2) P.
134-135
Research shows that our
intended outcome draws the non-conscious prompt, prime or nudge into a
personal narrative where we feel we are in control of the behavior even though
a non-conscious element may have been a trigger.
The Sense of Agency In Self Regulation,
---------------
(2) “Nonconscious Self Regulation or the Automatic Pilot of
Human Behavior”, Esther K. Papies, Henk Aarts, p. 125 – 142
(1) September 15,
2015 – Twelve People Charged With Heroin Trafficking After Statewide
Multi-Jurisdictional Investigations, FBI, Albany Division
(3) “Nudge: Improving
Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness”, Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein,
Yale University Press, 2009; book review by Lawrence M. Mead, Claremont Review
of Books, pg. 18
(4) Presentation to National Conference on Law Enforcement,
2013 - THE IDEA OF THE NUDGE, John H.
Laub, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland;
Jim Bueermann, Police Foundation
(5) April 26, 2015 – “Vermont’s New Drug Court Offers
Options to Jail”, RUTLAND HERALD, Kathy Phalen Tomaselli, Staff Writer –
(6) “The Social Neuroscience of Reputation”, NEUROSCIENCE
RESEARCH, Volume 72, Issue 4, April 2012, Pages 283-288
(7) “Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in real-world
setting”, Melissa Bateson, Daniel Nettle, Gilbert Roberts, BIOLOGY LETTERS,
September 22, 2006, Volume 2 Issue 3
(8) “Do Images Of Watching Eyes Induce Behaviour That Is
More Pro-Social or More Normative?”, Melissa Bateson, Luke Callow, Jessica R.
Holmes, Maximillian l. Redmond roche, David Nettle, PLOS ONE, December 5, 2013
(9) “Public Safety Aspects of the Heroin Abuse Epidemic”,
July 1, 2015, Public Safety Performance Project, Pew Charitable Trusts /
Research Analysis.
(10) “Law Enforcement Seizes 88
Pounds of Heroin in Vermont Bust”, VT DIGGER,
October 19, 2015
(11) “Three Drug Busts Yield A
Dozen Arrests, Break Up Of Heroin ring In Caldonia County”, vt digger,
September 15, 2015
(12) “Indictments In Fatal Drug Deal show Criminal Gang
Activity In Vermont” – VTDIGGER –
(13) WCAX – “Vermont
launches new campaign to stop sex trafficking linked to drug trade “ http://www.wcax.com/story/30415502/vermont-launches-new-campaign-to-stop-sex-trafficking-linked-to-drug-trade
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