Chase Woodruff's masterpiece of starting with advocacy and then writing "news" around it. Get involved. Learn how to effectively (and assertively but not aggressively) speak up and speak out.

Progressive Reporter Chase Woodruff's masterpiece of starting with his advocacy on crime and criminal justice, and then writing "news" around it.

Mr. Woodruff is a reporter for Colorado Newsline, an organization which bills itself on its About webpage (linked first below) as "... a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent source of online news. It launched in July 2020. It provides fair and accurate reporting on politics, policy and other stories of interest to Colorado readers."

HIs recent article, linked second below, flared up for a hot minute on a few journalists' social media feeds, and I think this was largely due to the fact that Mr. Woodruff states in his article that crime rates have been falling lately and this is not being covered by the media because, to use a cliche, "if it bleeds, it leads".

Let's put aside the question of whether crime rates are or are not falling, and whether they are doing so for all crimes or for some.  That is not the point I want to debate here and, as Mr. Woodruff himself notes, "no measure of crime is perfect".

I want to focus on something further down in the article and largely ignored on journalism social media.  It is the claim by Mr. Woodruff that crime is largely due to societal factors (such as COVID) and that harsher penalties for crimes, a favorite of those unevolved Republican dastards, have little to no effect on crime rates.

This grossly oversimplified understanding of a complex issue finds purchase in many progressive circles, and is expounded upon at length here by Mr. Woodruff in a masterpiece of unselfconscious editorializing not listed as opinion writing.  

I don't have space or time to go point by point through the article and list every instance, but I would like to offer a few examples by way of illustrating what I mean.

Under a link labeled as an "exhaustive body" of research you will find one (yes, one) metastudy about crime trends.  I linked to that study third below if you would like to read through it.  Quick note:  Mr. Woodruff's link goes to an article that you'd need a subscription to read, so I found the same paper at another outlet so you could read it in its entirety.  That is the link.

Let's start simple and start at the beginning.  When you talk about reducing the crime rate, are you talking about now or in the future?  This is typified in what this "exhaustive body" actually purports to measure.  

Take a look at screenshot 1 which highlights the abstract of the paper.  I boxed the relevant part and then highlighted what I mean.  The paper's authors seem to mostly be discussing whether or not jail terms affect rates of reoffending.  

Mr. Woodruff, by contrast seems to be talking about rates of crime.  Quoting his piece (the very one that includes the link to the paper I mention just above) "But an exhaustive body of criminological research has shown there's no evidence that harsher punishments are effective in REDUCING CRIME RATES ... [emphasis mine]" 

Not to be tedious, but if we were to lock up someone now for, say, 10 years for stealing cars, I think it's reasonable to say he might reoffend when out on parole in 6 years, but we can also reasonably say that we'll have less theft for the 6 years he's in jail (something you'd have a harder time claiming if he was on probation).   

Digging further into the study,  I want to point you a couple more examples.  Screenshots 2 and 3 are from the same report, and I listed their page numbers at the top of the screenshot along with some highlighting.

Looking at both, I hope that you take away the point the paper's authors are hinting at:  that there is a whole lot going on when you try to look at crime, deterrence, and reoffending rates.  Turning back to Mr. Woodruff's article, you might not get that same impression where the focus is more on a " ...wide variety of long-term social and economic factors, like poverty, population density and even environmental risks."  In other words, all the progressive check boxes.

Reality doesn't seem to want to confine itself to said check boxes, however.  Recidivism is complicated by age, by gender.  Deterring future crime is a function of policy, albeit perhaps more a function of the credibility of the threat of punishment than the severity of it.**   

What you see here in Mr. Woodruff's piece is an example of starting from a proposition and then bolstering that with things he's sees as relevant (albeit perhaps selectively picked-through and not thoroughly examined).

This feels to me the equivalent of having a discussion with someone who has strong opinions but who hasn't taken the time to thoroughly examine an issue.  Someone who didn't take the time to consider (and actively try to test and refute) their own ideas.  

It feels like the friend who reads something online and sees that the idea is linked to an academic study, but they don't bother to delve fully into the study, they fob off the top line of the thing that used the study as a reference.

As such, this is not what I would term a "fair and accurate" analysis of this issue.  It's opinion, and not a considered one.  

**For more on that check out the link to a report on the HOPE program out of Hawaii and success there on parole violations when offenders knew a punishment would follow violation (in lieu of a talking-to).

https://coloradonewsline.com/about/

https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/03/27/colorado-crime-rates-falling/

https://perma.cc/4ATJ-KY7Y

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/hopeful-approach-understanding-implications-hope-program

Related:

The post above details an op ed masquerading as analysis (and, frankly, not a workmanlike example at that).

I wanted to present the below for a couple reasons.

--It's just interesting.

--It's much better written, more thorough, and a better example (not perfect but better) of what an analysis would be.  It's much closer to capturing the reality about our world:  it's complicated.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/legislature/are-laws-cracking-down-on-car-theft-responsible-for-downward-trend-in-colorado/article_058c8d1a-d0e7-11ee-9597-6b97f5e48fd2.html

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Get involved.  Learn how to effectively (and assertively but not aggressively) speak up and speak out for your values

Change in this state will not come by wishing for it.  Change comes by doing something.

And I think this is sometimes where people get confused and/or where they leave the conversation.  That's a shame, because doing something needn't mean a full time job.

Doing something doesn't require you to be perfect, nor does it require the perfect moment to act.  

It doesn't require a full time commitment.  

It is something that EVERY SINGLE ONE of us can work for.  Many hands make for light work.

If I have convinced you, or at least piqued your interest, let me try to capitalize on that by pointing you to two tangible, actual things you can do.  

Kathleen Chandler at Independence Institute offers different trainings and has two coming up.

The first I want to mention is on speaking up.  Let me excerpt the attached flyer (first link below)

"Be courageous in the face of cancel culture! Gather with othersto learn how to sharpen your communication skills and use yourvoice to stand up for what you believe in. Find out how to makepersuasive arguments when in conversation with someone with adiffering viewpoint. Learn new skills, get a chance to try them out,and gain new insights on how best to employ them."

This is a good class to take if you have wanted to start standing up for your values.  Think about that time you've been in a book club and have heard someone railing about COVID or guns or what have you.  If you have thought that you'd like to offer some counterpoint but don't have the words or confidence, this is a great class to take.  

If you have time and want to be more involved, the second class (flyer linked second) details how to get involved in your local (city/county) politics.  This training covers how to get involved locally so you can start to push back on some of the bad policy we've seen in Colorado lately.  I have personally done this class and found it very much worth the time.  

Note:  the first class is in-person and in Denver while the second can be done remotely.  

If you have questions on either, contact Mrs. Chandler at the info below.  You can also find more and register at the local government website linked at bottom.  


Kathleen Chandler
kathleen@i2i.org
720-621-3602


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LfRSvYBoLW43qDlpWMB2QzQZe1EZDL4Q/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1td7EHRQj-pTs7SiwyU0F9LWnlcqLiQDl/view?usp=sharing

https://i2i.org/local-gov/