The Restless Sleep:

New York Magazine Article

New York Magazine has an article about the NYPD's Cold Case Squad this week called Stiffed: How the NYPD’s elite Cold Case Squad, which investigates long-unsolved crimes, is falling victim to a slow bureaucratic death, by Janelle Nanos.

Information

This is a picture of the front of the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library, where you no longer have to go to get certain information (although it's a beautiful place, and you might want to go there anyway). I guess I'm old enough that it still amazes me how much information is available online.

Crime reports are available everywhere. For instance, every state has an attorney general, and a number of police departments, and they are publishing information online all the time. I just googled Maryland and got this:

Maryland State Police. The link to cold cases is on the left.
Maryland Attorney General publications.

But there are endless reports out there. They are useful for the public, they are useful for law enforcement to educate themselves about their field. This is just the tiniest sample.

United States Department of Justice publications.
Bureau of Justice statistics publications.
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services publications.
The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services also publishes information about their DNA databank. This is interesting to look at to see how many DNA samples are being collected and how many hits they are getting from those samples.

Of course there is still a vast amount of valuable information available in libraries. I just found that homicide reports for 1893-1947 for the New Orlean Police Department are in the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. They also have the witnesses statements.

R.I.P. John Reilly

I just read that retired Detective 1st Grade John Reilly died on October 16th. Reilly worked for the NYPD from 1955 - 1974. I never met him, we only emailed, but he helped me a lot with New York Police Department history when I was writing The Restless Sleep. The last time we emailed he told me that he was working on a book about old Police Department station houses. I don't have a picture of him so I'm putting up one of the pictures from his collection. This is of the site of original 9th Precinct, 79 1st Avenue, around 1939. I got it from Police NY where there are many other photographs from his collection.

I learned from retired sergeant Mike Bosak's daily email that Reilly was the one who worked with Boask researching every member of the Police Department who ever died in the line of duty so that they could be added to the memorial wall at Battery Park.

As an amateur historian, and mostly as a fellow human being who appreciates the effort to make sure that people and their contributions to the world are not forgotten, thank you for your service and your contributions, John Reilly. And may you rest in peace.

Hell Hath No Fury Myth

Once again I heard the phrase, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." In reality, men seem to have a harder time handling rejection. Although there are indications that homicide by strangers is increasing and homicide by intimates is decreasing, (why, I wonder? What does it mean?) here are the facts.

From the U.S. Department of Justice/Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004 (the most recent they had):

Percent of homicide victims by Intimate:
Male, 5.3%. Female. 30.1%.

Percent of homicide victims by Spouse:
Male, 3.2. Female, 18.4.

Percent of homicide victims by Ex-spouse:
Male, 0.2. Female, 1.4.

Percent of homicide victims by Boyfriend/Girlfriend:
Male, 1.9, Female, 10.3.

From the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, 2005:

Total murder victims: 14,860
Husband: 135
Wife: 594

Actually, we don't know the motivation for these murders, whether it was rejection or some other issue. All we can say really, is that men get murderously furious more often than women. I wonder if there is data by gender for restraining orders? That might provide a better indication about which gender has more of a problem accepting a break-up.

Crime in the United States

The FBI has something called the Uniform Crime Reporting Program which publishes a report every year called Crime in the United States. Law enforcement agencies submit data about crime in their area, the FBI compiles it, and from this we know, for instance, that 16,692 persons were murdered last year and overall, 78.7% were male, 48.7% of the victims were white, 48.6% of the victims were black, and about the murderers themselves, where known, 89.9% were males, and 52.6% were black.

That is only the tiniest fraction of the information contained in these reports. They are an invaluable resource, and the FBI has been producing them since 1930.

Psychics

Two areas I'm researching crossed the other morning. I read an article about how police in Durham, NC consulted a psychic in a cold case. I happen to be working on a book about the former Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, (Duke is in Durham, NC). Occasionally families of murder victims ask the police to use psychics, and from what I can tell, people in law enforcement will grant this request, but mostly as a kindness, and because they are reluctant to remove any avenue that gives the family hope. Psychics, they say, tend to give them the same vague information, which is not helpful, ie, "I see a body of water." (Water is always involved, a river, lake or pond.)

The picture here is of a boy who went missing in California in the 1960's. Mistaking the Duke scientists for psychics, the families of missing children would sometimes write them asking for help, or to ask their opinion about a specific psychic. The people at the lab tended to be skeptical about psychics. The ones they found who were at least sincere, could not control their abilities to the extent that they could assist law enforcement. They could not dictate when information came to them. So, as gently as possible, the people at the Duke Lab would discourage families like this boy's, from using, and especially paying, psychics.

Clearance Rates Up?

Are NYPD homicide clearance rates headed back up? According to an August 28th article in The Telematics Journal, which I am not familiar with, “Informatica Corporation today announced that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has successfully implemented enterprise data integration technology from Informatica to help power its highly successful Real Time Crime Center. Credited with helping detectives solve 74 percent of New York City's homicides in 2005, the Real Time Crime Center delivers up-to-the-minute information regarding emerging crime patterns, potential suspects, and a real-time view of police resources and their availability throughout the city.”

That’s a huge improvement, if true. If they are really disseminating a lot more information to a lot more people and they’re doing it quickly, it’s completely plausible that clearance rates would improve. But that’s a pretty big leap. If it’s true, the NYPD and those who helped them deserve a big, big, big congratulations, but I’m going to try to get confirmation. Don’t mean to be all doubtful, but I would like to be sure and that statement came from Informatica and not the police department. Usually by this time the NYPD would have about half the homicides for 2005 solved, then more would be solved over the next year or two.