Police officers - How many arrestees have priors?
 

Or are just general scumbags? Gang affiliants, meth usage, etc..

Nine times out of Ten?

If I had to guess I'd say 9/10 of my arrests have multiple (15+) prior arrests. Convictions on the other hand is a different story.

I'm kinda with HP911. Probably 3/4 of my arrestees had lengthy records and are frequent flyers in the justice system. I've also noted that the arrest/conviction ratio is kinda low for these folks. That's probably due to plea bargaining where all but one of the charges from an arrest get dropped.

I've also noted these folks never go to trial. The cases are always settled at the preliminary hearing phase. The only real defense effort is to see if prosecution is ready to proceed. If so, they take the plea offer.

The other 1/4 tend to be folks who are having their first contact with the criminal justice system. These tend to be DUI's, domestic violence and drug users.

There really isn't much middle ground. Arrestees tend to have really long rap sheets, or no rap sheet at all.

Most of mine as well. Some of them have had enough oolice contact that they know the 10-codes better than the rookies (I cant count the times one of them has given me their id and while handing it to me said "its all good man, I am -34 (negative wants/warrants). I did have a girl that we hooked up for battery dv that wss her first arrest. Probably shouldnt have been thoigb, was the feeling I got. Very entitled and in complete shock that what she had done was wrong, and that we would arrest her for it. Like she had gotten away with it before ( like I said, I am sure she had).

Sorry for the typos, I am on the phone.

Sounds about right.

Recently a juvenile was arrested in a lot I own for attempting to break into a van. When he was arrested they found numerous tools including a stolen powerdrill, Jiggler keys, A slim jim and a fixed blade knife. It was his first arrest.

Chances of actually being punished?

Usually first timers for dope and theft means this is the first time they got caught!

Nada.

I can hear his defense attorney now. Really, he was thinking about enrolling in a lock smith school and was just practicing to see if it was a worthwhile career.

:rofl2:

As of recent there has been a lot of petty crime in my lot, Including two vehicle thefts. I have video evidence of both thefts, one car has been recovered, one has not. I assume that's a no punishment as well?

They found the juvenile with tons of other tools, pliers, screwdrivers, robo-grips.

''He was going to work on a construction site'' :rolleyes:

90% Repeat business helps. Get on a first name basis with the regulars.

How does the saying go? 1% of the population causes 99% of the problems?

When I arrested a person, I did not run the history. So, I don't know if they are repeat offenders. I just booked the person and wrote the report. The handling detectives did the rest.

I would say pretty much what everyone else has said. Its either multiple arrest frequent fliers that know the jail staff by name or the random dui or dv person with no arrest. Its amazing the revolving door that the criminal justice system. You really really have to put in effort to go to prison. Ive seen the criminal histories of some of these people with hundreds of arrests, many felony drug arrests and property crimes and all they get is probation and a few days in county.

^ It's California and it's only gotten worse with 1170(h). What a disaster that is!

I just read a funny entry on a CII for occupation: "housewife; magician". I'm sure you guys have seen some crazy ones too. I also love how many rap sheets I see where there is the entry for "Applicant: Security Guard". Nice.

Along the same line of thought....90% of homicide "victims" have priors as well....just talked with a friend/homicide detective this week. He told me 90% of the victims are crooks themselves. A deputy DA told me the same thing.

If they get a suspect its a "two for one" type of deal.

What's the old saying, "Today's victim is tomorrow's suspect." A very ugly statement, yet unfortunately, a statement that is often found to be true. Think, for instance, gang violence: Thug A's house is shot today, tomorrow he is shooting up Thug B's house in retaliation...

And yes, the vast majority of crimes are committed by a rather small portion of our citizenry.

From a Community Corrections standpoint (Probation/Parole), there is a small percentage of people who are so low risk that a single event will not necessarily mean they are going to be a repeat offender.

That being said, the research on the subject suggests that frequent contact with the justice system, particular at a young age, increases the chance that the individual will become a repeat or even life-time offender

In addition there are people who have such extensive histories of arrest and convictions that the "criminal lifestyle" is not dysfunctional for them, it's simply how they live. They will not change, regardless of services provided or how many times they are incarcerated, because their psychi has adapted to believe that their is no advantage to living a pro-social lifestyle.

I've supervised offenders on both sides, the one-time DV guy/gal who otherwise has a stable job, home, family and will likely never reoffend and also the guy/gal with 20+ years of history and who see no need for change.

Not sure if that answers the question or not. I guess the short answer is that it depends on how secure the individual's life is before and after they are arrested for the first time.

I really don't see the first arrest as being a gateway.

To borrow on your math thing, this really kinda explodes the normal distribution theory. There is no "Bell Curve" here. It's more like a lopsided "U" where the large counts are both extremes.

It's real easy to tell the two groups apart. One group just looks like they're right at home in jail, and the other group looks as far out of place as can be.
I just can't see folks moving from the "first arrest" group into the frequent flyer group.

A previous poster also correctly observed that the frequent flyers generally commit a lot of undetected crime. If you look real broadly at crime stats in relation to arrest stats, we make about one arrest for every six crimes. That means the gentleman with 100 arrests has probably capered 600 times. Most of those folks start working on their criminal "Curriculum Vitae" at a very young age and are pretty much entrenched in criminality before the age of 14.

from my experience approximately 95% of people I arrest have lengthy criminal histories. Where I work, it is very rare to have a "first time arrestee"

On a traffic stop I arrested a man for an outstanding warrant for a 'white collar' crime. Securities fraud and some other scams. His trophy girlfriend told me I do not think he will do well in jail. I had no comment.

Stockbrokers do not do well in County Jail :oji:

Thank you for the knowledge!

A few mandatory domestic violence arrests come to mind when thinking about your question... Yes, a couple times. I told the suspect straight out that I felt bad doing it due to the havoc his arrest/possible conviction was going to do to his life; but I wasn't about to lose MY career over his stupid actions. They understood.. (well, the ones who were sober...)

I have. They were DV cases, just as the above poster has described.

My agency allowed deputies great latitude in the making of arrests. If I felt that an arrest was the wrong thing to do, I simply didn't make the arrest. My use of discretion was subject to supervisory and management review, but in all my years in the field, I had to explain myself on a few occasions, but after doing so never had any problems.

The exception was DV. After several well-publicized instances where LEOs failed to take positive action at domestic violence scenes, California and other states passed laws that encouraged arrests to be made. My agency instituted a policy that if the elements of an offense were present, and arrest was required. It was the only case where officer discretion was removed.

California's DV statute also has a flaw, that would be inconsequential with appropriate discretion, and that can be quite problematic without it. Penal Code section 273.5 makes it a felony to "willfully inflict" a "corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition" upon specified domestic partners. Unlike other battery laws, section 273.5 does not contain an exemption for cases of self defense. It's interesting to compare the language of section 273.5 with that in sections 240 (Assault) and 242 (Battery). Both of those sections require the actions be "unlawful" recognizing the right of a person to lawfully use force in self defense. There is no corresponding "unlawful" provision in section 273.5. Going strictly by the elements of the offense (I'll let the lawyers chime in on any alternative theories), a person who inflicts a corporal injury, resulting in a traumatic condition, upon a designated domestic partner, has committed a felony, even it it was done in reasonable self-defense. The law shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Here's my "real-world" example. I responded to a DV call. The husband and wife became involved in a heated argument. The wife was in the kitchen preparing a meal. The husband became enraged, grabbed a knife and charged toward her. She threw the hot contents of the frying pan at him, resulting in a burn to his forearm. There were multiple witnesses that clearly established what had occurred, there really were no facts in dispute. I arrested the husband for assault with a deadly weapon (the knife). My problem was with the wife. She had also committed a violation of section 273.5 (remember, there's no "self-defense" provision in that section.) I had very strong feelings that an arrest in her case was simply wrong. I summoned my sergeant to the scene and we both conferred with the watch commander. When all was said and done, she went to jail. The D.A. declined charges and she was released, but that was a few days later.

I read of an arrest made by a Seattle PD officer, who was following a similar "must arrest" policy. In that case, a senile Alzheimer's patient began to flail his arms without any apparent reason. In so doing, he struck his wife, causing a minor bruise. He also went to jail.