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Shaming Sanction

How do you maintain order without throwing people into prison?  What if you can't catch a person breaking the law?  What if a person is doing something that might not be illegal, but that is ruining someone else's life?  The city of Peoria, Illinois, has found a genius solution.  Shame:This industrial city, hard hit by the recession, has found a new, low-budget way to fight crime: Park an unmanned, former Brink's truck bristling with video cameras in front of the dwellings of troublemakers. Police here call it the Armadillo. They say it has restored quiet to some formerly rowdy streets. Neighbors' calls for help have dropped sharply. About half of the truck's targets have fled the neighborhood...."The ugliness of the Armadillo is what makes it unique," says Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on August 16, 2009 (boomark / email).