The Revolving Door at the Courthouse and Rising Crime Rates

According to the Wall Street Journal, Houston has one of the highest overall crime rates of any U.S. city. Houston’s overall crime rate is 92% higher than the overall crime rate in Texas. Property crime is much higher in Houston than it is nationwide. Burglary and auto theft are prime examples of the skyrocketing crime rates in Houston. Both rates are more than double compared to national rates. Violent crime is no exception considering our rates are well above the national average. For example, at 1.072 offenses for every 100,000 people, the violent crime rate in Houston is well above the national violent crime rate of 379 offenses per 100,000 people.

Cities all over the country are reporting a spike in violent crimes and homicides since COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal recently ranked America’s 50 most dangerous cities. Not surprisingly, Houston was ranked 21st. Dallas on the other hand was ranked 42nd. Chicago which is generally perceived as one of our nations most violent cities came in 33rd. This disturbing trend halts the decrease in violent crime for the past several years. Certainly COVID-19 has played a role but other factors including the revolving door at the Courthouse are also contributing to the rapidly rising crime rates in Houston.

My research indicates 81 people have been killed/murdered in Harris County in less than 2 years with at least 50 victims in 2020 as a direct result of well intentioned, but poorly implemented bail bond reforms. Last week a defendant was charged with another murder after he had been released on an unprecedented low bond for first degree murder: $25,000. The week before another defendant who had been granted multiple felony bonds, failed to report to Harris County Pre-Trial Services and violated his electronic monitoring conditions on a daily basis for over two weeks now stands accused of the murder of his ex-girlfriend. These are just a few examples of what I have been seeing on a routine basis. The ramifications of criminal justice and felony bond reform are indeed a major factor regarding the increasing crime rates in Harris County.

Crime Stoppers wants to make it perfectly clear: We support Misdemeanor Bond Reform. What we don’t support is when public safety is placed at a higher risk when career habitual offenders are continuously released back to the community only to reoffend time after time again. We support the efforts of Senator’s John Whitmire and Paul Bettencourt this upcoming legislative session regarding the issues of multiple felony bonds and establishing a statewide standardized system that sets bail upon risk to the community. These changes will result in significant improvements to the pretrial release system in Texas by ensuring equitable treatment of individuals accused of crimes and reducing the likelihood of violent repeat offenders being released back to the community.

Sadly, Houston ranks fourth in the country in homicide rates. We have ballooned from 258 documented homicides in 2018 to over 400 at the end of 2020. Houston had thirty-one murders in a two- week period from November 21 – December 4th: That’s over 2 a day. Let’s not forget the Bloody Monday of November 9th in which there were seven homicides. Houston’s murder rates are the highest it has been in at least 15 years.  Keep in mind the above numbers are strictly for Houston. When you include the homicide numbers for Harris County, we are roughly around the 500 mark.

Crime Stoppers believes all of us who live and work in Harris County should be on the same page on behalf of public safety. Increasing crime rates detrimentally affect all of us. Improving public safety has to and must be a non-partisan issue.

As the leading public safety organization bridging the gap between citizens and law enforcement for forty years, we look forward to having a critical public safety conversation as all of us seek to enhance public safety through positive reform.

Regards,

Andy Kahan, Director of Victim Services & Advocacy

Press Release: Houston-Based Action and Drama Film Donates Portion of Amazon Profits to Crime Stoppers of Houston

HOLLYWOOD TO HOUSTON: ‘NARCO SUB’ SET FOR JANUARY RELEASE
Houston-Based Action and Drama Film Donates Portion of Amazon Profits to Crime Stoppers of Houston

HOUSTON (January 2021) – Deep Water Productions, the Houston-based production company and subsidiary of Derek Potts Ventures, announces the release of Narco Sub ©, an action and drama film based on true events, in late January. Cast members include notable actors such as film and television star Lee Majors, best known for his roles in The Big Valley and The Six Million Dollar Man, Tom Sizemore, widely acclaimed for his roles in Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and Heat, as well as Robert Lasardo, who starred in The Mule alongside Clint Eastwood.

Written by Deep Water Productions founder, Derek Potts, the film also enlisted notable Houston director, Shawn Welling. Narco Sub tells the story of the ongoing battle between the Colombian Drug Cartel and American law enforcement over the Cartel’s drug and sex trafficking activities involving American citizens. The story centers on Bruce Stryker, a retired American sub commander and navy seal whose family is kidnapped by the cartel in Medellín, Colombia so as to force him to pilot a Cartel submarine transporting cocaine to the Miami drug cartel, led by Majors’ character. With the DEA, CIA and FBI on his tail, he is pushed to the brink and forced to become a criminal to save his family and other victims.

Fitting with the times, the film will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video through purchase or rental. Beginning with the release, a portion of the film’s profits will be donated to Crime Stoppers of Houston, Houston’s top non-profit dedicated to public safety. Since 1980, Crime Stoppers of Houston has remained committed to its mission to solve and prevent serious crime in the Greater Houston Area in partnership with citizens, media and the criminal justice system. The partnership is a natural fit as the film aims to shed light on numerous criminal activities, particularly sex trafficking, a cause close to Potts after his experience helping victims of sex trafficking through his legal work.

“We’re thrilled with our partnership with Narco Sub, a partnership that highlights two of Houston’s best qualities, the arts and the philanthropic heart of our city, working together to further improve the city by combatting crime,” said Rania Mankarious, CEO of Crime Stoppers. “We recognize that these issues affect all of us and find it critical to address them.”

The leadership behind the camera and philanthropic partner aren’t the only things that production kept local. The filming of Narco Sub takes place in several different Texas locations, including Houston, Katy, Cotulla and Kemah. While filming in Los Angeles halted due to COVID-19, the reopening of Texas provided production of this local film the opportunity to safely begin filming again, giving it a leg up on the Hollywood competition. As a tribute to its roots, the Houston-based film worked with a number of local vendors including the use of Jentry Kelley Cosmetic products and sourcing jewelry from Zadok Jewelers.

“I cannot wait to share this story and show off what we can accomplish as part of the film community in Houston, a city that truly embraces the arts,” said Potts. “Getting to release Narco Sub will be a huge milestone for me, and our partnership with Crime Stoppers of Houston adds so much value not only the story we are trying to tell but to the impact this film can have on our city.”

Deep Water Productions is a subsidiary of Houston-based Derek Potts Ventures. The national operations of the production company entail the development, acquisition, production, financing, distribution and sales of entertainment content. The company continues to evolve and expand its repertoire with new genres, a mix of up-and-coming and established actors and challenging subject matter, some with the potential to effect social change. With emphasis on content that relates to audiences from an entertainment, current events or wholistic perspective, Deep Water Productions is proud to present award-winning work.

How to Promote Online Safety for Minors

How many of us have taken note of the early age children now access the internet? What if I told you it is not uncommon for infants and toddlers in the U.S. to be given access to the internet? The relationship with infants, toddlers and the internet can begin with things that seem harmless, like accessing lullaby’s on YouTube, or providing a toddler with content on an iPad or other tablet device where ABC Mouse and Disney are readily available and often entertaining. Now, how many of us who provide internet access to children have trained them in the safe usage of the internet or know anything about safe usage? I suspect the number of persons who answer yes to the last two questions is relatively low. Let me provide you with some tools to help prepare you for early training, and constant reminders as we let our children access the internet.

First and foremost, why is safety on the internet important to minor? The internet is a shared space, literally meaning all users are in one place. Consider it a neighborhood with a daycare next to a nuclear waste plant, next to a restaurant and a church. Neighbors, pastors, children, child pornographers, politicians, cyberbullies all occupy the same digital space. Strangers are dangerous in person or on the internet. This is just a summary of the why, let us look at the how of internet safety.

What Are Some General Guidelines for Parents to Teach Internet Safety to Kids?

Many parents find it helpful to set down clear rules for their children to follow. The US Department of Justice recommends clear rules to help guide children to understand potential risks and dangerous situations. Examples of rules include:

• Turn of location services on social media applications.
• Do not disclose personal information such as full name, address, phone number, social security number, etc.
• No posting your picture on public sites of any kind
• No chatting with strangers
• Consider designing formal Internet usage agreements or “contracts” with your children
• Tell kids if they come across material that makes them scared, uncomfortable or confused to tell their parent or another trusted adult

How Can We Use Technology to Protect Children? ^[1]

Filtering Technologies

Filtering technology is usually a software that screens out some content while allowing other material to flow through to its intended destination. Parents can set up various filters to block harmful material. Filtering technology comes in several forms:

• User/Client-side filters: Users install filters on their own computers. Parents can employ these to set up the kinds of materials that they want to block.
• Content-limits/Content-filters from Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Internet Service Providers often offer this option to block content.
• Search engine filters: Many search engines enable users to turn on the safety filter that limits search results to appropriate material. Note, most search engine filters do not block access to content if a surfer directly types in a URL. Other search enginesoffer special children’s versions of their search engines that permit searches of only child-friendly sites.

Monitoring Technologies

Monitoring technology allows parents to supervise children’s Internet activity by reporting on their surfing activity. Keystroke software will make a record of all of the keystrokes that a user makes.

Consider an app like Bark: Bark Analyzes text, emails, social media and then sends you concerning content along with suggestions on how to address the situation and talking points. You must have device to install OR the user must accept all push notifications to connect with all social media, text, and email platforms.

Consider downloading something like Qustodio: With Qustodia you can see what websites are visited, block dangerous content, see communications, protect privacy, manage how and when to be online. Automatically reports activity back to you and has a dashboard where you can view and manager online activity.

Tracking Web History

Parents can review the browser “history” file to see sites that have been most recently visited by that browser. However, technically skilled users can edit or delete all of these records.

Restrictions

Create age restrictions and adhere to these restrictions.

 

It is my hope that this article will bring useful, practical information to you and your families and make your browsing experience a bit safer for you and your children. I look forward to future opportunities to share information with you.

[1] See USJDOJ Children Energy Safety for more details

Understanding the Basics of the Internet

The internet tells us plainly what it is, a web, a world wide web in fact (thus the “www” indicator) that connects us globally to a shared space. Like a spider’s web, the internet can be beautiful, confusing, complex, and sometimes even dangerous. How and where we access this shared cyber space will helps shape our experiences and define our risks. To access the internet, users will launch an internet browser and choose something known as a search engine. Search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo search and index websites which are on the internet because of links. These search engines will use these links to rank search results according to things like relevancy, inbound links, and keywords. This search is what you have probably heard generally referred to as “browsing.” Browsers search the surface of the internet for various topics.

The Internet itself is a large network of billions of computers and electronic devices that contain information and technology tools that can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection, namely using various searches which index the data. Residing on that network of computers are large volumes of documents, related texts, images, and other data which form the world wide web.

Many users access only a fraction of the total internet. We stay on the surface and mostly browse what is commonly known as the Open Web / Surface Web. This is what most people are referring to when they say “the internet.” The Open Web is anything that can be publicly viewed using a search engine such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. As vast as it seems, the Open Web is estimated to be only about 10% of what is on the internet.

The next level of browsing sounds scary and mysterious, but it is not. It is the Deep Web (Invisible Web or Hidden Web). It is just like it sounds, below the surface. A lot of what exists on the deep web consists of information that you probably wouldn’t want to turn up in a web search, because it’s private and could be misused. It is where hacking often takes place as there is a lot of information criminals might value. This is where a much larger percentage of the Internet exists, and you can’t get to it unless you are authorized. The Deep Web’s contents are not indexed by standard web search-engines. A lot of the Deep Web is made of ordinary password-protected sites such as government, banking and financial records, subscription sites, legal documents and medical records. Almost every time you search internally on a website, you’re accessing deep web content.

The content of the deep web is information invisible to search engines. Here are a few examples of what is on the deep web:

• The content of email accounts
• The content of your social media accounts
• Content from academic databases
• The content of your online banking accounts
• Medical records

If you must log in to one of your accounts by providing a username, password, or some other type of authentication, the information you access is on the deep web. The deep web can help protect your personal information and privacy.

There are some rules of thumb you should consider when browsing the internet:

• Protect your log in information by routinely changing the login, not using the same login on all accounts and using trusted devices to access the deep web and being careful of where you access the internet to conduct your activities.
• Create unique passwords.  Using the same password for many sites is not a best practice.
• Do not access your personal information on the deep web on an unprotected public Wi-Fi network. Instead, use a virtual private network — commonly known as a VPN — which can encrypt your data and help protect your online privacy.
• Do not share your log in details with person’s you do not know and trust.
• Practice safe internet habits and teach them to minors.
• Consider setting up alerts on your financial accounts. Many credit card companies and banks allow you to set up alerts on your accounts via their websites. These alerts range from sending you an email or text each time a transaction happens on your account to alerts when transactions meet or exceed a designated spending limit that you set.
• Keeping your devices up to date (including apps and operating systems) can provide you with the latest security fixes.
• Be aware, there are fake websites out there waiting to collect your valuable information. Make sure you are on a legitimate site by double-checking the URL website address to make sure it is spelled correctly. If you see a padlock and https:// in a website’s URL, that is generally a safer site to browse.
• Be informed about the dangers of ransomware. Have your data backed up in various places so a ransomware virus does not disable all of your data, computers or other electronic devices. Ransomware is malicious software which encrypts a victim’s software and makes in inaccessible. It has crippled individuals, companies, hospitals, governments alike. Be vigilant and informed.

Cyber Safety Overview

This year, 2020, is quite different for so many reasons; notably, Covid 19. Covid-19 has moved people indoors, requiring us to perform work and school from home for most of the calendar year. Some businesses have managed to thrive during 2020, including the mobile phone and PC business. Yes, the PC (personal computer) is popular again, and PC usage continues to increase. This is good news for companies that make PC’s, PC hardware, software and peripherals.

“Customers are using Windows PCs to stay productive, connect and learn in this time. In fact, over 4 trillion minutes are being spent on Windows 10 a month, a 75% increase year on year,” Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer, wrote in a blog post on Monday. Windows had nearly 87% share of the PC operating system market in April, according to NetMarketShare, and in March, Microsoft said it had reached 1 billion active Windows 10 devices.

Cell phone usage is also on the rise. User’s are spending more time logging into their social media and are spending longer on social media with each use. Internet technology has impacted our lives since its inception. Each device provides another opportunity for exposure to harmful cyber activities.

We know the cyber world has more visitors now, but how many of these visitors practice cyber safety? Cyber safety is needed for a safe and secure lifestyle. Cyber safety protects you from persons interested in stealing your confidential information, tracking your physical location, learning personal information about you for harmful purposes, initiating contact with minors, and various other purposes equally improper. Since dependency on the internet is growing, the importance of cyber safety is also growing.
New advancements in technology are often accompanied by dangers and threats associated with its use, including the internet. Since the internet is accessed by children as well, it is crucial to educate children as well about the safety and security aspects of it. Using the internet safely and securely without leaking private information, and to establish safe protocols for accessing certain websites and cell phone applications is a skill. Especially kids, teenagers, and less computer and internet literate people are victimized on the Internet. Here are some cyber statistics you may not be aware of:

• 10 – 14 is the average age of online victimization
• YouTube is 2nd most-used search engine following Google
• As of May 2019, 500 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube every minute
• 16% of the child pornographic images are self-produced, 40% are produced by threats or coercion
• 20% of Tinder users are between 12-19-year old children
• Social networking sites are virtual communities
• Kids convene on these sites to chat, IM, post pictures, and blog (journal)
• They appeal to teens because they provide instant community, instant celebrity, and encompass many online tools and entertainment activities
• 40 percent of kids in grades 4-8 reported they connected or chatted online with a stranger. Of those 40 percent:
  – 53 percent revealed their phone number to a stranger
  – 21 percent spoke by phone with a stranger
  – 15 percent tried to meet with a stranger
  – 11 percent met a stranger in their own home, the stranger’s home, a park, mall or restaurant
  – 30 percent texted a stranger from their phone
  – 6 percent revealed their home address to a stranger (Children’s Internet Usage Study, Center for Cyber Safety and Education, March 2019).
• Technologies designed to prevent access to pornography or other online content perceived as harmful and;are presented as possible protective measures, and on average, a quarter of European families report using them. (July 2018: Internet Filtering and Adolescent Exposure to Online Sexual Material)
• 72 percent of Americans believe their accounts are secure with only usernames and passwords, yet every two seconds there is another victim of identity fraud. Your usernames and passwords are not enough to keep your accounts secure. (Stop. Think. Connect .(n.d.) “Lock Down Your Login”, accessed 1-16-2017 from https://www.lockdownyourlogin.com).
• When it comes to online enticement, girls make up the majority (78%) of child victims—while the majority (82%) of online predators are male. And 98% of online predators have never met their child targets in real life. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “The Online Enticement of Children: An In-Depth Analysis of CyberTipline Reports”
• 50 percent of American adults are worried about the amount of personal information about them online, while 47 percent said they were not confident they understood what would be done with their data once it was collected (National Cyber Security Alliance, January 12, 2017).
• 39% of parents report using parental controls for blocking, filtering or monitoring their teen’s online activities (Pew Research Center, January 2016).
• Internet safety was the 4th most commonly identified “big problem”, up from #8 in 2014. Sexting received the biggest change in rating this year, from #13 in 2014 to #6 in 2015 (http://mottnpch.org/reports-surveys/top-10-child-health-problems-more-concern-sexting-internet-safety)
• Just 28% of parents have installed software on computers to prohibit certain website visitation; only 17% have such software on mobile devices, and just 15% on gaming consoles (Cox Communications 2012).
• One in two parents do not use any blocking or filtering software on their children’s Internet enabled devices. (FamilyPC Survey, August, 2001)
• Nine in 10 teens say their parents have talked to them about online safety.
• However, nearly half (49%) of teens claim their parents do nothing to monitor their devices. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• Nearly half of teens admit to taking action to hide their online behavior from parents. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• 46% of teens have cleared their search history and/or cookies on their browser. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• 1 in 5 teens have used a private browsing feature so their parents can’t see the sites they’ve visited. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• 14% of teens report friends have invited someone over that they had only met online. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• On average, teens spend 5 hours and 38 minutes online every day. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.
• 18% of teens have considered meeting with someone in person whom they first met online.
• Of these, 58% have actually met up with someone in person. Cox. (2014) “Cox 2014 Internet Safety Survey.” The Futures Company.

Internet safety for children should be a top priority. Children must be safeguarded from dangers including but not limited to obscenity, scams, malwares, identity theft, phishing, child pornography and cyberbullying. Safety has become a challenge. Acknowledging this is an issue is the first step in advancing our safety initiative. We will spend the next few weeks discussing the basics of the internet and talking about what families can do to safely navigate through the internet and social media applications. Until then, here are a few basic steps you may want to consider trying.

Stop – Before using the internet or sharing any data, take time to understand the risks involved. Learn how to tackle potential risks.
Think – Watch for warning signs before accessing anything online. Consider the safety of others and analyze the importance of sharing the information.
Connect – Always connect to authorized and safe internet connections.