(Photo: AP/Toby Talbot) Inmates walk through the yard at Marble Valley Correctional Facility in Rutland, Vermont, in 2008. S eated in an office of the Montpelier City Hall on a recent April morning, an ex-criminal offender whom we’ll call Gene sat playing a parlor game of sorts with three community volunteers. One by one, the four participants took turns answering the questions printed on a box of cards that they passed around, which included such conversation starters as: “What’s your basic philosophy of life?” “What’s your fondest memory?” and “On your deathbed, what will be your last thought?” It was something of an unlikely exercise for Gene, who spent ten years behind bars for a sexual assault and now is in his mid-thirties. But in the18 months since Gene has been out of prison, he hasn’t violated any of his stringent probation conditions, and hasn’t reoffended. And his probation officer in part credits it to his participation in this and other meetings run by Circles of Support...

AP Photo/The Chronicle-Tribune, Jeff Morehead In New York City, police mistakes get played out on a big stage. In September, the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) performance was caught on camera in crowded Times Square when two officers shot at an unarmed suspect, missed him, and hit two bystanders instead. The man had been lurching in and out of traffic, ignoring police commands to stop, and at one point pulled his hand out of his pants as if he had a gun, according to a report in The New York Times . It was the latest in the department’s two-year run of an unusually high number of unintentional shootings of innocents. Last August, police wounded nine bystanders while unloading 16 rounds at a suspect who’d just shot a co-worker on the street near the Empire State Building. In separate cases last year, cops wounded four other bystanders. Gun battles and shoot-don’t-shoot decisions can be appallingly hard for even experienced cops to handle well. Low light, suspects in motion, and...