Crime Victims

Two years after Congress passed legislation to improve passenger safety aboard cruise ships, crime victims and other supporters of the law say key provisions are being watered down - including the mandatory reporting of crimes and how crew members are trained to handle them. The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 was designed to give passengers a more accurate picture of shipboard crime and assistance if they became victims of assault, rape or theft. But since the law's hard-fought passage, reported crimes disclosed to the public have plummeted from more than 400 a year to a few dozen, dramatically understating the number of deaths and sexual assaults and other crimes on cruise ships.

When the Obama administration last week announced its intention to review the cases of 300,000 immigrants ensnared in the nation's deportation process, as well as to institute new guidelines going forward — with the goal of distinguishing between those who pose threats to public safety from those who are merely in the country illegally — reaction reverberated along well-worn lines. Enforcement hawks denounced the move as amnesty; immigration doves responded warily, worried that it would substitute for more comprehensive efforts to fix the nation's broken immigration system.

The Obama administration said it will review the cases of 300,000 illegal immigrants currently in deportation proceedings to identify "low-priority" offenders — including the elderly, crime victims and people who have lived in the U.S. since childhood — with an eye toward allowing them to stay. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the review as the Obama administration has sought to counter criticism that it has been too harsh in its deportation policies. By launching the case-by-case review, officials said they are refocusing deportation efforts on convicted felons and other "public safety threats.

My column on sexual assault allegations against a prominent French politician accused of attacking a hotel maid struck a nerve with readers this week. Make that two nerves — two very different nerves. Most women I heard from were gratified by my willingness to believe the maid's account. I think the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund now charged with sexual assault, ought to go forward. Let a jury decide whether to believe the woman, whose own past is pockmarked with scams and lies.

Premier Fiesta Mexicana is the kind of working-class bar that most Southern Californians drive past without even seeing. The Bell Gardens restaurant and nightclub offers a dinner show with mariachi music and is packed most weekends, but on a summer night nearly a year ago, Carlos Galindo wasn't there looking for a good time. He was looking for a truck — and a way out of a desperate situation. Carlos, the lead character in director Chris Weitz's "A Better Life" — a new movie about the personal struggles of a Mexican gardener in the United States illegally — had scraped together every last dollar to buy a used pickup.

SERIES Pretty Little Liars: The end of last season found Aria, Emily, Hanna and Spencer (Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell, Ashley Benson, Troian Bellisario) resolving to put an end to "A" once and for all. In the season premiere, all eyes in Rosewood are on them (8 p.m. ABC Family). The Nine Lives of Chloe King: Based on a book series by Celia Thomson, this new drama series stars Skyler Samuels as a teenager who has special catlike powers, including enhanced agility and a set of claws (9 and 10 p.m. ABC Family)

Soon after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its recent decision that California would have to reduce its prison population to relieve overcrowding, a representative of Crime Victims United of California took to the airwaves with harrowing predictions. "It's a disaster," Nina Salarno Ashford, a board member of the group, told an interviewer. "They're going to be letting sex offenders out. They're going to be letting kidnappers out. They're going to be letting a whole host of really bad people back into California without the resources to protect the good citizens of California.

As crime victims go, real estate agents don't compare to taxi drivers, who suffer the highest rate of homicide of any occupation, according to government statistics. But every so often an agent is killed, robbed or beaten while showing a house for sale. So realty companies and trade organizations have made their agents' safety a top concern. Rarely, though, do agents pass along safety tips to their clients. As a result, sellers may go about the business of putting their homes on the market oblivious to the dangers.

The Los Angeles Times was awarded the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service for revealing official corruption in Bell and the feature photography award for Barbara Davidson's images of victims struggling to recover in the aftermath of gang violence. In a series of articles beginning last summer, a team of 20 reporters and editors, led by staff writers Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, revealed that Bell officials secretly enriched themselves with extravagant salaries and benefits while illegally raising taxes on the city's residents, who are among the poorest in Los Angeles County.

Minutes before San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow was beaten in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, he texted a relative to say that he feared for his safety, his cousin said Tuesday. In the text message, he said he was "scared inside the stadium," his cousin John Stow said, adding: "He doesn't use that term loosely. " A short time later, after the game had ended, the 42-year-old paramedic and father of two walked out to look for a taxi and was attacked so brutally that he remains in a coma with a brain injury.