One of the nice thing about school being out and traveling a bit is it gives me more time to read books for fun. My favorite genre is probably the travelogue. Mark Twain, P.J. O’Rourke, Paul Theroux? I love them all. And I’ll even define travelogue broadly to include historical fiction, like my favorite books…
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A friend of mine, who only wants to be broadly identified as being in a form of “real estate business” in New York City, routinely complains to me about police trying, without a search warrant, to bully and threaten his employees in order to gain access to clients’ private property or information on someone or…
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I’m sure that just like me, you all are browsing the latest issue of Sociological Forum, the quarterly publication of the Eastern Sociological Society. Hmmm, here’s an article called “Anomie Among European Adolescents: Conceptual and Empirical Clarification of a Multilevel Sociological Concept.” The “results lend strong support to the theoretical construct of anomie as exteriority…
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Maurice Punch has written another excellent book on policing: Police Corruption: deviance, accountability and reform in policing. More than anybody else, Maurice Punch inspired my policing career (well, maybe Punch and John Van Maanen share top prize). Punch’s wonderful and classic study of the Amsterdam Police, Policing the Inner City inspired me into the whole…
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Imagine that. The Agitator pretty much sums it up. And here’s the story in the Washington Post. The best line is: “In the sense that we kept these drugs from reaching our streets, this operation was a success.” But, uh, you already had the drugs, remember? Then instead of taking them off the streets you…
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The Mexican legislature has voted to decriminalize possession of up to 5 grams of marijuana, 1/2 gram of cocaine, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, and 50 milligrams of heroin. From the story by Tracy Wilkinson in the LA Times: The battle between law enforcement authorities and drug suspects has claimed more than 11,000 lives since he…
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My friend used to joke that the local criminals would come to court “dressed in their best sweat pants.” I was reading a David Sedaris book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, on my flight back from Chicago and came across this passage: There were plenty of things that should have concerned me–the blood-spatter evidence,…
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Generally, the bars in the Eastern aren’t a source of trouble. The yo-boys are too cool to drink in a bar and stay on the corner drinking bottles of malt liquor. Many of them aren’t old enough to be served in a bar, either. The bars are for those willing to pay a dollar or…
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The New York Times has a nice map of homicides in the city. You can select by various variables, but unfortunately not more than one at a time. The Baltimore Sun has a similar but better map. I’m always a bit surprised by just how few white homicide victims there are. Or, conversely, how many…
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The nation’s oldest (1870) mounted unit was disbanded in Boston this month. I know police on horses are of limited use, but what they dodo cannot be done by other police. It’s just eleven horses and about the same number of officers. Seems like a bad way to save money. How about shutting down a…
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