The end of the semester means I get caught up on some of my reading. I finished The Autobiography of Ben Frankin (good stuff) and David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” (The footnote on the necessity of formal wear would have been very useful to read before we crossed the…
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The massive overcrowding in California prisons has eased up a bit (thanks to court order). Of course much of the problem has just been kicked down to the county level, but the symbolic double- and triple-stacked bunks in gyms-turned-massive-dorm are empty, says the San Diego Union-Tribune.
I rarely talk about college, except negatively. But this is the funniest thing to come out of Princeton since… I don’t know, what ever funny comes out of Princeton? I went to Princeton, Bitch! (And yes, all the cool kids were in Terrace. Food does indeed equal love.)
Well done. I wasn’t expecting things to go so well with the NATO summit. But they did. Kudos to Police Superintendent McCarthyand all the men and women of the Chicago Police Department. Lesson can be learned (particularly by West Coast police departments that don’t seem to be so good at this) and proper preparation is…
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Sad and yet strangely touching story about dementia and sociologist Irwin (not Erving) Goffman in the New York Times. Once as a cop I remember spending hours with a very nice and well dressed elderly man. He knew all his info except where he lived. I drove him around the neighborhood. I walked with him…
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My department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration) has three full-time assistant-professor tenure-track lines we’ll be hiring for in the fall. Two are for general criminal justice and one is for police. If you know of anybody — a promising PhD candidate or a professor who wants…
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I’ve always admired the Guardian Angels. They made me feel safe when in high school and riding the L alone, late at night. A man was being robbed, and they — unarmed — intervened. They got stabbed. From the Sun Times. Meanwhile in Chicago, a group of 100 white out-of-towners take a stroll through the…
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The Sixth Amendment states, in rather uncompromising terms: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” But the system can’t handle those rights. That’s why but a very small fraction of cases is decided by a trial, much less a jury trial (the…
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I heading down to Baltimore for the weekend. It’s been awhile. Watch out, because there’s going to be a run on crab cakes and Natty Bo.
We in American don’t know about “traveler” culture in Ireland and England. Now I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help but have some respect for people who race horses, harness racing style, down major highways. The full youtube clip has been deleted (it was a long race). But here’s the shortened BBC version.