The good ol’ days… I love spending time in John Jay College’s great Lloyd Sealy Library browsing NYPD annual police reports from 100 years ago. Even older ones are available to the public online. In 1912 the total force was 10,371 plus 268 civilian. Three motor patrol wagons were installed during the year 1912 [making…
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For such a Landmark Case, I was curious how Terry v Ohio (1968) was reported at the time. I was thinking it would have been hard to see its potential implications at the time (though William Douglas did so in his dissent). Indeed, on June 11, 1968 the New York Times said: Held, 8 to…
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Another case where body cams help police officers avoid false accusations of brutality from a viral video.
I love thoughtful cops. Especially those who can write. He emailed me this and agreed to let me repost it, anonymously. I wish him well and am happy to see people like this still becoming police officers. I’m a police recruit with a B.A. in the social sciences, and I read your blog a lot.…
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This goes against common accepted wisdom, which refers to a recidivism rate (ending up behind bars again within three years) of about two-thirds . Here’s another good piece by Leon Neyfakh in Slate, an interview with William Rhodes. The basic gist is this. Some people recidivate a lot while others do not at all. So…
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Halloween is coming! 6,000 inmates are about to be released from prison. Most got about 2 years cut from a 10 year drug sentence. Think of it: 6,000 roving marauders. Pirates! Barbarians!! Thugs!!! They’ll be Shanghaiing our youth, raping our maidens, and pillaging our homes! At least that’s what I’m learning from some on the…
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Washington Post reporters are doing what journalists are supposed to do. They’re looking at those killed by police (like the Guardian, but a bit more fairly). 815 have been shot dead by police this year as of right now (the Guardian, just FYI, pushes that number to 948. That’s a 15 increase based on people…
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It’s not so much that blacks are more likely to get stopped while driving, it’s that blacks get searched much more than whites after a car stop. This has been documented for at least 20 years. I’m a bit surprised it’s still happening at this level. It was a big issue after the bullshit “drug…
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In the Comey story, in which a seemingly liberal FBI director discusses crime, police, race, and history and get pilloried by the left, the New York Times takes the cake. In some Bizarro World I’m not part of, The Grey Lady deemed Comey’s comments “incendiary” and playing “into the right-wing view that holding the police…
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