February 2017 – Quality Policing

Milwaukee Chief Flynn: “We can predict who’s going to get shot. We do. If we could only predict where and when, we’d be doing a great job. We can’t do that.”

2017-02-27

[See my previous post on Ed Flynn.] Flynn isn’t new at this. A few years back, Flynn was answering questions about a controversial police-involved shooting. At a community meeting, some criticized him for being “disrespectful,” because he was on his phone. His response is well worth watching. The cop involved in that shooting was later…
Read more

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn: “We’ve got to get beyond the finger pointing that does nothing except to depolice at risk communities”

2017-02-27

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn is smarter than your average flatfoot. Generally considered a progressive in the police world, he’s the type of chief who should at least be embraced by the political left. But Milwaukee is one of the latest police department to be sued by the ACLU for racially disparate policing. But Flynn…
Read more

Reducing Crime: the White House has to be more than a pulpit for a bully

2017-02-23

I wrote this article for the Washington Post: President Trump declared in executive orders this month that the federal government would try to “reduce crime in America” and that the White House was opposed to violence against law enforcement officers. … Crime reduction does not happen through fearmongering or federal fiat. And violence against police…
Read more

Sometimes there are good guys and bad guys

2017-02-12

A Baltimore police officer shot and killed an armed man who pointed a loaded gun at him. You’d think this would be cut and dried. But no. It’s Baltimore. I mean really, if any police-involved shooting is clear cut. It’s this one. Luckily for police, the cop had a body camera. Luckily it captures (barely)…
Read more

“A Bird’s Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015”

2017-02-12

More on the article in Criminology & Public Policy by Nix, Campbell, Byers, and Alpert. My previous post pointed out that if you use 2016 data rather than 2015 data, their conclusions would totally change. [Update: also see Nick Selby’s take on this. And David Klinger’s] How do we get data on police-involved shootings? Trick…
Read more

What a difference a year makes…

2017-02-12

There’s an article in Criminology & Public Policy by Justin Nix, Bradley Campbell, Edward Byers, and Geoffrey Alpert that has gotten some press: “A Bird’s Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015: Further Evidence of Implicit Bias” Although we could not determine whether officers were quicker or more likely to fire their weapon…
Read more

The Curious Case of Poverty and Crime

2017-02-06

When I’m charming people at a cocktail parties with talk of rising crime and the role of police, the good people I talk to, rather than even considering the possibility that police matter and post-Ferguson protests might matter (in a negative way), inevitably try and shift the discussion to greater social issues: poverty, racism, and…
Read more

“Ronnie Goldman has a brand new cane”

2017-02-04

Good God, I haven’t posted in a while. Well, I still get paid. Here I am on Glenn Loury’s Bloggingheads TV today, talking about the issues I discuss here. Anyway, what to post about next? I don’t want to be let the perfect post be the enemy of the good. This is hardly an important…
Read more

Month: February 2017

Milwaukee Chief Flynn: “We can predict who’s going to get shot. We do. If we could only predict where and when, we’d be doing a great job. We can’t do that.”

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn: “We’ve got to get beyond the finger pointing that does nothing except to depolice at risk communities”

Reducing Crime: the White House has to be more than a pulpit for a bully

Sometimes there are good guys and bad guys

“A Bird’s Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015”

What a difference a year makes…

The Curious Case of Poverty and Crime

“Ronnie Goldman has a brand new cane”

Recent Posts

archives