Discretion is good. In schools. In society. And in policing. Here’s an example of why it doesn’t work so well in school. The law was introduced after a third-grade girl was expelled for a year because her grandmother had sent a birthday cake to school, along with a knife to cut it. The teacher called…
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Just so you don’t get to thinking that cities and ghettos have a lock on stupid senseless crimes. “The seeming senselessness of the killing of Kimberly Cates – hacked to death in her bed last week in Mont Vernon, N.H., allegedly by teenagers who chose her at random and didn’t know who she was.” The…
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That seemed to be the recipe. The story by Patrice O’Shaughnessy in the NY Daily News.
Should an 87-year-old go to prison? John Eligon and Benjamin Weiser write about this in the New York Times. I don’t think so. What good does it serve? Punishment, of course. But aren’t there better and cheaper ways to punish? I certainly don’t want to pay to keep people who are no threat to me…
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If you look at this chart, it’s not hard to think that the great crime drop was caused by locking up all the criminals. A student brought this up in class. In the 1990s, it looks pretty convincing: But just looking at the 1990s misses the big picture. Here’s the same data going back to…
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People often fail to understand just how dysfunctional a big-city police department can be (and some have told me small town PDs are worse). Justin “H.L.” Fenton reports in the Sun: Sgt. Carrie Everett… spoke to a reporter after she was administratively charged in connection with an incident in which a murder suspect committed suicide…
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Why is it so hard for some people to just shut up? Some people are using this video as anti-cop propaganda. I see an officer acting in an incredibly professional and even patient manner. He’s doing his job. He follows the rules. He tells his name and badge number when asked. A little skateboarder calls…
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Seriously. My wife’s cookbook is officially out today. Co-authored with Tamara Reynolds. Forking F-ing Fantastic!Go buy it. Seriously. Come on… I don’t ask much of you.
A Chicago Tribunepiece on why the Fenger High School students fight. It doesn’t really answer the question. But then again it’s not like there is a good answer. What it comes down to seems to be the belief that kids from the projects are “invading” another neighborhood (with seemingly very similar socioeconomic characteristics) where the…
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Pete Guither at Drug WarRant has an interesting post, here stolen in its entirety: Robert Almonte, executive director, Texas Narcotic Officers Association and El Paso police deputy chief (retired), had a different view of the war on drugs than most of the learned participants in the recent conference in El Paso (surprise, surprise): ‘War on…
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