Compared to last year, shootings and homicides in NYC are up 20 percent. Twenty percent is a real increase. Here’s the compstat page and also a link to last week’s summary (no matter when you click the link). I don’t know why crime is up. But… I can’t help but think it’s part of (or…
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My latest piece at CNN.com is up. They titled it: “Why would you want to be a cop?” I speak to a lot of police officers, retired, on the job, and soon-to-be. Anybody who knows cops knows it’s in their nature to complain (there’s an old barb about there being just two things cops don’t…
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Sometimes it’s important to remember how you got to Point B from Point A to where you are today. You don’t just stumble into a system like Ferguson’s where the city tries to get 30 percent of it’s total budget from fines, citations, and court fees. Ferguson isn’t unique. I just stumbled across this article…
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This was gonna be my idea! “Bobbies and Baseball Players: Evaluating Patrol Officer Productivity Using Sabermetrics.” So kudos to Luke Bonkiewicz because he actually researched and wrote the article and I didn’t. Here’s the abstract from the current issue of Police Quarterly (2015, Vol. 18(1) 55–78): Police officer productivity is an understudied topic in police…
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Shootings are up 20 percent this year. Bratton is blaming marijuana. I doubt it. But maybe. I’m certainly willing to consider the idea. Most liberals, I find, never ever consider the idea that their advocacy might have unintended consequences, like more young black men getting murdered. That said, Bratton pointed to drug dealers getting killed.…
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Dan Aykroyd is making a donation to the children of slain Philadelphia Police Officer Robert Wilson III. Wilson was killed by two robbers last Thursday. Seems Wilson just happened to be in a store, in uniform, when armed robbers decided hold the place up: Officer Wilson stopped by the GameStop store to purchase a video…
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Three years ago I wrote about the problem of “procedural justice.” If you’ve misplaced your copy of William Stuntz’s The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, just read Leon Neyfakh’s review in the Boston Globe. Procedural justice still matters because the Presidential Report places emphasis on it: “Police and sheriffs’ departments should adopt procedural justice as…
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I’m generally quick to point out that there aren’t too many people doing long time for small scale drug possession. (Usually this in the context of pointing out that drug decriminalization will not empty our prisons.) But it does happen. And it shouldn’t happen. Ever. How is anyone in prison for 13 years for possessing…
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[My other posts on the DOJ reports, 1 & 3.] The DOJ’s report of Ferguson isn’t just about police or just about race. A large part of the report — to me the more disturbing part — is about a whole system of government using the criminal justice system as a tool to legally steal…
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[My other posts on the DOJ reports, 1 & 2.] I have read (most of) the incredibly damning DOJ’s report on the Ferguson P.D. I tried to read it a bit as Thomas Jefferson edited the Bible. Thomas Jefferson thought that even if Jesus isn’t the son of God, even if there are no supernatural…
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