Quality Policing Podcast and Blog

“Ethnographic Chutzpah”

Horn tooting time. Just two-and-a-half years after the publication of Cop in the Hood, (the academic world can move at a glacial pace) the American Journal of Sociology reviewed Cop in the Hood. Well worth the wait, I’d say, as the review by Profesor Andrew Papachristos is very favorable: “Ethographic chutzpah…. Perhaps the best sociological…
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Like Father Like Son?

It’s yesterday’s news that Adrian Schoolcraft is suing New York and the NYPD for $50 million. It turns out, amazingly, that this isn’t the first Schoolcraft vs. P.D. lawsuit. No, it’s not the first. It’s not even the second. Turns out that Adrian’s father, Larry Schoolcraft, was also a police officer. In Fort Worth, Texas,…
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The New Republican Bill of Freedom

With all this talk of changing the constitution for this and that (and yes, it’s strange that supposedly anti-big-government politicians always want to violate the explicit purpose of the constitution that protects the rights of citizens from big government), I’ve never quite understood the ultimately vision of conservative Republicans. What do they actually want? What…
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Meanwhile, Mutiny in Juárez

“A bunch of angry, fed-up federal police in Juárez launched a mini-rebellion against some of their commanders Saturday, accusing them of corruption…. The bottom line is that nothing seems to be able to stop or even lessen the violence in Juárez.” So says the El Paso Times, just across the border, in the peaceful twin…
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“Presidente Fox? There are men here to see you”

The crack research-librarian staff here at Copinthehood Incorporated (aka, my wife) reminds me that President Vicente Fox tried to do something about drug legalization as president but then backed down under US pressure. Indeed, I dug through the basement archives here in at 1 Copinthehood Plaza and dusted this off from the L.A. Times on…
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Legalize Drugs, Says Former Mexican President

Reuters reports: “Legalization does not mean that drugs are good … but we have to see (legalization of the production, sale and distribution of drugs) as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits,” Fox wrote in a posting over the weekend. “Radical prohibition strategies have never…
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Al Baker steps to the plate… It is high, it is far…

…It is gone! Al Baker clears the bases and the New York Timesis back on top! Al Baker is a man I don’t know. Never met him. Never spoken to him (at least I don’t think I have). But I know his name because the man is good reporter on the police beat for the…
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Why cops hate the New York Times

Most cops hate the newspaper. I don’t. But that’s probably because growing up, there was more newspaper blood in my family than police blood. And a healthy freedom of the press is one of the founding principles of this nation. And just think for just a few bits every day, comics, sports, news, opinion, it’s…
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Schoolcraft sues NYPD for $50 Million

Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to sort itself out. Here’s what I’ve already said on this one. [Update: A link to the lawsuit.] (Update with working links to all the posts on Schoolcraft.)

View From Across the Pond

The Guardianhas one, two, and threestories on the war on drugs.