It seems, as expected, that things are calming down in Athens. Apparently, nobody has been killed in the rioting. Apparently, the bullet that killed the kid was indeed a ricochet (that’s why US city cops are not allowed to fired “warning shots”). [Dec 12: today the Kathimerini reports the opposite conclusion: Meanwhile the results of…
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A reader turned me on to this articleabout life in the LA Hood: “Sympathy for the Devil: Crime Stats Say L.A.’s Streets Are Safer Than Ever, So Why Are Gang Hoods Still So Bloody?” It’s by Sam Slovick in the LA Weekly. It’s long. I’ll confess, I haven’t read it all (sheee-it, man… I got…
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Rachel DiCarlo Currie writes a very nice review of Cop in the Hood in The American. The most encouraging aspect of this book is its portrait of the police officers themselves. Moskos holds his former colleagues in the highest esteem, and he takes offense at claims that urban cops are crooked and racist. There will…
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[Fair warning: Intended for stuffy academics. If you think you won’t be interested, you’re probably right.] I received the latest issue of Journal of Criminal Justice Educationyesterday. I have to confess, I’m not certain why I get this journal. I don’t remember ever subscribing to it. Of the journals I get, it’s the one I…
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Whenever people say there aren’t enough officers for foot patrol, I say, “hogwash” (or something with similar meaning). We used to have foot patrol. And we didn’t have more police. It’s a question of priorities, not resources. Here’s a interesting diagram from 1911. I don’t know if this was the theory, the practice, or a…
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Maybe you don’t stay up at night thinking about cell phones in prison. And maybe you shouldn’t. But think about it for a moment… we can’t keep cell phones out of the hands of prisoners. Somehow I think that’s significant. The story by Dan Kane in the News & Observer.
I wish more people would realize that the real world is not like TV. Problems in the Detroit crime lab.
Messing with police overtime is like messing with a dog’s food. You better makes sure it doesn’t come back to bite you. “It’s like our heroin,” one cop says in Cop in the Hood, “it’s just something we need.” The root of the problem is that half the department is assigned to patrol, chasing radio…
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The BBC has a good story about the Greek culture of “No.” And also goes into something I should have explained, namely why November 17 is a day of protest and why students are key: : On 17 November 1973, tanks of the then six-year-old [American supported] military dictatorship burst through the iron railings to…
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Greek police shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in Athens Saturday night after a confrontation between police and a group of people. There have been some pretty big riots ever since. Here’s the latest from English-language version or Kathimerini. And the New York Timeshas a storyand slide show. The fact that there were copycat riots…
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