American has too many people behind bars, horrible levels of violence, foreign policy undermined by the War on Drugs, busts down the doors of citizens, makes poor people pee in cups to get a job, and–now this is important–the highest rate of illegal drug use in the world. Can John Walters really even write “our…
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I recently received Some Gave All: A History of Baltimore Police Officers Killed in the Line of Duty, 1808-2007 by Steve Olsen and Robert Brown. It’s a very nice work of history and a wonderful homage to those who died serving Baltimore City. While details on recent police deaths tend to be relatively well known,…
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports: * At year end 2007, federal and state prisons and local jails held just under 2.3 million inmates (2,293,157). The number of inmates incarcerated in prison or jail increased by 1.5% during the year. * About 1 in 198 U.S. residents was imprisoned with a sentence of more than…
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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.