When 311 is introduced for non-emergency calls, there’s always talk about how the new 311 system will ease pressure on the 911 system. That never happens (but “hope springs eternal…”). I can’t actually find the 911 numbers, but I know there are more 911 calls now than in 2003, when 311 was introduced here in…
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I’ve written before about their foolish and inaccurate claim that the black-to-white racial disparity among those shot by police is 21 to 1. I said, given the group they look at, the number is 9 to 1. But without any slight-of-hand or misleading highlighting of statistical outliers, the actually black-to-white racial disparity, the take-home stat,…
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* This is a footnote to the above post. (and the third in a series on basic math concepts) The ProPublica people don’t explain confidence intervals at all in this piece, but in their original they say, “a 95 percent confidence interval indicates that black teenagers are at between 10 and 40 times greater risk…
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Let’s not forget the French police officers who were killed. Particularly Ahmed Merabet, who died protecting other people’s right to make fun of his religion. David Brooks has an interesting take on the matter. While deliberate provocation is best left at the kids’ table, let’s not get too on our high-horse about our own dedication…
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Courtesy of Pearls Before Swine:
I suppose today is just as good as any day to link to my post from 2010: Draw Mohammed Day. This is the cartoon that started it all (though this was Norway, I think, and not France). But click through for more. Meanwhile it’s worth posting this article from the Onion in 2012: “No One…
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In the LA Times: Q: Do people confuse and conflate broken windows with “zero-tolerance policing” or “stop, question and frisk” practices? A: Yes. The other day I read that a Delaware police chief said his department was going to do broken windows with steroids. I find that pretty scary because that smacks of zealotry. Broken…
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This article in the Times is worth reading. Of note: the most discretionary arrest in NYC, Dis Con, down 91 percent. Meanwhile the courts are close to empty. “This proves to us is what we all knew as defenders: You can end broken-windows policing without ending public safety,” said Justine M. Luongo, the deputy attorney-in-charge…
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“You’re a fool if you go into a lie detector test thinking that telling the truth is good enough.” – Peter Moskos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I’ve written about this before. Here I am saying much of the same… but this time it’s on NPR. What I find crazy is that the defenders…
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I’ve always been a big fan of Mike Rowe and his TV show, “Dirty Jobs” (now on a different channel and called, “Somebody’s Gotta Do It”). Here Rowe talks about recent police events. As always, he approaches issues with a certain degree of kindness and empathy. Also, he’s nobody’s fool. (I suspect he would make…
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