(Can you guess I was just on buzzfeed? A better headline would be “Murders way down in NYC. And so are stop and frisks. And nobody seems to care.” But what kind of clickbaite would that be?) 1) Breakdown of NYC stops by race. Indeed, as often reported, 83% of stops have happened to black…
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It’s worth highlighting this excellent comment to a previous post, from a anonymous police officer. You can file this under “if you don’t work, you can’t get in trouble.” What I’ve learned over my career, and what has frustrated me as a life-long progressively inclined citizen, is that despite all common sense and evidence to…
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A few posts ago I linked to nice article by Brian Beutler. He explains very well how he didn’t succumb to the “ecological fallacy” (of assuming what is true for the individual is true for the group, or vice versa) even after being held up and shot. I particularly like the line, “Everyone who’s ever…
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As usual David Simon makes a lot of sense. But what I don’t understand, and what bothers me most about the whole deal, is why it had to be a secret. If this were really a “healthy” discussion we should be having, then why did it take a whistleblower to start it? hard to imagine…
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I finished reading Gun Guys, and it’s very good. Here’s Dan Baum talking about his book on the BBC. And here he a more in-depth interview with Dan Baum on KMO’s C-Realm Podcast (which just happens to have been recorded in my basement). [Update: and here is Baum in the New York Times.] Baum makes…
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Just one point of data to add to the picture. From the Chicago Sun Times: Even with $26 million in high-resolution cameras finally in full force last year, reported crime at CTA rail stations rose 21 percent, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows. And compared with 2010 — well before most of the CTA’s current 3,600…
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More murders in Chicago. Fewer in NYC. Clearly something is going on. But generally you’ll hear nothing but crickets (or winter winds) blow through the ivory towers. It’s a real shame. These days, most academics will (almost reluctantly) concede that effective policing may play a roll in reducing homicide. And yet still very few academics…
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Well done. I wasn’t expecting things to go so well with the NATO summit. But they did. Kudos to Police Superintendent McCarthyand all the men and women of the Chicago Police Department. Lesson can be learned (particularly by West Coast police departments that don’t seem to be so good at this) and proper preparation is…
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I’ve always admired the Guardian Angels. They made me feel safe when in high school and riding the L alone, late at night. A man was being robbed, and they — unarmed — intervened. They got stabbed. From the Sun Times. Meanwhile in Chicago, a group of 100 white out-of-towners take a stroll through the…
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What is the relationship between (A) number of cops, (B) number of arrests, and (C) crime. When “A” goes down, “B” goes down, and “C” goes up. Sometimes it really is that simple. Here’s the more nuanced story by James Queally in the Newark Star Ledger. [Tip of the cap to Epichorus.]