This dirt bike thing in Baltimore continues to be out of control. I can’t believe that 10 years after I first saw packs of these going around, they’re still a problem. I mean, other cities don’t have this problem. What makes Baltimore so unique? To ride an illegal dirt bike, especially on the sidewalk or…
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Am I really the only person who is skeptical enough to check the basic truth of emails before forwarding them to my 140 closest friends? I mean, it doesn’t take too long to go to Snopes The thing about mass-forwarded right-wing emails is that they are almost always never true. They’re like the headlines in…
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I know you think it’s cool to be chillin’ with your pants hanging low, but funny things happen when your pants don’t stay up. For one, if you’re running and I’m chasing you and you’ve got one hand holding your pants up, I will actually catch you. Two, if you’re like Hector Quinones of the…
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In a footnote (p. 215) in Cop in the Hood, I list what I consider essential books in urban sociology (they’re not all about the “ghetto”). Somebody was nice enough to take the time to put this list on Amazon. It’s nice to see all these books in one place.
A Chicago Tribunepiece on why the Fenger High School students fight. It doesn’t really answer the question. But then again it’s not like there is a good answer. What it comes down to seems to be the belief that kids from the projects are “invading” another neighborhood (with seemingly very similar socioeconomic characteristics) where the…
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Thinking about the street fight in Chicago makes me think Frank Zimring and Gordon Hawkins’ 1997 book, Crime is Not the Problem. They distinguish between crime and violence and argue convincingly that America’s problem is not crime but violence. Other nations have as much if not more crime, they say. They just don’t kill each…
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One 16-year-old high-school honors student student gets sucker-hit with a large piece of wood, then cold cocked, and finally stomped and beaten to death. All this caught on video in front of a large screaming (and sometimes cheering) crowd. Finally some nearby adults carry try and rescue him and carry him away, but it’s too…
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[Detroit Police Chief] Evans reiterated his sense that people feel Detroit is supposed to have crime. He said he goes out two nights a week and works the streets, stopping motorists who rarely have driver’s license, registration, insurance. “What I say is: ‘Do you drive north of 8 Mile like this?’ And they say, ‘Hell…
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I’m generally not a fan of flashing blue light police cameras. I think they’re a waste of money. So in the interest of fairness I should point out that one in Baltimore recently got a shooter convicted. Peter Hermann reports. Not surprisingly, the victim wouldn’t cooperate. In an unrelated case, Hermann talks about a brutal…
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