A friend sent me this link which shows a bunch of unarmed cops confronting (and running away from) an armed suspect. Had this happened when I was a cop, I would have shot him. No doubt. And slept well. But these cops couldn’t shoot because they don’t have guns. And in the end everybody got home alive. Interesting.
Month: May 2011
Reasonable Doubt
An NYPD officer were acquitted of rape today. Did I think he’s guilty? Yeah, I do. But I’m not surprised he was acquitted. (He and his partner were found guilty of lesser charges and promptly fired.) In fact, last week I predicted this exactoutcome (but just to my class… you’ll have to take my word). Why? because even I had…
“Don’t laugh: He makes a convincing case”
In Defense of Flogging reviewed (favorably!) in Bloombergand today’s S.F. Chronicle. They “get it”: And at just over 150 pages of clear, smart and highly readable prose, Moskos’s sharp little volume has a potential audience far beyond the experts who dutifully slog through most tomes like this. It’s the kind of item that could be stacked next to a bookstore’s…
Where does that $50,000 go?
California spends more than $50,000 per prisoner. A few years ago, back when it only costs $49,000 to lock a person up for a year, Mother Jones did a breakdown of where that money goes: Security: $20,429 Medical services: $7,669 Parole operations: $4,436 Facility operations: $3,938 Administration: $2,871 Psychiatric services: $1,403 Food: $1,377 Education: $687 Records: $513 Vocational education: $289…
“Give offenders a choice–prison or FLOGGING; (he’s serious)”
From CNN’s “In the Arena“: ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Peter Moskos. … Moskos’s new book is entitled, “In Defense of Flogging.” The Supreme Court has affirmed a federal order telling California to reduce its overflowing prison population, a situation the majority said “falls below the standard of decency.” California now has to figure out how…
Crime Down in Baltimore
Homicides in Baltimore dropped from 238 to 223, giving the city its lowest homocide rate since the late 1980s. Baltimore is now fifth in murders, after New Orleans, Flint, St. Louis, and Detroit. The Baltimore Sunhas the story.
Highway Robbery
From over at The Agitator. It’s reached the point where these “drug war” police don’t even pretend to be anything but money-hungry mercenaries.
Makes flogging look better and better
Louis Theroux visited a Miami “mega-jail.” (You can watch a bunch of his other shows on youtube–I’m quite fond of them.) For a bespectacled, peace-loving Englishman, there can be few places less congenial than a berth on the sixth floor of Miami main jail. The place has to be seen to be believed. Up to 24 inmates are crowded into…
Alphabet City Memoirs
When I re-posted those pics of a Baltimore crack house, I found one of the comments so interesting I asked the commenter to turn it into a guest post. Eddie Nadal, retired NYPD, graciously agreed. These are his words: I recently visited the Lower East Side in New York, the same LES where I was born, where my grandma lived…
Why you’ll never be Batman
By your second week, you’re unhappy that 90% of the crimes you’ve even seen up-close are just pathetic junkies buying crack from another pathetic junkie selling drugs to support his/her own habit. And nothing makes you feel LESS like Batman than scaring sad, homeless crackheads. You tried to chase down a kid when you saw him punch a lady and…