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Category: Police

  • Were those the days?

    It what might be end of a long (and glorious?) Baltimore police tradition, two officers were convicted of misdemeanor for picking up two 15-year-old boys and dropping them off far from home, one of them barefoot. The officers were acquitted of far more serious kidnapping charges.

    These officers were certain not the first police officers to pick up trouble-making youths, and, rather than dragging them through the juvenile justice system, decided a fearful two-hour walk home would be more effective punishment. (I never saw this first hand, but I heard many such second- and third-hand stories.) Such shenanigans certain fall under then category of “informal justice,” but it was never clear if it was illegal discipline. Is a long lost walk good punishment all of the time? Certainly not. But might it not be the right punishment some of the time?

    I’m all for (legal) alternative sanctions. One time I guy in my squad caught two kids throwing and breaking bottle early in the morning. We were a few months out of the academy and the kids were “gigged” with push-ups (ironically that is what we learned in the academy). Was this punishment technically legal? Probably not, but I thought it was one of the smartest thing I ever saw this officer do. A little discretion can go a long way.

    [also published at The Agitator]

  • Police Officer Answers Calls, Settles a Few Disputes, Does Paperwork, Returns Home to Watch TV

    OK, this isn’t a real post. I just always wanted to see this printed in The Agitator. Ha!

    [–Peter Moskos]

  • “What are you, deaf?”

    Two men were attacked in a bar for flashing signs. Not gang signs. Sign language, according to the AP: “Two hearing-impaired South Florida men were stabbed at a bar when their sign language was mistaken for gang signs.” Man… I didn’t stab them till after I told them to stop. What?! I did. They wouldn’t listen.

    There should be an award for such criminal stupidity. Not a standard Darwin Award, but something for idiots who demonstrate not only that they can hate and hurt, but even, by their own demented standards, hate the wrong stranger.

    Reminds me of an old joke (or is it a movie line?) my dad liked to tell in which a Jew and a non-Jew are being taken away on the train to Auschwitz. The Jew says, “What a tragedy.” The goy replies, “For youit’s a tragedy. For me it’s a mistake!”

  • Agitatin’

    Radley Balko has a bold post on the killing of Osama Bin Laden, “He Won.”

    Speaking of Balko, he has been nice enough to invite me to guest blog for a week over at The Agitator. So I’ll be posting the same things both here and there. Over there, the grass looks greener: there are tens-of-thousands of readers; here there are hundreds.

  • Correspondents’ Dinner

    I mention this only because I’ve known Seth Meyers for years, from his days at Boom Chicago, my brother’s comedy club in Amsterdam. But I thought he did a great job. And there’s a nice cut away to my brother at 1:25 of Part 2. They actually wanted to show Seth’s parents but instead got Andrew with Seth’s brother Josh and their mom in the background.

    And can’t Donald Trump even fake having a sense of humor? I predict Trump attempts a hostile takeover of NBC just so he can fire Seth.

  • Flogging yes… but the horsewhip?

    From a comment to my article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

    I think that the editors of the Chronicle and the people at John Jay who hired this thug should be taken out and horsewhipped.

    Luckily, the woman responsible for hiring this thug stands by me.

    In more mistaken criticism, somebody from the absurd we-have-2.3-million-prisoners-because-we-have-more-freedom camp says:

    Moskos’s argument is ethically offensive… One is left with the suspicion that this just the latest in a long, long chain of progressive arguments…for not punishing criminals at all…. Moskos tips us off with this section, which is typical of the breed. [emphasis added]

    Now I can’t criticize a guy for not reading my book yet (because it’s not out), but it’s curious how he could jump to so many conclusions and be so wrong. I guess he’s mistaken about “my breed,” whatever that means.

  • Grad School Advice

    I always feel like who am I to talk about grad school? I didn’t follow any of the standards Rules to Successful Completion. I liked school, but I wasn’t hanging around the department and I took nine years to finish. I might have been the only Harvard sociology student history to fail the “oral exam” (go ahead and snicker, I would. I know it sounds dirty, but it’s not). Most of my close friends, almost all of my employment (I was the sole worker in a very small library and was a TA to just one class during those nine years), and all of my social life were outside the sociology department. That’s how I stayed calm and sane. I also became a police officer. I recommend that for all grad students (kidding… sort of).

    I just came across this in a comment to this article. It’s damn good advice if you’re in graduate school and anything like me. It’s also contrary to almost all “normal” advice you’ll hear. And don’ forget, “Friend, I don’t know what the hell you do for a living, but damn!” It’s the one time in your life you can spend all day in the library and reading books and consider it work:

    7 Golden Rules for Grad School:

    1. Never agree to live with someone in your program. Go home to someone who is either in a different program or who is a citizen of the “Real World.”

    2. Always try and remember that MANY of your colleagues have the minimal level of social skills required for functioning outside of academia and many of them are feeling, after being star pupils and overachievers for most of their lives, deeply insecure. Knowing this will help alleviate a lot of your stress. So when they say something to you like, “You only got to teach X class because so-and-so/that professor/the department ________________.” Just quote Oprah and what one of my older colleagues said: “Don’t let them steal your joy!”

    3. “Invest your ego somewhere else and find some support system that’s separate from this program—your family, your lover, or whoever.” Truer words were never spoken. Your friends and family are your reality check, your cheerleaders, and they’re the ones who are going to throw you a party post-defense. My best friend is always saying to me, “Friend, I don’t know what the hell you do for a living, but damn!” That’s all I need sometimes to get through a tough day.

    4. “Be kind to yourself.” – one of my professors who I taught for last year.

    5. A little anxiety never hurt anyone, but just be aware of that fine line between knowing that you’re just anxious and knowing that the lines on the bus’s brakes were cut and the bus is barreling towards you.

    6. In the words of Baz Luhrmann: “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.”

    7. You’re there because someone, somewhere, on some admissions committee put all the pieces of you together and wanted you to come and earn a graduate degree with them. If you couldn’t do it, you never would’ve been recommended for admission by either your old professors or a bunch of professors who you’ve never even met before you set-foot in the door in August. You CAN do it.

  • Flogging Momentum

    My piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education seemed to make a splash. There’s also a piece out in the Washington Monthly (not yet available online… but why not subscribe?). I haven’t seen it yet. I mean, I’ve seen it. I wrote it…. But I haven’t seen it in print.

    Most people seem to be responding to the book correctly: with thoughtful discussion. That’s a great sign! Also a good sign is the I went up the Amazon sales rank today, which isn’t bad for a book that isn’t out yet. On the subject, my editor at Basic Books said she was holding a copy of the real deal in her hands. So it is starting to come off the presses.

    It almost seems as if if flogging has already gotten more press than Cop in the Hoodever got. That’s good, but also a bit bittersweet.

  • Good Shooting

    Videoof police-involved shooting. Cops 1. Robber 0.

  • Sitting at the Schadenfreude Cafe

    I don’t quite know how else to describe my perusal of right-wing blogs responding to the shocker than Obama was born in Hawaii.

    What’s funny, though not surprising, is I haven’t heard a single person say, “gosh, I guess… I was wrong.” I guess it’s all about that “conviction” thing.

    “Why does it say Barrack and not Barry,” is a good one. And “Why does it say ‘African’ for his father? The term back then was black.” Of course the term back then wasn’t black (the race would have been “colored” or “negro”). And his father wasAfrican.

    And “Why did he wait so long,” is being said a lot. I don’t know, maybe because stupid fridge groups often show their true colors and discredit their cause. And there’s something undignified about the President (seems like “respect the office” only applies when Republicans are in power) getting down in the fray. I mean, it’s like if they said he wasn’t a man, would he have to whip out his presidential schlong?

    Now Trump taking credit? That’s silly. I mean, Trump did push the issue and it may have pushed Obama to say enough is enough. But it’s hardly something to brag about, especially if you were wrong.

    The grandmother video wasn’t convincing. What grandmother wouldn’t remember when her grandson was born, here, where she was when she heard the news? What quashed my doubts was the birth announcement in the local paper. What kind of parents would put a false birth announcement in the papers, in 1961, to help their black son because President of the United States one day?

    Now of course we stillcan’t know for sure. I mean, we didn’t see the birth ourselves. As a Twitter feed said, “Yeah, but where’s the placenta?!”