But still, this is getting a little crazy. Click to embiggen. Before the riots, there were 0.58 homicides per day in Charm City. Since April 27, there have been 1.44 homicides per day. That’s an increase of 150 percent! (148%, to be precise) And the increase happened literally overnight. I don’t think that has happened before. Anywhere. Ever. Well, “it’s…
Meanwhile, with people too busy complaining about cops, I think we’re missing the big picture. We really need to prioritize a bit here. In 2010 a 16-year-old boy was accused of stealing/robbing a backpack. He spent 3 years in a Rikers Island jail. Three years. He could have gotten out earlier, but he would have had to take a guilty…
I was recently asked for comments about a “Cop of the Year.” It doesn’t matter which. I didn’t know the cop, so I didn’t say much. I have no clue what he did (or didn’t) do. But I am suspicious of “cops of the year.” Are my suspicions justified? I’ll presume there are lots of nice “cops of the year”…
When it comes to policing and crime, I’m quick to harp on individual agency and free will. It matters. People make bad and harmful choices. They choose to do so. And police can prevent some of the things that lead to bad choices. Some liberals forget that. But this isn’t say that root causes don’t matter. Of course they do.…
Clarence Page, as usual, provides a rational, reasonable, and correct analysison the crime rise and Broken Windows.
“Don’t bet on it,” say Frank Zimring in the NY Daily News. I could not have said it better myself: At their current rate, killings in New York City would end 2015 as either the third or fourth lowest year in the city’s modern history. “Ferguson Effect”? Doesn’t look like it. … To a student of crime data, this sounds…
If you want to hear some details about Baltimore police and policing during after the riots, listen to this 20 minute discussion with Sgt Robinson and Lt Butler on WBAL with C4.
Here’s another piece of mine in CNN, also out today. I hope this gets a bit of attention because I was able to move past the headlines (thanks to my wonderful editor at CNN for her encouragement and mad editing skillz) to question the very concept police patrol. That’s the type of moderately deep-thinking that is hard to get published…
Here’s my piece in today’s New York Times: Critics of police — and there have been a lot this past year — are too focused on what we don’t want police to do: don’t make so many arrests; don’t stop, question and frisk innocent people; don’t harass people; don’t shoot so many people, and for God’s sake don’t do any…
From Shorpy: