A short while back I was hit with this little picture: You may look at the stop-and-frisk trend. But what I found more interesting are the shooting numbers. You don’t often see those numbers. Homicides are well tallied by police departments and the Uniform Crime Reports. Shootings less so. I’ve always used homicides as my standard indicator for crime. Homicides…
I often (and sincerely) defend Vice Magazine as (on a good day, mind you) the best source of journalism in our fine republic. Last night a friend sent me this link called, “Testilying: Cops Are Liars Who Get Away with Perjury.” OK… so I’m not expecting this to be pro-police. But before I read it, I wrote back saying: “I…
Alan Suderman of the Washington City Paper has a good article about police department discipline and some recent happenings in DC. Here’s the main story. And an extra. I don’t know why, but I always get a kick about being quoted using naughty words. In truth, I don’t actually think Iswear that much. And yet the blue just seem to…
There’s a bill to bring back corporal punishment(seemingly in lieu of incarceration) in Montana. It ain’t gonna happen, but still… Speaking of which, did I mention — gosh, no, I didn’t think I did — that In Defense of Flogging is out in paperback? Already? Where does time go? You might be thinking, “So light. So tidy. So cheap. Such…
“In five years, who’s going to be in the Hall in Fame?!” You, Earl, you gonna be in the Hall of Fame. “Little did I know 15 years ago, how deeply attached I’d become to this city. I came here in 1968 when urban areas were being demolished by riots and fires … but, after the turmoil subsided, it didn’t…
A federal judge ruled that some of the ways the NYPD conducts their “Trespass Affidavit Program” are unconstitutional. The NYT reports, “The judge ordered the police ‘to cease performing trespass stops’ outside the private buildings in the program unless officers have reasonable suspicion, a legal standard that requires officers to be acting on more than just a hunch.” So the…
Some of my old police friends my recognize these stories from Slate.com, which are taken from Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan’s soon-to-be bestselling The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office. Tim knows my story well, since his help and editorial vision made Cop in the Hood the rip-roaring success it is.
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 would dare consider the hypothesis…
Chicago’s 2012 murder total was 532. NYC’s total number for 2012 was 417. Even in absolute numbers this is significantly lower than Chicago! Amazing. The comparable homicide rates for NYC and Chicago are 5 and 20 per 100,000. Homicides in New York City declined 19 percent from 2011 (just to remember: in 1990 2,245 people were killed in NYC). To…
Remember that fear mongering from last year? “Which one?” you might say. The one about more police officer getting killed? Forty officers were shot and killed in 2008. In 2011 that number increased to 67! Even the New York Times go in the act: “72 officers were killed by perpetrators in 2011, a 25 percent increase from the previous year…