It’s not too late to read my book. Don’t take my word for it. Take Sean O’Donnell’s of the Baltimore Republican Examiner:
For anyone interested is what being a police officer in Baltimore City is really like, Peter Moskos’ in-depth, academic, and realist account inCop in the Hood is a must-read…. Whether one agrees or not with Moskos’ opinion on drug legalization, one will most certainly enjoy this enlightening and authoritative work on policing a rough area of Baltimore City.
I wouldn't get too excited about this review. Anybody and everybody can write for the Examiner websites.
I read your book. I thought it was ok and a good eye opener for a young person thinking about a police career but at under 200 pages not counting footnotes it seemed pretty thin overall to me and not that in depth. A lot of it isn't even about your time on the PD. I got a sense from reading the book that Baltimore PD has low entrance requirements and crappy training. I was amazed you'd never run a mile and a half before your physical test. I was even more amazed to read that you had no drop outs in your academy class. That tells me you had a really easy academy. Our academy had about a 1/3 dropout/cut rate and more weeded out in FT. All in all I got the sense you are a smart guy but not really cut out for police work so that affected your perspective somewhat. You saw a lot as a rookie but there's still a whole lot you didn't see, that was reflected in some of your pretty naive theories about narcotics.
Rick, you should write for the Examiner website, I hear anybody can do it.
But I don't doubt your critique of me or the BPD academy.