I got this query and and would be curious to learn the answer:
I’m working on a story on the history of police riding bikes in New York City…. I’m looking to explore when the NYPD used bikes as transportation, why they did, and how their utilization has changed over time as policing strategies/ideologies have shifted.
Let’s see how good this new-fangled media thing really is.
Feel free to comment or email Noah Kazis directly.
Anybody?
Ferris?
Pic credit: Shorpy.
If the state can censor sexfrom the eyes of children, why can it not censer violence? Isn’t sex better than violence? It certainly is more fun.
I guess I’ll have to read the Supreme Court’s decision…
And consider this: perhaps the more violent video games of the past few decades have actually contributed to the dropin crime. I’m not saying it has, but it’s a hypothesis I’d be very willing to consider.
Crime & Justice News reports on this story:
As Congress debates border-security funding and as governors demand more assistance, the Associated Press investigated what taxpayers spend securing the U.S.-Mexico border. Using White House budgets, reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, and congressional transcripts, the tally is $90 billion in 10 years. For taxpayers footing the bill, the returns have been mixed: fewer illegal immigrants but little impact on terrorism, and certainly no halt to the drug supply.
In the Crime Report:
The Crime Report:A lot of people have compared your book to Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal.” But Swift’s work was pure satire, where yours is an honest look at a possible alternative punishment. Does the comparison frustrate you, or is it apt?
Peter Moskos:Neither. I like the comparison. True, I don’t think Swift was really proposing eating babies; (while) I am seriously proposing giving the choice of being flogged. But I do see the book primarily as a thought experiment, having a little intellectual fun. In that sense, I think it is somewhat like “A Modest Proposal.” My book isn’t a satire, but I am trying to address real issues and be a bit provocative. So it’s not a crazy analogy.
I like this line from Time Magazine:
Reading In Defense of Floggingis a lot like reading Woody Allen’s classic “My Speech to the Graduates,” in which he declares, “More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
The Timeshas a story about Samuel Battle, one of New York’s first black police officers.
But what is reallyinteresting is his oral history. In his own words. “They had riots. Many riots.” Worth a read:
I went on down, and we got there, with my squad. The whites and Negroes were battling. I saw the white cops beating up the colored people, and I thought, “Here’s my chance to get even with them.” I saw them whipping black heads, and I was whipping white heads. I’ll never forget that.
We quelled it, we didn’t make many arrests, because in those days you didn’t have to. Today you’d be forced to arrest a lot of people to prevent them from taking civil action.
What was the cause? Just interracial conflicts. They’d sometimes start a fight over a crap game, or anything. Just some little thing like that. One will start a fight and then they’ll all get together, and you have a riot as a result
Cops and bicycles and a good cause… what’s not to like?
In the New York Timestoday, there’s an article extolling the benefits of introversion. I love reading pieces like this, which make it clear that introversion is a personality trait and not a medical problem that needs to be “cured” or treated with drugs.
My understanding of introversion began after I realized that being introverted is not the same as being shy. Rather, and more simply, introversion is simply the opposite of being an extrovert. This came to me in a great moment of self-realization after picking up a copy of Marti Laney’s The Introvert Advantage that was lying around the house (my wife is more introverted than I am). I am not shy and have no fear of public speaking, yet I positively dislike mingling with strangers at parties and usually find extroverts extremely tiring. It turns out I am in introvert. This was news to me. But then it all made sense.
So I got thinking about the nature of introversion (which is in itself a very introverted reaction) and decided (conveniently) that being an introvert is better for academic participant-observation research. Why? The Timesarticle puts it like this:
[Introverts] notice more things in general…. [and] tend to digest information thoroughly, stay on task, and work accurately … even though their I.Q. scores are no higher than those of extroverts.
This comes from my chapter, “In Defense of Doing Nothing: The Methodological Utility of Introversion” which was recently published in New Directions in Sociology: Essays on Theory and Methodology in the 21st Century:
My goal is to introduce the psychological concept of introversion into the sociological world.
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The interpersonal nature of qualitative research and the perceived “action” of participant-observation research may perpetuate a belief that extroversion is a good quality for ethnographers. In fact, nothing is further from the truth.
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If you’ve ever seen a group of ethnographers party, you may be struck by a general sense that we may not have been the most popular kids in high school. Despite what is often a very lively style of writing, ethnographers can be be soft-spoken and introverted. Now don’t get me wrong: As a group, we ethnographers are hardly the dorkiest in school (a few other academic disciplines spring to mind, but for politics’ sake I’ll refrain.).Certainly qualitative researchers must have basic social skills, but let’s be honest, no prom king or queen ever went on to write an ethnography. As a group, almost by definition, academics are nerds. We like the library. We don’t mind being alone. We walk down the street reading. We thrive in small groups and intellectual conversations. And yet mingling and making small talk with strangers is tiresome at best or frightening at worst.
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Without a clear function in a social setting, the introvert’s natural reaction is to withdraw and become silent. While this may be a problem at the annual Christmas party, it can come in handy for the researcher.
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With a greater understanding of introversion, I hope sociologists can take advantage of psychological traits that come naturally to many already in the field.
Are you an introvert? You can take this self assessment for introverts. I scored 21 out of 29 (which makes me a moderate introvert).
A friend and former roommate writes:
By the way, and I mean this in the most flattering way – In Defense of Flogging: great toilet read!
Coming from him, I know it isa sincere compliment.
He says he’s averaging 10 pages a day, not that I asked, and not that he used the word “day.”
If you have $35,800 to casually drop on dinner, you have too much money. Rich Democrats should be taxed more, too.
More productive uses of $35,800? How about paying the tuition of seven students for a year of study at my public university.
Obama’s dinner also cost me$12, because I had to hop off a bus and take a cab because traffic wasn’t moving on 57th Street. On the plus side, I had a most enjoyable ride with what might be the last smart-talking NYC-born cabdriver in the city! Deep down, I’m pretty sure he was Ernest Borgnine.