So say some Massachusetts school officials–the same ones who say decriminalization “sends a terrible message to kids.” The story by John Hilliard is here (via the Agitator). This really is no surprise, but it’s important for a few reasons. Prohibitionists seem to care more about “the message” than about actual drug use and drug harms. For too many, it’s a…
Peter Hermann has a good story in the Sun. “It is a murky, secretive place where cops and crooks mingle and exchange information for money, a place where the line dividing law and disorder often blurs.”
Anybody in Baltimore know why the major from the Southeast was suspended? An old buddy of mine from Eastern was asking if I knew why. Sheee-it… like I know anything. I didn’t even know he was the major. But we both remember him a good guy. If you know, I’d appreciate it if you could send me an email directly…
PERF says Tasers increase officer safety. Of note: Not all of the people who have died after being subjected to a CED activation were chemically dependent or had heart disease or mental illness; “some were normal healthy adults.”
An anonymous reader sent me this link by Rob Moore and Donald Fraser of the Franklin County Citizen & The News Leader. Thanks. It’s an update on the shooting of Jonathan Ayers. The woman who was in the Rev. Jonathan Ayers’ car moments before he was shot by undercover drug agents in Toccoa on Sept. 1 is refuting reports that…
So says Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weiss. The Sun-Times reports. The police chief asking a bunch of high-school students to snitch? That’ll go over well. The sad part, at least to me, is that if it weren’t for the video, this would have been just another death in the hood. Another dead black kid, little reported and quickly forgotten. And…
Here’s a great interview from Investigative Voice with Baltimore homicide detectives Irving Bradley and David Hollingsworth. You had to be an actor. I had to convince you, what I was telling you to do was the right thing to do. Even though before I got you, you had torn out every window in the neighborhood, you had torn up somebody’s…
The other night I had a minor but perhaps brilliant idea. What if there were a correlation between the numberof prisons in a state and that state’s incarceration rate? Perhaps the more prisons there are, the greater the political influences that play in a state, leading to more people locked up! Prison-Industrial-Complex shit I’m talking about! Of course, biggerstates would…
Thinking about the street fight in Chicago makes me think Frank Zimring and Gordon Hawkins’ 1997 book, Crime is Not the Problem. They distinguish between crime and violence and argue convincingly that America’s problem is not crime but violence. Other nations have as much if not more crime, they say. They just don’t kill each as much. Zimring and Hawkins…
One 16-year-old high-school honors student student gets sucker-hit with a large piece of wood, then cold cocked, and finally stomped and beaten to death. All this caught on video in front of a large screaming (and sometimes cheering) crowd. Finally some nearby adults carry try and rescue him and carry him away, but it’s too late. Derrion Albert died. Foxhas…