I’m very interested in the concept of justice. Especially in situations where there really can’t be any. So let’s just say that the police officer is put on trial and says, “I plead no contest. I didn’t mean to do it. But I did. All I remember was that there was a large crowd yelling and a man was struggling.…
The harms of immigration enforcement
There’s a very interesting article in the New York Times today about how federal prosecution of immigration crimes is taking away from other prosecutions… like gun trafficking, organized crime, drug dealing, and white collar crime. That’s not good law enforcement. A senior federal prosecutor who has worked on a wide variety of cases along the border said that the focus…
S.F. police surveillance cameras report
“A long-awaited study of San Francisco’s installation of surveillance cameras in high-crime areas shows that the effort fails in its primary goal of reducing homicide and other violent crime, but succeeds in reducing such offenses as burglary, pickpocketing and purse-snatching.” “The study found that the program, started by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2005, is hampered by a lack of training…
7 Police Officers Hurt in NYC Gaza Protest
Hey, guys, check the violence at the door. Or at least don’t take it out on police. The story in the Times. And the Daily News.
BART Shooting (II)
Here’s a link to a The Raw Story and clearer video of the police-involved shooting of Oscar Grant on a Bay Area BART station. Thanks to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blog for the link. In court, the officer’s actions will be judged by the standard of a “reasonable police officer.” It does not matter what the people shouting for the BART train…
True Confessions
A review written by me of The Thin Black Line: published in the Washington Post’s Book World. It’s a collection of stories told by black law-enforcement officers. Not a great book, unfortunately. But the review is well worth reading: THE THIN BLACK LINE: True Stories by Black Law Enforcement Officers Policing America’s Meanest Streets. By Hugh Holton. Reviewed by Peter…
Maybe next time they can split the bill?
A Sheriff in Alabama was jailed for “blatant” violation of past court agreements that prisoners be properly cared for. It seems he had been, legally mind you, profiting from the leftover money allocated for prisoners’ food (all of $1.75 per person per day!). Here’s the story in the Times.
Bad economy = more traffic tickets
Traffic tickets go up when local government revenue falls. Is that a surprise? Not really. Here’s the story in St. Louis Today. The study, by Thomas Garrett and Gary Wagner, quantifies it: “Controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue leads to a roughly .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in…
BART Shooting
The big police news of the week is probably the police-involved shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant (a black man) at a Bart Station in Oakland. Riotshave followed. I hate riots and those who justify them. Like there’s any justification to bust up a hair salon called “African Braids”. And here’s to Oscar Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson. She is quotedas saying:…