Stephen Morgan, my grad-school colleague, released his Baltimore report (co-authored with Joel Pally) that looks at crime and arrests pre- and post-riot. [The Harvard sociology cohort of 1995 always turned to Morgan as the quant guy when we needed help with stats class, which was often. So rather than blame my own limitations and laziness, I prefer to entirely and…
Thoughts on Trump’s appeal
From some facebook musings of mine: [Update: I’d also look at this by Scott Winship, which goes against my main theme, and is quite convincing.] You just hear the racism and xenophobia, but Trump’s main themes are actually about trade and jobs. Blue-collar white voters feel abandoned by both major political parties… because they have been abandoned. Shouldn’t working-class white…
Why did New Yorkers stop shooting each other?
In New York City not only has the number of homicides being going down, but the percentage of homicides committed with a gun has been decreasing. Put another way, there were about 309 people shot and killed in 2011 in NYC (for UCR reasons we’re talking incidents, so this is a bit of an undercount). In 2013: 188. That’s a…
Things cops watch
I don’t post a lot of these videos, but this one is revealing. I honestly didn’t know which way this was going to go. Indian River Country, Florida, December, 2015. 3AM. A man has just gone to the convenience store to buy cigarettes. He’s riding a scooter without tags (that’s southern for “license plate”). Stop the video right at 00:15.…
Remain Calm!
Apparently there’s still no need to worry. Here is what I think matters: 2015 will almost assuredly see (we don’t the numbers for sure yet) a double digit in increase in homicide. See this Washington Post piece for a clue. And yet, if you listen to Ames Grawert and James Cullen, there’s no need to worry: Rather than stoking unfounded…
When the police reform issue is actually a “law reform” issue
My once (and probably future) co-author Nick Selby has this piece in the Washington Post: But a closer look at some statistics shows that the problem is not necessarily an issue of racist cops, and that means fixing the criminal justice system isn’t just an issue of addressing racism in uniform. … Some racial disparities in treatment by authorities actually…
RIP Ashley Guidon
On 26 Feb, 2016, on her very first shift and just 1 day after being sworn in, Ashley Guidon of the Prince William County (VA) Police Department was killed. R.I.P. In honor of Ashley, police are posting their rookie photo. Ashley and two other officers were shot while responding to a domestic-related call. The killed murdered his wife and shot…
My Book List
Not that you asked, but here’s a list of (most of) the books I’ve read in the past two years. Seems like I average one every 20 days. The best or at least most memorable of the list? In no particular order: One Righteous Man; The Warmth of Other Suns; A Curious Man; Longitude; Jacksonland; The Faithful Executioner; The Fall…
Stop paperwork (2)
An email from a Chicago Police Officer (emphasis added by me): I wanted to go through our new “investigatory stop report (ISR)” training before I replied. By now you realize we have an extremely long form to fill out every time we do a street stop. The form is ridiculous and redundant but fortunately the department has created a shorter…
There goes: “You get what you pay for!”
Well Suffolk County certainly isn’t a good case study for my point that if you pay cops enough, you’ll avoid scandal. Though I’d still like to think that’s true, WTF? The former Chief of Police (how much did he make?) pled guilty: to federal charges stemming from accusations that he beat a suspect in custody, threatened to kill him and…