Police

Institutional Review Board advice

What can universities do to improve the IRB? Zachary Schrag, Professor of History at George Mason University and the author of, Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009, summarizes what your school can do (in ten easy steps).

Police

Cop Down at MIT

Can we make a new rule for killers? “Know your victims.” It may not help the victim, but it does help everybody else. Update 12:15am: Word is the officer has died. I think it’s safe to assume this is the first MIT police officer to be killed in the line of duty. My condolences and sincere hopes this situation resolves…

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Police

New Tool for Police Officers

Using tech and smart phones to help police. This is great, right? I can’t think of downside. Am I missing something? Kudos to the NYPD.

Police

Why You Never Chase

Three years ago I wrote this piecefor a local New York City paper. If you replace New Yorker Karen Schmeer with Baltimorean Matthew Hersl, nothing has changed. Karen Schmeer was the friend of a friend. Matthew Hersl was the brother of a guy I worked with and knew from the police academy. I bought my car from his nephew, I…

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Police

Stop, Question, and Frisk in court

From the Times: Mr. Esposito insisted that a supervisor could conclude that a stop was legal based on reviewing that form alone. “If it’s filled out properly, it gives you reasonable suspicion. And if you have reasonable suspicion established, then you do not have racial profiling,” Mr. Esposito said. “It’s as simple as that.” Except it’s not. Here’s the “UF-250.”…

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Police

Gun Guys, by Dan Baum

I finished reading Gun Guys, and it’s very good. Here’s Dan Baum talking about his book on the BBC. And here he a more in-depth interview with Dan Baum on KMO’s C-Realm Podcast (which just happens to have been recorded in my basement). [Update: and here is Baum in the New York Times.] Baum makes the point that nothing productive…

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Don’t buy this essay!

Wow. You can buy an essay about my book, In Defense of Flogging. But it’s not very good. Really. It’s surprisingly crappy. Mostly because it’s not about me book. I would expect more for my money. On the other hand, this does appear to be free.

Police

The State of Community Policing

Over at The Badge Guys, there’s a nice series of posts about the current state and evolution of what is called “community policing.”