Frank Zimring has always been one of the better criminologists out there. This nine minute video from the Vera Institute of Justice hows some of the reasons why.
Tag: causes of crime
Gang membership
Do you ever see a headline that says “Gang Membership Down”? I’m suspicious. Gang membership did not increase 25% in one year. That I can guarantee.
Islamophobia?
I’m pro-Muslim. I sound funny just saying that. I’m not too keen on religion or zealots in general. But why would I be anti-Muslim any more than anti-Jew or anti-Christian? I have good friends who are Muslims. I have students who are Muslims. I have neighbors who are Muslim. I’ve traveled to Muslim countries. Muslims all nice people. Well, not…
The Talented Tenth
W.E.B. DuBois (pronounced doo-boyz, by the way, cause he wasn’t French) wrote about “The Talented Tenth.” DuBois was, among other things, a great American, a suffragist, a sociologist, and a Harvard grad. Had his groundbreaking The Philadelphia Negrobeen written today, I can only wonder if it would have been called, DuBois in the Hood. In contrast to the Talented Tenth,…
Undoubtedly the most demoralizing force in the country today
It’s official: Responsibility of the Moving Picture Show for Crime The demoralizing character of some of the moving picture shows, says the New Jersey Law Journal, continues to be exemplified by proceedings from time to time in our local and county criminal courts. One of the latest instances was a case which came before Judge Case, of the Somerset County…
The family that robs together…
Marc Perrusquia in the Memphis Commercial Appeal has a good story about the extensive criminal activities of one very criminal family. Over seven decades, Porterfield and several members of his extended family have been a violent, drug-peddling, thieving scourge on Shelby County. They’ve been involved in at least 14 shootings, four murders and countless break-ins and assaults. In all, 407…
Small-town values
Just so you don’t get to thinking that cities and ghettos have a lock on stupid senseless crimes. “The seeming senselessness of the killing of Kimberly Cates – hacked to death in her bed last week in Mont Vernon, N.H., allegedly by teenagers who chose her at random and didn’t know who she was.” The storyby Sarah Schweitzer in the…
“Running only leads to more running”
A Chicago Tribunepiece on why the Fenger High School students fight. It doesn’t really answer the question. But then again it’s not like there is a good answer. What it comes down to seems to be the belief that kids from the projects are “invading” another neighborhood (with seemingly very similar socioeconomic characteristics) where the high school is. “As far…
Crime Control
A reader of mine read John Seabrook’s story in the New Yorker, about John Jay Professor David Kennedy. He send me these thoughtful comments: I’m still turning the article over in my head. This may come off as a rant but I don’t mean it as such. The piece was thought provoking for a host of reasons. I’m fairly certain…
Balto Murders
Baltimore is number two in murders, after Detroit. (Brings to mind that old t-shirt… you Baltimore cops know the one I’m talking about.) Peter Hermann writes: The 107 people charged with murder last year had accumulated a combined 1,065 prior arrests – 380 related to guns and 99 related to drugs. The 234 people killed last year had a combined…