Departments

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crime

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    6/15/2022

    The Right Celebrated Bernhard Goetz as the Kyle Rittenhouse of the 80s

    by Pia Beumer

    In the context of economic turmoil, urban crisis, and racial division, a broad swath of the American public made Goetz a heroic symbol of restored white masculinity after he shot four Black teens who asked him for money on the New York subway.

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    4/19/2022

    "More Cops" is Not the Answer for NYC

    by Simon Balto

    The entire, terrifying episode that unfolded across 29 hours in New York was a testament to the futility of spending more money on police, and to the lie that police “keep us safe”. 

  • SOURCE: Protean
    2/25/2022

    Broken Homes of the Drug War

    by David Helps

    Rather than a mistake or an isolated instance of excess, a notoriously brutal and destructive LAPD raid on an apartment complex in 1988 should be seen as part of a political attack on the city's Black poor, enabled by cultural stereotypes of families of color. 

  • SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
    11/5/2021

    Where Did the Public Toilets Go?

    Peter Baldwin offers context for how American cities haltingly adopted and quickly abandoned public toilets, a story that encompasses the racial, gender and class politics of how people interact in urban space. 

  • SOURCE: Crosscut
    10/15/2021

    Beware "Rising Crime" Rhetoric in Seattle Politics

    by Dan Berger

    Progressive prosecutor candidates like Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in Seattle reflect a growing social movement to reverse decades of failed "tough on crime" policies that have accomplished little but swell the ranks fo the incarcerated, says a historian of crime and punishment.

  • SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
    10/4/2021

    Are Millennial Workers and Boomer Managers Destroying the Mafia, Too?

    Federal prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s decimated experienced middle-management ranks in New York's organized crime families. Are they struggling today because their remaining workforce consists of boomers who can't quit and millennials who are on their phones too much? 

  • SOURCE: Electronic Frontier Foundation
    7/29/2021

    It’s Time for Police to Stop Using ShotSpotter

    by Matthew Guariglia

    Surveillance systems intended to detect the auditory signature of a gunshot are inaccurate, meaning "police officers routinely are deployed to neighborhoods expecting to encounter an armed shooter, and instead encounter innocent pedestrians and neighborhood residents."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    6/14/2021

    Supreme Court Rejects Sentence Reductions for Minor Crack Offenses

    Justices disagreed about what lessons to draw from the history of the 1986 Crime Bill that created the sentencing disparity for crack cocaine offenses. Does the fact that some Black organizations at the time supported the law excuse its racist impact?