Climate change is one of those issues Americans have a hard time getting a grip on. After all, it’s cumulative and gradual, unlike the immediate threat of a tornado or hurricane. And more importantly, it requires that we actually do something that might impinge on our pathological need for useless and destructive consumption. How are...Read More

In a recent post on this site, while writing about the origins of American policing and its relationship to slavery and racism, I made the following, seemingly harsh, but empirically supportable remark:Read More

Franz Fanon (1925-1962) was a well-known psychiatrist and philosopher. He received his medical and psychiatric education at the University of Lyon and was the head of the psychiatry department at the Blida-Joinville Hospital in French-occupied Algeria. In 1954 he joined the Algerian liberation movement and edited the revolutionary newspaper El Moudjahid. In 1961 Fanon’s book, The Wretched of...Read More

The evidence continues to mount for what every critical criminologist or police scholar already knows; that even in so-called “post-racial” America, police brutality is still disproportionately directed at people of color—often with fatal consequences. A recently released study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2011) entitled “Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003-2009-Statistical Tables” is no exception to this...Read More

Unless you have been living under a rock you are aware of the fact that the United States has been engaged in a War on Drugs for the past three decades. One of the cornerstones of that Drug War has been a policy of zero tolerance which results in large number of arrests.  The idea,...Read More

Violent sexual offenses against children are certainly among the crime most sensationalized by the media. Everyone agrees that sexual assaults on children constitute one of the most heinous crimes in American society. 75% of parents say their biggest fear is that their child will be abducted and sexually abused by a stranger.  The media, of...Read More

The birth and development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical, legal and political-economic conditions. The institution of slavery and the control of minorities, however, were two of the more formidable historic features of American society shaping early policing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments,...Read More

The Andy Griffith Show aired on CBS from 1960 to 1968. The comedy centered on a sheriff and his deputy, “Barney Fife,” in a small, fictional town in North Carolina. A continuing theme of the show, and the source of much of the comedy, was Deputy Fife’s gun and bullet. In an attempt to protect...Read More

A recent news story about a police shooting reported by the Des Moines Register tells a tragic story which warrants some attention and a little thought. According to a newspaper account James Comstack, the father of a 19-year-old boy named Tyler, had a disagreement with his son over buying him a pack of cigarettes. When...Read More

Police have had what is fast becoming a long-time fascination with “dangerous places” and “crime hot spots.” A dangerous place is a location that is thought to attract criminals and therefore result in high levels of violent crime. On the other hand, a hot spot is a geographical concentration of crime. Whereas a dangerous place...Read More