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Cop in the Hood


Winner of the PROSE award for best book in sociology, 2008

Buy Cop in the Hood from Amazon.com

Never mind "The Wire." Here is the real thing. --The Wall Street Journal

Cop in the Hood is an explosive insider’s story of what it is really like to be a police officer on the front lines of the war on drugs. Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos became a cop in Baltimore’s roughest neighborhood — the Eastern District, also the location for the critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire. He provides an unforgettable window into this world that outsiders never see. Those who read it will never view the badge the same way.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Snitchin'

The New York Times has an article about covering up a "Stop Snitchin'" mural.

The shame is that we need snitches... I mean witnesses... willing to testify. Too bad it's dangerous.

If we didn't use snitches so much in locking up drug criminals, I bet snitching wouldn't have such a bad name.

2 comments:

Dave H. said...

The "stop snitching" movement is a terrible outgrowth of the drug war, and is also a sign of what happens when organized criminal groups control neighborhoods. If people had just "stopped snitching" on small timers as a form of protest, I would support that. But in my town and many others, "Stop Snitching" has effectively legalized murder in poor neighborhoods. I don't want to hear anyone say that the police don't care about these killings. They probably care more about this carnage than many of the residents. Too many people think this is just the natural order of things.

jeff said...

I agree with Dave. We recently had a shooting in my precinct. Upon arrival of the first officers the whole neighborhood was telling everyone not to say anything. One of the more experienced officers’s recognized what was going on and immediately removed one of the witnesses from the scene. "Snitching" or not is just making the police officer job that must harder.