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Tyranny?

Any thoughts on Radley Balco’s post?: So yeah. Tyranny. If there’s more tyrannical power a president could possibly claim than the power to execute the citizens of his country at his sole discretion, with no oversight, no due process, and no ability for anyone to question the execution even after the fact . . . I can’t think of it.

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Prop 19

Here’s Neill Franklin, executive director of LEAP. He’s also my former commanding officer, friend (though not when he was my former commander), and co-author.

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Gladwell on Strong and Weak Ties

I’ve written: It’s to our shame as [academic] writers that the average Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker piece is more thought provoking than 95 percent of journal articles. If we can’t explain ourselves to others in a style both illuminating and interesting, we won’t and don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Here’s that kind of article. Gladwell talks about strong a…

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Looking back from the future

“Whether a country that was truly free would criminalize recreational drug use is a related question worth pondering,” says Princeton professor Kwame Anthony Appiah in the Washington Post. Thinking of that, Pete Guitherobserves: I think it’s clear that the drug war is one of those travesties that will be reviled in some way by future generations. How is uncertain. Will…

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A fresh start with a new State’s Attorney?

People normally don’t get very excited over the elections of a State’s Attorney. But the recent election lose of Patricia Jessamy (and victory for Gregg Bernstein) is the most exiting crime-fighting development in Baltimore in many years. Peter Hermann has a good story in the Sunabout the potential for corporation between police and prosecutors. In my last poston this, people…

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DMV with barbed wire and guns

There are really two philosophies in running prisons. Some wardens and officers feel that the sentence is the punishment, not the way they treat them, and that they should treat the inmates as human beings, and that they have a future, and that they need to be prepared to return to the community. These wardens take the word ‘correction’ seriously.…

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Race and Ethnicity in cities

Cool maps! And interesting data presentation that shows the detailed racial and ethnic make-up of various cities broken down by very small units.

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Stealing bricks right off off the buiding

Sounds like a headline you might expect to hear out of Baltimore. But it isn’t! This story is out of St. Louis. (Though I’m a bit ashamed to mention that the only reason this probably isn’ta problem in Baltimore is because Baltimore brick isn’t particularly good. Hence Formstoneand painted brick. Baltimore brick is pretty enough, but kinda soft and easy…

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A Slow Work Day at the FBI

The FBI has slow work days? I kind of hoped they were pretty busy. But I guess we all have slow work days. But when I have a slow work day I like to listen to a Cubs game or write blog posts or play pinball. But when the FBI has a slow work day… well the the Justice Department’s…

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