Police

Celebrating six years as a blockhead!

Like fellow “blockhead” Jay Livingston, I can’t believe I’ve been doing this “writing for free” crap since 2007. Like Jay, I decided to look back at my more popular posts. Unlike Jay, blogger/google doesn’t allow one to look at the past year. The choices jump from “last month” to “all time.” So let’s look at my five most popular posts…

Continue Reading

Police

Ah, the good ol’ days

Some of my old police friends my recognize these stories from Slate.com, which are taken from Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan’s soon-to-be bestselling The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office. Tim knows my story well, since his help and editorial vision made Cop in the Hood the rip-roaring success it is.

Police

“Peter Moskos doesn’t bullshit”

Check this out by Michael Corbin in Baltimore’s City Paper: Better of Two Evils. Makes me sound like such a intellectual bad-ass. And potty mouth. Fuckin’-A! Seriously though, it is very powerfully written. Makes me want to re-read my own books.

Police

The Boys of Summer

Or, more accurately, “The Baltimore City police men and women of late Fall 2009,” but nobody ever wrote a book with that name. I’ve also always wondered just how many of my class are still with the Baltimore Police Department. This seems a rather simple question, but such data, especially if it’s police related, can be surprisingly hard to come…

Continue Reading

Police

“Ethnographic Chutzpah”

Horn tooting time. Just two-and-a-half years after the publication of Cop in the Hood, (the academic world can move at a glacial pace) the American Journal of Sociology reviewed Cop in the Hood. Well worth the wait, I’d say, as the review by Profesor Andrew Papachristos is very favorable: “Ethographic chutzpah…. Perhaps the best sociological account on what it means…

Continue Reading

Police

Enlightening and Authoritative

It’s not too late to read my book. Don’t take my word for it. Take Sean O’Donnell’s of the Baltimore Republican Examiner: For anyone interested is what being a police officer in Baltimore City is really like, Peter Moskos’ in-depth, academic, and realist account inCop in the Hood is a must-read…. Whether one agrees or not with Moskos’ opinion on…

Continue Reading

Police

Ethnography Bashing

I don’t mind a mixed review of my book (Contemporary Sociology), but it does bother me when a reviewer calls my participant-observation research a “major flaw.” It’s like a man who doesn’t like olive oil, fish, and lamb bashing a Greek restaurant for being too “Mediterranean.” If you don’t like the concept, don’t review it. Basically, goes the tired old…

Continue Reading

Police

Foot Patrol: The Colonel Speaks

Continuing my conversation with Colonel (Ret.) Margaret Patton of the Baltimore Police department, I recently received this email: I read your added chapter[the new chapter in the paperback edition of Cop in the Hood].You should be a police chief. The term “Policing Green” is very catchy and, more important, very smart. Foot patrol is a key to addressing crime and…

Continue Reading

Police

From Amsterdam: Lessons on controlling drugs

Hot off the virtual presses, here’s an article I wrote appearing in this coming Sunday’s Washington Post. I talk about the difference in policy and police attitudes toward drugs in Amsterdam and in the U.S.: In Amsterdam, the red-light district is the oldest and most notorious neighborhood. Two picturesque canals frame countless small pedestrian alleyways lined with legal prostitutes, bars,…

Continue Reading

Police

Me and Lou Dobbs

I was on Lou Dobbs today. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I love immigrants. You can read more (and see the video) here.