Policing: A Sociologist’s Response to an Anthropological Account.

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Vol. 33 (S1), May 2010.

The more jargon and sociobabble we anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers spew out--the more we strive to define ourselves as literate scribes in an academic temple--the more irrelevant we become.
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Aping quantitative science is not the answer. Imagine if all poetry had to conform to the structure of a haiku. ... [Who] would remember "Casey at the Bat" if it were written like this: mighty casey swings – oh two two on down by two – no joy in Mudville.
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I just wish more academics would worry about the Elements of Style as much as they obsess over the whims of anonymous reviewers and straitjacket themselves with journal orthodoxy.

The Better Part of Valor:
Court-Overtime Pay as the Main Determinant for Discretionary Police Arrests

Law Enforcement Executive Forum. Vol. 8(3). May 2008.

Discretionary arrests are more influenced by officer-based variables than any suspect-based variable. The discretionary will—even whim—of individual police officers, the desire to make an arrest, is the best predictor of arrest numbers. Desire for court overtime pay is the single more important factor affecting the quantity of discretionary arrests. Age and morale are also significant causal variables.

911 and the Failure of Police Rapid Response

Law Enforcement Executive Forum. 2007. vol. 7(4)

No police officer is ever promoted to beat cop. Foot patrol is most often a form of punishment. While the public generally favors increased foot patrol, the opposition to foot patrol in the police organization is strong. Recognizing the failures and limitations of the status quo is the first step to better patrol: 911 calls dominate police far more than rapid response impacts crime.

Afro-Anglo: America’s Core Culture: A Consolidation of Peoples in the United States.

National Journal of Sociology. 1995. vol. 9(2)

There exists a Core Culture in American which is shared by all people inasmuch as they are American. This Core Culture is a consolidation of Anglo-American and Afro-American culture. While many authors view the black experience as distinct and separate from the core American experience, this paper argues that American Core Culture is uniquely defined by its Afro-Anglo nature—a blend of both the Afro and the Anglo culture, history, and experience. That Afro-Anglo culture has not been recognized as America’s Core Culture is due both the Eurocentrism of the dominant paradigm of American culture, and the Afrocentrist competing paradigm of a separate black American culture. Afro-Anglo Core Culture recognized the oneness of whites and blacks together as part of the American experience.

Two Shades of Blue: Black and White in the Blue Brotherhood

Law Enforcement Executive Forum. Vol. 8(5). September 2008.

Black and white police officers have different attitudes towards the role of police in society, police department politics, and the minority community. A common ground of police identity is found in conservative social beliefs and opposition to “ghetto” culture. But attitudinal similarities do not negate differences between the races. Black and white police do not blend into the same shade of blue.

Newspaper & Magazine Articles

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Time to Tell: Son says author of military's 'don't ask' would now repeal it

Washington Post. June 4, 2010

I was the first critic of "don't ask, don't tell." It was 1993, and I was home on break from college. My father, Charles Moskos, and I were watching TV and drinking ouzo.

My father ... came up with the concept and coined the phrase ["don't ask don't tell"]. He had lots of crazy ideas. But this one, I declared, was "the stupidest idea you've ever come up with." A few months later ... "don't ask, don't tell" was the law of the land.

Today ... I am convinced that my father would support the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

Angels in Blue: The Virtues of Foot Patrol

The American Interest. Sep/Oct, 2009.

The pattern today is when police start driving, they never "walk foot" again. That represents a loss for community and police alike. Foot patrol officers knew their neighborhood because in a real sense they were part of it. Beat cops watched people grow up, get jobs, or get in trouble.
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Just as overtime pay drives discretionary arrests, extra pocket money would change the very culture of patrol. Officers need to want to walk foot, and more money is a way to make them want it. Only with willing officers does foot patrol bring the best possible benefits.

Drugs Are Too Dangerous Not to Regulate—We Should Legalize Them

U.S. News & World Report. August 4, 2008.

Drugs are bad. So let's legalize them.

It's not as crazy as it sounds. Legalization does not mean giving up. It means regulation and control. By contrast, criminalization means prohibition. But we can't regulate what we prohibit, and drugs are too dangerous to remain unregulated.

It's Time to Legalize Drugs

Washington Post. August 16, 2009.

Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies ... have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsbility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly emiminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

Driving While Black

New York Times, July 30, 2006

Simply knowing the race of stopped drivers is virtually meaningless; the data will neither placate critics nor reflect well on what is generally a good police department.

The police officer in me is suspicious of any effort to quantify a job that is — or at least should be — qualitative. But the professor in me loves police data on race.

When I was a police officer in Baltimore, I was very suspicious of whites driving slowly around drug corners in the neighborhood at 3 a.m. Some might say I profiled white people. I call it good policing.

Race is a factor in America and a factor in effective policing. Racism should never be.

Balancing Security and Liberty

The Washington Post, August 2, 2004

The only way to prevent creeping use of implied consent is to limit the doctrine of plain view. Before searching a person, the government must choose either plain view or implied consent.

If the government must search without probable cause, let it search, but only for illegal weapons or bombs. If security outweighs the Fourth Amendment, the scope of such searches must be limited to objects representing a clear and present danger to public safety. Any unrelated suspicious or illegal objects found must be ignored.

Victims of the War on Drugs

The Washington Post, July 09, 2003

If the war on drugs were winnable, we would already have won it. Drug prohibition criminalizes large segments of the population, even the majority in some areas.

Those at the receiving end of our drug policy know it simply doesn’t work. People will riot as long as police keep locking them up without anything getting better.

Separate the problems of drug use from the violence of the drug trade. Acknowledge that drugs are bad, but don’t frame drug policy as a moral war against evil.

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A Cops' Eye View of the Gates' Arrest

Baltimore Sun. July 31, 2009.

Every police/public confrontation ends up in one of three ways: the suspect 1) leaves the scene, 2) defers to police authority, or 3) gets locked up. Mr. Gates couldn't do the first option, he refused to do the second, so he virtually begged for number three. It was certainly wrong, in this situation, to arrest Mr. Gates. But can it ever be right to cuff somebody for "contempt of cop"? The short answer is: yes.

From Amsterdam: Lessons on controlling drugs

Washington Post. October 25, 2009.

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, porn stores and coffee shops. In 2008, I visited the local police station and asked about the neighborhood's problems. I laughed when I heard that dealers of fake drugs were the biggest police issue -- but it's true.

Take the Violence Out of the Drug Trade

Baltimore Sun, August 3, 2004.

The only way to disarm the drug culture is to take the profit out of street-level drug-dealing. Drug legalization and regulation are the answer. Why leave the profits to those who perpetuate violent culture?

Legalizing drugs would not be a silver bullet. But drug prohibition must be recognized as a good intention gone terribly wrong. The war on drugs destroys neighborhoods, enriches drug dealers and promotes a culture ruining the lives of our cities’ youths. Drug prohibition is a failure. It’s time to try something else.

Feet on the Street

New York Post, June 23, 2003

Why does it take six calls and 90 minutes for police to “handle” a call for drinking and disorderly people on a slow Sunday morning? Because police are out of touch with the areas they are meant to serve. There’s no cops walking the beat.

The difference between a group of people quietly hanging out and the same group of people being disorderly or even threatening is too subtle for a police officer to determine if isolated in a squad car. Yet any pedestrian or foot officer can immediately tell when something is amiss.

Old-School Cops in a New-School World

The Washington Post, August 5, 2003

One school of thought -- call it old school -- believes in the moral righteousness of hitting back. Phrases like “he got what he deserved” and “you reap what you sow” come to mind. If someone disrespects you and grabs your private parts? The old school says legal niceties be damned.

New-school police believe in cuffing suspects and writing solid reports.

Though we demand new school behavior from our police, most police officers are firmly old school. Old-school police believe that the disrespectful deserve a “good thumping.” It’s about respect.

Buckle-Up or the Lock-Up

The Baltimore Sun, April 27, 2001

Allowing police to jail people for non-jailable offenses is absurd as it helps neither the public nor the police.

As for the police thanking the Supreme Court for our new power, not from this cop.

Juking the Stats

Copinthehood.com February 17, 2010

Sergeants, lieutenants, captains and inspectors feel intense pressure to produce ever better stats. To some extent this can be good. Police are paid to work. But the pressure to produce more with less is as overwhelming as it is unrealistic. Mind you, the orders never come from above to just make numbers up, but when commanding officers talk about “productivity,” the rank-and-file hear “quotas.”

Why You Never Chase

West Side Spirit. February 26, 2010

Karen Schmeer’s death is more than a simple tragedy. Karen wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Karen might be alive if police did not bend or break the exact rules put in place to prevent this kind of senseless death.

The NYPD pursuit policy is based on the only effective way to reduce the danger of a car chase: don’t do it. For police, it's as simple as it is unsatisfying.

Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of Policing
by Norm Stamper

Law Enforcement News, September, 2005

Pity poor Norm Stamper. He would have liked nothing more than to write a book extolling the virtues of community policing and a greater police focus on domestic violence. A hard-working liberal police officer for 33 years, he rose from San Diego beat cop to chief of the Seattle Police Department.

Then came the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle. Massive protests and riots turned the city into chaos. Chief Stamper later resigned, admitting that he and his police were woefully unprepared for the scale of protests. Stamper’s name is now cursed by both ends of the political spectrum, albeit for different and often diametrically opposed reasons.

The Thin Black Line: True Stories by Black Law Enforcement Officers Policing America's Meanest Streets
by Hugh Holton

Washington Post, January 11, 2008

The stories police officers tell each other often don't amuse outsiders. While fellow cops laugh, an outsider is left thinking, "Is it funny that a man bleeds to death?" or "You took crutches away from a one-legged homeless man?" But police don't tell these stories to entertain outsiders. A story is more than a way to bond over a beer after work; it's an essential tool of the trade.

Before I was a police officer, I loved the TV show "COPS." But after a few nights in a police car, I realized that "COPS" wasn't the real deal. The dialogue was stilted, on guard, seemingly self-censored for the more politically correct masses. The Thin Black Line, a collection of 28 oral histories of black law enforcement officers in U.S. cities from coast to coast, is similarly restrained. I'm certain these officers have great stories to tell. They just don't tell them here.

Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age
by Bernard Harcourt

American Journal of Sociology. 2008. Vol. 113(5).

Under the medieval system of tything, individuals could be held responsible for the misdeeds of others in their collective group. In the movie Minority Report, set in the near future, criminals are incarcerated before they commit their crimes. Our present system of justice, according to Bernard E. Harcourt’s Against Prediction, combines the worst of both worlds. “The quest for prediction,” Harcourt writes, “has distorted our conception of just policing by emphasizing efficiency over crime minimization. Profiling has become second nature because of our natural tendency to favor economic efficiency.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.