Troubled Teens? Dump Them in Nebraska!
The great state of Nebraska is learning the hard way — in vicious examples — of the dire importance of precision in the law. The Cornhusker State is dealing with the humiliating dumping of teenagers...
View ArticleHeroin Punks Getting Three Years a Bag
I was in a cab yesterday, and my driver pointed out a drug arrest happening across the street in the Jersey City Heights. He was more interested in the bust than I was. “There, see?” he asked....
View ArticleDeath Penalty Activist Spying in Maryland
Is apologizing enough? Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland uncovered that the Maryland State Police had engaged in prolonged spying in 2005 and 2006 on groups that oppose...
View ArticleSurveillance is Good for You
Jamie Grace wrote this article. Police in the UK increasingly use new monitoring and tracking technology to capture burglars and ‘home invaders,’ as well as car thieves. Suburban houses in high-crime...
View ArticleNYPD Artificial Eyes and Human Perception
New York State is in budgetary trouble. New York City is in a financial crisis. Is protecting the citizenry one of the first fatalities of fiscal decay as the NYPD slows the addition of 800 officers...
View ArticleThe Bullet and the Body: Bam Bam Bam in Binghamton
This Urban Semiotic blog has been dedicated — for the last five years or so — to digging up and discovering the signs, images and visual imprints that coerce the city core. After writing over 2,000...
View ArticleYour ID Card, Your Criminal Record
You are driving to the mall with your children and you find yourself going just a touch over the speed limit. It’s okay, you think to yourself, because you’re going with the flow of traffic. Out of the...
View ArticlePricking the Heene Hoax
The Heene Balloon Boy Hoax has gone on long enough to demonstrate nobody really tells the truth any longer when pressed for a confession of fact; and the experience confirms the mainstream media will...
View ArticleWhen the Chief of Police Violates Privacy
Tom Casady is currently the Chief of Police for Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child of Lincoln, I enjoy reading his fantastic blog called, “The Chief’s Corner.” I was recently alarmed when I read an...
View ArticleEvangelical Christians Resurrect the Son of Sam
From July 1976 to July 1977 in New York City, David Berkowitz — The Son of Sam — terrorized the entire city and killed six people and injured many others with a Charter Arms Bulldog Pug .44 like the...
View Article3100 MTA Eyes and 2000 NYPD Requests to Watch
We know we are being watched. We accept we are being recorded. We’ve even learned to recognize the multiplicity of cameras that bludgeon our every move now and forevermore. There are cameras in the...
View ArticleNYPD Mounts Electric Trikes
The NYPD ride horses and patrol on foot and watch you from the sky, and now they have mounted electric trikes to patrol the city. Will these new, electric, green, tricycles help control crime and...
View ArticleWhen Police Officers Give Up on Cases
A crime is committed. The police are called in on it or discover it in some other way. They are going to pursue it until they discover the person or people behind the crime — or so would have been my...
View ArticleSFPD Rotten Apple Thuggery
I couldn’t believe what I read a few days ago about Apple employees and the San Francisco Police Department barging into an innocent man’s house in search of an iPhone prototype: In an interview with...
View ArticleCrime Spikes in New York City
We are in the crest of a crime spree in New York City and I’m wondering why this is happening now. Is the economy finally so poor and far-reaching that the forgotten and misbegotten are now finally...
View ArticleDo Not Buy Cocaine On Duty
We trust the members of civil service to do everything in their power to help and protect us. The firefighters of our communities risk life and limb to put out the most lethal fires. The emergency...
View ArticleFacebook Gets Student Arrested
A man slowly ascends the stairs of a tall building. He has an assault rifle strapped to his back and carries a megaphone in one hand. When he gets to the roof he looks down on the hundreds of people...
View ArticlePretending to be the Police Will Not Get You Out of Trouble
On the television and in movies, the police are not always shown to be the most competent people around. They pine for donuts and can easily be confused when they confront criminals, leading to said...
View ArticleMaking it a Crime to Rat Out the Police
I don’t know who it was that told me about the unwritten and unspoken rule of the road — if you saw a police officer sitting and waiting to catch people going quickly in the opposite direction, and you...
View ArticleThe Weiner Effect: Is Photography a Crime?
Is photography a crime? There is a keen website dedicated to answering that question when it comes to recording the public activities of the police — Photography is Not a Crime! – and we need more...
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