The Pew Center on the States released a study yesterday that found that for the first time ever, one in every 100 Americans is in a prison or jail. That’s 2,319,258 people — a population bigger than that of Baltimore and Philadelphia combined. The report also found that for all the money being spent on Read More
(photo: The New York Times) Newark has been trying to drive down its homicide toll, with Mayor Cory Booker running around in the last days of 2007 trying to importune his cops to do something to stanch the bloodshed in Brick City (crime reduction was one of the issues on which he’d run for office). Read More
Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, CA, already had it pretty rough. He was a foster child who lived in a home for troubled and abused children. And then he came out to his classmates as gay several weeks ago, wearing makeup and jewelry, and drawing the scorn Read More
California is mulling over whether to hop on board a federal sex offender act that would put kids as young as 14 on a national public registry. But we should consider cases like those of “Ricky,” a 16-year-old who had a typical high school romance with a girl who he thought was his age.
From Human Nature on Slate: Oklahomans are debating a “video vigilante” war on prostitution. The vigilante tapes men using prostitutes, edits the video for taste but not to protect identity, and posts it on his Web site. Impact: Hundreds of men have been taped; one clip has been viewed 340,000 times. Rationales: 1) It deters Read More
Remember in 2005 when a man named Brian Nichols went into an Atlanta courtroom for a hearing and killed the judge, the court reporter, a deputy sheriff and a federal agent before taking a woman hostage*? Three years on, his case is still stalled in the Georgia’s courts.
10,000 Men, a volunteer organization of black men who pledged to police their Philadelphia neighborhoods in order to dent the city’s intractable murder rate, got tons of press coverage last fall when its legions were set to hit the streets. But since then, the group has been bogged down, and enthusiastic volunteers have been left Read More
Gangs Turn To Social Networking Sites To Recruit Young people who visit social networking sites to download music and pictures glorifying criminal street gangs can unwittingly set themselves up to be recruited by those gangs, according to law enforcement officials and youth counselors. San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, who speaks for the San Mateo Read More
Yesterday we linked to a roundtable (yeah, yeah, we know) on NPR’s News and Notes moderated by Farai Chideya. During the conversation, Desmond Burton, a.k.a. Afronerd, made a comment about the shooting death of Tarika Wilson by a SWAT team, associating Wilson’s name and biography with the sad end of her life. Burton: … In Read More
On The Blogger’s Roundtable on NPR’s News and Notes, Lauren Williams of Stereohyped, Jozen Cummings of King, and Desmond Burton of Afronerd, discussed the controversial police shooting of unarmed woman 26-year-old named Tarika Wilson and her 1-year-old child in Lima, Ohio. But, well, okay. We’ll let you read. Burton: … In looking at that story, Read More
