I featured the Baltimore Police Department in the last edition (the next is in process) of Why Law Enforcement Organizations Fail (Carolina Academic Press, 2012) due to pockets of corruption thriving in the absence of effective oversight. Not much seems to have changed since then, if this story is any indication.
Author Archives: Dr. O
Stonewalling Sex Crimes
Surprise, surprise. Michigan State University fended off media inquiries regarding Dr. Larry Nassar who criminally assaulted generations of US Olympic Team female gymnasts, many of them minors. A favored line of defense of institutions regarding major scandals, whether criminal or not, is the stonewall that reinforces “see, hear speak no evil” organizational cultures. This buys time, which may span decades, for predators like Dr. Nassar and Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky.
Cops Confront Mental Illness
The potential for miscommunication, misread situations and fatal mistake goes through the roof when cops confront emotionally disturbed individuals. From the Eleanor Bumpurs case over 30 years ago to recurring tragedies with similar story lines, police still struggle to get it right. If not, officers may pay a stiff price, as may happen here.
Meek Mill: Issues 1 & 2
Meek Mill’s fame as a rapper, combined with his 2017 imprisonment for probation violations, has made him a poster child for probation reform. The jockeying to influence the judge’s decision regarding Mill ‘s sentence did little to improve Pennsylvania’s dismal reputation for mixing politics and administration.
After a Police Shooting
The print media (now enhanced by what digital editions allow) continues to be my go-to sources for the facts of the matter, such as an this New York Times inventory of disciplinary and legal actions against officers involved in high profile, race-involved shootings.
Hamilton: A PA Times View
Plays, songs, a popular 21st century resurrection. What was the guy about? This PA Times article explains.
Government 101–Federal Authority Limited
As this story relates, Trump’s sound and fury about stripping federal funds from police in “sanctuary cities” hasn’t gone over well in court. Chicago sued Attorney General Sessions on a variety of grounds, including the 10th Amendment’s reserving, for the states and the people, all powers not specifically granted by the Constitution to the federal government which, Chicago argues, includes micro-managing how local police treat people being questioned or held for a crime. The judge has ruled that this argument, along with others advanced by Chicago (and by other cities in separate lawsuits), deserves to be heard. So, Presidential threats wither again under court scrutiny as this punitive policy is put on hold. Stay tuned.
Incentive for Extortion
Attorney General Sessions wants a return to the federal asset seizure standards that encouraged local law enforcement agencies to summarily seize property from individuals, often simply on the suspicion that the property had been associated with a federal crime. The perverse incentive? Budget-starved local agencies got to keep most of what they seized, often regardless of whether a federal prosecution ensued, or succeeded. So agency enforcement decisions in a number of jurisdictions started prioritizing the value of assets in play over the severity of the alleged underlying crime, seizing, for instance, the homes of parents of teenage sons arrested for selling small amounts of marijuana. Back to the future, says Sessions.
College a Crap-Shoot?
This article disputes how much colleges are responsible for the return on investment (ROI) graduates earn over the course of their careers as a result of the money and time spent earning their degrees. I expect my student readers will be paying closest attention here, so I encourage them to click into the embedded links, which are key to how the author is constructing his argument.
YOU Count More Than Your College
Was reading about college ROI (Return on Investment) this morning, starting with the ROI piece also posted here. This article on the value of elite colleges caught my eye because it fits my 50 years’ experience at low tuition City University of New York: Motivated, hard-working students “make it” in their careers. I base this mostly on my John Jay College of Criminal Justice students over 3+ decades. but also on my fellow business school alums from Baruch College who, despite decidedly lower income roots, match the career success rate of grads from elite business schools.