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Crime, Policing and Justice
50 posts, newest first (page 1 of 3).
A Thought Experiment Where Shoplifting Is Enforced Like a Parking TicketA labelled satire about a fictional city that hunts shoplifters as it hunts expired meters, and what enforcement reveals about what a government values. A Thought Experiment in the City That Abolished Its Police DepartmentA labelled satire about a fictional city that abolishes its police, and finds that safety does not vanish but becomes something only those who pay can keep. Twelve Strangers, How Trial by Jury Crossed the Atlantic to AmericaColonists named trial by jury again and again as a right. Its path from Magna Carta to Duncan v. Louisiana shows why the Constitution protects it three times. Can Police Search My Car? Eleven Questions About Traffic Stops AnsweredEleven plain answers about traffic stops and car searches, built on the Supreme Court cases that set the rules. General information only, not legal advice. Bond v. United States, a Jilted Wife and a Chemical Weapons TreatyProsecutors used a chemical weapons treaty law on a woman who put irritants on a rival's doorknob. The Court said no, and it speaks to overcriminalization. How to Get Your City Council to Fund Police Hiring Instead of SlogansCity budgets decide how many officers answer your calls. Read the budget, speak up at the right time and track how each council member votes. Start a Neighborhood Watch That Works Alongside Your Police DepartmentA neighborhood watch is eyes and ears, not vigilantes. Here are the steps to start one with your police department, and keep it going after the first meeting. The 1994 Crime Bill, What It Actually Did and Who Wrote ItThe 1994 crime law was bipartisan and both parties later fled it. The record of what it funded, banned and did to prisons is more interesting than the myths. Defund the Police Was a Slogan Cities Tried and Then Quietly Walked BackIn 2020 city councils promised to defund or dismantle their police. Within two years most reversed course, and the gap between activists and voters shows why. What to Do if You Are a Crime Victim, Your Rights Step by StepCrime victims hold legal rights most never hear about. Here are six concrete steps, from custody notification to restitution, to put them to work. Civil Asset Forfeiture Lets Government Keep Property Without a ConvictionGovernment can take property tied to a crime without charging the owner, and property-rights and police-side conservatives weigh that power differently. Mandatory Minimums Divide Conservatives, and Both Sides Have a PointMandatory minimums promise certainty and equal treatment but take judgment from judges, and the 1986 crack law shows both the logic and the cost. What Economists Found When They Counted Police Officers and CrimesThree clever studies, built on election cycles, a terrorist attack and terror alerts, point the same way: more police on the street means less crime. Pandemic Aid Fraud Is Theft From Taxpayers and Should Be ProsecutedWhen government sends money fast with no controls, organized fraud follows, and prosecuting it serves both law and order and limited government. Equal Justice Under Law, From the Fourteenth Amendment to the CourthouseOne standard for the powerful and the powerless is older than the Constitution, and selective prosecution of anyone, left or right, corrupts the whole system. Myths About Human Trafficking That Make the Real Victims Harder to FindKidnapping vans, Super Bowl surges and border crossings dominate the story, while the federal definition points somewhere else: force, fraud and coercion. How RICO, a 1970 Law Against the Mob, Became a Weapon Against GangsRICO was written to break the Mafia and now reaches street gangs and cartels, and the same breadth that makes it powerful is why civil libertarians distrust it. Chuck Colson Went From Watergate to Prison to a Ministry Behind BarsCharles Colson served time for a Watergate-era crime, then spent his life arguing that prisoners are redeemable and responsible, and that both halves matter. How Earned Time Credits Work in Federal Prison, and Who Is Left OutThe First Step Act of 2018 wrote its rules line by line: who earns time off, how much, who is shut out, and what the right's skeptics feared. What the Recidivism Numbers Really Say About Second ChancesNine years of federal data on released prisoners should sober reformers and hard-liners alike, and it points to a smarter way to run parole and reentry. Texas Chose Treatment Beds Over New Prisons in 2007, and Here Is WhyTexas faced a forecast of thousands of new prison beds and bought treatment and diversion instead, a fiscal conservative choice worth understanding. Juvenile Courts Were Built for Truants, Not for Armed TeenagersThe juvenile court was designed for wayward children, and states need a better answer for the few teenagers who commit adult violence. The Death Penalty in the Supreme Court, a Timeline From Furman to BucklewA dated walk through the Supreme Court's capital punishment cases from 1972 to 2020, with what each decision settled and what it left open. Capital Punishment Divides the Right, and Both Camps Deserve a Real HearingConservatives split on the death penalty between retributive justice and distrust of fallible government, and each side has a serious case.
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