The Right to Record and Police Accountability

The New York Police Department’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) reported that over a three-year period, NYPD officers threatened, blocked, and otherwise tried to prevent individuals from recording them in public in the performance of their duties. Almost 100 of the 346 allegations made between 2014 and 2016 were substantiated by the board, not counting the many cases that may not have been reported. To be fair, there are many thousands of contacts between police and individuals that happen in New York City. Although there is no way to know how many of those interactions are recorded,...

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National Police Misconduct Recap

National Police Misconduct Newsfeed Daily Recap 03-27-17 Here are the 12 reports of police misconduct tracked for Monday, March 27, 2017: Update: Marksville, Louisiana (First reported 11-09-15): A now-former deputy was found guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter for fatally shooting a six-year-old boy and wounding his father by shooting into the car they were in after a vehicle pursuit. His former partner will stand trial separately. ow.ly/dJEY30ah0FD Northeastern Regional Police (Pennsylvania): An officer pled guilty to a traffic violation and paid a fine for fatally striking a...

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National Police Misconduct Recap

National Police Misconduct Newsfeed Daily Recap 03-13-17 Here are the ten reports of police misconduct tracked for Monday, March 13, 2017: Muskogee, Oklahoma: An officer was arrested for domestic assault with a deadly weapon. ow.ly/oUgW309QHCM Vallejo, California: An officer was caught on video pulling his gun on an anxious crowd that had gathered after he took down a fleeing man who had been behaving strangely. The man had effectively surrendered when the officer used force to take him down from behind. While the contact seemed over the top to the lay observers, the officer’s initial...

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A Pox on Both Your Houses

In the opening essay, Professor Teles lays out the problems he sees in meaningful criminal justice reform because of infighting on the political right. For the most part, I agree with his analysis regarding the conflicts within the Republican coalition and the obstacles they presented up to this point in the 114th Congress. But that is not the whole story of why we don’t have a comprehensive federal bill in the imminent lame duck Congress. And the much larger problem—the American appetite for criminal punishment—is not something that neatly cuts down partisan lines at the federal or local...

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Jonathan Blanks

Jonathan Blanks is a Research Associate in Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice and Managing Editor of PoliceMisconduct.net. His research is focused on law enforcement practices, overcriminalization, and civil liberties. Blanks has appeared on various television, radio, and internet media including HuffPost Live and Voice of America. His work has been published in the Washington Post, The New Republic, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Capital Playbook (New York), Vice, Reason, Libertarianism.org, Rare.us, and the Indianapolis Star, among others. In 2015, Blanks testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on police accountability. Blanks is a graduate of Indiana University.


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Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty

Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty

Americans today have “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, injected, harassed, surveilled, vilified, disarmed, beaten, detained, and maybe shot by federal agents. From hapless homeowners hit by SWAT raids to pandemic lockdowns pointlessly paralyzing lives, government...

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