America's military veterans suffer from suicide, drug dependence, homelessness at higher rates than the rest of the population. Why is that? Ostensibly these men and women are initially selected because they possess better than average mental and physical toughness, ambition, aptitude, teamwork skills. Even enjoy a supposedly elevated social status relative to their non-serving peers. What happens during an often brief 4 year enlistment period that changes them? Journalist Christopher Moraff is embedded in the front lines of the drug war. Specifically Philadelphia's low income neighborhood...
Social Control Through Trauma. School Lock-Down Active Shooter Drills Are NOT About Safety
Fordham Law School Professor John Plaff posted a great twitter thread questioning the use of School shooter drills. Go read it first: This post by a schoolteacher is what he is referencing: That's just one squeamish teacher right? Take a moment to watch this ABC report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRHcbJ9DHEg&feature=youtu.be&t=15s A large seemingly enraged cop, suited up in black like a demonic spawn of Jason Vorhees and Darth Vader. "I'm gonna kill everybody. No one is getting out of here!" As he barges in to a classroom and fires a pistol at kids who had been ordered to huddle...
Police At Standing Rock: Stand Down
Police at Standing Rock: Professionalism requires deescalation on your part. This dispute is in no way worth you injuring or killing a protester or getting harmed yourself for that matter. Even if you think your position is legally justifiable. Your militarized response however righteous you think you are (you may be) has only served to increase the danger and harm to everyone in the community you have sworn to protect. You are not in some life or death battle trying to hold a tenuous beachhead at Normandy thinking the fate of the free world lies in your steadfastness. It is easy to look...
China’s Cops Kill Less Than America’s Cops
I was browsing world incarceration and police kill rates when I put out this tweet: It definitely struck a nerve with some folks and I got a little push-back. If you adjust the numbers by population, China has about 4 times more people. It doesn't look good for the US. The US prison population is 2.2 million. We also have about 5 million people under some type of probation or parole at any one time. Police in the US kill around 1000 citizens annually. 1200 in 2015 alone. China officially incarcerates 1.6 million individuals, but that number is certainly under-counted and is probably over 2...
Murder in Service of the Drug War: The Passion of Levonia Riggins
To police: It is not okay to shoot and kill someone to enforce marijuana prohibition. It does not matter that you are a cop. Your badge does not shield you from fundamental principles of morality. Law enforcement officers must understand this and stop killing people unjustly. Levonia Riggins was ingloriously shot in his own home, suffering an undeserved gruesome early death. His family are now traumatized and grief stricken in a manner that you would never wish on anyone. They will never have true happiness for the rest of their lives. The deputies involved, especially Deputy Caleb Johnson...