Tag: law-enforcement officers
1990s Policing: Overrated or Underrated?
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
On Tuesday, Joe Biden declared that, “when it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police. It’s fund the police.” He was speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. “I know we expect
Why Police Are Still Handling Mental-Health Crises
DURHAM, N.C. — When the murder of George Floyd in 2020 sparked widespread demand for police reforms, some cities moved to announce major overhauls of law enforcement. One of the most promising—and popular—proposals was to develop mental-health response units, staffed by social workers or crisis counselors, who could respond to mental-health incidents in lieu of armed police.
The idea grew out of frustration with police over a slew of horrifying and high-profile incidents when law-enforcement officers, dispatched to deal with
The Retail Industry’s ‘Shoplifting Surge’ Claims Are Fuzzy at Best
You’ve probably seen the shoplifting stories, if only because there are a lot of them. On local news and in national publications, they paint a shocking picture: Across the United States, retail stores are fighting a war against large, violent, highly organized criminal gangs. The attacks are common, and they’re escalating in severity. Thieves smash windows at luxury clothing stores, go full-on Supermarket Sweep in the aisles of drugstores, and sell their wares undetected on Amazon or eBay or Facebook