Image from projects.bettergov.org

DragNet is back, with a recap of a number articles that came up last month in our twitter feed. In World News, we have a article from Carribbean360 discussing new Jamaican policing technology that allows Jamaican police to track stolen cellphones. Our feed also featured an article from Vice.com covering the UK’s efforts to address knife crime. We were pleased to bring a piece from The Star Online covering part 2 of a four part course that took place in Malaysia offered to female commanding officers with the goal of  putting more women in command roles in UN operations. We looked at a report on procedural interviewing and its implementation in Norway the piece was covered by LB.ua. Additionally we presented an article from The Wire about the reluctant switch to an 8 hour shift in Mumbai.

In US News, The Baltimore Patch wrote a story about issues in tracking racial profiling practices in MD resulting from incomplete and unreliable data that police have been reporting.  We were pleased to see that according to policefoundation.org open data on hate crimes is available from the Police Data Initiative The goal of this data being as they say, to “fight hate with data”.  A report from ProPublica explains that In New York a  Crime drops is taking place as police stops become less frequent. In other news we see Baltimore is also having issues tracking their gun crimes. The Baltimore Sun reports Gun crime issues in Baltimore as the cities plainclothes agents were “effective”, but generated many complaints before they were disbanded. In an article on from projects.bettergov.org we are presented information on police shooting in Chicago’s Cook County. When police shooting outcomes were explored it was found that of 113 civilians shot in 2005, not a single case resulted in disciplinary action or charges of any kind.

The twitter feed covered a number of articles discussing areas were policing needs improvement. It’s Non-negotiable! Really?  from the blog Improving Police discuses police actions and Accountability, specifically in regards to use of force. Also from National Public Radio, we had coverage of the outrage in Pakistan resulting from the rape and murder of a young girl named Zainab. This incident led to countrywide anger over police inaction. In other news, we saw coverage from the Digital Journal showing anti-corruption efforts in Morocco are having low success rates, despite the existence of measures such as the “Green Number”, an anti-graft hotline. Cop In The Hood wrote a piece titled:Cops and Robbers in Baltimore, which covered the corruption case involving the Baltimore’s “Gun Trace Task Force Officers”. Also included on the twitter feed was a National Public Radio account  about the efforts of police in Venezuela to destroy a terrorist cell resulting in a “bloody shootout” that may have been more violent than necessary

A few addition articles that deserve a mention include a story from the New York Post in which Professional courtesy Cards or “get out of jail free cards” where found being sold off of on Ebay resulting in restrictions to the number of card that are to be distributed in the future. A peculiar story from Colorado was presented by MerryJane.com  about efforts to add chemicals to legal marijuana in an effort to more easily track illegal marijuana. The final story was from National Public Radio and it covers a new show called ‘The Alienist’ about the first female hire of the NYPD.

Did I miss something? No worries- it does happen on occasion. If you have any suggestions for DragNet, or if you want to call attention to a specific blog or article, send an email to anthropoliteia@gmail.com with the words “DragNet” in the subject header and I’ll get on it!