Image from ACLU.org
Tag Archives: Profiling
DragNet: March 9 – 22, 2015
Speaking of departments that have gotten a bad rap, Police Chief Alejandro Lares Valladares of the Tijuana police department recently equipped officers with body-worn cameras. He hopes the initiative will both improve police-citizen relations while holding each accountable for their actions.
You’d think members of a police department as big as NYPD would know somebody somewhere might be able to trace Wikipedia page edits to their network. We shared Kelly Weill’s post for The Capital, which exposes how a computer linked to NYPD allegedly altered information on Wikipedia pages about police use of force against Eric Garner, Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo. Also bleak is their revelation that additional edits have been linked to the same NYPD IP addresses for entries covering stop-and-frisk, NYPD scandals and local NYPD and political leaders.
Speaking of departments that have gotten a bad rap, Police Chief Alejandro Lares Valladares of the Tijuana police department recently equipped officers with body-worn cameras. He hopes the initiative will both improve police-citizen relations while holding each accountable for their actions. Carrie Kahn of NPR recounts why, despite a long history of corruption, Lares believes the cameras will also capture how “citizens try to criticize my police officers.” Will body-worn cameras finally even the playing field?
According to Peter Moskos, it’s not just NYPD or Tijuana officers who are guilty of corruption: it’s “The Whole Damn System!”. We shared his post for Cop in the Hood, which explains how the recently issued (and damning) DOJ report of Ferguson’s police department “is about a whole system of government using the criminal justice system to legally steal from its residents.” Do you agree with his conclusion that, “one could be blind to race and still be outraged?” Feel free to weigh-in in the Comments section.
We previously shared AAA President Monica Heller’s call to fellow anthropologists to contemplate and discuss the intersection of race and justice. The events in Ferguson, as well as the subsequent police shooting of Eric Garner, made this topic one of utmost importance to the general public and scholars alike. In the same vein, we shared Jennifer Curtis’ post for Political and Legal Anthropology earlier this month. Learn how you (and/or fellow colleagues) can join this crucial discussion by submitting your ideas and suggestions to Jeff Martin at jmart@illinois.edu. APLA will be hosting a coordinated discussion of race and justice in Denver, November 2015.
Whether your own interests lie within the field of anthropology, sociology or criminal justice, chances are that you’ve heard a little (or a lot!) about Emile Durkheim. In my favorite “open-access” voucher of the month, Berghahn Journals announced they will offer free access to some of Durkheim’s original works in honor of the 24th anniversary of the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies. You can enjoy reading his pieces in their original French, or English translated, versions.
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!
DragNet: November 18 – December 1, 2014
Although we here at Anthropoliteia don’t have any “existential answers” about how to process the recent events in Ferguson, we hope to provide a safe space for readers to reflect about and share their reactions.
DragNet November 4 – 17, 2014
Don’t let the cute face fool you: Dale Lately of The Baffler reports how an increasing number of police officers are joining Facebook in trolling internet pages for “pre-crime” in the making.
DragNet: Sept 22 – Oct 5, 2014
The city’s where the crime’s at, right? Think again. Nic Groombridge reflects about the growing role of rural criminology.
DragNet August 1 – 24, 2014
Whether you rely on Twitter, Facebook, Washington Post or Reddit for updates, chances are your August feed has been dominated by discussions surrounding the death of Michael Brown.
Whether you rely on Twitter, Facebook, Washington Post or Reddit for updates, chances are your August feed has been dominated by discussions surrounding the death of Michael Brown. Matt Thompson of Savage Minds touched upon the conflicting coverage of recent events in Ferguson (as well as the implications highlighted by news entities like The Washington Post and New York Times) in his entry, “What is a rioter?” Likewise, the short (and terrifyingly poignant) comic featured in Medium’s August 14th post expands upon the reality of modern police militarization. Among other problems, it emphasizes the role of basic training (or lack thereof) in the police use of military-issued equipment.
If militarization is of particular interest, be sure to check out Taylor Wofford’s piece in Newsweek. Although many associate the growing police use of military grade gear and weaponry with Ferguson protests, Wofford details how departments have been “silently preparing officers for battle” as far back as the early ‘90s.
The Economist’s post Cops or Soldiers? is also relevant to concerns about police militarization. More intriguing is the fact that the article was originally featured back in March (preceding the events in Ferguson). Although SWAT teams are implied as representing an important tool of departments, when and where such teams should be deployed remain key (unanswered) questions.
Of course, Anthropoliteia staff have not been silent bystanders to Ferguson discussions. Meg Stalcup offered insight about the series of events, providing the seldom-addressed topic of officer perceptions. Although the dynamic of officer-civilian relations remains mostly hostile, Stalcup posits that with officer’s “under threat perception, it’s not surprising, although unprofessional and deplorable, that officers menace the protestors they are supposed to protect.” Lastly, don’t miss Anthropoliteia’s second Ferguson post Blue on black violence and original crime: view from Oakland, California. Our developing forum featured Brad Erickson on August 21st. In his post, Erickson uses his own experiences researching the people and police of Oakland, CA to comment on the racial and militaristic implications of Michael Brown’s shooting.
DragNet: June 1 – 15, 2014
“The challenge of on-officer cameras is the tension between their potential to invade privacy and their strong benefit in promoting police accountability,” ~ACLU
June kicked off with a post by Scott Shafer of NPRNews regarding the drastic increase in California parole rates. Where previous years saw less than a 10% release rate for “lifers”, 2013 recorded a near doubling of this statistic. California governor Jerry Brown has reiterated that crime type is no longer as much of a determining factor for parole as is the level of threat an inmate poses to the community. For more about the parole increase, check out Matt Levin’s article about lifers freed from prisons as well as his timeline cataloging the history of California parole trends.
“To the radicalized youth who demonstrated in 14 Brazilian state capitals on May 15, the World Cup represents a fundamental flaw in the Workers’ Party (PT) project,” writes Rodrigo Nunes in a news post from Aljazeera. While your friends are busy blowing up your Facebook feed about the soccer of World Cup, Brazilians continue to show outrage that the event has brought their country few winners, but many losers. For more about the political implications of the World Cup, check out Werner Krauss’ article on the Huffington Post. Here, he dissects the event from a structural-ritual perspective. Anthropoliteia also featured a post from Meg Stalcup in our continuing coverage of the World Cup.
It’s not just police getting virtual these days- so are crime scenes. In a personal favorite post by Kashmir Hill of Forbes, Hill recounts the Internet trail left behind by Santa Barbara Shooter Elliot Rodger. The troubled youth produced several YouTube videos documenting his gradual decline into criminal violence.
What would Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault have to say about Lebanese prison systems? Yazan al-Saadi’s post on Al-Akhbar evokes this and other questions about surveillance and control. The original panopticon envisioned a top-down power structure wielded by authority figures over non-authority figures. In the context of Lebanese prisons, however, this concept is turned on its head as it is the prisoner who seemingly wields ultimate control. Also in surveillance, the wife of ex-IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre has requested a formal investigation by the US state department after sensitive information from a phone call with the US embassy appeared in a popular tabloid a few days later.
An unlikely economical analysis of police body mounted cameras appeared in The Motley Fool’s investing section. Ryan Lowery reflects on the potential profitability of the leading police tech companies (including TASER and L-3 Communications) that produce the majority of the equipment.
Issues of excessive force, surveillance and militarization come to a head in Kent Paterson’s post on CounterPunch. Using recent examples of militaristic responses by members of the Albuquerque police department, Paterson builds up to a broader discussion about the impact of police technologies on aggressive responses and use of force by US police departments.
Juvenile detention centers in California will be receiving $80 billion in coming months to rejuvenate current facilities. Several proposals for amenities and new features reinforce a community-based emphasis. Officials hope the restructuring will help to solidify rehabilitation as a prevailing theme.
Tina Dupuy authored an engaging piece about casual vs. institutionalized racism in AlterNet this month. Why does the US rally more readily against casual comments than it does to institutionalized forms of racism (such as the prison system)? And further, does/can one form of racism lead to the other?
“Ban them, ban them all with a carve out for hunting weapons,” says Scott Martelle from LA Times Opinion. Referring to his admittedly minority stance on gun control in America, Martelle proposes the next steps for eliminating gun violence in America.
DragNet, April 2014
What was on April’s Blog Menu, you ask? A flurry of posts covering everything from issues in ethnicity, crime stat validity, police social media involvement and ongoing Ukraine and surveillance coverage, of course! Continue reading
Ethnic Profiling as a Societal Institution in the Netherlands
The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome this special “Dossier” from our own Paul Mutsaers
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Psychologism and profiling ‘the other’
It is common knowledge in the sociology of police that law enforcers do not merely apply legal maxims but ‘employ discretion in invoking the law’, as Egon Bittner already put it in 1970 in The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. There is often not much consistency in the application of the law as beat officers have a large leeway when they operate in the blind spot of their desk superiors, that is, on the street. While on the beat, policing may be turned into a mechanism of social ordering that has the potential to significantly alter the life prospects of those who are encountered. When roaming in the districts, containing a demonstration, responding to an emergency call, mediating a conflict, investigating a homicide, or containing a riot, the police are actually (re)producing social hierarchies and differences in the settings in which they operate. Continue reading
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