In the Journals – Confinement and Mental Health
Tag Archives: training
The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, Week 5: Meg Stalcup and Charles Hahn on Technology, Surveillance, and Security
The editors of Anthropoliteia are happy to present the latest entry in on ongoing series The Anthropoliteia #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus Project, which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical exercise addressing the confluence of race, policing and justice. You can see a growing bibliography of resources via our Mendeley feed. In this entry, Meg Stalcup and Charles Hahn discuss technology, surveillance, and security in their article “Cops, Cameras and the Policing of Ethics“.
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Screen grab from post by SPDbodywornvideo CC BY-SA 4.0 2015 by Meg Stalcup
Policing and the Recession
In response to Kevin’s inquiry as to whether or not there was any reporting being done on the impact of the recession on policing, I have posted the following articles:
Budget cuts that are the result of the recession have lead to departments cutting training. The California Peace Officers Association (a bargaining collective) was receiving so many inquiries from departments about the consequences of cutting training that they put out the following memo (mjm-duty2train).
Policeone.com has a whole section of its webpage dedicated to policing in an economic crisis: http://www.policeone.com/law-enforcement-and-the-economy
including the following article: http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1834282-Recession-continues-to-limit-cut-police-services/
From the AP on cutbacks in the prison population intended to save dollars: http://www.policeone.com/corrections/articles/1642828-Mass-inmate-release-possible-in-Calif/
An article from correctionsone.com on the how competition between police departments, corrections, and parole affects incarceration: http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/1877665-Bridging-the-gap-between-police-and-parole/
From the Chicago Tribune on how the recession is leading to departments to cut positions, over time, and even how long officers run the engines of their cars: http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1813441-Police-feel-sting-of-recession-Departments-pare-programs-purchases-to-keep-cops-on-streets/
Anthropoliteia Around the Web 7/16/09
Bits and pieces from around the web:
“I’m not using excessive force, you’re excessively excited!”
This is a bit old, but NPR has an interesting series of reports on tasers and “death by excited delirium,” which is not a medically recognized condition. You can listen to them here and here.
(thanks to Peter Moskos’ blog Cop In the Hood, and to Meg for pointing out how “dope” the site is)
“It’s not a deadly weapon, you’re just using it wrong… and by ‘you’ I mean lots of you, again and again, in a systematic manner”
Speaking of the use of non-lethal force, there’s been another in a series of incidents concerning the improper use of the French non-lethal police tool called the Flash-ball, this time in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil. Francophones can read a commentary by Georges Moréas, who thinks the problem is not with the arm but with the rules for its utilization, at the Le Monde-affiliated blog “Police et cetera” here. It’s worth looking at, if only for the cool impact photos of the various types of ammunition which, Moréas reminds us, has the stopping power of a .38 Special (the weapon, not the Southern rock band).
Training is mostly B.S.
Also from Cop in the Hood, Moskos comments on a piece in The Oregonian which details changes in the amount of time, and schedule for, police recruits spending time in the field during their training. “Of my six months in the academy. I’d say that one month was wasted by sitting in an empty room or getting yelled at. Another 2 months were all but wasted with B.S. “classes” where nothing was really learned. That leaves three months of training that was actually productive. And I think I’m being generous,” estimates Moskos.
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