(Part 2) Best criminal law books according to redditors
We found 1,321 Reddit comments discussing the best criminal law books. We ranked the 294 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
try to avoid perjuring yourself when they do jury selection:
>Take the questions literally. Answer as briefly and generally as you truthfully can.
>
>Do you have any political, religious, or philosophical beliefs that might prevent you from delivering a verdict based on the facts? (Not at all. I want to decide a fair and just outcome.)
>
>How do you feel about people accused of breaking the law in question? (They deserve fair trials, like anyone accused of a crime.)
>
>If it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, can you set your opinions aside and vote guilty? (Yes, I can.) As trial lawyer and jury nullification expert Clay Conrad notes in response to this question, of course you can. You can also shove your arm down a garbage disposal! That does not mean you are committed to doing so.
>
>The goal is to present an open mind that is concerned with fairness and the facts.
https://www.flexyourrights.org/faqs/can-go-jail-jury-nullification/
> The portion about Obama subscribing to the Robert Pape argument is interesting.
It would be far better if the author was correctly citing Pape, which he is not. Pape's argument is that strategic success and low cost/high reward, as opposed to ideology, is the driving force behind a terrorist group's decision to use suicide terrorism. I am not sure where the author got that from Pape's work, but occupation does not play a large portion of it.The author is not incorrect in citing Pape's work that military occupations play a role in suicide terrorism, but it is not the central element of his work. Furthermore, it is strange that he would use Pape as a reference since his work is on suicide terrorism, not terrorism or insurgencies overall.If you are interested in reading it, the book is based on his 2003 article The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. And if you are interested in learning more about suicide terrorism, I highly recommend the following publications:
of Suicide Attacks
https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Governance-Creating-Economic-Social-ebook/dp/B00XCTPVAU/
https://www.amazon.com/State-Collected-Papers-Anthony-Jasay/dp/0865971714
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Politics-Government-Routledge-Political/dp/0415513650/
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Theory-Essays-Market-Anarchy/dp/1479258377
https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Systems-Very-Different-Ours/dp/1793386722
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691138737
According to data from Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control, by Gary Kleck, PhD, your uncited statistic is wrong. Here's a table detailing injury rate of the victims of different types of crime when using various self protection (SP) measures. Using a gun to protect oneself was found to have the lowest injury rate even when compared to cooperating/not defending oneself.
And more on the author if you're so inclined.
Anatomic Path - Sternberg
Neuropath - Ellison & Love
Forensics - Spitz & Fisher
also a fun coffee table book useful for alienating visitors to your home
First, let me suggest that you read a copy of my first book, [Men in Black] (http://www.amazon.com/Men-Black-Supreme-Destroying-America/dp/1596980095), where I address this and other issues at great length.
You've really asked two questions here: where does the Supreme Court's power of judicial review come from and does it have the power to strike down state and federal laws. I believe judicial review outside of those areas specifically mention in the Constitution, or authorize under various judiciary acts passed by Congress, are implied, if legitimate at all. As you may know, the federal circuit courts and federal district courts are created by acts of Congress. Congress also has the power to limit the jurisdiction of these courts, although, it almost never does.
As to your second point about striking down state and federal laws, it depends on the facts. If a state passes a law that clearly usurps a federally granted power under the constitution, then a federal court will strike it down. But again, I would need to know the facts from each case.
The model proposed by the Chicago school, generally, and Park and Burgess, specifically, was based on ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago in the 1920s. The Concentric Zone Model, while it still has some adherents and adaptations, has generally fallen out of favor, at least in the United States. It is overly ecological and premised on competition over resources, ignores culture, and is fairly reductionist in how it treats physical and social spaces in city. Empirically, the concentric zones do not really match up with how cities grow over time, which becomes especially problematic with the changing nature of American cities in the post-WW2 era, suburbanization, White Flight, and the rise of a globalized economy. The New Urban Sociology goes into much more depth on these critiques, and offers a compelling multidimensional model that accounts for the interactions between space, culture, economy and the usual sociological variables (i.e., race, gender, class, etc.) as well as migration patters.
To return to the OPs question, white flight (the mass migration of white people from city center to surrounding suburbs) is the widely accepted answer for the decrepit state of many American urban areas. This makes sense to an extent; whites left the city for the suburbs, commerce followed, and inner cities were left disproportionately populated by the poor, uneducated, and minorities. With declining tax bases and loss of manufacturing jobs, cities couldn't (and/or wouldn't) support the infrastructure necessary to break the cycle of poverty (e.g., adequately fund schools). The missing pieces to this puzzle, though, are neoliberal globalization and increased "crime control". Loïc Waquant goes over this in great detail in Prisons of Poverty and Punishing the Poor. In short, since the 1970s, the decline of the welfare state and diminishing social programs have been replaced by a neoliberal state that emphasizes commerce and "free markets" while simultaneously relying on police and crime control to fill the vacuum left by the absence of social support (See David Garland's largely Foucauldian The Culture of Control: Crime Control and Social Order in Contemporary Society for much more detail on how this functions).
In sum, suburbanization and globalization have changed the racial and class structure in the cities. The welfare state has retrenched and withdrawn support for already vulnerable populations, and replaced support with a highly punitive model of crime control that perpetuates the cycles of poverty and crime. Of course, this whole post is the tl;dr version, but there are enormous bodies of research on these processes.
That's an extremely complicated question, and the answer depends who you ask. There was a nationwide decline in crime during the same period of NYC's decline, so there seems to be some kind of larger social trend that can't be explained through policing strategies. This book by a Berkeley criminologist found that it had less to do with broken windows and stop and frisk and more to do with simple things like keeping a database of when/where crimes were happening and assigning cops to those times and locations.
Hi! We have a subreddit wiki page of all the 'required reading' for our disciplines here.
This was my undergrad Forensic Science textbook. It's a nice overview type of book. Libraries or used bookstores tend to have this one. Pretty cheap paperback version.
Get the Dressler supplement ASAP
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Criminal-Law-Joshua-Dressler/dp/0769848931
> And when they can't do that, punishment by having to wade through a tedious judiciary process.
The Process Is the Punishment
Here's the source material -- https://www.justice.gov/crt/file/883296/download, pages 37-38. It's not even the most infuriating thing in that report.
The screenshot is from https://smile.amazon.com/Punishment-Without-Crime-Misdemeanor-Innocent-ebook/dp/B07BVP51FT/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Urban communities of color are over-policed, and our sentences for almost everything are too harsh. I know, I know, this sounds like liberal SJW party line talk, but the facts bear it out.
The US has the highest rate of incarceration on the planet (and by far a higher rate of incarceration than any industrialized/European country we view as our social peers). If you start parsing out demographics, black and latino Americans have incarceration rates that somewhere around 10x any comparable nation. I'm talking gulag/apartheid level incarceration rates for these subgroups. (Sorry for the lack of figures throughout this post, but it's too much work to bust out the books each time. In general, these figures are what I remember from Crime and Public Policy). To me, the most convincing piece of evidence is the disparity between arrest rates for drug use of adolescents by race. White and black teenagers use at about the same rate, but black teenagers are arrested far more frequently. Are black teenagers made safer by that higher arrest rate? Are white teenagers made worse off by their lower drug arrest rate?
I think the answer (on aggregate) is a resounding no on both counts. That's over policing right there, where fewer contacts results in better outcomes.
So what do we get from this? We lock people up for far longer than any of our peer nations do for similar crimes (the common anecdote here is a life sentence in the UK is only 15 years) and for far longer than we did historically (again, anecdotal but look at some of the sentences in an old crim law casebook. I'm talking 7 years for 2nd degree murder). Yet, we also have a middling to high rate of crime (particularly homicide). Either American's are particularly criminal, particularly insensitive to incarceration, or other nations have a better system (i.e., one that achieves better/comparable results with less incarceration). That's what I mean by draconian charging; we could have less incarceration and the same or better crime rates with the right system. And these excessive sentences create other problems as well, such as giving prosecutors disproportionate power to dictate punishment.
So where can we trace these phenomena to? The explosion of inner-city crime from the 1960's to the 1990's. This unprecedented level of violence and crime caused an overreaction of law and order, so this is where we start getting 10-25 year sentences for possession of drugs. Just think about that, we are penalizing simple possession more harshly than most of sister nations do for murder. This escalation in drug sentencing caused an escalation in everything else, because once you're getting heavy sentences for mere possession it seems weird to give out a lighter sentence for manslaughter or assault. The concentration of violence in the inner cities (the cause of which is still up for debate, see When the Work Disappears or Don't Shoot or even lead) means that we concentrate these harsh sentences on on inner-city residents who are primarily minorities.
Finally, if you have any interest in this area at all, read "When Brute Force Fails" by Kleiman. It's only like 80 pages, but it lays out the theory and the basic stats for why our current system should be considered to over-police but under-protect.
Supplements aren't essential, but they can be one of many tools you use. I rely heavily on supplements and have done very well in law school. Here are the one's I used for those courses:
Civil Procedure: The Glannon Guide and the E&E (also by Glannon).
Criminal Law: Understanding Criminal Law by Dressler.
Property: Understanding Property by Sprankling and Siegel's Property.
First off: you probably meant to say a "voluntary state". "Governance" and "State" are not synonyms.
After all, when you go to a movie theater, you don't talk on your cell phone (their 'governance') at the risk of being kicked out; When you go to a baseball game, you don't throw rocks at the players (their 'governance') at the risk of being kicked out.
A "voluntary state": this is an oxymoron. A state can't be voluntary because it requires that you give it money at the point of a gun.
If a state were voluntary, it would collapse overnight. If a state were voluntary, it would be a "company": the "state" would have to convince you to give it money by providing services.
A state gets its money through taxation. A tax is a price that you pay at the point of a gun -- this is not voluntary.
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That being said, if you'd like to learn more about the ideas of how a privatized system of protection would work, there are many cheap sources of information:
Stefan Molyneux
Robert Murphy
The Conscience of an Anarchist
Mises.org - a lifetime of media online for free that explains economically how governments are inefficient.
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A few favorites of mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1uPaTf2BA&list=UUC3L8QaxqEGUiBC252GHy3w&index=803&feature=plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OikCTCgYKr0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZosnxGKgk&feature=bf_prev&list=PLD78A4CA3338CFA7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E
Edit -- Oops, should have included this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ak3TwNXA0w&list=PLSHQ57qEHuB220VA-TAMF_sY_Aki1s2Ca
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PS: It might sound like I'm evading your question. You asked "Are there any voluntary governments you would join", to which I responded "INVALID!!!".
But it's VERY important that you realize that I did NOT evade your question. It's VERY important that you realize that your question is IMPOSSIBLE.
Your question, if we change the topic, is essentially: "Evolution-ists: if Jesus drove a dinosaur over the pacific ocean last week, could humans have enough time to evolve into humans from the crocodiles in Montana?"
Hopefully, after reading that question, your brain started to hurt. It's the same thing with your OP question: because the premise is invalid, the question can't be answered without forcing an An-Cap to betray his beliefs.
Mark Levin's book Men in Black details this. A great read.
In short, no, at least going off of the definition of terrorism you wish to be used. This isn't, however, to say that terrorist groups do not effect change in the domestic or international scene. There are really two levels of objectives for terrorist groups: short-term and long-term. Short term objectives would be things like raising money by ransoming hostages or robbing banks, gaining media coverage, and recruiting members. This is really the meat and potatoes aspect of any terrorist group. Longer term goals are probably what you're looking for, and they are normally much more significant: regime change, the complete reversal of a government's policy, etc. Terrorist groups are much more successful with the former rather than the latter. Short-term victories are pretty common, with an example being the early 1980s bombings of the US embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon, which eventually led to the US pulling out of the country. But I honestly can't think of one terrorist group that achieved it's goals strictly through terrorism. Exceptions to this rule would be when terrorism becomes part of a broader military strategy, often guerrilla warfare.
Furthermore, we have to recognize that, despite popular claims that terrorists are radical and uncompromising, their attitudes and objectives do change and their views have the potential to become moderated. The Muslim Brotherhood is a good example of this. The decision for moderation, or even the group's renunciation of terrorism, arises because, just like politicians, terrorist groups have their own constituencies. Of course, this discounts terrorist groups who see themselves as a revolutionary vanguard that will spring the masses to action, a la the RAF. In those cases, the terrorists group's views are often so far apart from any mainstream view that they never gain much in the way of any wider following, often because their nihilism alienates the ones they're trying to call to action. But going back to terrorist groups who actively work to form greater constituencies within a society, these groups often have to moderate their views out of necessity if they wish to have any type of political relevance. Sometimes, their constituents may accept that violence is a legitimate course of action, although there are certainly limits. For example, through the 1970s to the 1990s, the IRA and Sinn Fein heeded their constituency's demands by mainly attacking British security personnel rather than Protestant civilians. To have engaged in a wider program of civilian terror would have risked the group losing their legitimacy in the eyes of their constituency. (As a side-note this is not to diminish or marginalize IRA terrorist attacks against civilians, which still constituted roughly 20% of the group's terrorist actions).
Lastly, in some cases, a terrorist groups stated strategic objectives may not necessarily be the primary reason why they are committing acts of terrorism. The Weather Underground is a good example of this type of terrorist group. For the Weather Underground terrorism was an end in itself, an action that was a moral necessity against a corrupt and repressive government, no matter the tactic's efficacy. In these cases, the terrorist group's objectives are less important than the individual member's psychological catharsis through terrorism.
So, the objectives or goals of terrorist groups are multi-layered and constantly changing. Rarely, if ever, do their most radical objectives come anywhere near reaching fruition. When a terrorist group fails to moderate their views there are a few paths through which the group may follow, almost inevitably, to collapse. The group will be dismantled by the state (or a multi-state institution), which can occur through either violent or non-violent means (the Italian Red Brigades are a good example of this). The group dissolves through internal conflict, often arising over a debate as to whether terrorist violence should continue or if the group should moderate its views (the Weather Underground suits this path). The last is for the group simply to slip into irrelevance, fighting for a cause that no one cares about anymore. This final case tends to occur when terrorist groups refuse to adapt to a changing domestic/international scene, for example the RAF in post-unification Germany.
Edit: Wording.
Edit: I forgot to list some relevant sources for further reading if you'd wish to do so. For general histories of terrorism the best single volume is Gerard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin's The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda. Bruce Hoffman's Inside Terrorism is also a must read. For an excellent look at the ideological motivations of the Weather Underground and RAF you can check out Jeremy Varon's Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies . Lastly, you may be interested to learn how exactly terrorist groups end. For that, two good books are Audrey Kurth Cronin's How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns or Seth Jones's and Martin Libicki's How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida
I would recommend Law 101 by Jay M. Feinman. It goes into a fair amount of detail about constitutional law, litigation, torts, business law, property law, and criminal law. I think it would be a good starting point for you to decide where you might want to delve a little deeper.
You should read The Machinery of Freedom and/or Chaos Theory. Both books build a case for market-based alternatives to the state better than anyone will do in this thread.
However, I should also mention that Robert Nozick – who some believe to have made the best intellectual case for libertarianism in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia – came to the conclusion that government should provide basic protective services (and only basic protective services) including police, courts, and a military. He described his ideal state as a "Night Watchman State" – and is today usually associated with minarchism. His book is the opposite of an easy read, but if you really like to nerd-out or enjoy punishment, I definitely recommend it.
In any case, my point is that academic libertarians have largely answered your questions, either by describing how a stateless society could effectively provide protective services, or by making a case for a government that is limited to providing only basic protective services.
What evidence or research leads you to those conclusions, I wonder?
It's not hard to arrive at those conclusions, but then that's not what an investigation is, and it doesn't do justice to those who are dead or missing, or their families/loved ones.
Those explanations also don't explain why some have disappeared and haven't been heard from, especially in cases where they searched with cadaver dogs. It's possible they may not find them, but I find it unlikely. To my knowledge, bodies don't have a way of disappearing in urban areas like they might in the wilderness.
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For people who want to do further research and go beyond the stockstandard "they were drunk" explanation, here are some links:
~ Interviews: (1) Coast to Coast / (2) Where did the road go / (3) Veritas Radio // Missing 411 documentary (trailer) // books (specifically: Missing 411: Drowning in Coincidence)
As Paulides entitles one of his books, "the devil is in the details," so to speak.
Defensive driving is absolutely different in a manual. There are additional things you have to keep in mind and countries around the world with a majority of manual drivers put substantial effort into developing best practices. The best known of these is the Roadcraft "System of car control", originally developed for the UK police service and now much more widely used. If you want more information, look for Roadcraft, publications by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (especially the UK arm), RoSPA, or similar groups. Most of what I list here you would learn in many European driving programs.
Some basic tenets are:
Stay in gear until you have a better one to be in. Do not go to neutral while in motion. Do go to neutral when you are stationary and when movement could cause harm. Consider applying the handbrake if it makes sense to do so.
The clutch only needs to go down when you are shifting, or when not doing so would cause a stall. This is usually during the final part of braking to a stop.
Do keep both hands on the wheel except while shifting. Get your hand back on the wheel when done.
You can shift down several gears at once easily if you brake first in gear (foot off the clutch) and then shift.
> How can I maximize the amount of time I stay in gear so I can make an evasive maneuver if I need to? If I'm in 3rd, and the light in front of me turns red, do I shift to second immediately, slow down as much as possible, and finally shift to neutral right at the end? Do I fully depress the clutch once, move the gear selector to second in case I need it, and wait until I coast to a stop to shift to neutral and let out the clutch? Or do I just slow down in third as much as possible, then depress the clutch and shift to neutral?
When braking, what is important to prioritize is steering and braking control. A shift is not a "free" activity, it takes a degree of physical control away from operating other controls. This leads to a natural sequence of "position/speed/gear", where when dealing with a hazard, you should adjust position first, followed by speed, followed by gear. Once this is done, negotiate the hazard while on the throttle. It becomes pretty obvious how to drive with this in mind.
In this case, brake and remain in 3rd. If you are coming to a stop, declutch as you reach idle, stop, and then go into 1 (if setting off immediately) or N ("when a stop becomes a wait"). If instead of stopping, you need acceleration, go directly to the gear you need and accelerate.
The key here that is missed by many people is that while it's important for safety to keep the driveline engaged, it's not usually because of the need to "accelerate out of danger". It's rare that you can do that in traffic unless you're on a bike. You stay in gear because the inertia of the driveline has a stabilizing effect on the vehicle, because there is a natural and very powerful antilock effect, because even if you don't have enough power to accelerate much you still have enough power to affect vehicle balance, and because it's easier to shift from gear to gear than from neutral to gear.
The same applies if you are going faster. If you're going 50 in 5th and need to turn at 20, brake in gear until you are at 20-25, shift to 2nd, then complete the turn. You can make large block downshifts skipping several gears easily so long as you brake before you downshift.
> - If I'm in 3rd and I'm coming up to a perpendicular turn onto a new road, do I shift down to second and get fully in gear before I make the turn? Do I shift into second as I make the turn? Do I depress the clutch, coast through the turn, and shift to second as I drive away? Do I just stay in third (seems fast)?
Brake in 3rd until you are at the proper speed for the corner about one "big u-haul" worth of distance from the corner. Declutch, shift into 2nd, engage clutch, then negotiate the turn. It may take practice to brake to the right speed at the proper point. Ideally you have one phase of braking followed by one gear change followed by acceleration through the hazard.
> - I would love to read something about shifting from 1st to 2nd quickly in the context of pulling out into a busy intersection instead of taking off from the starting line.
If you're pulling into a busy intersection, there should be no real need to go to 2nd. 1st will usually take you to at least 20-25mph and if you need more speed than this to negotiate an intersection, you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing.
I think it's worth emphasizing that when you need to take off quickly, a well executed handbrake start will always be faster than a foot hopping start. This is because you don't have to move your feet first as part of the launch. It's worth getting good at
them for this reason alone.
> - Stop-and-go traffic is actually the one thing that I can find a ton of info about online. All advice is welcome, but I'm really looking for other traffic topics.
Again, I think one thing that is often neglected by American drivers are handbrake starts. They are not inconvenient at all once you are fluid with them, but it takes time to learn the skill. In most of the world you must demonstrate them on your drivers test to get a license. They're not a beginners trick to be abandoned when you learn more, they remain useful and make urban driving easier.
> - I learned to drive in neighborhoods. Once I got in actual traffic, I realized I was spending way too much time coasting with the clutch depressed. In the event of an emergency situation, I can always slam the clutch with the break, but if I need to speed up instead of slow down I want to at least have the gear selector in the gear that will give me the most power so I can quickly evade trouble. I think ideally I should get faster at shifting and keep the car in gear as much as possible.
You don't need to get fast at shifting, most of the time, and you should not be shifting just to get the revs into an optimal need for acceleration unless you foresee the need for acceleration or control. Again, shifting is not a free action, and you should address position/speed/gear in series if possible.
It's good that you're trying to give up the habit of coasting on the clutch. There are times when it's appropriate for a short period of time but you absolutely want your default habit to be braking in gear. If you completely forget the clutch and you stall, you'll still have better stability under braking than if you had dove for the clutch.
> - I can't tell if there is something wrong with my clutch, or if I'm just driving around in parking lots / heavy traffic incorrectly. If I'm fully in 1st or 2nd and let off the gas, my car sort of surges instead smoothly crawling along. Passengers can definitely feel it, and it honestly feels like it's putting stress on some part of the drivetrain. If I leave the clutch fully depressed and tap the biting point of 1st or 2nd to sort of push it along, kind of like reverse, it feels better and more like driving around in my automatic did. When people say to not "ride the clutch", are they talking about doing this or are they talking about something else?
Pretty much. Bad motor mounts can make this much worse, so get those checked out too!
I hope this helps. If you want references, check out UK drivers training videos on youtube. Reg Local (a former UK police driving instructor) has done some really excellent ones.
edit:
The system of car control (Reg Local):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u5ksf29ylI
Block gear changing (Advance Driving School):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI2kN1IvNnc
Roadcraft:
https://www.amazon.com/Roadcraft-Drivers-Handbook-Philip-Coyne/dp/0117081876
It’s incredibly easy to add citations to the “Pro-Colin” side of my argument.
I’ll go ahead and do so for the first line now, where I said:
>“African-Americans are shot by police at rates above 13%. But they’re 13% of the U.S. population. This implies discrimination.”
Here’s the ACLU providing its definition of “racial profiling:” “… the New York City Police Department's Street Crimes Unit used aggressive "stop and frisk" tactics against African Americans at a rate double that group's population percentage … A community coalition, the Cincinnati Black United Front and the ACLU of Ohio filed suit against the city and the Fraternal Order of Police, citing a pattern and practice of discrimination by police, including issuing the type of traffic citations Thomas received to African Americans at twice their population percentage. … Blacks comprise 25.6 percent of the City's population, yet 50.6 percent of all persons "stopped" during the period were black. …”
Here’s Vox reporting on another ACLU report: “The ACLU report found that 63 percent of Boston stop-and-frisk encounters involved black people between 2007 and 2010, when the city's black population was 24 percent.“
WBUR on the same report: “According to the analysis, between 2007 and 2010, more than 60 percent of those encounters were with African-Americans — in a city that's only 24 percent black.”
Not once do these sources ask if the percentage of crime committed by the black population of these cities is identical to the percentage of the population they comprised.
Not once do they acknowledge that it is the amount of crime committed by a group, and not simply its raw numbers, that determine how often we rightly ought to expect police to interact with members of that group.
They stop the argument at highlighting disparities between arrests, stops, etc., and population rates as if this is all the proof one would need to show that unjust racial bias was driving the entire gap between the two.
So … it’s clear that I don’t think that this side of the argument is correct, but that doesn’t mean I’m not characterizing the argument made by its proponents accurately. Sources no less academic than the ACLU (lawyers who want this to hold up in court!) make this exact argument in their professional reports.
If you need me to find examples of this argument being used outside the ACLU and on topics other than stop & frisk, I could easily keep supplying them all day, because this argument really is ubiquitous. If I was asked to EBS on the belief that evolution isn’t true or that the Earth is flat, I could summarize arguments that proponents of those views make, but I wouldn’t be able to offer sound arguments because the position just isn’t empirically true.
By the way, with stop and frisk in particular, we actually had a perfect control group to test empirically whether crime rates or unjustified racial bias was driving stop rates. Brownsville is a borough of Brooklyn that’s 76% black and <3% white. Kensington, a borough of Buffalo, was 82% black and 11% white.
Despite having nearly identical demographics, Kensington has the lowest crime rate in New York while Brownsville has the highest. So do Kensingtonians get stopped more because their city is slightly more black?
Actually, no. The stop and frisk rate in Kensington was 2%—Brownsville? 29%. So a city that was just 3% white and over three-quarters black had one of the lowest stop and frisk rates in all of New York—because it had the lowest crime rate. When majority-black parts of New York had low crime rates, they weren’t subjected to stop and frisk. That’s huge!
While on this subject, it’s worth keeping in mind who benefits from reducing minority crime: other minorities. That’s because most violence committed by whites is against other whites, and most violence committed by blacks is against other blacks. As Heather MacDonald notes, while blacks were 78% of all shooting suspects in New York City (despite being 23% of its population), they were also 74% of all shooting victims.
Whites committed just over 2% of the city’s shootings, but were also under 3% of the victims of shootings.
Taking a broad historical view, minorities make up nearly 80% of the drop in homicide in New York’s record-breaking crime decline from insane highs in the 1960’s down to today’s historical lows. Thus the point I make in my conclusion: minorities are the ones who benefit most from an active police presence in violent minority neighborhoods.
A white person who lives in Kensington really doesn’t have any sort of meaningful selfish interest to gain from paying taxes to police Brownsville. They’re paying in limited time and resources as well as police lives to benefit the primary victims of minority violence—other minorities themselves.
One final note: I did have the “Pro-Colin” side say: “Yeah, but that [the fact that cops are more likely to pursue when a white person commits a crime than they are when a black one does] is just because most victims of black violence are other blacks and most victims of white violence are other whites and cops care more when a white person is the victim.” I didn’t provide a specific counter-argument against this point, and I would indeed suspect this is the reason why cops pursue white suspects they’re alerted to at a higher rate than black ones.
However, to remedy this police would have to pursue and therefore arrest an even larger proportion of black suspects. See the Catch 22? If cops pursue fewer blacks, it’s because they don’t care about black victims. If they pursue more blacks, it’s because of racist bias and has nothing to do with actual crime rates at all. In some sense there is no way to win this because there literally is a way to spin the scenario into racism no matter what happens.
WHile true, it's not just then. It happens all the time when people literally run out of money after paying every penny they have towards the court order. Not just with child support, either, in fact. It's significantly more common with "just" misdemeanors.
Punishment Without Crime is an excellent book on the topic.
Archives for the links in comments:
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Oh, remembered one:
He (and the rest of the family) actually had the gall to argue with Werner Spitz, regarding the results of Diane's autopsy. Spitz literally wrote the book on forensic autopsy: https://www.amazon.com/Spitz-Fishers-Medicolegal-Investigation-Death/dp/0398075441
This is a decent article: https://www.addiction.com/3425/aunt-diane/
Previous thread with great discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3mptm3/was_diane_schulers_body_ever_exhumed_has_her_son/
Gun ownership bans have no real affect on crime. A reduction in gun ownership "by 10 percent... would be expected to shrink the number of homicides by no more than 3 percent, with no measurable effect on other crimes."
Some (like CCA and GEO) are public companies. You can research their cash monies and numbers here or here. There are also all kinds of scholarly readings on the subject (like The Culture of Control)...or pretty much anything by David Garland really...
The process is the punishment.
It seems to me that if the Court were owned by big business they would have ruled to allow human genes to be patented just a few weeks ago, no?
I liked the "Understanding" series. Here's the criminal version.
No, a not guilty verdict is not the same as "innocent," but you are claiming that she is "guilty as fuck," and you are disregarding the evidence that she was not the killer as being inconsequential because it doesn't support your conclusion.
I have a book recommendation for you (and unlike yours, it is not a condescending asshole recommendation): http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Criminal-Law-6th-Edition/dp/0769848931
It is one of the best criminal law supplements on the market, and it is very easy to understand, even for non-lawyers.
That's an interesting read, I had only a chance to skim it, but it started off on a foot that I disagreed with. It’s obfuscating two entirely different concepts between “militarization” and “military” – though this might be clarified, and I’ll check out more when I get away from work today.
I think the entire militarization of the police is exclusively related to the drug war insofar as SWAT raids, military gear, and the erosion of civil liberties exercised in the name of public safety. The other side of “militarizing” is, for example, that my police department now hands out “campaign ribbons” that officers can wear as a part of their uniform, but they’ve long used military ranks, salutes, and military traditions – so new minor militarization is just a continuation of that history.
I think the link between the military and police goes back for eons, and still continues in many countries through Gendarmerie programs. The military was the police, and still is the police in most parts of the world. In the US we solve the dissolve of the standing army (coupled with a weak federal government) that gave rise to the Night Watch, Slave Patrols, and militia. My friend has a really crude joke, “Do you know why black folks don’t like the police? Because 150 years ago they were called the Slave Patrol.” It’s genuinely true, the police have long existed to go after specific classes of people, usually the poorest – and the “Slave Patrol” wasn’t just enforcing slavery or going after escaped slaves, they were providing general security and would enforce social standards.
Kristian Williams offers an excellent history of policing in his book “Our Enemies in Blue” that defines what makes contemporary policing separate from Gendarmerie programs. I think only in America can we even have such an absurd claim that “our police are becoming the military” because if you ask a Turkish or Chinese or French or Brazilian citizen, their military regularly supplements the police, and they’re basically indistinguishable except that the military is considered of higher rank and more elite. Our National Guard supplements the police too, and if anything, over the last 50 years we’ve used our National Guard substantially less, which is ironic to then complain about “militarizing” police. The alternative is to deploy the military on the front lines of places like Ferguson, which would probably cause a lot more social turbulence.
Thanks for the link though, I’ll check it out further when I have time.
>Have you read the detectives' and professor's textbook on the deaths? It's called "Case Studies in Downing Forensics." It came out in 2014-four years after the Center for Homicide Research (run by a man who was a FIREFIGHTER for 22 years allegedly debunked the theory - and no one has challenged any of the information in it. It's very dry -ie factual - but I did read it. I would suggest doing so before deciding they're crackpots. They haven't released a smidgen of all the evidence they have and one police department recently reopened one of the cases. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439876649/ref=dbs\_a\_def\_rwt\_bibl\_vppi\_i0
>
>ReplyshareSaveedit
You mean this one?
http://www.amazon.ca/Armed-Gary-Kleck/dp/1573928836
When Brute Force Fails by Mark Kleiman
Pretty cheap if you get it used.
Thank you! We will put your contribution to excellent use.
In order to claim the perk, can you please email me at [email protected]?
You can share the Indiegogo campaign page:
http://igg.me/at/NYCJuryRights2015
And the video:
http://youtu.be/UCJqbm151Es
If you have a favorite blog or podcast, ask them to cover the project. Jim is available for interviews. Here is the press release:
http://bit.ly/JRNYC2015Release
If you're on Twitter, tweet with hashtag #JuryRightsNYC2015.
Educate yourself deeply about jury nullification. Clay Conrad's book is excellent:
http://www.amazon.com/Jury-Nullification-Evolution-Clay-Conrad-ebook/dp/B00H4IESE0/
Thanks again!
The anticipated behaviour of the other road users is an important part of roadcraft. The knowledge of the signals that the other users are controlled by is as relevant to advanced driving as the weather conditions, or time of day.
If this is really a surprise to you, then I'd guess you're either a new driver (less than 10 years driving) or a dangerous one. If you'd honestly like to learn how to drive properly, I recommend this book based on the UK advanced driving certificate.
Here are some facts:
Gun crime has steadily decreased in the US for the last 3 decades, while the number of guns on the street has increased.
I think that the better argument than alcohol is drugs - drugs have been illegal for a long time, but the supply is as strong, if not stronger, than ever, and drug violence is out of control South of the Border.
Instead of recounting a bunch of stuff here in a reddit post, I'll just refer you to an excellent book on the subject:
Armed
I highly recommend the book Law 101:
http://www.amazon.com/Law-101-Everything-American-System/dp/0195395131/ref=pd_sim_b_7
It's written in an easy to understand style. I used chapters as a review for my 1L exams to understand the big picture of what I had been studying.
I totally concur with OP, supplements are supplements, not replacements. Read the case book, then read the relevant chapter from the supplement to ensure you got everything you were supposed to get out of it. Once you are getting everything out of the casebook in the first pass, you can discard supplements entirely if you like.
Best supplements, in my opinion:
You can quibble on some, but any law student worth his salt will recognize Dressler on crim and Chemerinsky on con law as the best. Freer on Civ Pro is very well recognized as well. I like the Understanding series for contracts and property because they are still succinct yet more in-depth than the E&E's. I like the E&E for torts because the Understanding book for that class isn't especially good.
If you don't like any of the above, the respective E&E would be my second choice.
There is nothing I could say here that couldn't be explained better and in far more detail in "The City That Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control (Studies in Crime and Public Policy)" by Franklin Zimring. Great book!
http://www.amazon.com/The-City-That-Became-Safe/dp/0199324166
https://tpav.org.au/_documents/Communications/Book%20Reviews/bb3972a7-6455-41cf-927c-ce3245196bfc/The_City_That_Became_Safe_Sep2012.pdf
It's definitely worth pursuing.
I can totally recommend investing in a copy of the Police Riders Handbook (not the new edition, it's terrible and a waste of money), and also the Police Drivers Handbook.
They are dry as hell to read, but it is definitely possible to teach yourself at least the basics of the system and begin to apply it, without ever needing to pay quantities of money to IAM or Rospa. Then, once you're back in the black so to speak, you'll have a baseline to work from and a decent knowledge of what is expected.
Bikesafe actually threw in a goodiebag for us that contained an IAM book that gives you a good foundation.
Beyond that, Nick Ienatsch's book is a great read too for sportier riding.
Law 101 basically does really short topic overviews of everything a 1L would learn
sort of like prison instead of flogging.
http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Flogging-Peter-Moskos/dp/0465021484
> If it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, can you set your opinions aside and vote guilty? (Yes, I can.) As trial lawyer and jury nullification expert Clay Conrad notes in response to this question, of course you can. You can also shove your arm down a garbage disposal! That does not mean you are committed to doing so.
There are several journals available like The Journal of Forensic Sciences http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1556-4029, but there are also many open access ones like The Open Forensic Science Journal, Journal of Forensic Research, or The Canadian Society of Forensic Science. The ones that are free would be a good start, because books like Forensic Science: From the Crime Scene to the Crime Lab or Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques, Third Edition (Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific & Investigative Techniques) will cost you.
Crime Scene to Court - Has a UK focus but delves into all fields in fair detail without overloading you, its a good reference manual.
Forensic Science - May be a bit of a hefty one but also covers everything.
Practical Skills in Forensic Science - Probably better for when actually studying but has a lot of the information for being a forensic scientist rather than just knowing forensic science.
I would say those three, as well as those that ayeroger has mentioned will be all you need for an overview of the subject, if you have any specialist fields in mind I have a wide selection of reading material.
Yes, I agree. Speaking from personal experience, when I interned in a Texas District Atty's office during law school this sort of evidence was nearly always suppressed, often by the DA unilaterally through dismissal. Our advice to security guards was keep them on the scene voluntarily and wait for cops. Our scenarios usually involved guards catching people smoking marijuana and then finding the rest of the stuff in their pockets.
Also I think it is not just the courts that didn't want to let this guy go, the DA apparently wanted this case pretty bad. They did file an interlocutory appeal, those are pretty rare except in important cases. Most of the times these decisions to appeal or prosecute are based on the non-admissable evidence, such as character and priors.
Which leads me to suggest this book. That book summarizes the practical effects, you get your contraband confiscated, you spend a night in jail, you get an arrest record, you (possibly) pay a lawyer and then your case gets dismissed. The process is the punishment.
Here is the mobile version of your link
I will begrudgingly take this bait and respond. Better late than never I suppose. Your argument, as I understand it, is that a political system is strengthened when it rebuffs attempts by outsiders to come into it, and that most importantly, that system should not allow these outsiders to bring their influence to bear, so as to avoid distraction from what you call the "actual political issues."
However, there seem to be two flawed premises in your argument. The first involves the reality and desirability of an isolated nation-state. In today's global economy, strict isolationism will only lead to death of the nation-state. Even isolationism limited to immigration bans would be devastating to a national economy. Just last fall, Alabama farmers faced significant crop spoilage when the state passed a very harsh immigration bill (mirrored on SB 1070 but reaching even farther). On the desirability front, you say that our acquiescence to assimilation is based on the "modern religion of equality and tolerance" which leads me to believe that you reject both. The problem with cultures that similarly reject these notions is that historically, this had led to violent conflict and war (i.e., WWII or Rwanda) that inevitably destabilizes the nation-state far more than the disruption caused by a struggle for tolerance through equality. Indeed, this often causes the end of that manifestation of the nation-state.
Your second premise involves what you call "actual political issues." The problem is that what constitutes an "actual political issue" very much depends on whom you ask. I consider a state's treatment of its prisoners and the rights restored to them upon release to be an incredibly important political issue, but others may say that this is not something politicians should debate while our national economy is in the midst of a recession. You state that one such issue is, "Why is there a class of people who, generally speaking, is likely to remain impoverished in our current system, even with such social milestones as affirmative action..." But, in proposing this as an actual issue, you've already answered both of the questions you think are superfluous--"The white man holding the black man down" and "The black man taking welfare handouts from the white man." These three questions cannot be separated so simply. For example, Michelle Alexander recently wrote a book, The New Jim Crow, in which she argues that the nation's drug laws were instituted as a way to replace Jim Crow. She explores all three questions through her book, including offering thoughts about how to solve our current prison population crisis and its effects on largely inner-city minority groups.
The real reason that American politics exist the way they do is a multi-faceted answer with several components (many of which I don't even understand). One component involves the state of lobbying in Washington (Jack Abramoff, one of Washington's most famous lobbyist, just wrote a book about it); another component involves the 24-hour news cycle that give politicians an outlet to quibble things that would not be given space in a daily/weekly periodical. Yet another component has very much to do with the focus of modern American politics on ruling through fear (see David Garland's book, The Culture of Control). There is no single factor that leads to modern American politics, and no single step that will magically transform our democracy toward something resembling Spartan government.
I'm going to guess you're in the US/American. I don't know for a fact that you're in the US, but your comment history has US cultural references that strongly suggest (but don't confirm) this.
At any rate, if you'll notice (google it) the US has an extremely high incarceration rate and recidivism rate. Your attitude toward criminal behavior, the lack of empathy specifically, is one of the main cultural problems with the US that causes this.
By comparison, Japan has an extremely low crime rate & very low recidivism rate. Why? Because people forgive each other and don't look for every excuse to condemn those around them or think less of others in the interest of thinking of themselves as "#1".
Also of relevance, regulated BAC for Japan is 0.0125% vs. US ~0.08%. And significantly better public transportation, most people don't even need a car because they ride the train drunk. (I've actually done that on accident when I didn't realize some drink had alcohol in it).
For further information on why your attitude (the fact that it is zero empathy and not some empathy) is a poison to society: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Way-Justice-Prosecuting-Studies/dp/019511986X
Yes, they can be detained for 23 day periods, which can be renewed relatively easily if there is an ongoing investigation. I've read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Way-Justice-Prosecuting-Studies/dp/019511986X
It talks about the Japanese justice system (comparing it to the US) and pros and cons.
I read it and it think very highly of what the Japanese justice system accomplishes, it's a very different approach than the US and I think the US could learn a lot from that system. At the same time, there are a lot of US culture virtues that'd really get in the way of implementation of some key features.
Refusal to acknowledge Ainu/Okinawan culture... not entirely sure I understand what you are talking about, but also pretty sure I don't care. Most conflict between the main gov't and Okinawa has centered on the US's poor manners as guests on the island and/or the forced occupation of the island under US law for quite a while. It's really not a whole lot different than what I understand of the US forcing it's way into control of Hawaii. Ultimately, from what I have followed of the matter, I get the impression that the main Japanese gov't does make an Ernest effort to rectify the situation, but the US is an ass and doesn't make a genuine effort to move.
Discrimination against Zainichi Koreans... this is a can of worms, but at the same time if the Koreans don't naturalize then I blame them for not naturalizing. If you embrace the culture and demonstrate genuine interest in their way of doing things most welcome you. Zainichi Koreans refusal to naturalize is kind of a big 'fuck you' in that regard.
So what's this book about again?http://www.amazon.com/Jury-Nullification-Evolution-Clay-Conrad-ebook/dp/B00H4IESE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407457331&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jury+nullification
Maybe this one? https://www.amazon.com/Studies-Drowning-Forensics-Kevin-Gannon/dp/1439876649
In Defense of Flogging makes the case a little less seriously, but Moskos is still pretty on point.
You've yet to provide a single piece of evidence for anything you have stated. I cannot go through all your points as they are assertions rather than supported statements. Let's try a few and then call it a day. What I am going to do is offer a citation EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you do not reply in kind, I will use this as evidence that you are talking shite.
Absolute shit. Total and utter. I honestly don't know where you are getting this from. Please read "How the Weak Win Wars".
nationalist (this is the majority of terrorist movements);
No it is not. You're wrong. Flat out wrong."
No, I didn't say "who cares what they think" You are the one offering a one-size-fits-all explanation that refuses to take their claims seriously. I am the one saying that different groups have different goals. On trends in the movement, while it is true that nationalist and ethnic goals are declining, they still account for most terrorist movements in the world. See this RAND report's conclusions. Or are RAND not as wise as you? (also note, note that ideology is treated as a political motivator, not inherently terroristic - i.e. used the way I define it; not you).
3."No it is false, naive, and dangerous to glorify them by claiming their ideals are complex and motivations are all different. They do these things because they want to kill people, people that they emotionally hate. They are irrational. They are motivated by various ideologies but they all have one common ideology: That destroying property and killing innocent random people within the area of your enemy, will result in social change."
You really seem to be struggling with the differences between means and ends. Just because a group targets civilians it does not mean the group's goals are to target civilians. It might mean that they do this because they think it will meet other goals. By your logic, the US army only goes to war because it likes to blow stuff up; not because blowing some stuff up might have political effects. Read Clausewitz. On terrorists and extreme violence read Pape
How is saying that terrorist groups have various goals and various beliefs "oversimplify" the issue. It adds complexity. You are the one offering a monocausal explanation. I never said they didn't have beliefs. I am saying they have different beliefs. Oh, and by the way, saying "it's complex" does not mean "it's random" or "we can't understand." It simply means simple answers may not work. On the various goals of terrorists, see Hoffman.
I was referring to things that you said political scientists ignored. I was telling you they didn't. So don't get your nose out of bent when I contradict you. Admittedly my tone is not nice. But then neither is yours.
You haven't mentioned a single person by name. Everyone I have mentioned is a peer-reviewed political scientist. Show me your sources. I hope you are smart enough to know that some sources are less credible than others.
And how does that make any logical sense? Absolutely it is necessary to make accurate analysis which you clearly failed to do."
You said that you cannot study terrorism without clearance. I said you can as (a) there are tons of cases one can study that are now declassified, (b) many viable methods don't require clearance (e.g. interviews), and (c) unless you are trying to explain a specific operation or attack you do not necessarily need every single bit of fine-grained information. Your question determines your method. On designing research please see KKV or Brady & Collier
Yeah so admit that you are wrong and ignorant."
I have been wrong on many things, many times. It took me some time to become smart enough to figure out when to let go of ideas. It is not easy for most people. But buddy, don't fucking fool yourself, you are not winning this argument.
I am not trying to justify anything. I am trying to explain it. Studying lung cancer doesn't mean you are in favor of cancer, or against cigarette companies for that matter. It simply means trying to explain it. I'm not the one with blinkers on here.
"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu.
If you don't respond with proper citations don't expect a reply. But, whatever you do don't chalk it up as an intellectual win.
EDIT: for formatting, before I gave up.
Hopefully this isn't a day late and a dollar short, but I recently read an article about In Defense of Flogging.
While I'm not currently in a non-fiction mood (and when I am I've got a shelf to work through) it will probably be on my to read list soon.
Here is the article I read. Good luck!
Two of the most respected writers in the field, who have different understandings of how terrorist networks work and what the threat really is, are Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman.
Hoffman's key book is Inside Terrorism - it should be noted that was published before 9/11, but the reality of terrorism didn't change much. Hoffman stresses the top-down, leadership-driven nature of groups like al-Qa'ida.
Sageman's key books are Understanding Terror Networks and Leaderless Jihad. These are not easy reads, though, so not best for newcomers to terrorism research. Sageman argues that leadership isn't as important to groups like al-Qa'ida as it used to be, and that the real threat is from 'bunches of guys' around the world inspired by al-Qa'ida who take up the mission of terrorism more or less on their own.
You can also search the web for freely available articles by these two, any of which will be worth reading.
Saw Our Enemies in Blue mentioned in another thread today. Relevant.
This the one?
You are being obtuse.
Do you realize you are critiquing one of the most respected and used manuals on driving? roadcraft Most of the text on my post was taken directly from it.
As a medic not only have I taken the course the text is for, in addition I also hold EVOC (emergency vehicle operator course) certifications. So i feel I have better understanding than most when it comes to driving.
What are your credentials to so pompously say the authors and the many research that has gone into it is simply wrong?
You need to stop being obtuse and realize that as a driver of a motor vehicle you are directly responsible to ensure the safe operation of it.
When you hit a kid in the street, your "It is up to parents to teach their kids to pay attention of their surroundings and not run in front of cars or out onto a roadway before looking." means absolutely nothing. You are solely, like i said, the one responsible, even if the kid is being an idiot.
I really suggest you give the book a read you can find the ebook here reading the full text will probably give you a better understanding of the fragments I used on my original comment and will help you understand why your rebuttals are erroneous.
If you want a less boring one I suggest this book by Ben Collins but it is not nearly as comprehensive.
One of your questions I can answer definitively. 100 year "life" sentences wouldn't change violent crime rates at all. zero. Why? because human brains don't truly comprehend time going that far into the future. I won't try to quote an exact optimum, but the effect of increasing sentence lengths for crimes disappears very rapidly. If the goal is to change behavior there are much more effective methods to "train" criminals to do right. I highly recommend everyone read When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime AND Less Punishment
As for your other pondering points, I think it could go both ways. Some might take worse care of themselves and procrastinate. After all, they have 300 more years to figure it out and medicine is sooo much better these days! Just depends on the type of person I guess.
Your girlfriend and I are kindred spirits ❤️
I was watching something a while ago where Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death was mentioned, so immediately looked it up and drooled, but at $120-130, it's not happening any time soon (I'm also in an adjacent field, not forensics directly, it's just an interest, so I can't justify it). However, the recommended books from that one are pretty gnarly. I highly recommend giving it a look. There'll be a coffee table-type book among those, I'm sure.
> police there are used to is pressing charges
So where do you live that the DA doesn't press charges and the police do instead? Is it a wonderful fantasy land of someone who has no understanding of the justice system of the US?
I think you need this.
That or you could try shutting the fuck up about things you don't know. But that might be too much to ask from self righteous idiots.
>I doubt words will ever work on someone who thinks there is any justice involved here, so I won't waste another.
And yet you wrote this response? How contradictory.
On the topic of Justice: Well, Texas has the death penalty, so as a punishment for murder you could consider it an instantaneous death penalty. (I recognize there is the whole "but the specific cops killed didn't commit the specific alleged murder", and you would be correct that it's not very accurate in that sense so it's a stretch, but I'm willing to accept that if it's what it takes to get the Justice System to really start to change).
>What is actually happening is that they are trying to get themselves out of a ditch, by digging down faster.
If "they" is the police, then sure I agree with this statement.
If "they" is ethnic minorities, you've got your head in the sand.
>They may not dug the start of the ditch or put themselves in it, but they are not getting out this way.
If "they" is the police, no they definitely put themselves in it, don't kid yourself.
If "they" is ethnic minorities, need I remind you of the US civil war?
>You ignore any change that has happened and jump to the extreme
If any change has happened, it is not sufficient to be noticeable or have any sort of impact. It would not register on the radar of the change I'd expect to resolve these matters.
You can still complete an assignment and receive a failing grade. So failure to action still applies if action taken is insufficient.
>If you think violence is the answer, violence you will get.
Personally I've pretty much decided I'm relinquishing US citizenship and naturalizing to another country because people like you are hopeless. I support ethnic minorities who are fighting for their rights and equality (although draw the line at those looking to enforce reversed racism), but will only do what I can as a white person which is pretty limited.
>You're part of the problem
No, the problem is, and has always been, the US Justice System's complete inability to rehabilitate and reintegrate criminals so that repeat criminals become a thing of the past.
There are numerous countries that have appropriately functioning Justice Systems that don't use guns, and treat people like rational human beings rather than trying to shove their authority cock down everyone's throats. They also don't have the asinine concept of "pride in blue" wherein cops are allowed to hypocritically get away with murder, speeding, or otherwise.
I have a suggestion, go read a book, here's a good start: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Way-Justice-Prosecuting-Studies/dp/019511986X