New Orleans Recently, two kids managed to grab-and-run with a couple of hundred bucks at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse as one created a distraction and other jumped the counter. The neighboring grocery store cameras had great pictures of them scouting their location. We spent a lot of time trying to give the footage to the police. …
Tag: Crime
Community Organizations Stabilize Urban Neighborhoods & Reduce Crime
New Orleans We told you so, and we’ve been telling the same story for more than 50 years: community organizations stabilize and improve neighborhoods. It seems almost ridiculous to have to state the claim. Seems like this should be common knowledge by now, but here it is, we’re saying it this time because in …
Criminalization of America’s Poor and Minorities on Trivial Beefs
Vancouver Over the last couple of days while traveling about I read on my Kindle a new book called, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, by budding sociologist, Alice Goffman, about a 6-year period of observation of a changing neighborhood in Philadelphia. As the title makes clear the criminalization of this lower …
A Juror’s Duty to Acquit or Convict on a Lesser Charge to Reform Criminal Justice System
New Orleans Jury service is a citizen’s obligation in the United States. In the smaller City of New Orleans my fellow jurors and I are called to the jury pool every two years for a month of service in the criminal courts. The pool is broken in half each month so each juror draws between …
Shell-Shocked, Black Youth, Guns, Death, Police, and Juries in New Orleans
New Orleans Follow me on where I’m going with this. In the smaller-footprint, post-Katrina New Orleans, I do my citizen’s duty and am part of the jury pool every two years, and this May is my month to report for service. Yesterday in the pool as part of voir dire, I was asked, along with …