Daily Reads: Underpolicing

In this very thought-provoking article in the Wall Street Journal, author Jill Leovy writes about what she calls the “underpolicing of Black America.” Leovy, who is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the book Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (from which this article is adapted) argues counterintuitively that focusing on non-violent petty crimes such… Continue reading

Culling the Herd

In simple societies with small, easily manageable populations (like hunter-gatherer groups or those that practice simple horticulture and animal husbandry), social control is a relatively simple thing to maintain. There are no written laws, no formal judiciary, and no law enforcement bureaucracy. Instead, there is gossip, shame, fear of the supernatural (e.g. gods, spirits, dead… Continue reading