A brave cashier fights off an armed robber in Georgia, US
04 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics, economics of crime, law and economics
Yezhov’s ratio as the inspiration for modern witch-hunts
01 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the deadliest period of Stalin’s Great Purge.
Charges following fatal and serious injury New Zealand police crashes, 2003 – 2008
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: criminal deterrence, law and order, police chases, police killings, road safety
Source: Rodney Hide, “Pursuit culture skews police priorities”, National Business Review, 19 February 2016, p.28.
Deaths and serious injuries in New Zealand police chases, 2003 – 2008
22 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: criminal deterrence, law and order, police chases, police killings
Rodney Hide found that one in four New Zealand police chases ends in a crash. Of the 137 police pursuits that ended in death or serious injury between 2003 and 2008 there are 9 violence charges. Six were for manslaughter – all caused by crashes that ended the chase. There was also one charge of murder relating to the crash at the end of the chase. No violence charges arose from information known at the time of the start of the police chase. There was ambiguous information about a charge of kidnapping after a police chase. I could not determine if this kidnapping was known at the time the police chase started and therefore was its motive.
Source: Rodney Hide, “Pursuit culture skews police priorities”, National Business Review, 19 February 2016, p.28.
In all, 13 of the 137 police chases were motivated by the fleeing driver having committed a crime. The most serious of these was burglary. Rodney Hide also found that between 2005 and 2008 there are an average of 182 police chases a month.
I am all for police chasing kidnappers and armed criminals brandishing their weapons. As for the rest, they are not serious offenders. Chasing them puts the public at risk. Most of the fleeing drivers and their passengers are enthusiastic applicants for the Darwin awards.
Worldwide map of organized crime
18 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: organised crime
@RusselNorman @JanLogie #AirPollution in NZ & abroad @TransportBlog
16 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, environmental economics
The lack of celebration of the low levels of air pollution in New Zealand by Greenpeace, the Greens and environmentalists can only be explained by mass kidnapping. Otherwise they would be dancing in the streets. We pray for their early release from their outrageous captivity by mystery hostage-takers.
The international drug trade mapped
11 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of regulation, international economics, law and economics Tags: drug trafficking, economics of prohibition, smuggling
Software piracy by country
08 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of media and culture, law and economics, property rights Tags: intellectual property, patents and copyrights, software piracy
The Arbitrary Detention of Julian Assange? – Lawfare
07 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, international economics, law and economics
@NewStatesman Q&A: Why the UN’s Julian Assange ruling is meaningless
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: conspiracy theories, extradition, Leftover Left, renegade Left, Twitter left
Why @NZLabour @Maori_Party should be tough on crime
01 Feb 2016 1 Comment
in economics of crime, politics - New Zealand
A good mate at University was a democratic socialist. After graduating in law, he joined the Director of Public Prosecutions. He is still there as a senior counsel. That is the new name for a Queens Counsel in Tasmania.
The reason he gave for his career choice, he was a top-notch graduate with a great career ahead of him, was the poor were mostly the victims of crime. The best he could do for them was to put those that victimised them in prison by being a public prosecutor. As William Julius Wilson explains:
As Leon Neyfakh points out, some people are reluctant to talk about the high murder rate in cities like Milwaukee because
(1) it might distract attention from the vital discussions about police violence against blacks, and
(2) it runs the risk of providing ammunition to those who resist criminal justice reform efforts regarding policing and sentencing policy.These are legitimate concerns, of course. On the other hand, it is vital to draw more attention to the low priority placed on solving the high murder rates in poor inner-city neighbourhoods, reflected in the woefully inadequate resources provided to homicide detectives struggling to solve killings in those areas. As Jill Leovy, a writer at Los Angeles Times asserts in her 2014 book Ghettoside, this represents one of the great moral failings of our criminal justice system and indeed of our whole society. The thousands of poor grieving African American families whose loved ones have been killed tend to be disregarded or ignored, including by the media.
The nation’s consciousness has been raised by the repeated acts of police brutality against blacks. But the problem of public space violence—seen in the extraordinary distress, trauma and pain many poor inner-city families experience following the killing of a family member or close relative—also deserves our special attention. These losses represent another social and political imperative, described to me by sociologist Loïc Wacquant in the following terms: “The Other Side of Black Lives Matter.” They do indeed.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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