by Jayson Hawkins
Police officers have, for much of American history, had a remarkable hold on public trust. That hold, however, has loosened in recent years as the ubiquity of cameras has grown and more police misconduct is caught on video. Over the last decade, repeated incidents of police using ...
by Jayson Hawkins
All German Bosque ever wanted was to be a cop. When he was kicked out of the police academy for theft of a motor vehicle and impersonating an officer, some in law enforcement may have dismissed his ensuing arrest as simply a sign of Bosque’s eagerness to ...
by Jayson Hawkins
New York City’s 2021 mayoral candidates faced the same issues that plague every metropolitan area—crime, COVID, climate change—but questions about the city’s allegedly reformed “stop-and-frisk” policy occupied a prominent place in the debates. The practice, which began decades ago when Rudy Giuliani was serving as mayor, drew ...
How death of basketball star helped
launch unjust war on drugs
by Jayson Hawkins
On June 19, 1986, Len Bias died of cardiac arrhythmia caused by a cocaine overdose. Bias was a basketball superstar at the University of Maryland and had been drafted second overall by the Boston Celtics only ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Forensic DNA evidence has been used since the 1980s. Public confidence and familiarity with this method grew in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trial and the popularity of television police procedural shows, but the traditional methods of gathering and analyzing blood and semen samples has given ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Amidst the chaos of a global pandemic, social protests, and political upheaval, many people felt as if anything that could go wrong in 2020 went wrong. The avalanche of tumultuous headlines tended to bury the positive stories that emerged—such as cops in Newark, N.J., not firing a ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The summer of 2020 was a moment marked by extremes—vast populations around the world were quarantined in their homes for months, interrupted by an eruption of millions onto the streets to protest the killing of George Floyd by police. Law enforcement’s reaction to the demonstrations varied considerably ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The first state in the nation to institute a police bill of rights now also holds the distinction of being the first to repeal it. Passed into law in 1974, the legislation afforded Maryland cops the right to appeal disciplinary measures to a local board despite a ...
by Jayson Hawkins
As the calls for greater police accountability have grown louder across the country, one of the most consistent and effective barriers to change is the power of police unions. The power of these unions is usually linked to their potential to sway the local elections that typically ...
by Jayson Hawkins
More people are becoming aware that personal data is the currency of the Information Age in which we are living. Many have grown accustomed to taking steps to protect privacy on their phones and other digital devices, yet few may know about emerging technologies that allow law ...
