by Jayson Hawkins
A study published in Nature Human Behavior found that the allocation of surplus military equipment (“SME”) to local police agencies had no effect on crime rates. Researchers also discovered that the Department of Defense records of the agencies that received SME, which included everything from office equipment ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Political efforts have been underway to withdraw troops and bring an end to America’s military involvement in Afghanistan. While this two-decade old conflict is considered by many to be the longest war in U.S. history, that ignores a much costlier and deadlier battle that has been waged ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Incidents of police brutality are nothing new in the U.S. They occur with such regularity that it is easy to be overwhelmed by the statistics and hard to recall the specifics surrounding each one on the ever-lengthening list of victims.
There are, of course, exceptions to the ...
by Jayson Hawkins
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, people from all walks of life struggled to find ways to reduce or eliminate face-to-face interactions. But for parole officers and the individuals under their supervision, there was already an app for that.
Parole monitoring apps for smartphones have been ...
by Jayson Hawkins
A little-known tech company in Texas has altered the landscape of digital police surveillance. Hawk Analytics, headquartered in Bartonville, has developed software that streamlines the process police use to turn the huge quantities of information they get from cellular companies into intelligence while simultaneously gathering data on ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The year 2020 was one most people would like to forget, yet for the nine cities that fell in the crosshairs of Operation Legend, the repercussions will be felt for years to come.
Operation Legend was a U.S. Department of Justice program aimed at reducing violent crime ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Technology, like any drug, is a tool that can be used for good or abused for ill. Yet there is some tech so invasive and insidious by nature that government leaders must deny ever having utilized it – at least until they get caught.
The Foreign Intelligence ...
by Jayson Hawkins
The images that emerged from the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of Capitol Hill left many people around the world appalled that such events could occur in the cradle of modern democracy. Yet the thenpresident’s rhetoric of incitement — as well as subsequent acquittal by the same government ...
by Jayson Hawkins
No one was surprised when Florida again topped the list of “battleground states” in the run up to the 2020 presidential election, but the media narrative most frequently heard as November approached was not about hanging chads or turnout in Miami-Dade County. Instead, there was significant coverage ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Undercover operations to combat street prostitution are standard fare in pop-culture depictions of big-city police work, but the reality is often seedier than television dramatizations.
A 2020 investigation by journalists at ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, revealed that New York Police Department (“NYPD”) vice operations routinely target ...
