Category: CRJ222 Intro Criminology

After George Floyd they promised social workers would replace cops — one just got attacked with a sword in Boston – Mass Daily News

Police respond to Hemenway Street near Northeastern University after a man attacked a mental health clinician and officer with a sword. Inset: A George Floyd mural in Berlin by street artist Eme. (Scene photo via Citizen app; mural via Wikimedia Commons)
— Read on www.massdailynews.com/2026/04/05/george-floyd-social-worker-promise-boston-clinician-stabbed-sword-hemenway

Report says Cincinnati police chief Theetge has ‘not been an effective leader’

This is a VERY rare occurrence where a COP is found to be an ineffective leader.

The monthslong review into Cincinnati police chief Terri Theetge has been released, ultimately finding her “not to be an effective leader.”
— Read on www.wlwt.com/article/cincinnati-report-police-chief-terri-theetge-review/70899385

A .PDF version of this memo is available HERE

We can’t ‘incarcerate our way out of crime.’ But we can deter a lot more of it. – Niskanen Center

A post on X that went viral recently laid out a series of statistics about the percentage of serious crimes — murder, rape, robbery, assault, and so on — that are committed by people with prior arrests. All hovered between 60 percent and 79 percent. The post’s conclusion: “You can incarcerate your way out of crime. Facts.” Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, amplified the post to his hundreds of millions of followers and sharpened the point: “Either incarcerate or innocent people suffer.” To date, these two posts have nearly 50 million views each. 

The claims in these posts are worth unpacking. First, Musk uses the correct metric: Reducing the suffering of innocent people is the proper goal of any criminal justice system, and public safety policy should be evaluated primarily by that standard. Musk is also correct in an important, albeit limited, sense: Failing to incapacitate genuinely dangerous people will lead to some level of crime and suffering that would have otherwise been avoided.

— Read on www.niskanencenter.org/we-cant-incarcerate-our-way-out-of-crime-but-we-can-deter-a-lot-more-of-it/

BJS releases reports on violent and property crime in the United States

BJS has released two reports that provide insight into violent and property crime in the United States and describe the magnitude, nature, and impact of crime in the nation.

Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 presents national and subnational estimates of crime offenses and victimizations for violent and property crime. Findings in this report, the second in an annual series, are based on BJS’s and the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Estimation Program. NIBRS collects detailed information on crime incidents reported to law enforcement throughout the United States.
— Read on content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDOJOJP_COMMS/bulletins/40e7eb5

JACOB P. ZORN v. SHELA M. LINTON

No. 25–297. Decided March 23, 2026

PER CURIAM.

On the Governor’s inauguration day in Vermont, protesters staged a sit-in at the state capitol. When the capitol closed for the day, police officers told them that they would be arrested for trespassing. They refused to leave. As officers removed the protesters one by one, Sergeant Jacob

Zorn asked Shela Linton to stand up and warned her that he would eventually have to use force to remove her. She refused to stand. Zorn took Linton’s arm, put it behind her back, placed pressure on her wrist, and lifted her to her feet.

Linton sued Zorn for using excessive force, claiming that the arrest left her with arm injuries and psychological disorders. The Second Circuit held that Zorn was not entitled to qualified immunity. We reverse.