A useful book. Wisely, Stroud never loses sight of an overriding reality: that technology is never a substitute for...
An exploration of how high-tech advancements in law enforcement are failing.
Journalist Stroud has developed a specialized beat for periodicals about corporations who develop technologies for law enforcement agencies and prisons. In this overview, he shows pointedly that technological devices—including Tasers, body cameras, computerized crime control, facial recognition software, surveillance cameras in public places, and cellphone tracking—may make policing more convenient but do not lead to better outcomes. Much of the narrative is historical, as the author explains how law enforcement evolved in the United States. He takes readers back to 1905, when Berkeley, California—like many cities at the time—lacked a police department. So an ambitious local resident named August Vollmer created a law enforcement unit and sought out whatever firepower technology could provide. Some of Vollmer’s ideas—hiring educated officers, reaching out directly to neighborhoods (although more enthusiastically to white enclaves than those with people of color)—were progressive. However, the brute force Vollmer employed set the tone. A century later, Stroud explains, the massive police departments that can most easily afford technology, especially Los Angeles and New York City, are the leaders, with smaller departments often following examples that may be counterproductive. The author’s primary narrative thread involves the development and marketing of stun guns, which are often referred to by the name of one brand, the Taser. Though Stroud’s lengthy discussions about the financial hurdles faced by stun gun manufacturers become tiresome, on the whole, the author writes clearly and compellingly, and he shows how some companies oversold their technologies to police based on a desperation for profits. Stroud also weaves in concerns about ethics and civil rights and how, often, “the confidence that politicians place in [the technology] reflects an oversimplified understanding of the underlying difficulties.”
A useful book. Wisely, Stroud never loses sight of an overriding reality: that technology is never a substitute for compassionate policing based on trust between cops and the citizens they are paid to serve.Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-10829-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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