[lbo-talk] Crime in Philly

[bitch at pulpculture.org]

At 09:00 PM 8/12/2007, Blackmail wrote:
>On 8/12/07, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > I'd recommmend reading Christian Parenti's Lockown America.  It's a
> > great book on developments in policing and criminal justice in the
> > U.S. since the '60s.  Parenti knows what you're talking about when
> > you say residents of high crime areas want more police presence and
> > he doesn't disregard the danger and insecurity people have to live
> > with.  But he also shows how giving the police an inch results in
> > their taking a mile in the direction of selective protecting and serving.
> >
>
>I love this book, but Parenti warns against function creep. The solution
>Nutter has proposed, combined with all the other privacy nonsense that's
>happening at the federal level, is really disconcerting.
>--

has anyone intervewed Eli Anderson? The guy's been living in and writing 
about Philly neighborhoods for years, and has done the most to 
ethnographically unpack the whole "respect" thing Jim mentions. If anyone 
had a handle on the problems in both a micro and macro way, it'd be him. By 
macro, I mean that the guy writes about the subculture by reference to the 
operations of capitalism and the subculture as a response to those 
conditions and racism.

"You know how it is, come for the animal porn,
stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube

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