More on Crime: Flock license plate readers | catching cameras versus a nationwide surveillance network

Photo: David Goldman, Associated Press.

I've known about license plate readers for a long time.  First, because parking enforcement and police vehicles in DC had them and "read" the streets as they passed, looking for cars with a high rate of outstanding violations or stolen vehicles.

Second was when I was on grand jury duty and learned LPRs are installed in some intersection cameras and are used to identify stolen cars or cars used in crimes.

I guess third, but related to the second, is when the fired Virginia newscaster killed two journalists that were filming doing a story in rural Virginia and fled.  LPRs identified his car on I-66 and he was apprehended--well, he killed himself ("Suspect dead after shooting 2 journalists during live broadcast," NPR).

So for a long time I've thought that LPRs are fine.  In fact I want two for Sugar House Park, but for a very limited use--to capture license plates so we can look up the address but anonymize the data, just using the zip codes so we can figure out how many patrons come from the City and from the County (both own the Park but it's in Salt Lake City and we always need to build our case with the County).

Mistakes.  But I have read about mistakes, license plate errors when entering data into the system leads people who are "legal" getting apprehended ("Automotive journalist surrounded by police due to Flock camera confusion," KARE11).

What the Flock license plate reader camera captures.

Misuse by individuals.  But the fact that LPRs aren't one camera but a network can be a problem if users of the information are more nefarious.  

A large number of cameras in an area means individuals can be tracked/surveilled.  

Individuals ("lone wolves") can misuse the system ("Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 28 Times in Recent Years," Institute of Justice, "How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking," Washington Post).

Organizational misuse takes the concept of network to another level.  For example, data can be shared with ICE, and many communities don't want that to happen.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a community near Harrisburg that is using speed traps as a way to identify immigrants for ICE ("This quaint Pa. borough is a ‘speed trap’ nabbing immigrants for ICE").  This would be supercharged with the addition of Flock camera based surveillance ("Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns," AP).  From the AP story:

The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show.

This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.

(Note. One thing I learned on jury duty is that people don't have the same kind of Constitutional protections in their car versus their house, because a car and a driver have to be licensed.)

Opposition.  As a result, people all around the country are fighting against the installation or maintenance of Flock cameras and systems in their communities ("Americans of All Political Ideologies Unite for Privacy Against Flock Surveillance Cameras," Military.com, "Why some cities are ditching their Flock license plate readers," NPR).

The Boston Globe has a good article about why these cameras are controversial, "Why Flock surveillance cameras are drawing fierce backlash across Massachusetts."  From the article:

... some uses by law enforcement have been more controversial: Authorities in Texas, which has a near total ban on abortions, allegedly accessed Flock data to investigate a woman suspected of having an abortion, claiming they were working on a missing person’s case; some jurisdictions have shared people’s data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Another concern privacy advocates raise is the lax oversight over searches in the system. To conduct a search, officers must select a reason for the search and have a case number. But the American Civil Liberties Union says it found officers often just put down a single word: “investigation.” Earlier this year, two officers in Milwaukee used the technology to search for their ex-girlfriends — one reportedly did so more than 120 times.

Conclusion: Salt Lake City offers a way forward.  Flock has made it harder for users of the database to search for immigrants, but only in the states that have forbidden the practice.  Obviously, the remaking of the Border Patrol into a surveillance agency is extreme, and should be forbidden.  But that's less likely to happen.   

Salt Lake City is proposing new rules for its use of the cameras so that they can be used only for specific criminal investigations ("Salt Lake City proposes new rules for the license plate cameras that dot the city," KUER/NPR). From the article:

Salt Lake City Council Chair Alejandro Puy worked on the city’s new draft ordinance after “considering the public outcry and the misuse of these tools in other agencies across the country.”

His goal is printed on page one. It reads, in part, “the City seeks to balance the operational benefits of ALPR technology with the need to protect privacy, civil liberties, and constitutional rights.”

The key provision in the code, Puy said, would require law enforcement agencies to submit a case number to prove their use of the cameras is tied to a criminal case. He argued this would prevent agencies like ICE from using the cameras to track undocumented immigrants who are involved only in civil cases.

That seems to me to be an important distinguishing policy.  Basically making the use of the data "reactive" in response to a specific crime, versus proactive surveillance where there is no crime.

The Border Patrol use is moving towards the level of "The Minority Report" movie and their use of the database should be severely restricted.

Bonus: The surveillance states of China ("Big data and the social credit system: The security consequences") and Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York) show us that opposition to LPRs isn't unfounded.  

As the power of the network grows, so does the ability to surveil.  

A headline of a Toronto Star piece, "Friend, enemy or useful tool, AI will reflect the values of politicians who use it," albeit about AI is no less applicable here: the intent and the values of the users dictate whether or not technology can be used to build or to oppress.

It makes me think it's time to re-read Neuromancer.

Lessons from murder reduction in Boston

The Boston Globe has an article, "What makes Boston so safe? Black pastors have different theories," updating the "Boston Miracle," because murders currently are below the five year average at this time the previous years.

The Boston Miracle ("Straight Outta Boston," Mother Jones, 2006) involves collaboration across nonprofits, churches, police and other government agencies, work with communities and on the street, to significantly cut the murder rate.  It's smaller in Boston than in cities like DC and Baltimore with comparable populations.

-- Policing in Boston webpage, Christopher Winship, Harvard
-- "How Boston became the safest big city in America," Economist
-- "Expanding the 'Boston Miracle,'" Boston Globe

Those collaborations haven't stopped as the murder rate dropped, they've continued--one such meeting has been held weekly for 30+ years.  No one has come up with the "one answer" on what has changed the trajectory.  One suggestion is of gentrification and displacement of potential shooters.  But that hasn't been as much of a factor in DC, which has a great deal of it.

Participants arrived for a weekly peace walk organized by the 10,000 Fearless Peacemakers. Photo: Taylor Coester for The Boston Globe.

The article starts out discussing Nation of Islam Preacher Randy Muhammad, and how his community has a weekly walk on Mondays through the community.  

They come upon a group of people hanging out at the T Station.  If it were DC, it could easily erupt into a public wilding event.  Here, Preacher Muhammad talks and interacts with the group.

From the article:

He’s wearing a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with a quote from Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who attracted controversy in years past for antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric. The quote itself is unobjectionable: “Making our communities safe & decent places to live.”

The idea behind events such as the peace walk is to build a rapport with community members, he said. That way, when it comes to disputes that could end in violence, his group can act as a neutral third party. “We offer an exit ramp,” said Muhammad. Oftentimes, he said, “we’re the only voice of deescalation.”

Not living in DC's poor neighborhoods anymore (H Street, 1980s-1990s), I don't know how much street presence there is of clergy and other committed community members.  

Community group involvement helps reduce crime.  Patrick Sharkey's book Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence credits the crime drop in part because of the rise of involvement of such organizations.  

I participated in one such group that was a response to the neighborhood center of crack dealing by Rayful Edmond's crew ("Rayful Edmond, Drug Lord Who Stoked D.C.’s Crack Cocaine Epidemic, Dies at 60," New York Times).  I also learned about how street design can help create protected areas conducive to drug dealing.

I know we had walks, I don't think we had weekly walks like Preacher Muhammad.  We did meet with the police precinct representatives every month at our meetings, among other government officials.  There was concern that people communicated some of what happened at the meetings to the drug dealers.

According to Crain's Chicago Business and their forum on the city's crime drop

Communities where nonprofits increased the most, such as those focusing on youth support and substance abuse programs, had lower crime rates. Community-based resources like this can also increase collective efficacy—social cohesion and trust among residents.

Also see "Nonprofit Crime Reduction," Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Our group and Preacher Muhammad's are congruent with "social efficacy theory" that posits more connected and involved communities, including the presence of a fair number of community organizations, have fewer social problems, despite income disparities. And Eric Klinenberg's discussion of the importance of social infrastructure in his book Palaces of the People.

Demographics are a factor.  The fact that Boston's murder rate is significantly lower compared to other cities means that they are doing something right, although part of it has to do with the rough percentage of black population in poverty.  For example, the black population in Boston is half that of DC, and one-third of Baltimore.  According to CNN:

The homicide rate for Black Chicagoans is nine times higher than for any other racial demographic, according to data released by the city Department of Public Health.

Differences in homicide rates by race account for significant differences in murder rates across cities.  E.g., Honolulu City and County with a population of one million--predominately Asian, and Asians having the lowest murder rate per capita--had 29 murders last year, which was a significant jump from 19 in 2024.

Summer always has a rise in crime and murder | Develop Summer Crime Suppression Strategies and Tactics.  Summer is known for an extranormal number of murders.  Focus resources on it.  That's the whole point of Broken Windows theory--focusing police time proactively not reactively, and addressing pattern crime ("Back from the Brink, an oral history of the introduction and implementation of Broken Windows theory policing in New York City").  Murders in the summer should be thought of as a pattern.

For example in Chicago 15 areas account for half the city's murders ("Chicago is throwing its ‘whole government’ at summer violence," CNN).  They focus resources on those "zones" with the most murders, bringing to bear all of the community's social infrastructure to address the problem.  DC knows where the murders are, I don't think they focus resources there.  Partly, because people in relatively safe areas still advocate for a high level of police presence.

Probably, there are more murders on weekends too, so that should be an area of focus.

Broken windows/physical improvements.  BW theory is two pronged.  One is refocusing police time and on crime suppression.  The other is investing in community--maintenance of public spaces like removing abandoned cars and in plantings, and working on keeping properties in good shape.  There have been studies in Philadelphia and elsewhere that find a positive reduction in crime in association with maintenance of vacant lots and conversion to community gardens.  Etc.

DC and Youth Crime.  Another area where DC seems to be an outlier is with youth crime, including violent crimes like murder, assault, and car jacking.  Having more community groups and preachers doing walks would be in order.

DC's youth crime and the failures of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services have been an issue for more than 30 years.  Truancy is an issue ("Empty desks: How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools fueled the biggest youth crime surge in a generation," Washington Post).

After a significant decline in the program over the 2000s and 2010s, Midnight Basketball is back up to 20 chapters.  Photo: Clara Mokri for The New York Times.

Recreation centers and programs and later hours on weekends.   Curfews are one way cities deal with a rise in youth crime and group wilding in the summers ("Cities, towns nationwide revive teen curfews amid summer crowds," Indiana Capital Chronicle).  I think they can be one element in a toolbox.  But how about offering more programs for youth in the evening and at night.

Recreation centers and programs should be open later, until midnight or later on Friday and Saturday, and have a system of Teen Rangers to organize the programming so its relevant to the target audience ("Clark County to open 4 recreation centers for late-night teen programs," 3News Las Vegas).  From the article:

Four recreation centers across Clark County will begin offering free late-night programs for teenagers starting Tuesday as county officials and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police work to address rising concerns about youth violence and juvenile crime.

The summer initiative, which runs June 9- July 31, will keep Walnut Recreation Center, Whitney Recreation Center, Cambridge Recreation Center and the Torrey Pines Resource Center open from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. for teens ages 13 to 18.

I aver the centers should be open later than 11pm.  Libraries too.  In Montgomery County, Maryland, libraries in town centers like Silver Spring and Bethesda used to be open later on Friday and Saturday during the summers.  Not now.  But with focused involvement programming, such programs should be considered. 

Many of the recreation programs serve adults in their 20s as well,  ("Midnight Basketball Returns, and Brings Community With It," New York Times, National Midnight Basketball Association).

Summer Jobs and impact on crime.  The Wall Street Journal reports on a positive association between summer jobs and reduction in youth crime and murders ("The Effects of Summer Jobs on Youth Violence," "Why Teenagers Stopped Working in the Summer," Wall Street Journal).  From the article:

Sara Heller studied Chicago’s jobs program and found that an eight-week summer job cut violent-crime arrests among disadvantaged teenagers by 43%, with the effect growing after the job ended. Mr. Gelber and his co-authors, studying New York’s program, matched roughly 290,000 lottery records to tax and death records and found that winning a summer job cut the risk of dying over the following years by about 18%, driven by fewer homicides, particularly among young men. Those same New York jobs, however, didn’t raise the kids’ later earnings; if anything they nudged them down slightly and left college-going untouched.

How about Co-operative High School?  Given the results from summer employment, I've suggested offering the option of co-operative high school, where after freshman year youth are placed in paying jobs alongside classroom learning.  Such programs are uncommon.  

High Companies, a multifaceted firm with a foundation in welding and manufacturing supports three schools--two in Pennsylvania and one in Denver ("How Co-ops Help Young People Start Their Careers," High Companies).  Orillia Secondary School in Ontario also.St. George's Technical High School in Delaware.  And probably others.

Seniors only.  Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District in Michigan offers co-op placements for senior, at more than 125 businesses, institutions, and nonprofits. Hodgson Vo-Tech in Delaware also only offers placements for seniors.

I do think as a crime reduction strategy, students from sophomore age schould be eligible for cooperative education.

When governments sell land always put in clawback provisions

DC sold many school buildings in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly to nonprofit organizations.  The city's building inventory was large because segregation meant duplication of facilities.  Over time, many of these organizations sold the buildings off, to great profit.  But there was no provision in the sales contracts for the DC Public School System to get a portion of the increased sales price.

For example, Wormley School was sold to Georgetown University which eventually sold it to a developer for more than 5x what it paid ("University to Sell Wormley Property," Georgetown Hoya).

Although to be fair, partly they took advantage of new market conditions.  When the property sold first, DC was just about ready to take off in the c. 2000 change of consumer attitudes towards urban living which again favored cities.  

It makes sense then that the building is now condos but DC should have gained more from the transaction ("Apartment in Georgetown’s Wormley School Lists for $2.8 Million," Mansion Global).

Another building sold to the DC Teachers Credit Union, and they had offices there for awhile, has long since been converted to in-demand Capitol Hill condominiums.

Parkland, Florida is dealing with that now.  Decades ago they sold for $850,000 a piece of property to the county school system for an elementary school to be built in their community.  But the school was never built and the school system recently sold the same property for $14 million to the Broward Health hospital system ("Parkland seeks $850,000 refund from school district after land sale to Broward Health," Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel).

Parkland wants their money back.  But they, like DC, didn't put provisions in the contract that the property should revert back to them if never used, or to be paid back the cost of the property if it were to be sold to a third party.

Traditionally, land bequests to governments and nonprofits most often include this provision of giving land with conditions that the property revert back to the original owners if the use changes.  

A D.C. streetcar passes the Douglas Memorial United Methodist Church near the H Street Corridor in Washington on March 7, 2018. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

That's why the United Methodist Church on H Street NE in DC, formerly a "white" church, decided to integrate as the neighborhood changed.  They didn't see a future as a "white church" and wanted to sell the property but the conditions of the bequest made them change course ("This H Street church was a hub of the community in the 1960s, then came the riots. It never thrived again.," Washington Post).

Cy Pres Review.  I am not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt, but in some states, the State Attorney General's office is active in overseeing land sales and other dissolution acts involving nonprofits.  Such sales are supposed to be made with the continuation of the  property or monies still being used by nonprofits.

This is called Cy Pres Doctrine ("An Historical and Empirical Analysis of the Cy-Près Doctrine," University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2023-3) and the funds involved, Cy Pres Funds  In Pennsylvania this is in the news because of the closure of the University of the Arts.  A bunch of buildings were sold off by the bankruptcy court, not necessarily for non profit uses.  And a number of schools agreed to take their students.  

The Moore College of Art, the only independent private school of art in the city, argues it should get the bulk of the money, because it's closest organizationally to what UAS was institutionally ("Who should get the $63M endowment money of UArts? Depends on who you ask," WHYY/NPR, "University of the Arts’ $77 million endowment remains mired in court proceedings two years after the school closed," Philadelphia Inquirer) and New York AGs have been particularly active.

Among others, the AG was involved in the selling of Girard College and the move of the Barnes Institution ("Changing Donor-Imposed Restrictions: Cy Pres and Equitable Deviation," New York Community Trust) from Lower Merion Township to Philadelphia.  

Speculative ventures such as constructing this building without having tenants lined up put Cooper-Union at financial risk ("The Indicator: Cooper Union, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down," ArchDaily).

In New York State, a major case concerned Cooper-Union College, owner of the land under the Chrysler Building, the lease funds free tuition for the school, but the school wanted to start charging tuition because of financial exigency.  

They were allowed to do this, but with strict conditions ("A Second Chance for Cooper Union").

DC's AG hasn't been particularly proactive in these situations ("DC's Source Theater sold: cause for a cy pres review?").  I argued review should have occurred with the sale of the YWCA in Downtown and the Corcoran Gallery--its collection to the National Gallery, its building and art school to George Washington University ("When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review").

The YMCA at Rhode Island and 17th Street NW as another example.  I never got around to writing about a similar experience  with the YMCA in Dupont Circle. They sold their property to a developer and the recreation use at that site was abandoned.

YMCA said they didn't have experience with a facility serving both workers and residents and that they tried their best to increase membership but were unsuccessful ("Downtown YMCA to close amid rising competition from upscale gyms," Post; "Akridge to redevelop YMCA at 1711 Rhode Island as boutique office," Washington Business Journal).  From the Post:

The YMCA approved a deal to sell the hulking, 1970s concrete building to Akridge, a big local developer, for an undisclosed amount. At 100,000 square feet, it’s the YMCA’s biggest facility in the region, and the property, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, has an assessed taxable value of $27.2 million. ...

The National Capital facility was never a typical one for the YMCA. The nonprofit organization traditionally serves neighborhoods, not business districts, and Reese-Hawkins said the money from the sale of the building will boost the organization’s community, after-school and summer programs throughout the region.

She hopes to eventually open another full-service YMCA in the city and is in talks with community leaders to assess the best fit. There are no gyms in the District east of the Anacostia River, and Reese-Hawkins said it is possible that one could land there.

The building that will replace the YMCA.

They never opened another full-service YMCA in DC.

The AG got involved in some cases but didn't meaningfully shape the outcome.  

For me, except DC City Government also lacks the imagination, Corcoran Galley should have been transferred to the city creating its first locally controlled arts museum--the other museums in the city are run by the federal government.  And the Corcoran School of Art and Design should have been merged into UDC ("Should community culture master plans include elements on higher education arts programs?").

With the sale of the YW and the YM the organizations argued that the money received would support their programs generally.  But the sale of these properties came at the expense of the availability of recreational resources made available to residents in the center city, and they had received membership fees and donations for years from patrons of these facilities, making the argument for there being a clear DC citizen interest.  

Both the YW and YM should have been "forced" to put some of that money towards the creation of a new city recreation facility serving those areas--if the city's Department of Parks and Recreation had a clue.  A proactive AG and some consultants could have shifted the dialog.

Parkland and cy pres?  With the Parkland case, I'd argue that the State AG could step in and do a cy pres review, and as part of a settlement, make the City of Parkland whole.

Automated speed camera data from Toronto shows the value of this traffic speed enforcement mechanism

Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, uses provincial powers a lot to preempt local government action, especially in Toronto.  One example is his elimination of the use of automatic speed cameras over "freedom etc." plus other measures can do just as well, such as oversize speed limit signs.

Guess what?  Tickets work.  Since the elimination of cameras, speeding has increased 235% in the Parkdale neighborhood, based on data collection associated with the speed limit counter signs, which collect data, they aren't limited to just saying "slow down" ("We all have one thing to say about Doug Ford’s ban on automated speed cameras: We told you so," Toronto Star).  From the article:

That’s based on data reported from one of the city’s digital “Watch your Speed” signs. You’ve seen them around. They’re typically posted near schools. They flash with your car’s speed as you pass by, hopefully serving as a visual reminder, when necessary, that you should slow the heck down. They also, it turns out, keep a permanent record of speeds.

These signs can be set up to collect data in both directions.  Yellow signs are typically placed near schools.  White signs elsewhere.  Photo: TrafficLogix.

Using the same basic methodology as Safe Parkside, I looked at data from more than 800 sites with these digital signs. In October 2025, the last full month before Ford’s ban on speed cameras took effect, the digital signs collectively recorded 626,137 vehicles exceeding the posted speed limit by at least 20 km/h. In April, with no more fear of speed cameras, the number nearly doubled, to more than one million.

Of 837 sites I looked at with data from both before and after the speed camera ban, the number of drivers doing 20 clicks over the limit increased at 476 of them. (Before the program was put on ice, the city had 150 speed cameras that rotated through locations like these.)

Tickets are "controversial."  They cost money so people don't like them, without acknowledging that if they followed the laws they wouldn't be ticketed.  

In the Douglas Shoup parking universe, parking tickets are a source of revenue for commercial district public space improvements.  But to me there is a fine line between encouraging and discouraging people to visit traditional commercial districts.  You have to balance parking concerns, bad behavior of parking--which is why Shoup encouraged low or no cost parking in garages, and high prices for street parking--and encouraging return passenger.

The recent director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, Richard Lazar, made the point that rather than focusing on the revenue generating capacity of tickets, he prefers to think of them as "education devices" that people use to change their behavior ("Rich Lazer Would Like You to Love the PPA. No, Seriously.," Philadelphia Magazine).

Lazer recognizes that increased enforcement isn’t viewed positively across much of the city. He doesn’t look at enforcement as a revenue generator — a claim you can hear muttered at expired meters across Philadelphia — but rather as a behavioral change. If you’re blocking a crosswalk or parking on a sidewalk or jamming up a bike lane, yes, you’ll have to pay a fine. And maybe next time, you won’t do it (or at least will think twice about doing it).

“It’s about curb management and enforcing quality-of-life issues so they don’t happen anymore,” Lazer says. “And maybe that’s putting yourself out of business, because you want people to follow the rules. But at the end of the day, we don’t want to be looked at as somebody who just wants to generate revenue, because that’s not the mission. Our operation is not out to just crush people.”

I imagine he believes that parking scofflaws, who don't care about tickets--a problem in DC with out of state license plate users of the streets because it's hard to penalize them, that they should get their cars impounded, as another form of education.

Anyway, the Toronto findings are a sad but good example of real life experimentation to prove or disprove various approaches to public policy, in this case traffic enforcement.

Fourth of July | US 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

There's far too much going on for me to be able to write something pithy and searing about the state of American Democracy, other than my contribution to a Utah commemoration of the anniversary last week at the opening of the Museum of Utah History.

Below, it's the last of the line of red bars.

There is an article in the Toronto Star, "How does former foreign affairs minister John Manley see America today?," interviewing John Manley, former minister, about Canada's relationship now with the US.  Which has deteriorated in so many ways ("Trump threatens not to renew USMCA as Carney talks trade strategy with premiers," "North American free trade is gone, dead and buried," Toronto Globe & Mail).

It's not very good.  

One example is Trump holding Canada hostage over the new Gordie Howe International Bridge.  Canada paid for it because the US wouldn't contribute and the Detroit-Windsor crossing is key to trade between the two countries, the auto industry, and Canada-Michigan, Canada being Michigan's largest trading power ("For people in Detroit and Windsor, Gordie Howe bridge delay fits a familiar – and frustrating – pattern," "Canada built the Gordie Howe bridge. Trump weaponized it," "Donald Trump can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, so instead he’s blocking the Strait of Detroit," Toronto Globe & Mail).  

The new bridge will correct transportational bottlenecks that result from the current set up.

The owner of the private Ambassador Bridge, which is the major above-ground link between the two nations, but the bridge dumps its traffic into a neighborhood not set up to facilitate very well the movement of the truck traffic towards the freeways, has made lots of donations to Trump ("Trump keeping Gordie Howe bridge closed to help donor, Michigan senate candidate claims in ad," AP).

The Gordie Howe International Bridge in Windsor on Thursday. Canada picked up the tab for the recently-completed bridge, but it still hasn’t opened because Trump doesn’t want it open, writes Tony Keller. Photo: Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail

From the interview:

How truly democratic is the U.S. today?

We need to remember that every institution has some fragility to it. And that it requires all of us to remain vigilant. Democracy is not something to be taken for granted. It takes work. We have to inform people. We have to educate people. Literacy is a prime requirement in a democracy. We have to preserve the independence of voices that can be critical of what those in power are doing, holding them to account. I think (journalist) Anne Applebaum uses the analogy that we tend to think of democracy like we go to the tape in the kitchen and pour ourselves a glass of water. It’s way more complicated than that. It’s like when we had to go up the hill to the well and pump some water out in order to get a drink. That’s what democracy is. It requires work.

This is so true.  As despondent I am about the state of the nation today, especially how Republicans put party before country, how they have abdicated their responsibility as co-equal members of the Legislative Branch to be lapdogs of the President, how the rule of law is disregarded ("Electing a Federal Attorney General and a Chief Inspector General | Expanding Democracy") and how the conservative majority of the Supreme Court is overtly Republican in many of its rulings, we still have to try to work Democracy, to improve it, to push back against the transgressions.

=======

"American flags are everywhere this weekend. But the symbol has become politicized to a degree unseen before," Boston Globe.

Partisans at each end of the political spectrum use the flag to disparage the patriotism of the other side. Politicians on the right literally wrap themselves in the banner to proclaim their love of country. And protesters on the left wave the flag at mass demonstrations as a rallying cry to protect or expand American rights.

... For many at that time, the flag symbolized a transcendent sense of broad national purpose, even if large swaths of the population still struggled to claim their rights or bitterly criticized the government. This Fourth of July, even flying the flag at home can have political, demographic, and racial overtones.

About 70 percent of Republicans, and 60 percent of Americans ages 60 and older, fly the flag at least during national holidays, according to an April survey by The Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Conversely, about 60 percent of Democrats and independents said they never fly the flag, including about 75 percent of Democrats under 45, the survey showed. In addition, only about 30 percent of Black adults said they ever display the banner.

I'm more with Zohran Mamdani in his speech on Friday ("Zohran Mamdani rebukes Trumpism with pro-immigrant speech for US’s 250th birthday," Guardian). 

“Patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws,” the New York mayor said. “Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.”

Back from the Brink, an oral history of the introduction and implementation of Broken Windows theory policing in New York City

I have been remiss in reviewing Back from the Brink, the book by Peter Moskos that is an oral history of the New York City Police Department during the Bratton period, where new strategies and tactics were introduced to suppress crime in significantly measurable ways.  (I first mentioned the book last September, in "Murder rate in Chicago is bad: "correct" applications of broken window policing.")

Unfortuately, I have a bad habit of if I don't write the review as soon as I read the book, I'm not likely to get back to it, partly because I have another bad habit of writing my notes on various different pieces of paper, some get mislaid etc.

But the review of the book by Michael Fortner, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in Washington Monthly, "How New York City Got Safe: A historical reconstruction of the Big Apple’s crime decline, told from inside the institutions responsible for public safety," reminds me that it is important to do so.

A New York Subway car before Broken Windows policing practice was introduced in the late 1980s.

Fortner covers the book pretty well, but I think he misses some points.  

I lived in DC during the bad times in the 80s and 90s, and am a fervent believer in broken windows policing theory.  

In general, especially in progressive academia, it has a bad rep because most departments interpreted it as "zero tolerance policing" with a lack of focus on major crimes and the creation of a siege mentality by arresting people for the least transgression, like an unbuckled seatbelt (also see "Looking Through Broken Windows: The Impact of Neighborhood Disorder on Aggression and Fear of Crime Is an Artifact of Research Design" Annual Review of Criminology, "Why the Fraudulent 'Broken Windows' Theory of Policing Refuses to Die," Current Affairs).

What I got out of Moskos book are a few key things.  

First, the interviews make clear that Bratton and the top people believed that crime could be suppressed.  CompStat was about (re)focusing police time towards proactiveness.  "Cops on Dots" -- putting cops where crime is occurring--as some people called it.

Although as Fortner quotes one commander, it was a philosophy.  Moskos cites a cop talking about how they had a problem with bike-based robberies in his precinct and how it was addressed.  But others took out of CompStat meetings about their approach that they should "arrest more bicyclists" rather than analyze whether or not bicycles were used repetitively in perpetrating crime.

Bratton's team believed that by addressing pattern crime, and arresting perpetrators crime would drop.  

While generally, the police department wasn't focused on "broken windows" or improving public spaces per se, the application of focused policing on the subway system was complemented by a refurbishment of subway stations and subway cars--not just buying new equipment--but by addressing graffiti, etc.

The book gives you a great picture of the effort and how it was incremental, building on each success, or adjusting after failure.  I really got a sense of the breadth and depth of the effort and the spirit of experimentation.  

The idea of "moving the success of broken windows from underground/the subways" to above ground wasn't just about the CompStat tracking system and delving deeply into crime patterns, precinct by precinct.  It was about making improvements in crime reduction and physical improvements very visible, which in turn led to more support for the Broken Windows Approach.

Two stories in particular cover the integration of policing with public space improvement were the campaigns to significantly improve the  Port Authority Bus Terminal and Bryant Park (although the program to improve BP began before the Bratton period of policing).  

People didn't used to go to Bryant Park, day or night.  Now it hums with activity.

But as the president of the subway system told Bratton during his interview "if we don't fix stations and subway trains in association with better policing people won't take the train," the success of Bryant Park likely would have taken much longer to come to fruition without better, focused policing in public parks and Bryant Park in particular.

Another element of public space improvement at the time had nothing to do with policing, but with the creation of business improvement districts, funded by local property tax surcharges, these groups provided extranormal cleaning services, public space improvements and monitoring (Jane Jacobs style "eyes on the street") in places like Times Square and around Penn Station.

And the proof is in the pudding.  Sure multiple cities had significant crime drops starting in the late 1990s.  But eg DC versus NYC.  NYC had a 75% drop in homicides, DC 38%.  I'm sure this quantum difference in results between NYC and other cities was across the board in other crime categories.

Living in DC at the time, there weren't many broken windows approaches, but there was a focus on involving neighborhood groups, the way that Patrick Sharkey in Uneasy Peace attributes some of the fall in crime during that period to civic and collective action ("George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies," 2019).

I myself participated in one such neighborhood group that was started in response to a major drug distribution area, and over (a long) time the problem was cured.  

Cops came to monthly meetings, problems were discussed, there were occasional walks with police and elected officials, etc.  (I also did small BW experiments in my neighborhood, with litter pick up and measurement of its impact on certain streets and in bus shelters.)

A blog reader once made the point that as crime dropped, maybe stop and frisk was in part a response of needing something to do, but with the lack of restraints applied during the post Bratton Guiliani years (although Bratton in his later stint did support stop and frisk; later he recanted) it became a big problem.  

Obviously, Stop and Frisk was proven to be not productive.  Unlike the value of arresting fare jumpers and checking them for outstanding warrants, an early initiative of Bratton's on the subway system, less than 2% of the people stopped under Stop and Frisk had outstanding warrants.  

They were stopping people without reasonable suspicion or probable cause and it showed in the data.  Whereas fare jumping is a crime, and jumpers often perpetrate other crimes, on the subway system and off it.

So for me, the biggest issue with BW is that it hasn't really been applied in a true fashion in very many places.  And with how the Bratton people were pushed out by Giuliani, my lesson from DC is that you can't ever stop being vigilant when it comes to crime and order versus disorder.  Once disorder returns it's hard to reverse.

The rise in social justice concerns, deserved somewhat in response to structural racism, as crime dropped and fewer elected officials and academics had direct experience of the mess of disorder during the worst of 1990s, did lead to a rise in crime in places like DC ("The Coming D.C. Crime Boomerang," Atlantic), as crime decriminalization was seen by perpetrators not as a social justice move to help them because they were "driven to crime because of life circumstances," but as a signal to commit more crime (see the argument, by extension here, "The role of physical environment in the ‘broken windows’ theory," University of Chicago)

BART's new fare gates, seen at the Coliseum station in 2025, have generated more money for the transit agency. Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle

BART and fare gates. Recently there was a super interesting BW finding in SF with BART stations with new fare evasion resistant gates ("BART’s long fight against fare evasion is finally paying off. Here’s how much," San Francisco Chronicle).  

Not only did rider attitudes improve, ridership and fare revenue grew, and instances of vandalism dropped significantly.  Like Bratton said, turnstile jumpers commit other crimes.  If they aren't on the subway because they didn't pay, well, then there is less likelihood for vandalism of subway infrastructure.

Note that NYC and DC subways ("Metro’s new, higher faregates reducing fare evasion by more than 70 percent"), and St. Louis and Minneapolis light rail ("Transit safety and security: Broken Windows theory and reality | and the state of transit safety today," 2023) are also implementing new fare gates to reduce fare evasion.

Playgrounds and cafes were some of the positive use spaces added to the area.   Photo:  Jessie Cooper and Justin Roth embrace on a swing at a playground at Civic Center in San Francisco, California, on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Revival of BART's Civic Center station.  Predating the fare gate program, the BART Civic Center Station became a center for nuisance and crime including drug dealing, where the main two block "entryway" to the station became a gauntlet where drug dealing, loitering, and quality of life offenses blossomed..  

Above-ground, the City of San Francisco invested in improving the public realm on those two blocks and beyond, adding new facilities and refurbishment to encourage more positive use of the space, while below ground BART made complementary station-specific improvements.  

Media coverage of the project makes clear that the effort involved police and multiple other partners including philanthropy, physical interventions and ongoing programming ("SF Civic Center’s new vision: soccer fields, shaded gardens and people," "SF Civic Center — cleaner and safer — now a place to play and have a bite," "Rejuvenating SF Civic Center Plaza: a challenge beyond design," San Francisco Chronicle). 

While the area’s transformation remains a work in progress, the differences are stark. In addition to two new playgrounds that cost $10 million, the space hosts a growing number of public events, including outdoor concerts, art installations and food-truck gatherings. A winter park — complete with a 6,000-square-foot ice rink — is set to open next month.

BART has developed a station modernization program equally focused on reducing public safety issues.

The Station Modernization Program focuses on increasing safety, capacity, sustainability, appearance, and enhancing the customer experience: 

• Vibrancy-- Reflect the energy of the surrounding community and enhance the station’s existing strengths 
• Connectivity – Strengthen multi-modal and universal access to the station and promote a safe and comfortable customer experience 
•  Sustainability – Incorporate sustainable materials and technologies into the station to increase the life-cycle value of the station’s infrastructure and to conserve natural resources and protect the public investment. 

Residents hope a similar program can be developed to improve the environment and public safety elements at the 16th Street-Mission Station ("Can BART bring a Civic Center-style revival to another dilapidated S.F. station?," SFC).   But in contrast to the Civic Center project, they seem to be focusing more on BART, and less on engaging other agencies into creating a broader response.

There not thinking either multiplicatively, nor in terms of below ground versus above-ground improvements.

 “If you really think about it, this is the living room of the Mission,” he said. “And the BART station is the front door. The first impression you have of the neighborhood is coming through the fare gate and up that escalator.”

As discussed in the 2013 entry "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," transit stations are entry points--porches or living rooms--to neighborhoods.  While transit systems typically don't plan them that way, it is a responsibility that goes beyond the transit agency, and should require ongoing coordination and planning with the local jurisdiction.

Managing to prevent disorder is an ongoing process.  The final lesson with BW in NYC is that it requires constant vigilance too.  That it's hard to maintain because people get burned out.  But also when elected officials want the credit, they push out the top cops who bring the changes about.  That definitely happened in NYC.  Most of the top implementers of BW at NYPD were gone within a few years of Bratton's departure.  Although fortunately, further down the ranks were commanders, inspectors, and captains who had been (re)trained to the approach, embedded the precepts, and continued to implement the BW approach of proactive crime suppression.

Covid-related uptick in crime.  Although yes, things tipped the other way during the covid pandemic, in NYC and nationally "Explaining the COVID Violence Spike and the Roaring Crime Decline").  Although today, in most places reported crime including murders, has dropped significantly.

Police officers and detectives enter the crime scene area where a 9-year-old boy was fatally shot. Photo: John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune

Chicago.  Chicago is an outlier nationally, in that the city that has continued to have high murder rates, although they are dropping, despite purportedly adopting BW approaches ("End-of-Year Analysis: Chicago Crime Trends," U of Chicago Crime Lab).   More recently, the city has had success with crime reductions in association with community intervention programs.

In a past blog entry, I opined that they probably aren't doing BW very well, have many high profile negative incidents that indicate systemic problems with management, and that a high rate of financial settlements for police misconduct, fatal errors, etc. indicates, from a risk management standpoint, that they have a serious crime problem.  Although more recently, like Baltimore ("Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott discusses how the city has brought violent crime down," NPR, "Baltimore has cut homicides by almost 60 percent in five years," Washington Post) they seem to be having effect with violence interruption programs.

Also see:

"The federal help Chicago really needs," Crain's Chicago Business

At the University of Chicago Crime Lab, we have spent over fifteen years studying which interventions actually reduce gun violence and maximize the impact of government spending. We think we’ve found a clear path forward: Build the capacity of police commanders managing jurisdictions with the highest rates of violence. The Policing Leadership Academy has a simple premise — treat policing as a profession using the formula that has had tremendous success for private sector companies: investing in people’s leadership and management skills.

Also see "Policing and management," NBER, which makes the point about how the use of management time shapes outcomes positively or negatively.

Holy f***: Trump policy kills a woman in Minneapolis

Photo: Mathieu Louis-Rolland, Getty Images.

Protestors in Portland have been making fun of the extreme statements about Portland being out of control by wearing costumes at protests ("Portland’s Theater-of-the-Absurd Protests Reflect the Ridiculousness of Trump’s Lies," The Nation).

There's been a lot written about Trump using the National Guard as a tool to terrorize "Democrat cities" ("Trump’s use of National Guard troops on American streets is bad enough. This could be worse," Rhode Island Current), like Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago.  

Ostensibly, the troops have been sent to cities “overrun” with crime. Yet data shows that has not been the case. Troops have been sent to largely Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states.

The case for political theater being the real reason behind the deployment certainly was strengthened when largely Republican Mississippi sent troops to Washington D.C., even though crime in Mississippi cities like Jackson is higher than in D.C. Additionally, there is an even more dangerous purpose to the troop presence — that of normalizing the idea of troops on the streets, a key facet of authoritarian rule.

There are fundamental differences in training and mission between military troops and civilian law enforcement, with troop presence raising the potential for escalation and excessive force, and the erosion of both civil liberties and military readiness.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the justification used by the Administration was flawed, and ordered them to stop ("Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to deploy National Guard in Illinois," SCOTus blog, "The Supreme Court has taken the National Guard away from Donald Trump," Economist).  Separately, as DC is subordinate to the federal government, NG troops are still in the city.

Of the many objections to the entry of federal law enforcement personnel into cities is their lack of training on urban policing, nor in de-escalation.  Armed troops are by definition escalatory.  It doesn't help that the Administration lies about what happens in their various engagements with protestors.

Another objection is that putting such forces in cities provides reputational risk to the military, because it's not what they are supposed to do.  In a way, although a bit different, it's not unlike how the British, during the Revolutionary War, forced residents to billet soldiers, at their own expense.  Here, it's a city being forced to take the brunt of the action by the military.

We know about the Administration's multi-faceted anti-immigrant program ("Protecting The American People Against Invasion" White House) with overtones of White Christian Nationalism ("The wrath of Stephen Miller," Atlantic), which has resulted in the imprisonment and/or deportation of many thousands of people.  It's not uncommon for US citizens to be swept up in the actions, and imprisoned ("We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days," ProPublica).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel are able to operate in cities independent of the court judgements about the National Guard.

Chicago: A federal immigration enforcement agent points a crowd control weapon at a protester at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in the East Side on Oct. 14. Protesters gathered as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers awaited the removal of their vehicle after it crashed during a pursuit.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

And they are armed and aggressive.  Armed, not well trained Guardsman killed protestors at Kent State University in 1970 ("Kent State University marks 55th anniversary of May 4 shootings," Ideastream/NPR) but before that at the Historically Black College, Orangeburg State College in South Carolina, in 1968 where three students were killed ("Feb. 8, 1968: Orangeburg Massacre," Zinn Education Project).

One particularly egregious aggression was the raiding of an apartment building in Chicago ("“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime," ProPublica, "Stories from the federal siege of Chicago," Chicago Sun-Times).

Community members pray at the scene where a federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, 37, of the Twin Cities earlier on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

That's escalated.  Today, we have the killing of an American citizen in Minneapolis ("Eyewitness describes ICE shooting that killed woman in Minneapolis," NBC).

With the director of ICE as part of the operation!

The Boston Globe has a video link of the engagement, and there is no question the ICE agent murdered the driver, a 37 year old woman.  ICE agents too, aren't well trained, for urban incursions.  This is the result.

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino joins federal agents at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Ironically it's 5 years plus one day since the Trump-inspired violent protests at the US Capitol ("Jan. 6 insurrection," Washington Post).  The Administration just put up a webpage lying about what happened ("White House unveils Jan. 6 webpage saying Democrats ‘staged the real insurrection,’ criticizing Capitol Police," The Hill). 

One protestor, Ashlii Babbitt, was shot and killed by a member of the Capitol Police.  She's been made a martyr of the hard right, and under Trump, her family got a payout ("Trump administration to pay nearly $5M in wrongful death lawsuit of Jan. 6 rioter shot by police," Politico).  She was rioting.  Rioting isn't protected speech.  She was a criminal.  Trump also pardoned most of the people found guilty of rioting that day.

A bullet hole is seen in the windshield as law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. Tom Baker/AP

Not the lady in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, she's just dead.  Say her name... ("‘She was an amazing human being’: Mother identifies woman shot, killed by ICE agent," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

The Administration is justifying the murder ("Live updates: Hundreds protest in Minneapolis after ICE officer kills woman," AP).  Calling the person driving away a "domestic terrorist" ("DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments in wake of woman’s fatal shooting by ICE agent," MST).

“He’s been in situations like this before, and he certainly has been out there and followed his training today,” said Noem at the evening news conference in Minneapolis.

A federal agent sprays a protester with a chemical agent at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Noem appeared to reference the same officer when she said that, back in June, he’d been rammed and dragged by an “anti-ICE” motorist.

Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

The Republicans in Congress are supine in the face of the Administration's aggressions not just against the Constitution, but of the American People.

You would think this killing would be a moment comparable to when Senator Joe McCarthy's lies were challenged by Joseph Welch, the U.S. Army's chief counsel at one of McCarthy's many hearings about communists in government.  

He said: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That was the moment of McCarthy's downfall.  Were this to be a similar moment.

Sanctioned state violence.  The Trump Administration is one of the most violent in terms of how it deals with citizens and immigrants.  But this is not unique to the nation's history, with raids against "communists" in the 1870s and 1920s, anarchists (1910s), labor unions (1890s-1930), and the treatment of certain immigrant groups throughout history (Chinese, Mexicans, Jews).

But today it seems the US is taking its cues from Hungary and Russia, where the media is controlled and universities are subjugated, and countries like Chile under Pinochet, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel, China--Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York Magazine) and China are probably the most developed surveillance states in the world, more intricate than the Apartheid period of South Africa.  

Trump constantly threatens to stop elections and interfere with elections ("Trump’s Jokes About Canceling Midterm Elections Aren’t So Funny Anymore," Esquire), which is front and center in Erdoğan's regime in Turkey.

Plus there is the prosecution of Trump "opponents" such as James Comey (former director of the FBI) and Letitia Wilson (State Attorney General of New York).

Poland is an example that had degraded in terms of freedoms of citizens but is on a turnaround, with the election as president of Donald Tusk.  So it can be reversed.

It's incredible though that the US has reached this nadir.  I never thought that when I studied Latin America in political science courses in college, that the readings foreshadowed today's United States of America.