Presentation on the Presentation Elements, see below.
All posts by Marnie Brady
Handouts: Identifying an Issue
Hand Outs Issue ID — click to download as Word Doc.
Readings for 2/14, Week 3: Criminalization, Policing, Incarceration
First off, let’s look at the much-argued “Broken Windows” theory as applied to police work. It is an important jumping-off point. This is a seminal piece that ran in The Atlantic magazine in 1982, by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson:
And here is an inevitable criticism of that theory, one of many criticisms:
Are the police (not necessarily in New York, overly militarized? Here’s a piece of my own in The Times on the rise of SWAT teams:
Police forces, especially the NYPD, deal with many more menaces than before, not the least being terrorist threats. Here, via the NYPD, is a roster of known terrorist plot since Sept. 11, 2001. I guess the word “known” should be underlined. There may well be plots we don’t know a thing about.
In 2015, then-Police Commissioner William Bratton announced a new way in which terrorism investigations will be handled:
The police tactic of stop, question and frisk has provoked considerable anger and reflection in recent years. This New Yorker article studies the judge who sharply curtailed the practice and her reasoning:
Do bad cops escape punishment all too often? Here’s a look at possible reasons:
http://www.thecrimereport.org/
And is police wrongdoing not made sufficiently public? A couple of lawsuits seek to learn more:
Here’s the NYPD’s Firearms Discharge Report for 2015, the last year that we have complete. Give it a look. I’ll walk you through the relevant numbers in class. There may be surprises there for many of you:
Police corruption (meaning cops taking bribes and related acts of wrongdoing) has not been a notable problem for quite a while. But it was huge in the 1970s, and a look at history is always helpful. Revelations by a cop named Frank Serpico — portrayed by Al Pacino in a ’70s film called ‘Serpico’ — shaped a lot of the attitudes that still prevail. Here’s a look at the reclusive Serpico from a few years ago:
Well before the Eric Garner incident on Staten Island in 2014, a few cases of cops shooting unarmed black men contributed greatly to tensions. Here are two of the biggest from not that long ago:
The shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999:
And the shooting of Sean Bell in 2006:
Here’s the NYPD’s Firearms Discharge Report for 2015, the last year that we have complete. Give it a look. I’ll walk you through the relevant numbers in class. There may be surprises there for many of you:
Shootings in New York in 2016 fell to their lowest level in more than two decades:
And a steep decline in gang violence was a big reason:
But there’s one outlier to the sharp drop in homicides and that involves domestic violence:
Not police-related at all but this deals with another uniformed service, the Fire Department. In 2016, fewer people died in NYC than in any year in more than a century. Quite remarkable really:
Finally, the U.S. imprisons more people than any other country. Here’s on examination as to why:
Readings for 2/7
In addition to the two pieces of writing that I’ve asked for next week, there is some reading to do. The principal piece is the E.B. White essay that I mentioned, “Here Is New York.” Here it is:
We will discuss this in class next week.
Not critical, but interesting, is this look at how various Manhattan neighborhoods got their names. We could do something comparable for the whole city, but for now here’s Manhattan:
And this is something for a few weeks from now, but you might as well watch it as soon as you can. It’s an hour-long video on a classic study done by William H. Whyte (not to be confused with E.B. White). It’s called “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.” What it does is something I would like you to do at some point this semester: observe how people use public spaces — what works, what doesn’t, and why. This is from 1980, as you’ll see from the way folks are dressed, but while wardrobes change, human behavior doesn’t necessarily. Here it is:
And here are a few reference items on mass transit, none of which involve heavy lifting, to get our discussion of transportation rolling:
Here’s a history of the NYC subway:
And here are a couple of sets of facts and figures on subway and bus ridership from the MTA:
Do we want car-free streets? Here’s a brief look at how Montreal does it:
It took nearly a century to get even this short leg of the 2nd Ave. Subway up and running:
And is this stub of a 2nd Ave. Subway worth the vast expense? Not everyone is so sure:
Mayor de Blasio has proposed a streetcar to run along the waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens. It’s still very much a work in progress because, among other things, various groups must first sign off on it. But we haven’t had a street car in this city in many decades, so this is interesting and warrants a look. Here’s a New York Times story on this idea:
Mapping and Data Tools
Course Mapping Tools:
- Background: MapsCorps at the U. of Chicago
- The MAP APP
Other Mapping Tools:
- Social Explorer (go through Hunter College library and log in)
- SE How To Guide Here
- Google Maps
- NYC programs and services: http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/
Quantitative Datasets:
- Finding Neighborhood Census Data, Baruch
- American FactFinder
- New York City Census FactFinder
- New York City Department of City Planning Website
- New York Department of City Planning Population Division Website with publications, especially The Newest New Yorkers (2013)
- New York City Census FactFinder
- New York Department of Education data
- Bytes of the Big Apple, “software, data and geographic base map files for the City of New York.”
- Infoshare
- NYC Open Data and presentation about what’s available in and how to use NYC Open Data.
- Criminal Court Summonses in New York City, a 2014 guide
- InvestigateNYC, a website that combines some of the resources put out by New York City and explains how to use these resources.
Research Links
Research Links
Hunter College Library- Urban Affairs and Planning Research Guide
Stephanie Margolin is the research librarian for Urban Affairs & Planning- you can contact her via the link above. She is a great resource for helping you find data and sources for your research.
Citation Tools
There are several free citation managers available through Hunter. Zotero is the program that was demonstrated in class.
How to POST
HOW-TO
- Add Yourself and See Yourself on this Site
The “Site login” button is featured on the bottom right corner of the site’s home page. After you’ve added yourself, visit the “We Are…” page to find your name and avatar (listed by first name A-Z). Please change those monster avatars to your likeness!
- Find Every Post You’ve Ever Published for this Site
Click on your name under the “We Are…” page.
1. Give your post a headline. A HEADLINE, something that grabs the attention and captures the spirit of what you’ve written, not something like “Assignment #1.”
2. Write your post in the big box below the smaller title box.
3. CATEGORIZE your post. This is very, very important. If you do not properly categorize your post, your professor will not be able to find it and you will not get credit for doing it. It is possible the post won’t even appear on the site at all. You can find the “Categories” box to the right of the post box. Click on all the categories that apply (in this case your name and the assignment name).
4. TAG your post. Use key words to identify specific and cross-cutting themes.
5. Publish your post. You will see a box with the heading “Publish” somewhere above the categories box. Click the “Publish” button inside. If you do so accidentally you can always go back and edit the post.
