

How the Federal Government is Killing Community Policing - tokenadult
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/107675/how-big-brother-killing-community-policing

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tokenadult
You may remember the author of this article, Professor Sudhir Venkatesh, as
the author of the book Gang Leader for a Day, the researcher made famous in
the book Freakonomics as willing to interview street drug dealers about the
details of their work. The article is quite interesting, with this thought-
provoking thesis: "Increasingly, across the country, the town cop who walks a
beat and relies on trust with locals may be a thing of the past; your
neighborhood police investigation is increasingly likely to be a federal
initiative, built on cooperation between your local police department and
Washington, DC. In fact, with feds and local cops increasing their
collaborations and seeking funding to expand their joint investigations, we
may be seeing the end of 'community policing' as we’ve known it. In the short
run, this has been a good thing, since crime has grown more complex and stiff
federal penalties are often necessary deterrents. But in the long run, it’s
shaping up to be the biggest challenge to liberal governance and local
autonomy that we’ve seen in some time."

