Comments on The General Blog of Crime: "Undone by its Own Metaphor": The Failure of Ameri...

P.S. FYI: Ben Wallace-Wells is a contributing edi...

2008-01-31T12:10:00.000-05:00

P.S. FYI: Ben Wallace-Wells is a contributing editor (not a reporter) for Rolling Stone, and also writes for The Washington Monthly and the New York Times.

I have yet to read the whole article, but it looks...

2008-01-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

I have yet to read the whole article, but it looks good. I agree with Cranky - no one ever looks at what I assign, so I am sure this would be appropriate.

A few comments. First, a lot of the current drug policy, like High Point, N.C., has been supported by criminologists. People do listen to 'us'. Sometimes I feel like I speak out of both sides of my mouth. One week I am working with the police speaking of the importance of targeted policing efforts in high crime neighborhoods. The next week I am describing how differential policing in high crime neighborhoods can add up to disparity in courts and corrections.

It is always important to consider the dependent variable. Do we have the drug war to reduce individual-level MJ use? I think there were a multitude of reasons for the drug war - only some of them related to crime.

It is really difficult to mesh crim research with policy. Personally, I am pretty familiar with a fair amount of the drug lit, but I have strong opinions that contradict some of the research (particularly that on marijuana). We as scholars do research in our offices (a good thing), but public policy is applied in a very complicated, often non-rational world. Nuf said.

Good points, Dr. Cranky. (Though, I was being fac...

2008-01-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

Good points, Dr. Cranky. (Though, I was being facetious about losing credibility. Besides, think about the cool points I would earn from my students!!)

Anyway, that is indeed what I was thinking: it would be interesting to have students analyze this piece -- what is good/bad about a journalistic research article versus an academic research article? I think it is particularly interesting that he reaches some pretty depressing conclusions about the influence (or lack thereof) of academic research on social policy. An article like this would, I think, be a good foundation for a discussion about the public sociology/criminology movement, and the importance of translating our research into action instead of just journal articles.

If any of you read the article, I'd be curious to hear what you think...

If you believe in the objectivity and insight in t...

2008-01-31T06:27:00.000-05:00

If you believe in the objectivity and insight in the article, no reason to worry. Your students will have absolutely no concept (okay, almost no concept) that such an assigned outlet is a controversial choice (to some). This is the frickin' wiki generation. Any static content is going to be viewed in more or less the same way. They probably will appreciate the "plain" language and "accessible" approach a piece in RS must require. Might actually mean they read the thing.

Any present/future colleague that would balk should just be told to read the thing and make their own evaluation. If asked, you can always frame it as the start of a dialog about the issue; what was good/bad about his analysis? What do you agree/disagree with? What might this mean for CJ policy? You aren't selling it as gospel; all but the most narrow minded would realize a "magazine" can still run occassional strong content (and didn't he do a book, as well)?

Frankly, I doubt they would even know. I've not a clue what types of supplemental readings my co-workers assign unless they tell me.