Patricia Cornwell is an American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders in Richmond, Virginia, where most of the stories are set. The plots are notable for their emphasis on forensic science, which has influenced later TV treatments of police work. Cornwell has also initiated new research into the Jack the Ripper killings, incriminating the popular British artist Walter Sickert. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies.
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts college with a criminal justice and forensic focus in the United States.
The police procedural, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on either a private detective, an amateur investigator or the characters who are the targets of investigations. While many police procedurals conceal the criminal's identity until the crime is solved in the narrative climax, others reveal the perpetrator's identity to the audience early in the narrative, making it an inverted detective story. Whatever the plot style, the defining element of a police procedural is the attempt to accurately depict the profession of law enforcement, including such police-related topics as forensic science, autopsies, gathering evidence, search warrants, interrogation and adherence to legal restrictions and procedure.
The Black Guerrilla Family is an African-American black power prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson, George “Big Jake” Lewis, and W. L. Nolen while they were incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit. The book received the 1992 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.
Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN.
Cops is an American television documentary reality legal programming television series that is currently in its 33rd season. It is produced by Langley Productions. It premiered on the Fox network on March 11, 1989. The series, known for chronicaling the lives of police officers, follows city police officers and sheriff's deputies, sometimes backed up by state police or other state agencies, during patrol, calls for service, and other police activities including prostitution and narcotic stings, and occasionally the serving of search/arrest warrants at criminal residences. Some episodes have also featured federal agencies. The show assigns television camera crews to accompany police as they perform their duties. The show's formula follows the cinéma vérité convention, which does not consist of any narration, scripted dialogue or incidental music/added sound effects, depending entirely on the commentary of the officers and on the actions of the people with whom they come into contact, giving the audience a fly on the wall point of view. Each episode typically consists of three self-contained segments which often ended with one or more arrests.
The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The department is organized into ten districts; nine geographical and the Public Housing Section. It polices 80.9 square miles (210 km2) of land and 11.1 square miles (29 km2) of waterways. The department is sometimes referred to as the Baltimore City Police Department to distinguish it from the Baltimore County Police Department.
Reuben Morris Greenberg was the first black police chief of Charleston, South Carolina, and known for being an innovative criminologist.
Edward T. Norris is an American radio host and former law enforcement officer in Maryland. He is the cohost of a talk show on WJZ-FM in Baltimore, Maryland. Norris, a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, served as Police Commissioner for Baltimore from 2000 to late 2002 and Superintendent of the Maryland State Police in 2003. Norris was later convicted of a felony and spent six months in federal prison.
One Good Cop is a 1991 American crime drama film written and directed by Heywood Gould and starring Michael Keaton, Rene Russo, Anthony LaPaglia and Benjamin Bratt. Keaton portrays New York City Police Department Detective Artie Lewis, who, with his wife Rita (Russo), adopts his late partner's (LaPaglia) children and loves them as their own. He also targets one of the criminals responsible for his partner's death. He initially seeks justice for his adoptive children, but ultimately chooses retaliation by robbing his quarry to support his new family, endangering them and his career.
Mark Albert Robert Kleiman was an American professor, author, and blogger who dealt with issues of drug and criminal justice policy.
Heather Lynn Mac Donald is an American conservative political commentator, essayist, attorney, and author. She is a Thomas W. Smith Fellow of the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of the institute's City Journal. She has written numerous editorials and is the author of several books.
Peter Moskos is an American professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration and the CUNY Graduate Center in the Department of Sociology. He is a former Baltimore Police Department officer. The son of military and Greek American sociologist Charles Moskos, he specializes in policing, crime, and punishment. Moskos was listed by The Atlantic as one of their "Brave Thinkers of 2011" for his book In Defense of Flogging. In Defense of Flogging proposes giving individuals convicted of a crime a choice between incarceration and corporal punishment.
David M. Kennedy is a criminologist, professor, action researcher, and author specializing in crime prevention among inner city gangs, especially in the prevention of violent acts among street gangs. Kennedy developed the Operation Ceasefire group violence intervention in Boston in the 1990s and the High Point Model drug market intervention in High Point, North Carolina, in 2003, which have proven to reduce violence and eliminate overt drug markets in jurisdictions around the United States. He founded the National Network for Safe Communities in 2009 to support cities using these and related strategies.
The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its significantly high crime rate which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 when the population was nearly 125,000 higher.
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is a 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein of his years living in Tokyo as the first non-Japanese reporter working for one of Japan's largest newspapers, Yomiuri Shinbun. It was published by Random House and Pantheon Books. HBO adapted the memoir into a 2022 television series.
Michael S. Harrison is an American police officer who currently serves as Police Commissioner of the Baltimore City Police Department. He was formerly the Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department from August 2014 to January 2019. On August 18, 2014, he was appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu as interim superintendent following the retirement of the previous Superintendent Ronal W. Serpas. On October 14, 2014, Harrison was formally named by Mayor Landrieu as Superintendent of Police.
Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old man, was fatally shot on November 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, by a New York City Police Department officer. Two police officers, patrolling stairwells in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)'s Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, entered a pitch-dark, unlit stairwell. Officer Peter Liang, 27, had his firearm drawn. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, fourteen steps below them. Liang fired his weapon; the shot ricocheted off a wall and fatally struck Gurley in the chest. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter, which a court later reduced to criminally negligent homicide.
Thomas Abt is an American author, crime researcher, and former government official specializing in evidence-informed approaches to reducing crime in urban areas. His book, Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets, was published in June 2019 by Basic Books.
