Crime

The recently approved new "drug" law in Mexico is in fact not a step toward decriminalization, but rather toward mandatory sentencing. Until last month, possession of small (unspecified) amounts of drugs was not a criminal offense in Mexico; only the sale or purchase was. The new law establishes a minuscule limit on legal possession, meaning that today, almost anyone caught carrying any drug is subject to arrest, prosecution and jail.

If anything, the new law criminalizes drug use much more… more

Not since the aftermath of 9/11 has the word "evil" been bandied about so much in the public media. Last week, while sentencing Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin brought the term back in a big way. Chin's characterization of Madoff's crimes as "extraordinarily evil" was so striking that it made headlines around the world. And, as usual whenever that loaded word is used, there were plenty of people who were offended by it.

What's going on? All along I thought hordes of angry young men posed the greatest threat to society. Experts are always telling us to worry about the social menace from brooding young Turks with too much energy and time on their hands. They commit the lion's share of crimes and terrorist acts. They generally have the least to lose.

The economy is a wreck, and crime is down. Does that mean hard times and lawbreaking aren't linked?

One of my most vivid memories from childhood involves coming home from elementary school and finding that my family's VCR had been stolen. Even now, I'm not entirely sure how it happened, as there was no obvious sign of forced entry.

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld is the dark, riveting journey through the panoply of criminal organizations flourishing in an increasingly globalized world, reaching from the sex trade in Bulgaria and internet fraud in Nigeria to the ‘caviar mafia’ in Central Asia and marijuana markets in British Columbia.

We're obsessed with race and ethnic relations in the U.S., so much so that we tend to believe that most crime, violent or otherwise, is committed across racial, ethnic or religious lines. We make a special category for "hate" crimes. Governments compile statistics on them. Journalists, always looking for the next great divide, eagerly read intergroup conflict into just about any form of antisocial behavior.

* This article is adapted from Reihan Salam's and Ross Douthat's Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

It was only four years ago that conservatives -- and a great many liberals -- were convinced that the Democratic party was doomed to become a purely regional institution: "a national party no more," to borrow the title of Georgia Democrat-turned-Bush supporter Zell Miller's 2003 memoir. Pundits brandished county-by-county maps showing blue enclaves… more

Schwartz Fellow

Reihan Salam writes on politics, culture, and technology, and was previously an associate editor at The Atlantic, a producer for NBC News, a junior editor and editorial researcher at The New York Times, a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a reporter-researcher at The New Republic. He is the co-author of… more

On a muggy August afternoon in Baltimore, trash scuttled down Guilford Avenue, the breeze smelling like rain and asphalt. It was the last week of shooting for the fifth and final season of the HBO drama The Wire, and the crew was filming a scene in front of a boarded-up elementary school. Cast members had been joined by forty or so day players -- mostly kids from the neighborhood. Earlier, the episode’s director, Clark Johnson, had been giving some… more