Demilitarize the Police

With everything happening in the country, I wanted to share the articles that are helping me understand the state of policing.

First, I’ve been reading Rise of the Warrior Cop. It documents how we went from police who were part of our community to police who treat American cities like war zones. It’s why we saw mine-resistant vehicles in Salt Lake City and police pushing over senior citizens.

A militarized police force is not the way it has to be. Here’s a set of links that describes how Camden, New Jersey was able to reform its police force.

Police have weird rules that apply to them. One is qualified immunity, which lets police basically do whatever they want. Police get to seize property from certain crimes, and it turns out that leads them to chase drug crimes more when their budgets are suffering.

Finally, another feature driving the problem in policing is police unions. Unions protect police officers from accountability, and it looks like they increase police violence. Here’s a podcast with an economist who claims the data show police unions cause an increase in police violence and killings.

Betting on the election

Did you know that people are betting about $50 million on the outcome of the November presidential election? What’s cool about the betting is that it gives us an idea of who people think will win. Until a week ago, Trump was the favorite, but now with the nation-wide protests Biden has pulled into the lead.

While researching the markets, I learned that before WWII, these betting markets were not only common, they were widely reported. The New York Times sometimes dedicated half of the front page to reporting the state of betting markets around the country.

Last week I released a bonus video about the betting markets, discussing how they work and whether they are effective. My favorite part of the video is that I wrote a program that updates the title and thumbnail once an hour to reflect the most recent odds. Check it out!

Applying to graduate school

There is a lot of advice on the internet about applying to graduate school. So I decided to add my voice to the cacophony. In this week’s video I discuss my four tips for applying to graduate programs. Some of it is specific to economics, but the most important advice applies to all graduate programs.