Can We Get Smarter About Policing? A conversation with Professor of Police Science (and former Baltimore cop) Peter Moskos

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2020

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"You're far less likely to be shot as a black man in New York City than as a white man in Tulsa." - Peter Moskos In this episode, Meghan talks with Peter Moskos, a professor of law and police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who also happens to be a former Baltimore City police officer. They discuss the media's role in public perceptions of policing, the various definitions of "defund the police, the impact of ubiquitous cameras and viral videos and what big city police departments get right that smaller ones tend to get wrong. Peter also talks about the death of George Floyd and shares his theory about what the other officers on the scene might have been thinking as they watched the events transpire. Professor Peter Moskos (A.B. Princeton, PhD Harvard) is chairperson of the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the director of John Jay College's NYPD Executive Master's Program and a former Baltimore City Police Officer. In addition to his primary duties at John Jay College, Moskos is a faculty member in CUNY's Doctoral Program in Sociology, has taught introductory criminal justice classes at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, and is a Senior Fellow of the Yale Urban Ethnography Project. Moskos is the author of three books: Cop in the Hood, In Defense of Flogging, and Greek Americans. In 2011 he was recognized as one of The Atlantic Magazine's "Brave Thinkers" of the year. Visit his website at www.petermoskos.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	You have to be able to see that race is a factor in America and not see it as the only
0:08.7	factor in these situations.
0:10.7	And sometimes it's not a factor at all.
0:12.5	But, well, if we only report on white cops shooting black people, people will logically think
0:17.0	that's all that happens.
0:18.4	And then the problem is seen as one of white cop shooting black
0:23.3	people. But, you know, we were in a diverse country in police departments. I mean, it's a weird
0:29.5	defense to say cops shoot white people, too. It doesn't necessarily make it better, but it does
0:33.7	point to what we might have to do to reduce the number of shootings.
0:45.4	Hello and welcome to episode four of the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. My guest this week is policing and law enforcement expert Peter Moskos. Peter is Professor of Police
0:51.2	Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John J. College of
0:55.4	Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the author of three books, including in defense of
1:00.7	blogging about the excesses of the American penal system and cop in the hood, which was about his
1:06.5	time working as a Baltimore City police officer as part of his field work for a PhD in sociology.
1:12.9	He spoke with me on August 7th from his home in Queens, New York.
1:21.5	Peter Moskos, thank you so much for joining me on the Unspeakable Podcast.
1:26.8	Thanks for having me on.
1:28.3	So you have been writing and thinking about topics around policing and law enforcement for a long time now, almost 20 years, it looks like.
1:38.3	Yeah, yeah, 20 years.
1:40.3	Yeah. So for the better part of the last decade, these names of unarmed black men killed by police, or in some cases, civilians acting like police, have become household names.
1:51.1	You've got Eric Garner, Michael Brown, LeQuann, McDonald, Tamir Rice, all in 2014, I believe.
1:58.1	That was kind of an incredible year.
	...

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