Brenden Beck
@brendenbeck.bsky.social
Sociologist at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice studying policing, city budgets, suburbs, and housing. brenden.beck@rutgers.edu
This sentence, in an NYT op-ed about local gov't responses to federal cuts, is wrong. Cities don't make across-the-board cuts, they cut social services more deeply than police. Source (if you'll forgive the self promotion): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
July 22, 2025 at 12:12 PM
This sentence, in an NYT op-ed about local gov't responses to federal cuts, is wrong. Cities don't make across-the-board cuts, they cut social services more deeply than police. Source (if you'll forgive the self promotion): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The stark racial difference in support for police persists.
July 22, 2025 at 12:05 PM
The stark racial difference in support for police persists.
American's confidence in the police dipped this year.
July 22, 2025 at 12:04 PM
American's confidence in the police dipped this year.
I looked at NYC's 311 call data (their non-emergency hotline) recently and calls listing the location as "subway" have been declining.
July 21, 2025 at 4:42 PM
I looked at NYC's 311 call data (their non-emergency hotline) recently and calls listing the location as "subway" have been declining.
This very good NYTimes article about how few crimes the police solve includes two competing visions of who commits violence. Is it "bad guys" or "regular guys"?
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/u...
July 7, 2025 at 1:33 PM
This very good NYTimes article about how few crimes the police solve includes two competing visions of who commits violence. Is it "bad guys" or "regular guys"?
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/u...
You can see how the Census Bureau is scrubbing any mention of race or ethnicity from its webpages in the alert that notifies me about new datasets.
June 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
You can see how the Census Bureau is scrubbing any mention of race or ethnicity from its webpages in the alert that notifies me about new datasets.
Should cities spend $$$ on police or social services if reducing crime is the goal? I summarize the research on this question in this now-un-paywalled article. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
January 30, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Should cities spend $$$ on police or social services if reducing crime is the goal? I summarize the research on this question in this now-un-paywalled article. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
I don't know about last year, but LA cut their fire budget 28% between 2007 and 2022. For reference, they increased their police budget 36% during that time.
January 9, 2025 at 9:13 PM
I don't know about last year, but LA cut their fire budget 28% between 2007 and 2022. For reference, they increased their police budget 36% during that time.
Some say LA cut their fire dept. budget last year to pay for an LAPD budget increase. Others (@hayesdavenport.bsky.social) say that wasn't the case. I don't know about last year, but through 2022 LA steadily grew their police budget (+112% since '80), while their fire budget languished (+13%).
January 8, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Some say LA cut their fire dept. budget last year to pay for an LAPD budget increase. Others (@hayesdavenport.bsky.social) say that wasn't the case. I don't know about last year, but through 2022 LA steadily grew their police budget (+112% since '80), while their fire budget languished (+13%).
What always confuses me about this debate is that "legal system" and "justice system" are used with the same frequency. They seem interchangeable to me. books.google.com/ngrams/graph...
January 4, 2025 at 2:24 PM
What always confuses me about this debate is that "legal system" and "justice system" are used with the same frequency. They seem interchangeable to me. books.google.com/ngrams/graph...
Thanks for this. I pulled the NYC data. NYC spent (and spends) a lot more on soc services than the typical city, and the '75 crisis hit both police and soc services similarly (~30% declines), but their recoveries were much diff. Police rebounded quickly, soc services never recovered.
December 9, 2024 at 3:25 PM
Thanks for this. I pulled the NYC data. NYC spent (and spends) a lot more on soc services than the typical city, and the '75 crisis hit both police and soc services similarly (~30% declines), but their recoveries were much diff. Police rebounded quickly, soc services never recovered.
Over the past 30 years, and especially since 2008, U.S. cities have been steadily shifting money away from social services like housing and parks and putting it toward policing. Why is this?
December 6, 2024 at 1:30 PM
Over the past 30 years, and especially since 2008, U.S. cities have been steadily shifting money away from social services like housing and parks and putting it toward policing. Why is this?
As @mattyglesias.bsky.social and others promote cracking down on "disorder", it's worth remembering the Sampson study that asked Chicagoans to rate how disorderly their city's neighborhoods were. The researchers systematically observed disorder, compared that to perceptions of disorder, and found...
November 26, 2024 at 11:46 PM
As @mattyglesias.bsky.social and others promote cracking down on "disorder", it's worth remembering the Sampson study that asked Chicagoans to rate how disorderly their city's neighborhoods were. The researchers systematically observed disorder, compared that to perceptions of disorder, and found...
November 10, 2024 at 3:19 PM
In 1965, we spent 7x more on K-12 education than we did on police. In 2022, we spent less than 5x more.
October 11, 2024 at 4:45 PM
In 1965, we spent 7x more on K-12 education than we did on police. In 2022, we spent less than 5x more.
Project 2025! No joke. Of course, the second half of the paragraph includes non-sequitur (racist?) references to the demographics of who commits crime, but I was surprised by the "we need a survey to counter police statistics" framing they used to defend the NCVS.
October 1, 2024 at 2:29 PM
Project 2025! No joke. Of course, the second half of the paragraph includes non-sequitur (racist?) references to the demographics of who commits crime, but I was surprised by the "we need a survey to counter police statistics" framing they used to defend the NCVS.
I bet even my fellow crime and police data heads can't guess the source of this quote.
October 1, 2024 at 2:26 PM
I bet even my fellow crime and police data heads can't guess the source of this quote.
Project 2025! For real. Of course, the second half of the paragraph includes racist allusions to the demographics of people who commit crime, but I was surprised by the "we need a survey to counter police statistics" framing they used to defend the NCVS.
October 1, 2024 at 2:24 PM
Project 2025! For real. Of course, the second half of the paragraph includes racist allusions to the demographics of people who commit crime, but I was surprised by the "we need a survey to counter police statistics" framing they used to defend the NCVS.
At the DNC, Josh Shaprio said he wanted to "invest in the police and in the community." Lately we've been investing more in the former and less in the latter.
August 23, 2024 at 2:00 PM
At the DNC, Josh Shaprio said he wanted to "invest in the police and in the community." Lately we've been investing more in the former and less in the latter.
Ah. Yea, I agree. Police employment numbers are quite consistent though. I was looking at different years, but in this piece I used BJS data. Maybe if you rounded to nearest tenth and squinted hard you might see something that flat? academic.oup.com/bjc/article-...
August 21, 2024 at 10:05 PM
Ah. Yea, I agree. Police employment numbers are quite consistent though. I was looking at different years, but in this piece I used BJS data. Maybe if you rounded to nearest tenth and squinted hard you might see something that flat? academic.oup.com/bjc/article-...
As Gov. Hochul mulls restarting congestion pricing in NYC, she says the planned $15 toll was too expensive. She cites London starting at £5 as a better approach, but adjusting for the exchange rate and inflation, London's congestion toll was...$13.74 in today's dollars. www.wnyc.org/story/august...
August 21, 2024 at 1:51 PM
As Gov. Hochul mulls restarting congestion pricing in NYC, she says the planned $15 toll was too expensive. She cites London starting at £5 as a better approach, but adjusting for the exchange rate and inflation, London's congestion toll was...$13.74 in today's dollars. www.wnyc.org/story/august...
When DC had persistently high crime last year, some people argued the city's lower arrest rate was to blame for its violence. Now that DC's crime rate is falling rapidly, will the same people argue that it is structural conditions--not arrest rates--that drive crime rates? I'm not holding my breath.
April 16, 2024 at 4:06 PM
When DC had persistently high crime last year, some people argued the city's lower arrest rate was to blame for its violence. Now that DC's crime rate is falling rapidly, will the same people argue that it is structural conditions--not arrest rates--that drive crime rates? I'm not holding my breath.
I might not place too much faith in that 2022 ZipRecruiter survey. It was of 1,500 college grads. I can't imagine many were j-ism majors, so the survey is likely drawing from a small sample. When ZipRecruiter did the survey in 2023 they learned their lesson and didn't slice the data quite so thin.
February 11, 2024 at 2:15 PM
I might not place too much faith in that 2022 ZipRecruiter survey. It was of 1,500 college grads. I can't imagine many were j-ism majors, so the survey is likely drawing from a small sample. When ZipRecruiter did the survey in 2023 they learned their lesson and didn't slice the data quite so thin.
This website makes a word cloud out of researchers' journal articles. It is *fun* but also *revealing*. Criminologists that have posted their word clouds are more likely to have "police" as their top word whereas sociologists have "policing." Neither is better, but... scholargoggler.com
February 9, 2024 at 8:49 PM
This website makes a word cloud out of researchers' journal articles. It is *fun* but also *revealing*. Criminologists that have posted their word clouds are more likely to have "police" as their top word whereas sociologists have "policing." Neither is better, but... scholargoggler.com