Balikiliki

Academically curious about a few topics here so please forgive the list:

• To the best of your knowledge, was it exclusively certain individuals who performed executions, torture, or other acts of extreme violence?
• If so, how were these people regarded by the rest of the organization?
• To what degree was the organization run like a white-collar company?
• How often, to your knowledge, do law enforcement or other official organizations get involved in covering-up elements of the business vs violence side of your organization's activities?
• What is your favorite seafood dish? (ok, maybe not all academic questions)

Thanks! B

Thanks for the speedy reply! Two follow-ups if you don't mind:

• Do you feel that enforcers been involved in that level of violence even outside the framework of the organization?

• What, if anything, would you see or do to change/reduce the level of violence associated with these organizations?

Si se prefiere explicarlo en espanol, lo puedo traducir para los demas.

Hi Brad,

Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA! Have you or any of your colleagues looked into the partial reporting of arrest/violent crime data that jurisdictions and departments participate in?

I work with an organization that assesses violent crime (homicide specifically) at an incident level and our data and the "official" state numbers are often drastically disconnected. It seems cities are able to fly under the radar by reporting anything less than the full 12 months of data to the state and federal agencies. For instance, town XYZ-ville has a three murders over 2013, they report 11.5 months of information to skip the dates of incidents, and state OP has to omit that town for their federal homicide/crime report.

Thanks for working the criminal justice topic. It's certainly not an easy one, and I'm guessing there is often pressure against publishing.

Have you assessed the utility of using NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System - the heir apparent to the UCRs) to dig further into these topics? The academic community regularly discounts the viability of any patterns/trend data associated with the UCRs for some of the reasons you discuss, and the overhaul was theoretically supposed to make that better.