Crime

Cultural guerilla entrepreneurs restore Parisian clock

In Crime, Maintenance, Paris on 26 November 2007 with no comments

A group of underground “cultural guerillas” broke into the Panthéon in Paris and restored its clock. The allowed themselves to be locked in one night, found an unattended entrance, and set up shop in Autumn, 2005. It took the group, who call themselves Untergunther, one year to restore the famous clock.
The hardest part of the [...]

I’m sure Dem Boom Dip Shropshire Boyz has already been taken

In Crime, List, London on 20 November 2007 with 1 comment

Stepney Posse
L.or.D
Brixton Yard Manz
Superstar Gang
These are some names of gangs in London; there are many more at The Generic Glob’s partial list of London gang names (which first appeared in The Evening Standard). I’m guessing that part of the fun of starting a criminal organization is the naming of it, but most of these names [...]

Where Americans get arrested when they’re abroad.

In Crime, List, Mexico on 15 November 2007 with no comments

Where, outside his or her home country and Iraq, is an American likely to get into the most trouble? Tijuana tops the list.

A mysterious murder in Polop de la Marina

In Crime, Development, Spain, Urbanism on 2 November 2007 with no comments

Alejandro Ponsoda, mayor of the Spanish village of Polop de la Marina, may have been murdered for his plans to grow the city’s population fifteen-fold [English translation, map].

Urban Institute: rise in violent crime and iPod sales explosion “is more than coincidental”

In Consumerism, Crime on 19 October 2007 with no comments

A recent Urban Institute paper [pdf] puts forth an interesting explanation for the recent increase in violent crimes, especially robbery: it’s the iPod. From the executive summary:
In spring of 2004, Apple had sold a relatively modest 3.7 million iPods. In the fall of 2004, a new generation of iPods was introduced and consumer demand exploded. [...]

New Yorker profiles David Simon of The Wire

In Baltimore, Crime, Film & Television, Media on 19 October 2007 with no comments

The most recent New Yorker profiles David Simon, co-creator of The Wire. The new season centers on the newsroom of the Baltimore Sun and features actor/director Clark Johnson as editor Gus Haynes:
In the season opener, Haynes provides a bitingly funny introduction to newsroom culture. He complains about a photographer who invariably gooses the poignancy of [...]

Treatments of graffiti reveal competing visions of the city

In Art, Crime, GPS, History, Los Angeles, New York, Photography, San Francisco, Screens, Surveillance on 11 October 2007 with no comments

Graffiti Tracker applies NSA-style analysis to photographs of graffiti. BBC recently profiled the company.
BBC recently profiled the company:
Graffiti Tracker, the brainchild of graduate student and crime analyst Timothy Kephart, uses global positioning systems (GPS), digital photography and computer databases to track and catch graffiti artists.
The system - dubbed Graffiti Analysis/Intelligence Tracking System (GAITS) - takes [...]