On hiatus
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to put The Graham Factor on an indefinite hiatus. I know that this is really ill-timed. We’ve recently had a load of new people subscribe in the last few months, but I have other obligations which are simply not consistent with continuing to blog right now. I’m intensely grateful to the community that regularly reads and comments here, and I feel bad about stopping. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take this up again. In the meantime, maybe I’ll work on a book.
There’s a lot I could say about the experience of doing all this writing over the last 18 months. There are two things people have said about The Graham Factor that make this all worthwhile. The first thing was: “I may not agree, but you made a good point.” The second thing (from cops) was: “You really captured in words how I felt.” That was the whole point of the thing — to get folks to see how cops see it, agree or not. If you never read anything else here, you ought to read some of the best Guest Factor pieces by working cops that I’ve been privileged to publish:
A Minneapolis cop talking about living through the 2020 riots.
Famed homicide detective John Skaggs on solving murders.
A Chicago cop on street violence and witness cooperation.
A cop who likes proactive policing describes his spidey sense.
A West Coast cop explains what a bad day at work feels like.
If you want to keep learning about policing, there are many great sources out there — some of whom inspired me:
SFPD Sergeant Adam Plantinga wrote two great books about policing and maintains an very entertaining Twitter feed.
Professor Peter Moskos and Jerry Ratcliffe, who consistently stick up for good policing and crime victims in academia and on their excellent podcasts.
Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside, the book I have probably cited a million times.
“P.O. Potatoes”, whose blog about CPD deserves far more attention than it receives.
City Journal continues to publish the voices on policing that nobody else will, especially Heather MacDonald, Rafael Mangual, and Charles Lehman.
I don’t always agree with “Jack Dunphy”, but he dutifully takes on the task of constantly calling out fake narratives about policing.
If you are one of my cop readers, I have to say: for the love of God, start writing! Yes, I’m going on hiatus so I’m being hypocritical. But the reality is that even if I pick up the Factor again, every day I spend away from the job means I’m a day further away from reality and one day closer to being just a Hack On The Internet With Some Opinions About Policing. One day closer to being like commanders who watch body camera video from a cubicle but haven’t been on the street in fifteen years. People need to hear from street cops. Not bosses. Not the media. Not lawyers. Not the union. Not academics. They need to hear from you. Start a blog. Put it out there.
The silver lining for those of you who just started reading is that you can find a fairly comprehensive archive of my ideas about policing and crime set out below. There are probably like 30,000 words here. They likely won’t solve every “problem” anti-police activists are upset about, but they might reduce violent crime while also keeping cops and the public safer. More importantly, I hope my work can serve as a reference both for cops and others — if someone says something about policing that you know isn’t true, send them one of these links.
For those who donated a “paid” subscription (back when I experimented with that), I disabled renewals months ago so you should not be charged. If you were or you’re upset that I’m not continuing and want a refund, send me an email and I’ll take care of it. In the next month or so, I will continue to “archive” some of the best comments in accordance with my past practice, and then close down commenting. I’ve also saved my mailing list, and I will let you know when/if I’m back online.
As always, you can reach me via email: GrahamFactor@substack.com
Be safe out there.
— Graham
I. Myths of police “reform”
I (and others) have stopped believing police reform is about “reform.” Why? Because I’ve been listening to what police “reformers” have been saying.
Is qualified immunity really so bad? No. It’s a limited defense that applies in just four percent of civil rights lawsuits against police. It is also not unique.
Are American police “militarized” in any meaningful sense? No.
Can police really reduce crime by being more “accountable” and “transparent”? There are good reasons to be skeptical about that theory, but it hardly matters when the media can’t be bothered to tell the truth.
Is “de-policing” a police strike or slowdown? No — it’s a response to changed incentives, declines in capacity, and explicit instructions from political leaders.
Can we really just let a ton of criminals out of prison creating other negative consequences? Probably not with the legal system we have right now.
II. Police and “police culture”
The lazy generalizations you’ve heard about “police culture” probably aren’t true — in reality, your local cops likely share your cultural values.
So why are cops so conservative? Part of it inheres in the job, but it’s also because liberals don’t want them on the team.
Do the police worry about getting killed in the line of duty? Yes, but rightly so, because policing is objectively a dangerous job.
Why are so many upper-middle-class professionals so anti-cop? Because they don’t need police protection, and because cops are too blue-collar to be called professionals and too powerful to be called working class.
III. How to make policing better
Start by holding police chiefs and high-level commanders accountable — they oversee disciplinary investigations, set policy, etc.
Negotiate with police unions to ensure cops are paid well and protected from false allegations. Include a disciplinary matrix in the union contract so that arbitrators cannot overturn justified terminations.
Remember that even the worst police misconduct often stems from mental illness, exhaustion, untreated PTSD, and substance abuse, which can all be prevented with the right leadership and support.
Hire a lot more cops. Use the manpower to give officers time off, set up regular defensive tactics training, and bring back foot patrols in urban areas.
When making changes, remember that marginal utility is a real thing and the “optimal” level of any particular coercive intervention probably varies from city to city and may change over time.
IV. The role of police in society
I don’t believe police are just “law enforcers” — rather, police use what Egon Bittner once called “situationally justified force” to solve social problems.
There’s nothing wrong with sending police to deal with people having a mental health crisis— police have always done it, and do a decent job of it. Most 911 calls about a mentally ill person end with no police use of force at all.
Veteran street cops know something about policing and crime that even highly credentialed experts may not, and people should take that expertise seriously.
Public safety should be a civil right like any other constitutional right, and prosecutors and police who violate it should be held accountable.
V. Posts that were wrong or ill-advised
Pessimistically, I predicted there would be no backlash to anti-police and public safety sentiment. Then New York City elected Eric Adams as mayor, Seattle elected a Republican city attorney, Minneapolis voted down an “abolish police” ballot measure, and Chesa Boudin got recalled in San Francisco.
After the Uvalde shooting, I tried to remind the pundit class that police are human beings, not disposable bullet sponges. I stand by my main point: the fact that a police officer can’t bring himself to jump in front of a bullet may make him a bad cop, but it only makes him a normal person. Still, this post was hasty, uncharitable, and overly combative in tone, which I regret.
I wrote a literal listicle about police TV shows. Many people enjoyed this post, but I retrospectively hate it. It is a cautionary tale about what happens when you focus too much on writing something instead of writing something good. I later learned how to write something both light and informative.