How a city works...

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's easy to believe 2.5 hours per bust. First the cops usually work in pairs. Then those dangerous criminals have to be transported, booked, and housed until they can see the judge, all handled by cops.

And that doesn't even include the whippers, beaters, fingernail pullers, and gruel sloppers in the dungeons.

[glatt]

I thought it would be more than 2.5 hours. We toured our jail recently, and they made it sound like booking took a real long time.

[Lamplighter]

IMO, the intended message of that report-cover graph was that officer time was being wasted,
and made it too easy to assume marijuana possession cases were the only purpose.

There are other effects and implications to the "stop and frisk" initiative
... some positive and some negative.

The long term implications for someone found guilty of "possession"
are far out of proportion to the seriousness of their "crime".

At the same time, the"tan skin" profiling found up to now
in the "stop and frisk" has serious implications for civil rights.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's not what the report says.

Members of the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature asked us to determine how many hours New York City police officers have spent making hundreds of thousands of lowest-level marijuana possession arrests. This is necessarily a range from lower to higher because the number of officers involved in a single arrest varies, and the time each
spends varies considerably.

Stop and frisk sometimes turns up pot, but this report is only concerned with the resulting bust, which would not have happened if they just sent the person on there way.

[Lamplighter]

We are not in disagreement here.

[Lamplighter]

One small step at a time...

The Oregonian
Nicole Dungca,
3/22/13

Grant High's transgender students get unisex bathroom option

Northeast Portland's Grant High School, addressing an issue schools
increasingly face across the nation, has created six unisex bathrooms
in response to concerns from transgender students uncomfortable with traditional bathrooms.

Officials say four student restrooms and two staff restrooms -- all single-stall --
will be open to all students but create another option for the five to 10 transgender students
at the high school, Portland Public Schools' largest.
The move is a first in the district and relatively uncommon nationwide for K-12 schools,
which typically make staff or other small bathrooms available.

But then there is Arizona...

Transgender rights has become a more prevalent concern
in recent years as such situations become more common.
In Colorado, a family is suing a school district for not allowing a transgender
elementary-school student who identifies as a female to use the girls bathroom.
In Arizona, a bill could require people to use only
restrooms designated for the gender on their birth certificates.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Portland Po Po on the job...