Franklin Zimring interviewed by Chicago Tribune, Jan. 25, 2016
“It’s giving all the wrong people the wrong idea about what municipal policing should be,” said Franklin Zimring.
Fox Lake cop’s death sheds light on aggressive approach taught to Explorers
Bay Area cities’ homicide rates show striking drop
Franklin Zimring interviewed by San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 18, 2016
“They’re good numbers — they’re wonderful news in terms of feeling less at risk,” Zimring said. “They are not clearly indicating that something particular worked. The person who reads Bay Area homicide numbers should be a cheerful agnostic.”
Gun control groups emphasize suicides in bid for more public support
Franklin Zimring interviewed by CNN, Jan. 12, 2016
“It’s a politically sophisticated way to change the nature of the debate,” he said. “The point is not to increase the percentage of support, but to increase the intensity of support. It’s not to make more people support gun control. It’s to make them care about it.”
Riverside County leading US in death sentences, report says
Franklin Zimring interviewed for Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15, 2015
“If you want executions, you move to Texas. If what you want to do is frame the number of death sentences you’ve obtained, then it’s a good idea to move to Riverside. Those are pretty expensive status rewards, though,” he said.
Wearing an electronic monitoring device might be worse than jail time
Franklin Zimring and Kate Weisburd quoted in Pacific Standard, Dec. 15, 2015
Beyond the cyclical criminalization that the device provokes, its rules and circumstances clash with the infrastructure of the teenage mind. “Expecting the experience-based ability to resist impulses … to be fully formed prior to age 18 or 19 would seem on present evidence to be wishful thinking,” says Berkeley law professor Frank Zimring.
Weisburd recommends community-based programming. “In Oakland there were Evening Reporting Centers at local non-profits,” she says, “the youth were kept busy, off the streets, got good programming, and there was no need at all for electronic monitoring.”
Is Obama’s executive action on guns legal? Let’s break it down.
Franklin Zimring interviewed by The Washington Post, Jan. 5, 2016
“It is certainly consistent with the capacity and responsibility of the executive branch of government to make legislative standards coherent and clear,” Zimring said. Obama is “trying to make it coherent and clear—and give it more reach.”
Law enforcement, advocates blame politics for increase in hate crimes
Franklin Zimring interviewed by KQED-FM, Dec. 30, 2015
“If you’re a police officer there, and there’s a brick through a Muslim house of worship, then what you have to do is round up the usual suspects. They’re the same people who drink too many beers in bars and will in other situations go off gay-bashing or finding themselves racial minorities,” he said. “Those are essentially thugs taking on different targets because Muslims are in the news.”
Will Chief Suhr survive?
Franklin Zimring quoted in Beyond Chron, Dec. 14, 2015
Zimring wrote in response to the Woods shooting, “There was never any attack with a knife that killed an officer unless he was alone with his attacker, and there was never a fatal attack when the officer and the attacker were any distance apart. Based on these statistics, the death risk to the officers in the Woods encounter was zero.”
Mario Woods’ unnecessary death
Franklin Zimring writes for San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 9, 2015
There are a lot of kitchen knives in England and Wales (population 56 million), yet the police have shot to death only one citizen from 2012 through 2014. If it is unnecessary to kill in Manchester or Liverpool, then why is it necessary to shoot in the Bayview?
San Bernardino shooting: Does blanket TV coverage change minds?
Franklin Zimring interviewed by Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5, 2015
“The reason that gun control laws do or don’t pass is not so much the number of people for or against it, but how deeply they feel,” Zimring said. “And for pro-gun, anti-more-control folks, it’s much more important to them — they care more deeply about their cause — than the average citizen.”