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For 15 years, Longreads has published and curated the best longform writing on the web—and we wouldn’t exist without dedicated readers like you. Give today and ensure that quality journalism continues to flourish.
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. The Truth About Chicago’s Crime Rates David Bernstein, Noah Isackson | Chicago Magazine | April 7, 2014 | 27 minutes (6,980 words) The city’s […]
“The goal is to turn questioners into the equivalent of human lie detectors who can read behavioral tics to determine guilt. It begins with the isolation of the suspect. Kassin explained that a Reid-trained officer will typically go through nine steps, offering the suspect both positive and negative incentives. The goal of the interrogation, according […]
Above: Mark Felt Julia Wick is a native Angeleno who writes about literature, Los Angeles, and cities. She is currently finishing an Urban Planning degree at USC. With Chelsea Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison and Edward Snowden’s future still uncertain, it seems a pertinent time to look at what becomes of our whistleblowers after […]
How authorities broke up an extortion ring in the 1960s that targeted gay men: “Impersonating corrupt vice-squad detectives, members of this ring, known in police parlance as bulls, had used young, often underage men known as chickens to successfully blackmail closeted pillars of the establishment, among them a navy admiral, two generals, a U.S. congressman, […]
Life as a cop in 2012, from the officers’ perspective. How Commissioner Ray Kelly and the legendary CompStat system have changed New York’s police department, both for better (dropping crime rates) and worse (increasing pressure on officers to make the numbers): “The disaffection from the public and anger at the department aren’t universal, but they […]
How officers in the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn were “juking the stats” to improve crime statistics in their area. The NYPD called it an isolated incident, but critics point to a culture of data-obsession that leads police to ignore, discard or downgrade complaints from victims: “These weren’t minor incidents. The victims included a Chinese-food delivery […]
The NYPD’s crime-fighting sparked the city’s economic revival and is essential to its future.
The long-serving NYPD commissioner is autocratic, dismissive of civil-liberties concerns — and effective. Is that a reasonable trade-off to keep the city safe?
Foster Kamer (ex-BlackBook + Gawker + Village Voice) is online features and news editor at Esquire. *** 2010 was an incredible year for writing, bottom line. Despite the proliferation of things whose output is mostly antagonistic to great writing — like faceless “content farms” churning out hollow, Google-gaming information lacking anything of substance — great writing persisted. Twitter’s evolving […]
Samuel Rubenfeld’s Tumblr: My top-5 Long Reads of 2011 rubenfeld: Here are what I considered to be the top five long-form, investigative journalism pieces of 2011. Beirut Bank Seen as a Hub of Hezbollah’s Financing — New York Times With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas — Associated Press The Afghan Bank Heist […]
