From the desk
Writing
Essays, op-eds, and mind wanderings on justice, policing, aging, the trail, and whatever else won’t leave me alone.
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The Weight of Everything I Have Been
A short story ——— I have no beginning that I can name. Before the men with their questions and their music, before the slow wet architecture of cells, I was forged in the interior of a star that no longer…
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Not Voting Is Un-American
Author’s Note: This November is one of the most consequential elections in the history of the United States. A vote not cast is a voice silenced.Do Not Stay Silent!VOTE! You can always vote not to vote. No one is going…
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Homunculi at the Helm
Sixteenth-century alchemists believed they could grow a man in a flask. Seal the right mixture in a glass flask, keep it warm for forty days, and a homunculus would emerge: a tiny, fully formed human being that needs no education,…
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The Crime We See Versus the Crime That Is: Why Perception and Reality Have Drifted Apart
Every election cycle, politicians tell Americans that crime is out of control. The rhetoric is familiar: our cities are war zones, our neighborhoods are unsafe, and only tough-on-crime policies can save us. The public believes it. Polls show Americans overwhelmingly…
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Every Kitchen Has an Evidence Locker. Nobody Keeps the Log.
By Joe Broadmeadow I spent twenty years in police work, much of it in evidence rooms. Evidence rooms run on rules. Every item gets a tag, a number, a signature, and a reason for being there. Nothing enters without paperwork.…
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Losing the People, Rewriting the Rules
By Joe Broadmeadow One week out from the midterms, the numbers tell you why the rules are suddenly under attack. President Donald Trump stands at 32% approval in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, up a single point from a record low.…
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Which Ten Commandments Do We Use?
Read the Source Document First. Ask a room full of people to recite the Ten Commandments, and you will hear a confident chorus. Ask them which one is the sixth, and the room splits three ways. A Catholic will tell…
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A Crowd Is Not Evidence
By Joe Broadmeadow Argumentum ad Populum Every detective hears it on the first canvass of a neighborhood. Everybody knows who did it. Ask how they know, and the answer is always the same: everybody says so. In twenty years of…
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Religious Liberty is Worth Defending
This Report Defends It With Bad History. By Joseph Broadmeadow For twenty years I carried a badge and an oath to the Constitution—the whole document, including the sixteen words of the First Amendment that begin “Congress shall make no…
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The Badge and the Bargain: Why Trust in Government Matters to Those Who Enforce It
After twenty years commanding investigations for the East Providence Police Department, I’ve learned something that no policy manual teaches: government doesn’t work without trust. Not the flowery kind you read about in civics textbooks. The real kind—the unseen contract that…
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My Apparent Conversion to Socialism
I am apparently a socialist. Who knew? I carried a badge for twenty years. I commanded a detective division and worked cases alongside the FBI and DEA. I arrested people, testified against them, and believed, as I still believe, in…
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How Many Times Can a Man Turn His Head?
By Joe Broadmeadow “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his headAnd pretend that he just doesn’t see?” — Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the Wind” Twenty years carrying a badge taught me that the most useful witness and…