Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker about recent books on crime and incarceration in America. Specifically, he looks at the dramatic drop in crime in the last 30 years. What caused that huge decrease and, more importantly, what caused an even steeper decline in crime in New York City?

Although more people than ever are in prison in the United States (the highest incarceration rate in the world), Gopnik says that research by Franklin E. Zimring, presented in his book, “The City That Became Safe,” shows that isn’t what contributed to the decline in crime. The reason was simpler, Zimring writes: “(S)mall acts of social engineering, designed to simply stop crimes from happening, helped stop crime.” And, once those opportunities were eliminated, the cycle of crime was broken.

Gopnik writes:

Crime ends as a result of “cyclical forces operating on situational and contingent things rather than from finding deeply motivated essential linkages, [Zimring writes].” Conservatives don’t like this view because it shows that being tough doesn’t help; liberals don’t like it because apparently being nice doesn’t help, either. Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry.

It’s a fascinating article that will upend how you view this complex issue.

Ryan Lizza from The New Yorker provides a unique and fascinating view of how decisions have been made inside the Obama presidency. This is essential reading for all those liberals who think Obama hasn’t done enough and for those conservatives who think he’s too radical. Lizza had access to hundreds of memoranda written inside the White House that provide insight on how Obama has adjusted his policies to meet political realities. The short version: It’s not as easy to get things done as you’d think, even less so when the opposition party is determined to stop you at every turn. Obama’s goal of changing Washington, D.C.’s toxic partisan atmosphere seems farther away than ever, but he has still had many significant accomplishments.

Stephen Colbert asks The New Yorker’s legal correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin, if the government can make you buy things. The context is the debate over the healthcare mandate. 

Toobin is stumped but, after the show, he calls Neal Katyal, who recently stepped down as Solicitor General for the Obama administration. Katyal says yes, government can make you buy things. State government requires us to buy car insurance, for example.

But what about the federal government, Toobin asks? Has the federal government ever forced us to buy a product?

Katyal reminded me about the Militia Act, which President Washington signed in 1792. “It required men to buy a knapsack, a rifle, and gunpowder,” he said. Besides, he went on, “We are all now forced to pay for everyone who goes to the hospital without health insurance. That’s a hidden purchase we are all forced to make. The law, in effect, makes it an open purchase.”

Peter Hessler’s profile of Don Colcord, the only druggist in tiny Nucla, Colorado, is a gem. Colcord is known as Dr. Don to everyone. He owns the local pharmacy and dispenses drugs and practical advice with equal skill. 

“A druggist is the guy who repairs your watch and your glasses,” he explains. “A pharmacist is the guy who works at Walmart.”