As of mid-2024, many Americans list rising crime rates as one of their top concerns. At the same time, national crime statistics show that rates of violent crime and property crime have been declining for decades. What is driving worries about crime?

Production and use of electric vehicles (EVs) has increased dramatically over the last decade. In addition to an increase in overall popularity, this trend is also due to government incentives to drive costs down for both manufacturers and consumers. A widespread move to EVs could help address climate change because actual driving of EVs does not produce greenhouse gasses like traditional gas and diesel vehicles. However, while internal combustion engines have around 200 parts that need to be maintained and possibly repaired as compared to EVs which utilize only around 20 parts, current EVs have unique environmental problems related to sourcing, disposal and other aspects of these parts, and require nationwide installation of appropriate charging infrastructure and a significant increase in demand of the power grid. So, do these problems outweigh the benefits of a transition to EVs? Note: this brief is a general introduction to the issues surrounding EV infrastructure. For our analysis of how many EV charging stations are needed and where they would be located, see https://tinyurl.com/28fcn2ts.

The administration of justice in the United States is primarily handled at the state and local levels. State and local governments employ two‐thirds of all criminal justice workers and pay a much larger share of criminal justice costs than the federal government. Elected officials, like mayors, can choose who leads a police department and influence how law enforcement responds to crime within a particular jurisdiction. While America’s police hold the power to enforce our laws, how they do, the official rules within a police department, and how members of law enforcement conduct themselves is also influenced by the communities they serve and the current social and political landscape. In recent years, there have been several highly publicized incidents involving the deaths of individuals while in police custody and well-documented complaints about the unwarranted use of force by police officers. These incidents raise a fundamental question: how much police misconduct occurs? How many officers are committing misconduct?