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When technology improved, taking people in on warrants became a ready way for police
     to show they were actively fighting crime. Those officers or units who cleared more
     warrants or arrested more people were informally rewarded; those who cleared or arrested
     fewer people were encouraged to catch up.
    In interviews, Philadelphia police officers explained that when they are looking for
     a particular man, they access social security records, court records, hospital admission
     records, electric and gas bills, and employment records. They visit a suspect’s usual
     haunts (for example, his home, his workplace, and his street corner) at the times
     he is likely to be there, and will threaten his family or friends with arrest if they
     don’t cooperate, particularly when they themselves have their own lower-level warrants,
     are on probation, or have a pending court case. In addition to these methods, the
     Warrant Units operating out of the Philadelphia Police Department use a sophisticated
     computer-mapping program that tracks people who have warrants, are on probation orparole, or have been released on bail. Officers round up these potential informants
     and threaten them with jail time if they don’t provide information about the person
     the police are looking for. A local FBI officer got inspired to develop the computer
     program after watching a documentary about the Stasi—the East German secret police.
     With another program, officers follow wanted people in real time by tracking their
     cell phones.
    .   .   .
    On 6th Street, the fear of capture and confinement weighs not only on young men with
     warrants out for their arrest but also on those going through a court case or attempting
     to complete probation or parole sentences. The supervisory restrictions of probation
     and parole bar these men from going out at night, driving a car, crossing state lines,
     drinking alcohol, seeing their friends, and visiting certain areas in the city. Coupled
     with an intense policing climate, these restrictions mean that encounters with the
     authorities are highly likely, and may result in a violation of the terms of release
     and a swift return to jail or prison. The threat of confinement similarly follows
     men on house arrest or living in halfway houses. Those out on bail understand that
     any new arrest allows a judge to revoke the terms of their release and return them
     to confinement, even if the charges are later dropped. And many young men, with and
     without legal entanglements, worry about new charges. At any moment, they may be stopped
     by police and their tenuous claim to freedom revoked.
    When Mike, Chuck, and their friends assembled outside in the mid-mornings, the first
     topics of the day were frequently who had been taken into custody the night before,
     and who had outrun the cops and gotten away. They discussed how the police identified
     and located the person, what the charges were likely to be, what physical harm had
     been done to the man as he was caught and arrested, what property the police had taken,
     and what had been wrecked or lost during the chase.
    Police, jail, and court language permeated general conversation. Chuck and Mike referred
     to their girlfriends as Co-Ds (codefendants) and spoke of catching a case (to be arrested
     and charged with a crime) when accused of some wrong by their friends and family.
     Call list, theterm for the phone numbers of family and friends one is allowed to call from prison
     or jail, became the term for close friends.
    The first week I spent on 6th Street, I saw two boys, five and seven years old, play
     a game of chase in which one boy assumed the role of the cop who must run after the
     other. When the “cop” caught up to the other child, he pushed him down and cuffed
     him with imaginary handcuffs. He then patted down the other child and felt in his
     pockets, asking if he had warrants or was carrying a gun or any drugs. The child then
     took a