Michael Connelly’s Rene Ballard and the issue attention cycle. No, seriously

Sometimes I write about how popular culture either directly – see this one about punk singer-songwriter TV Smith – or indirectly is ‘about’ how the world works/policymaking.

Recently I’ve been bingeing on the “Rene Ballard books by Michael Connelly (better known for his Harry Bosch and Micky Haller novels – Ballard is in the same Los Angeles universe). They’re good books, and I am brewing something longer about police investigations (as portrayed by Connelly) and the research process.

In “The Dark Hours”, there’s this

“Every few years, there was a political outcry and money was found to process the backlog of rape cases. But then the furor subside and the cases started backing up again. It was a cycle that never ended.”

Yep. Very good example of how the issue attention cycle will throw certain amounts of money for certain periods of time at certain issues. Usually if it is to do with groups without much power…

And here we are