Reblogged:Less Policing, More Crime

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Two new articles about the "Ferguson Effect" are out, each noting, in the aftermath of the 2014 Michael Brown killing, an alarming increase in violent crime in cities with large black populations. The increase has been so pronounced, in fact, that a prominent criminologist who had denied the existence of any such effect, has reversed his position, as Michael Barone notes:

University of Missouri at St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld has had "second thoughts." Like many academic criminologists, he had pooh-poohed charges that skyrocketing murder rates in many cities in 2015 and 2016 result from a "Ferguson effect" -- a skittering back from proactive policing for fear of accusations of racism like those that followed the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.

Now, after looking over 2015 data from 56 large cities, he's changed his mind. Homicides in those cities were up 17 percent from 2014. And 10 cities, all with large black populations, saw homicides up 33 percent on average.

"These aren't flukes or blips, this is a real increase," Rosenfeld said. "The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect."

Heather MacDonald, who has focused on this problem for a long time, cites similar statistics and also notes conversions, such as Rosenfeld's. But acknowledging such an effect is not the same thing as correctly identifying its source:

Despite this mounting evidence, the Ferguson effect continues to be distorted by its critics and even by its recent converts. The standard line is that it represents a peevish reaction from officers to "public scrutiny" and expectations of increased accountability. This ignores the virulent nature of the Black Lives Matter movement that was touched off by a spate of highly publicized deaths of young black men during encounters with police. As I know from interviewing police officers in urban areas across the country, they now encounter racially charged animus on the streets as never before.

MacDonald goes on to assign the blame where it belongs:

The country's political and media elites have relentlessly accused cops of bias when they police inner-city neighborhoods. Pedestrian stops and broken-windows policing (which targets low-level public-order offenses) are denounced as racist oppression. That officers would reduce their discretionary engagement under this barrage of criticism is understandable and inevitable.

Policing is political. If a powerful segment of society sends the message that proactive policing is bigoted, the cops will eventually do less of it... The only puzzle is why many Black Lives Matter activists, and their allies in the media and in Washington, now criticize police for backing off of proactive policing. Isn't that what they demanded?

Sadly, on top of it being "open season" on our police, it will, as Barone argues, be black Americans who will bear the brunt of this new, and completely avoidable national crime wave.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[dream_weaver]

Spike in crime in Las Vegas spurs search for causes, cures

The local sheriff, police union officials and district attorney have various theories about what's behind the body count: 64 homicides by the end of April, compared with 29 killings after the first four months of 2015; 75 slayings as of Wednesday, compared with 45 by the same date last year.

This is just one more local where crime is indubitably up. Less police officers are the focus in this AP release.

John Faulis, a lieutenant who heads the police supervisors' union, agrees with Lombardo that Las Vegas police are understaffed. Department figures put the number of police officers in Las Vegas at 1.7 per 1,000 residents.

The number is just under the 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents average for large cities in the West, according to FBI data, but below the average of 2.2 per 1,000 for similar-sized cities nationally. The ratio doesn't count people staying in Las Vegas' 150,000 hotel rooms.

The gist of the article centers on providing the concretes supporting crime is up in city after city. Presumably in answer to the implied question of why: "That's the million-dollar question," DA Steve Wolfson said. "There are lots of theories."

Calling it the Ferguson effect indicates a step towards abstracting a causal relationship between the aftermath following the events surrounding Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. Inside the Criminal Mind, by Stanton Samenow sheds some insight that is relevant. The criminal resents being caught, but has learned from the feedback resulting from past activities that acting contrite for the specified period of time, he can return to operating under the radar again.

In Ferguson, the result is different. The criminal, in this case, is dead. There is no returning to business as usual. What is tragic is the outcome of Darren Wilson.

At highly publicized trials in the aftermath of such event, protesters show up outside the courtrooms, not clamoring for justice, not trying to identify the relevant facts to draw a proper conclusion. The Ferguson effect carries with it a kernel of validity because Darren Wilson, while found innocent legal, was not thrown in jail. The injustice dealt Darren Wilson is more sinister. What it demonstrates is how education is failing to instill a respect for individual rights and a desire for justice. Darren Wilson could not return to his beat. The denizens of the turf he walked that beat within, still held him as guilty in spite of the facts.

"There are lots of theories." More accurately, there are lots of hypothesis. Rising crime rates are an effect. It is natures way of meting out another form of justice when man's basic means of survival is not properly nurtured and cared for.