Born-again Republican Mayor Eric Johnson claims a better track record of reducing crime in Dallas than his Democratic counterparts. This is partly true...
Magic, Hey, hey! (It’s me, from Meghan Daum’s and Sarah Haider’s internet threads). How are you?
This is a real dive in the crime stats. I’m enjoying what you’ve written and the thorough run through you give in this data. I want to read it again.
I think I could also see a national program that’s really hefty and needs a lot of backing--a huge federal anti-crime campaign that makes police departments that are struggling much stronger and incredibly stable as they’ve grown weaker the last few years.
I could also see a national program for those struggling with very difficult mental illnesses. Those who are also violent and struggling, especially on the street. Setting up more rehabs and hospital places for people to be taken in who need help and who may hurt themselves, others, or make residents fearful in their neighborhoods.
Hi Mary, thanks! Ironically, what you're describing is essentially the 1994 national crime bill! The federal government flooded police department with resources and created incentives for state governments to lengthen criminal sentences through three strikes laws & gun enhancements. There was naturally more money for prisons, too. In the conversation about crime and violence today there's intense disagreement about how much the crime bill and the increase in incarceration actually decreased the murder rate, which plummeted by the late-1990s. Researchers usually concede that at least 30% of the reduction in violent crime is explained by policing practices & mass incarceration, but that other 70% reduction is disputed. Then, the policies and practices that contributed to that 30% reduction in the 1990s are politically unpopular today. Once huge racial disparities in sentencing were made apparent and the narrative became about "The New Jim Crow" rather than how much safer cities had become. (2014 had the lowest number of gun murders on record in the US and most major cities were the safest they'd ever been). Now that it's politically infeasible to use those *really* punitive tactics we keep trying to figure out what caused that other 70% reduction (i.e. the non-criminal justice mechanisms) so that we can pull those levers instead of reactivating stop and frisk and broken windows policing in our increasingly crime-ridden cities. A ton of money is being funneled into community-based "violence intervention" programs and local police departments using Covid-19 relief funds, so it's like what you describe in terms of a national program to provide local police with more resources. In my opinion, the best thing we can do is invest in adding more homicide detectives to local IDs, so I'm with you on that. The murder clearance rate is low and declining (especially in large cities). If everyone who murdered someone ended up being arrested and convicted, we'd nip the rising murder rate in the bud immediately. But it's hard to make arrests when there's a huge backlog of cases and too few detectives. Plus, non-fatal shootings rarely result in arrests and those are future murders waiting to happen. There are not that many people in a given community who actually engage in gun violence, they just aren't held accountable. Sentences are also typically the result of plea bargains even if someone is arrested, especially for non-homicides. It's not uncommon to shoot someone or be a felon in possession and get probation or a couple years, until you're a mega repeat offender. Back in the 90s we'd put people in prison for 30 years for far less than murder - a few drug offenses and gun possession and bam you're banished until you're in your 50s and have thoroughly aged out of crime. That was an overcorrection and it's sad to see so much potential human capital removed from communities for a generation. But now I think we're under-correcting, since so few gun offenses result in an arrest, especially when the victims are black men. (The white murder clearance rate is around 80% but it's less than 60% for Black victims).
Magic, Hey, hey! (It’s me, from Meghan Daum’s and Sarah Haider’s internet threads). How are you?
This is a real dive in the crime stats. I’m enjoying what you’ve written and the thorough run through you give in this data. I want to read it again.
I think I could also see a national program that’s really hefty and needs a lot of backing--a huge federal anti-crime campaign that makes police departments that are struggling much stronger and incredibly stable as they’ve grown weaker the last few years.
I could also see a national program for those struggling with very difficult mental illnesses. Those who are also violent and struggling, especially on the street. Setting up more rehabs and hospital places for people to be taken in who need help and who may hurt themselves, others, or make residents fearful in their neighborhoods.
Hi Mary, thanks! Ironically, what you're describing is essentially the 1994 national crime bill! The federal government flooded police department with resources and created incentives for state governments to lengthen criminal sentences through three strikes laws & gun enhancements. There was naturally more money for prisons, too. In the conversation about crime and violence today there's intense disagreement about how much the crime bill and the increase in incarceration actually decreased the murder rate, which plummeted by the late-1990s. Researchers usually concede that at least 30% of the reduction in violent crime is explained by policing practices & mass incarceration, but that other 70% reduction is disputed. Then, the policies and practices that contributed to that 30% reduction in the 1990s are politically unpopular today. Once huge racial disparities in sentencing were made apparent and the narrative became about "The New Jim Crow" rather than how much safer cities had become. (2014 had the lowest number of gun murders on record in the US and most major cities were the safest they'd ever been). Now that it's politically infeasible to use those *really* punitive tactics we keep trying to figure out what caused that other 70% reduction (i.e. the non-criminal justice mechanisms) so that we can pull those levers instead of reactivating stop and frisk and broken windows policing in our increasingly crime-ridden cities. A ton of money is being funneled into community-based "violence intervention" programs and local police departments using Covid-19 relief funds, so it's like what you describe in terms of a national program to provide local police with more resources. In my opinion, the best thing we can do is invest in adding more homicide detectives to local IDs, so I'm with you on that. The murder clearance rate is low and declining (especially in large cities). If everyone who murdered someone ended up being arrested and convicted, we'd nip the rising murder rate in the bud immediately. But it's hard to make arrests when there's a huge backlog of cases and too few detectives. Plus, non-fatal shootings rarely result in arrests and those are future murders waiting to happen. There are not that many people in a given community who actually engage in gun violence, they just aren't held accountable. Sentences are also typically the result of plea bargains even if someone is arrested, especially for non-homicides. It's not uncommon to shoot someone or be a felon in possession and get probation or a couple years, until you're a mega repeat offender. Back in the 90s we'd put people in prison for 30 years for far less than murder - a few drug offenses and gun possession and bam you're banished until you're in your 50s and have thoroughly aged out of crime. That was an overcorrection and it's sad to see so much potential human capital removed from communities for a generation. But now I think we're under-correcting, since so few gun offenses result in an arrest, especially when the victims are black men. (The white murder clearance rate is around 80% but it's less than 60% for Black victims).
Oh my god, thank you for this lengthy reply!