Adjudication and Punishment 20

< More recent Crime and Punishment 2020 Prior years >

Posted 6/26/20

DON’T “DIVEST” – INVEST!

Stripping money from the police is foolish.
So is ignoring the plight of poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. George Floyd’s legacy has reached Oregon. After admitting that being white has unfairly worked to his advantage, Mayor Ted Wheeler pledged to take funds from the police and other city departments and use them to invest in economically disadvantaged areas. He also urged a rethinking of law enforcement’s role and warned that some police units would lose funding. Among them is the department’s violence reduction team, which has been in operation since 2019. According to one of its operatives, the squad investigated 426 shootings last year. Among these were a number of inter-gang battles involving multiple shooters.

Portland also got a new chief, Chuck Lovell. A veteran African-American officer, he pledged to “better align” public and officer views of how policing ought be done. With thirty-six homicides in 2019 and
“an unprecedented wave” of twenty-three shootings during the first ten days of 2020, he clearly faces a tough task. Still, outgoing chief Jamie Resch (a white female) described him as “the exact right person at the exact right moment.” She hopes that his influence as well as the redirected funds will help stem the violence that besets Portland’s poor areas.

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Where does Portland stand, violence wise? According to the UCR, its 2018 crime rate, 5.2/1,000, is about on par with New York City. While that’s considerably Portland 2019 crimes higher than the U.S. overall (3.7), it’s nonetheless much better than the 7.2 posted by Minneapolis, that other city we’ll talk about. Still, as essays in our “Neighborhoods” section have repeatedly argued, when it comes to crime it’s not really about cities: it’s about places within cities. And Portland (pop. 654,741) has plenty of those, with ninety-four neighborhoods in seven districts. Using neighborhoods as the unit of analysis, let’s compare!

Our information came from three sources. For crime, we turned to 2019 police data (see right). In that year Portland reported 59,917 criminal incidents. All but 1,754 were coded for neighborhood. Eliminating neighborhoods with low population counts or those whose Census data was unavailable left 87 neighborhoods with a total population of 611,124. We coded each neighborhood for population and percent in poverty using 2017 Census estimates assembled by the Portland Monthly, and for race using 2010 Census figures reported by the City of Portland.

Correlation analysis was applied to examine relationships between poverty, crime rates (no. of crimes per 1,000 pop.) and the percent of black and white residents. The below table displays the Pearson “r” that quantifies the relationships. This statistic ranges from -1 to +1. Zero depicts no relationship; -1 a perfect “negative” relationship (as one variable goes up, the other goes
down, in lockstep), and +1 a perfect “positive” relationship (both variables go up and down in lockstep.)

Poverty and crime (first row): Moderately strong, statistically significant positive correlations between poverty and crime, meaning they tend to go up and down together. (Two asterisks mean that the probability the statistic was generated by chance is less than one in a hundred.)
Poverty and race (first column): Moderate positive relationship between blacks and poverty, also statistically significant (one asterisk means the probability the statistic was generated by chance is less than five in one-hundred.) And a moderately strong, statistically meaningful negative relationship between whites and poverty. Clearly, blacks are somewhat more likely to live in poor areas, and whites are moderately less likely to do so.
Race and crime: No relationship.

Using total crime rate (TT rate), this table compares the ten most peaceful neighborhoods (top) with the ten most seriously stricken by crime (bottom).

Blacks comprise a very small proportion of the city’s population (5.8 percent, according to a
2019 Census estimate) and only a tiny slice of the economically better-off neighborhoods. Here are the correlations if we only consider the twenty neighborhoods at crime’s polar extremes:

As one would expect, whites are far less likely to live in the poorest areas (-.657**, seventh row). And check out the magnitude of those r‘s on the first row. When we cull out the criminally middle-of-the-
road places, the statistical relationship between crime and poverty becomes truly formidable.

So what about that city whose police department is in the nation’s crosshairs? We mean, of course, Minneapolis, where a never-to-be-forgotten video depicts an experienced cop dispassionately (and, ultimately, fatally) pressing his knees against a helpless man’s neck. From “Open Minneapolis,” an official website, we downloaded violent crime information (MPD UCR codes 1, 3, 4 and 5) for the one-year period ending June 3, 2020. Three other sources – Minnesota Compass, “Niche” and City-Data.com – were used to code each neighborhood for median family income, racial distribution and violent crime rate Minn correl per 1,000 population. After some culling our dataset comprised 85 Minneapolis neighborhoods where 3,749 violent crimes had taken place.

We again used correlation analysis. The table on the left depicts the pertinent relationships. As one would expect, crimes of violence have a meaningful, statistically significant negative relationship with income – as one goes up, the other goes down. Check out those strong, statistically significant relationships between race and income. Again, they’re in the anticipated directions: positive for whites (both go up and down together) and negative for blacks (as one goes up the other goes down.) Here are the graphs:

Each “dot” is a neighborhood. Catch the pronounced slope of those trend lines! But who needs r statistics and graphs? Check out another comparo between neighborhoods at crime’s extremes. For Minneapolis it’s between the four least violent neighborhoods and the four most:

Keeping in mind that population sizes differ, the data tells an obvious and very compelling story. Look at the income column. Check out the behavior that accompanies each entry. Then imagine policing the neighborhoods in the lower tier.

Indeed, imagine policing Minneapolis. A story in the Star-Tribune about a recent shooting that left one dead and eleven wounded goes on to mention a “surge” of violence that followed the killing of George Floyd, with more than ninety shot in less than thirty days. Considering that twenty-six Minneapolitans have been murdered so far this year (last year’s toll to date was a relatively “measly” fifteen) police chief Medaria Arradondo’s lament about a “public health crisis” seems hardly an exaggeration.

According to 2019 Census estimates, 14.9 percent of Portland’s 654,701 inhabitants live in poverty. With 429,606 residents, Minneapolis has a poverty rate of 19.9 percent, fully one-third worse. That difference is clearly reflected in our analysis. And as we alluded to, in the cities’ UCR crime rates. Here’s a six-way comparo:

What to do? As our “neighborhoods” section has harped on for years, what we really need is a “Marshall Plan” for America’s chronically poor neighborhoods. Unless we make major efforts – job training, employment and social counseling, drug and alcohol rehab, childcare, tutoring, affordable housing, and so on – their residents will forever remain locked in crime’s embrace.

So where’s that investment going to come from? President Trump’s re-election promise of
“a new deal for black America” has long faded into obscurity. Municipal budgets and politics being what they are, poor neighborhoods are essentially left to fend for themselves. Yes, there have been some valiant private efforts. Portland’s “unprecedented wave” of gunplay is being tackled by “We Are the Caution,” a Facebook campaign that addresses the misuse of social media to foment violence. It’s the brainchild of two former gang members who created “Men Building Men,” a nonprofit that seeks to steer young men away from the streets.

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In the meantime, loose talk about “defunding” the police continues. Portland seems in a far better position to yank money from the cops than Minneapolis. Yet that 2014-2018 uptick in violence, as well as its more recent experiences, give cause for alarm. Even so, latest word is that its police budget of about $240 million, which had been set for a small increase, will instead be slashed by $15 million.

But violence-stricken Minneapolis has an even better idea: “dismantle” the police altogether. A brainchild of the city council, the plan proposes to have unarmed social service teams do what’s needed. That approach (it’ll supposedly take a year to finalize the details) is opposed by the mayor, who would rather “reform” the cops. Ditto, the business community, which worries about the chaos that would engulf a badge-free city. Skepticism has even been voiced by some of the affluent, progressively-oriented residents of the city’s “Powderhorn Park” area, who reacted to the killing of George Floyd by pledging to never again call the police.

Then, sure enough, “stuff” began to happen.

UPDATES (scroll)

3/6/25 Typically crime-beset Minneapolis (of George Floyd infamy) is bragging about its drop in serious and violent crimes, including robberies, carjackings and aggravated assaults. According to the mayor and police chief, the improvement is due to “police initiatives, task forces and programs focused on these specific crimes.” Summing up robberies, agg. assaults and murders during the first two months of the year, our quick tally from the city data portal showed 502 in 2023, 610 in 2024 and 450 this year.

10/31/24 Eleven ranking members of the “Lows,” a Minneapolis street gang, have been charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy and with illegally trafficking in drugs and guns. According to an 18-count Federal indictment, the long-standing gang established its dominion in large swaths of the city through a pattern of violence, including threats, shootings and murders, that “created an atmosphere of terror” and “devastated families and communities in north Minneapolis.”

2/20/24 Louisiana Governor (and ex-cop) Jeff Landry declared a statewide “state of emergency” over a shortage of police officers. Landry campaigned for office on a crime-reduction platform - Louisiana’s murder rate is one of the highest in the U.S. - and his action temporarily removes bars for hiring deputy sheriffs, whose numbers are 1,800 short statewide. According to PERF, it’s not only Louisiana. Officer resignations and retirements surged nationwide after the George Floyd episode and the pandemic. In 2022 resignations were 47% higher than in 2019, while retirements increased by 19%.

1/11/24 Walking back the freeze he imposed in November, NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced that a boost in revenue and less spending on immigrants is letting him hire new cops. Asserting that “more police officers means safer streets, safer subways and a safer New York City,” the former police captain announced that 600 new recruits will soon join the ranks. But the cost of housing and caring for immigrants remains high, and the city council finance chair complained that the Mayor is “out of step with the math.”

6/29/23 Portland’s population numbers have dropped three percent in three years. One reason, it’s said, is the city’s rising violent crime rate. Murders, which used to average in the low twenties, reached a record 101 last year. Another is the “civil unrest” that began with protests against the killing of George Floyd, which devolved into “nightly clashes” between demonstrators and police. Growing problems with homelessness and hard drug use (it was decriminalized in 2020) are also blamed.

6/15/23 While the decline seems moderate and hasn’t played out evenly, Dallas’ violent crime rates have come down over the past two years. That improvement, according to the Washington Post, is due to the 2019 election of Mayor Eric Johnson. An opponent of the defund movement, he championed hiring more cops. He and his like-minded police chief, Eddie Garcia, adopted a “microgrid” (i.e., hot spots) approach that concentrated policing in places most beset by crime. And that has supposedly worked.

5/5/23 Violence-ridden Minneapolis is beset by three street gangs: the “Lows,” the “Highs”, and the “Bloods”. On May 3 DOJ unsealed indictments charging thirty members of the “Highs” and the “Bloods” with a RICO conspiracy to commit murder and robbery and to traffic in drugs. Fifteen additional members are charged with Federal gun and drug violations. A like indictment naming the “Lows” is anticipated. DOJ news release

2/11/23 Beset by a sharp spike in crime, violence and homelessness that began during the pandemic, Portland’s normally progressively-minded inhabitants kicked out a city commissioner who favored cutting the police. Problem is, the metro area’s unhoused jumped from 4,000 to “at least 6,600” in three years. And last year’s homicide count - 97 - was nearly three times 2019’s “measly” 36. But Portlanders are sharply divided over how to return the former boomtown to its treasured status as “a liberal utopia.

2/4/23 Two days ago, following the events in Memphis, a statement by the California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 faculty of the California State University system, the nation’s largest, reiterated demands, originally made in 2020, to “defund campus policing, remove armed police from our campuses,” and shift to alternatives based on “community accountability and transformative justice.” CFA’s website brims with social justice themes that portray racism in American society as “systemic and linked to other structures of oppression.”

12/26/22 Two evenings before Christmas a shooting broke out amidst a swarm of holiday shoppers at Minnesota's famed “Mall of America.” Bloomington police have charged two eighteen-year olds and three 17-year olds with murder for gunning down and killing a 19-year old during an altercation and “fistfight” between groups. It’s not the mall’s first gunfire-related lockdown. One happened in August, and another took place last New Year’s eve.

12/22/22 Residents of a subsidized apartment complex in Minneapolis’ working-class Cedar-Riverside neighborhood blame an “explosion of Fentanyl” and a profusion of homeless encampments for break-ins and shootings that have made life unpleasant and all-too-often, treacherous. Despite hiring a security guard and adding more cameras, “I'm just not sure we're making up any ground,” says a property manager. “Every night there's something new.”

12/19/22 In an Atlanta apartment complex so riven by violence that it’s described as a “war zone,” two groups of armed teens turned a quarrel into a gunfight. By the time it was done, a 14-year old and a 16-year old were dead, and an 11-year old and two fifteen-year olds were wounded. Coming three weeks after a twelve-year old and a fifteen-year old were shot and killed near a local transit station, it spurred Mayor Andre Dickens to post a message of condolence that also expressed “anger in my soul.”

10/28/22 Portland business owners are vociferously complaining about crime. And that when it happens, “there is no accountability.” Their concerns reflect real numbers: a 7.8 percent rise in violent crime this year on top of a 27 percent increase the year before. It’s become the central issue of the Gubernatorial race in what’s been a “reliably Blue State” for forty years.

9/26/22 As midterms approach and political campaigns ramp up, crime is taking center stage. Concerns that the “defund” movement and less aggressive law enforcement have contributed to the spike in crime and violence have placed the “Blues” in an awkward position. So even progressive candidates like Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes are finding it necessary to reassure voters that, indeed, they really do support the police.

9/23/22 After a contentious debate, a bipartisan majority of the House passed the “Invest to Protect Act.” It allocates $60 million per year for the 2023-2027 fiscal years to small law enforcement agencies (125 or fewer officers) for conducting training in deescalation and handling incidents involving troubled persons, and for signing and retention bonuses to help hire and keep cops. The Senate’s version is reportedly different, and the measure’s chances to be signed into law are uncertain.

8/27/22 Black people account for about 19 percent of Minneapolis residents. Yet 83 percent of shooting victims so far this year have been Black, as have 89 percent of known shooters. “That makes sense,” said City Council member LaTrisha Vetaw, who is Black, as the shootings are taking place in “underserved communities” predominantly inhabited by Black persons.

8/16/22 Oregon is reportedly the only State that relies entirely on law firms and freelancers to act as public defenders and represent indigent defendants. But private attorneys have become reluctant to take on new cases, and the shortage has led to the postponement of numerous trials and the dismissal of “hundreds” of prosecutions. And to the firing of the State panel that oversees the system’s function.

8/5/22 Minneapolis’ “Downtown West,” a busy district with concert venues and official buildings, enjoyed a reprieve from crime as activity decreased during the pandemic. But as things get back to “normal,” crime and violence have returned with a vengeance. So far this year violent crime is 25 percent higher than in 2021, gunfire is up 40 percent, and property crimes have soared 65 percent. Police staffing, though, is way down; the downtown precinct has 49 only cops on patrol versus 81 in 2020.

6/22/22 Portland has seventeen percent fewer cops today than in 2020, when its police budget was cut $26.9 million. Its officer complement of 774 is the smallest in memory. Meanwhile crime’s up, with murders in 2021 reaching a thirty-year high. Police inability to respond except in emergencies has left residents to feel “they are on their own” when dealing with the chronic homelessness, drug use and loutish behavior that pervades the city. That poses a dilemma even for liberal-minded neighborhood activists. As one bemoaned, “if nobody is dying, no police officer is going to show up.”

3/3/22 Delivered in his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden’s message to the assembled Members of Congress couldn’t be clearer: “We should all agree: the answer is not to defund the police; it’s to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them. Fund them with resources and training.” His lines reportedly generated a standing ovation from the “Reds.” But Some “Blues” weren’t impressed. Tweeting that “2021 set a record for fatal police shootings,” Missouri “Blue” Rep. Cori Bush noted that “saving Black lives” wasn’t even mentioned. Her fix? “Defund the police. Invest in our communities.”

2/21/22 In Northeast Portland, one person was shot dead and five were wounded after gunfire erupted during a Saturday night confrontation between an armed homeowner and demonstrators who gathered to protest the killing of Amir Locke by Minneapolis police. Several hours earlier Portland police shot and killed a man while responding to a shots-fired call. Two days earlier officers handled six shootings in nine hours. It’s part of what a local news source calls the city’s unending “wave of violence.”

1/18/22 At the Times Square station, a homeless, mentally-ill man recently pushed a woman to her death in front of an incoming train. Days earlier, a city cop was shot dead as he slept in his personal car, parked by the Harlem precinct between shifts. New York City’s new Mayor, former police captain Eric Adams, promises to make the city safer. But his support for an increased police role, including restoring the disbanded anti-crime plainclothes teams, has drawn scorn from progressives, including those who championed his selection as the second Black person to lead America’s largest city.

1/15/22 In 2018, two years before Floyd-inspired disturbances consumed Portland’s downtown, setting its cops against the city’s mostly White progressives and leading to a lawsuit still in progress, police trainers created a lengthy Power-Point presentation about handling protesters. Problem is, the closing slide features an image of a cop slugging a long-haired citizen. It’s captioned by a colorful, lengthy message that begins with “Woe be unto you, dirty hippy...” Natch, that’s become part of the litigation.

1/12/22 An academic study of Seattle PD’s near-month-long withdrawal from the city’s Capitol Hill area during Floyd-inspired protests revealed that “crime significantly increased in the CHOP [Capitol Hill Occupation Protests] zone, the encompassing two-block area, and the overall East precinct service area.” (As reported in the NY Times, a increase in violence forced police to return. See 8/11/20 update.)

12/29/21 Philadelphia’s surge in violence - it’s had 555 murders this year, compared to 492 in 2020 and 352 in 2019 - has led some Black community leaders, including the former Mayor, to criticize D.A. Larry Krasner’s downplay of the violence that besets poor neighborhoods. Krasner, a White progressive who champions racial equity and an easing of policing, insists he’s been misunderstood. Around the U.S., increased crime and depleted officer ranks slammed the brakes on a Floyd-inspired movement to cut police funding. Cities who did, including L.A. and New York, have restored what was taken, and more.

12/11/21 Ten years in Oregon state prison. That’s the sentence handed down to 51-year old Alan Swinney, an armed Texas “Proud Boy” who seriously injured a man while helping lead violent counter-protests in Portland during August 2020. A jury convicted Swinney, who flaunted a loaded revolver and shot at “agitators” with mace and paintballs, of assault and weapons charges.

11/9/21 Four months after substituting de-escalation-trained “proctors” for police officers, the Pomona (Calif.) school district is bringing back cops. Why the change? A 12-year old was injured in a shooting near one campus. A like situation brought school resource officers back to Fremont schools. But a proposal to return officers to Los Angeles campuses (they are now response-only) was recently rejected.

10/11/21 An “exodus of officers” and a nationwide spike in violence has slammed the brakes on once-trendy notions to defund police. Instead, agencies across the U.S., including New York and Los Angeles, are augmenting law enforcement budgets. In Dallas, which suffered 252 homicides in 2020, a 25-percent increase and the most in 20 years, Mayor Eric Johnson, a Black Democrat, has endorsed a “hot spots” approach to help “neighborhoods racked by crime.” Two-hundred fifty new cops are also being hired.

9/27/21 “A stunning amount of gun violence.” That’s what a Portland commissioner says. The city, which we reported had 35 murders in 2019, suffered 54 in 2020 and sixty so far this year. There were 94 homicides between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. In a city that’s 5.8 percent African-American, thirty-nine of the victims - 41.5 percent - were Black. Portland PD also has a serious shortage of cops: authorized for 916, it has 793 on the job. One-hundred fifty officers left in the last 13 months.

9/11/21 Chicago PD reports that year-to-date 3,043 residents have been shot, and 540 killed. The comparable figures for 2020 were 2,781 and 526. To address the violence Mayor Lightfoot has, among other things, spent $35 million on “violence interruption” groups. But a critic says that de-escalating tensions is far from enough. “You need the jobs. You need the housing. We don’t have that right now.”

8/24/21 Despite pleas for “peace” from Portland’s mayor, opposing groups clashed in Portland, the site last year of George-Floyd inspired riots between “Proud Boys” and leftist protesters. This time police vowed not to get caught between the warring tribes. But their holding back was criticized by business owners who suffered a repeat of looting and vandalism, largely in the city’s working-class eastside.

8/18/21 Amidst a wave of crime and violence, cities across the U.S. that promised to slash police funding are reversing course. New York City is adding $200 million to the police budget; Oakland, $38 million. Facing an unprecedented series of shootings, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who had embraced the defund movement, has forty more cops on the way. Ditto Atlanta. With murder up 58 percent, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom, who once barely managed to prevent a $73 million cut, is looking to bolster the ranks by 250 officers. And as shootings continue, her prospects seem excellent.

7/28/21 William Briggs is a lawyer. And a Black man. And the new President of the Los Angeles City Police Commission. And despite criticism from activists, he opposes “defunding” the police. “Our communities of color that are most impacted by crime, many of which have seen the homicide rate rise above 30% this year, cannot afford to go without law enforcement.” He does want to see more “beat” cops - officers who work the same neighborhoods over time and get to know its inhabitants.

7/6/21 Shootings and killings have soared in Los Angeles and Chicago this year. Los Angeles reported sixteen deaths by gunfire during the July 4th. weekend. Sixteen also died in Chicago, where a stunning ninety-five were shot. In violence-beset Minneapolis, a lawsuit filed by residents of high-crime areas led a judge to order that police substantially increase staffing to comply with the city Charter.

7/3/21 Pressed by activists, school districts around the U.S. have reduced or eliminated the police presence on high school campuses. Among these are six California districts. Most recently, Pomona terminated a contract with the local police department, which provided two full-time officers for its four campuses. However one California District, Fremont, recently reinstated the police presence after parents complained about their children’s safety.

6/24/21 To address a pronounced racial disparity – Blacks are 6% of the population but comprise 18% of traffic stops – Portland police will no longer stop drivers for “low-level” infractions such as expired license plates and broken headlights unless safety is “immediately” threatened. Resignations have left the department 150 officers short. With violence and gang shootings way up, cops will be pulled from patrol to staff a new team to combat gun violence.

In New York City, rising violence has led to a drastic shift in perspective. Democrats have dropped all notions of “defunding” the police. Their leading candidate for Mayor, ex-cop Eric Adams, characterizes defund advocates as well-to-do Whites who don’t live in neighborhoods heavily impacted by crime.

6/18/21 Portland PD’s “Rapid Response Team,” volunteer cops who came together to handle protests, is no more. Its fifty officers left the unit after the D.A. indicted a colleague, officer Corey Budsworth, for misdemeanor assault of a journalist during an August 2020 protest. They remain on patrol. Their chief and the mayor nonetheless thanked the officers for working “long hours under difficult conditions.”

5/24/21 Two days ago an angry man opened fire outside a Minneapolis tavern, killing two and wounding eight. That brings the murder toll to 32 so far this year, compared with fifteen during the same period in 2020. Mayor Jacob Frey has issued an urgent request for State and Federal agencies to come in and help his beleaguered, badly depleted police force - nearly 200 officers left during the past year - stem a ceaseless wave of shootings and killings that has left citizens reeling.

5/21/21 After taking a $150 million hit last year, LAPD’s funding was increased by three percent. With many more officers leaving than expected, its force has shrunk to 9,457, three-hundred below what city fathers intended. A surge in murder and violence, though, has worked against activist demands that large chunks of the police budget be redirected to alternatives to policing and social services. Meanwhile, cops in Chicago, facing a surge in violence and shootings, exhausted by twelve-hour shifts and angry at the elimination of specialized units and demands for intrusive reforms, voted a resounding “no confidence” in their mayor and police chief.

2/3/21 A University of California symposium on “reimagining” campus safety brought calls from the system-wide academic council and from student leaders to “disarm” and “substantially” defund university police departments and use the money to support “marginalized” students and to develop other ways to provide safety. But advocates of that approach complained that they were purposely underrepresented at the forum. Still, the UC president pledged there would be “real” change.

To avoid laying off as many as 355 officers at a time of increasing violence, LAPD’s officer union has agreed - subject to officer approval - to delay a combined 4.5 percent pay raise for two years. A $150 million cut propelled by the George Floyd riots has already taken effect.

11/6/20 Despite Joe Biden’s apparent victory, the Dem’s lost seats in the House. Why? Some moderate Dem’s “who lost, or nearly did,” blamed progressives for championing “defunding the police” and “banning fracking.” Abigail Spanberger, a Viginia Dem who barely squeaked through, warned that if “defunding police” and socialism weren’t dumped, the Blues “would be ‘crushed’ in future elections.”

9/26/20 In Portland, five-hundred state police officers stood watch as competing protest groups - the Proud Boys, on the right, and “Rose City Antifa” and Black Lives Matter, on the left - held large, mostly peaceful rallies several miles apart. Some of the Proud Boys, who hold themselves out as pro-police and have criticized Portland’s supposedly lackluster response to left-themed disorder, wore tactical gear and carried firearms. But few arrests were made and the demonstrations ended peacefully.

9/24/20 Students from low-income families struggle with on-line schooling. Computers and Internet access may be lacking. Other challenges include food, health and housing issues, no quiet place to study, and a lack of assistance and supervision. “In the last three weeks of school, I just stopped doing Zoom” said a high-school teacher in South Los Angeles. “Because no one was doing the work.”

9/22/20 In a sharply worded memorandum, the Department of Justice threatened to withhold funds from New York City and Portland, which severely cut their police budgets despite sharp increases in violence, and Seattle, which established a month-long police-free “safe zone.” Each city was also criticized for rejecting assistance from Federal law enforcement agencies.

8/24/20 Elected on “a progressive platform,” Mike Schmidt, Portland’s new D.A., announced that he will not prosecute minor cases against hundreds of protesters arrested on minor charges. “What we’re doing is recognizing that the right to speak and have your voice heard is extremely important.” That doesn’t mean, he insists, that violence and causing damage will be tolerated. But police aren’t pleased.

8/23/20 Portland police officers observed and issued warnings but didn’t step in as right-leaning pro-police “Back the Blue” demonstrators clashed, occasionally violently, with supporters of Black Lives Matter. But police declared an unlawful assembly and moved in to disperse rowdy crowds who threatened a police precinct house and threw objects at officers.

8/12/20 A UC Berkeley poll of 8,328 California voters reports that about equal proportions (70 and 72 percent, respectively) are satisfied with police but favor redirecting some funds to better deal with the homeless, substance abusers and the mentally ill. Large margins also favor making it easier to sue police, prosecute officers for excessive force, ban chokeholds, and limit the power of police unions.

8/11/20 Seattle police chief Carmen Best “abruptly” announced her retirement. Her decision, she said, was influenced by the City Council’s move, without her input, to promptly cut 100 officers from the agency. Staff salaries are also being slashed, and a fifty-percent reduction in funding is being considered. AG William Barr issued a statement regretting her departure: “In the face of mob violence, she drew the line in the sand and said, "Enough!", working tirelessly to save lives, protect her officers, and restore stability to Seattle.” He was apparently referring to the resumption of policing in the Capitol Hill area, where police coverage was discontinued at the Mayor’s direction until violence forced cops to return.

8/7/20 Small business owners who endured a city-ordered police withdrawal from their six-block stretch of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood during the height of the George Floyd protests are suing the city, claiming “enormous property damage and lost revenue.” What they and others experienced as armed, self-anointed posses took over is described in a New York Times piece that questions police defunding.

8/6/20 After a deal was reached to protect Portland’s Federal courthouse complex with State troopers instead of Federal agents, the violence downtown has subsided. But demonstrators have moved their attention elsewhere, leading to repeated clashes with police. Police chief Chuck Lovell, who criticized the violence as a distraction from needed social reforms in a New York Times op-ed, bemoaned its effects on his “beautiful, vibrant city”: “This movement is very powerful, and I feel like the violence has taken away from it in a really kind of concerning way.”

8/5/20 Although some Black residents of Minneapolis’ violence-impacted areas agree that officers mistreat Blacks, they oppose defunding. “What are they suggesting would be the answer if we didn’t have police?” asks a woman whose mother fell to a criminal’s bullets. Another, who lost her brother to gunplay, suggests that a “community council” could provide oversight. But both want cops around.

7/25/20 After nearly two months of rowdy protests by mostly “white faces” pumping fists under Black Lives Matter banners, a Black transplant from the East jokes about the imbalance: “There are more Black Lives Matter signs in Portland than Black people.” But the local NAACP leader called actions such as the vandalism of the Federal courthouse a “spectacle” that hurts the prospects for true reform.

6/27/20 As hooliganism, violence and gunplay worsen in Minneapolis, residents complain they’re seeing a far less robust police response. A local activist faults the city council’s move to dismantle the agency for discouraging citizens from reporting crime and for emboldening lawlessness.

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Special sections: Neighborhoods George Floyd

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Posted 5/25/20

BUT IS IT REALLY “SATAN”?

A Sheriff’s lament reflects the hopelessness of urban decay

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “Satan has taken over Bogalusa, and it’s time we take it back.” Louisiana Sheriff Randy Seal’s memorable words came on May 18, two days after more than five-hundred local residents staged an outdoor memorial service in Bogalusa, a distressed city of about 12,000 seventy miles north of New Orleans. According to authorities, citizens assembled at a major intersection (in violation of COVID-19 restrictions) to mourn the passing of a local resident, Dominique James, 29. Suddenly a vehicle drove by, and a barrage of gunfire rang out. Thirteen were struck by bullets, apparently none fatally.

“I am burying my son and I just think it was heartless for someone to come through and just ring out gunshots,” said his grieving mother, Rena Robertson. Her laments carried special resonance, as her son had recently gone missing, and it took an air search to find his vehicle parked deep in the woods. Dominique’s murdered remains lay inside.

Our next stop was the UCR. And the story it told was depressingly familiar. In 2018, the most recent year with full data, Bogalusa, pop. 11,730, reported 124 violent crimes. That yields a miserable per/1,000 rate of 10.6, about twice Louisiana’s 5.4 and close to three times the national 3.7. Looking back, 2018 was actually a pretty good year for the town. Its 2010 rate was 14.5; in 2015, it was 13.3. (p.s. the UCR lists rates per 100,000.)

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As its readers know, Police Issues is very much of the mind that crime and economic conditions are two sides of the same coin. So our very next stop was the Census. No surprise there. In 2018, a depressing 40.1 percent of Bogalusa’s citizens lived in poverty. To compare, it was 11.8 percent for the U.S. and 18.6 percent for Louisiana.

Well, maybe Bogalusa is special. Maybe it’s not poverty that underlies its struggle with violence. Perhaps it really is the Devil! (Normally we prefer to look at neighborhoods, whose inhabitants are exposed to similar doses of the influencers that propel crime. That’s the thought that underlies our “Neighborhoods” section. But we lack a ready source of within-city crime and economic data for these burg’s, so must stick with their overall statistics.) Including Bogalusa, Louisiana has 21 cities with populations of 10,000-20,000. The graphs below depict, for each, percent of residents in poverty from the 2018 Census, and violent and property crime rates per 1,000 pop. from the 2018 UCR. (Violent crimes include murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.)

Louisiana cities with populations between 10,000-20,000 (n=21)

Overall

To be sure, there are plenty of ups and downs. Yet one trend is difficult to miss: as poverty goes up, so does crime. To double-check here are the corresponding “scattergrams”:

With a few exceptions – De Ridder, Minden and Eunice for violent crime, and De Ridder, Minden and Abbeville for property crime – poverty is strongly associated with both types of offending. That relationship is evident by the magnitude of the “r” statistics. (It’s on a scale of minus one to plus one. Either extreme denotes a lock-step association; zero, none.) Both coefficients (.72 and .67) demonstrate a strong “positive” relationship, meaning that poverty moves up and down pretty much in sync with violent crime as well as property crime. As for the two asterisks, that means the results are statistically “significant,” with a probability of less than 1/100 that they were produced by chance. (For a more thorough discussion of such things check out “Scapegoat (Part I)” and “Human Renewal.”)

Of course, the adequacy of policing can also affect crime. We collected UCR police employee data for each town. As expected, there was a statistically significant association between population size and the number of sworn officers (r=.59*). But that doesn’t necessaily mean that needs were being met. This table compares the four least violent towns (mean/1,000 rate, 1.1) with the four most violent (mean/1,000 rate, 15.8):

For all 21 cities, sworn staffing ranged from 1.67 to 5.7 per 1,000 pop. But the differences between these two groups was slight. The least violent places – Youngsville, De Ridder, Mandeville and Minden – averaged 2.4 officers/1,000 citizens, while the high-violence places – Bogalusa, Bastrop, Crowley and Opelousas – averaged 2.85/1,000. (Comparing the top four/bottom four for property crime produces only two differences. De Ridder, the second least-violent city, deteriorates to seventh place, while Bogalusa, which is only three steps from being the most violent, improves a bit to fourteenth.)

Mandeville looks peaceful. Let’s contrast it with two burg’s that seem much less so:

Bogalusa is close in both population and police staffing. It’s also nearly five times poorer and has nearly eight times the number of violent crimes.
Opelousas has nearly four-thousand more residents. But it only has three more cops – that is, one per shift. Its poverty rate is also more than five times worse. With that we’d expect more violence. But more than twenty times as much? Yikes.

Clearly, Bogalusa and Opelousas (and Bastrop, and Crowley) could use more cops. Only problem is: who’ll pay for them? “Why, like other small Louisiana towns, Bogalusa is slowly dying” is the title of a July 5, 2019 story in the New Orleans Advocate. According to the well-written piece, it really is all about economics. “The only thing left here is that mill” said a long-time resident who once worked at the city’s remaining industrial plant, a large paper mill. But automation displaced most of its workers, and good jobs remain scarce. A block away, a once-booming retail strip “is now a rundown row of storefronts, many of them abandoned, with papered-over windows.”

But something important escapes notice. While the town’s poverty load and abysmal finances (Alabama placed it under “fiscal administration”) get prominent billing, violence draws absolutely no mention. Indeed, the word “crime” comes up only once, in the context of the gunning down of a black sheriff’s deputy by white extremists fifty-five years earlier. Yet as its inhabitants well know, armed violence is no stranger to Bogalusa. Less than a year has passed since that infamous two-week period in July 2019 when the community experienced eleven shootings and six wounded in fifteen days. Police chief Kendall Bullen (he’s still on the job) managed the chaos with an understaffed force and truculent survivors. “A lot of the victims are not cooperating.” he said. “They don’t want to give us information.”

Of course, it takes a lot more than cops to effectively counter crime. Poverty, and the crime-generating factors that go along with poverty, have beset Bogalusa for many years. It may be impolitic to mention, but consider that the memorial service’s honoree, 29-year old Dominique Audrell James, is likely one and the same as “Dominique A. James,” a 23-year old Bogalusan who was booked into jail in early 2014 for “distribution of schedule II drugs and criminal conspiracy.”

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We’ve long argued that urban violence is best tackled through intensive, geographically focused campaigns of socioeconomic renewal. For example, there’s Jobs-Plus, a national program that provides residents of housing developments with everything from job training and placement to rent assistance. Or a local variant, Birmingham’s (Ala.) “Promise Initiative,” a city-run program that connects high-school juniors and seniors with apprenticeships so they can learn vital skills. Graduating seniors can also get tuition assistance to attend two and four-year colleges.

Sadly, such things seem absent from the current political debate. Other than preaching, we’ve actually mailed several letters (really, in envelopes) to politicians recommending that Presidential campaigns connect with, say, Birmingham’s mayor to get better informed about the needs of places like, say, Bogalusa, Bastrop, Crowley and Opelousas. How can America’s many struggling communities be transformed? Really, whoever our next President turns out to be, getting that done should be her “job #1.”

UPDATES (scroll)

3/28/24 An analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive reveals that gun violence besets the South. According to The Trace, thirteen of the twenty towns and cities with the highest rate of shootings between 2014-2023 are in that region. Selma, Alabama, for example, had a higher rate than infamous Chicago. Comparing States produced similar findings. While Illinois was one of the four States with the highest rate of fatal and injury-producing shootings, the other three were Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

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Worlds Apart...Not! “Woke” up, America! Explaining...or Ignoring?

Should Police Treat the Whole Patient? Place Matters Can the Urban Ship be Steered?

Human Renewal Mission Impossible? Scapegoat (I) Location, Location, Location

Is Trump Right?

Posted 2/29/20

PLACE MATTERS

Desperate to avoid controversy, politicians avoid the obvious

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. Let’s begin with a memorable quote:

Ninety-five percent of your murders – murderers and murder victims – fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male; minorities 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city….

Mind you, that’s not Police Issues’ point of view. It is (was?) Michael Bloomberg’s. A video of his speech at the Aspen Institute’s 2015 annual get-together for the well-to-do and connected depicts the former Wall Street magnate, three-term NYC Mayor (2002-2013) and self-funded Presidential wannabe saying lots of things he would one day regret.

Well, that’s politics! Still, are “ninety-five percent” of the Big Apple’s murders – and murderers – really cut from the same cloth? We’ve looked into crime in Gotham in some detail. “Be Careful What You Brag About” (Part II) compared ten low-poverty and ten high-poverty NYPD precincts. As one might expect, their murder and robbery rates were very much different, and in the anticipated direction. New York City’s high-crime areas, we concluded, “aren’t in the Big Apple” – they’re part of that other, disadvantaged America where our nation’s minorities disproportionately reside.

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Nothing’s come up since then to change our minds. According to the most recent Census estimate, New York City’s poverty rate is 18.9%. But there are huge differences within. Twenty-nine percent of the residents of the Bronx, the least prosperous of the city’s five boroughs, are poor. Might that affect murder?

New York City reported 310 murders for 2019. Seventy-nine – about one in four – took place in the Bronx. With a population slightly over 1.4 million, the city’s most poverty-stricken area also posted its worst murder rate, 5.49 per 100,000. Every other borough – Brooklyn (pop. 2.6 million, 100 murders), Manhattan (pop. 1.6 million, 50 murders), Queens (pop. 2.3 million, 69 murders), and Staten Island (pop. 470,000, 12 murders) – followed in lock-step fashion. As poverty receded, so did homicide.

Poverty influences crimes other than murder. Using precinct populations and NYPD’s recently posted 2019 data for seven major crimes (murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny of a motor vehicle) we computed murder, robbery and felony assault rates for 73 of the city’s 77 police districts (precincts 14, 22, 41 and 121 were omitted for methodological reasons.) Correlation analysis (the “r” statistic) was then applied to assess the relationship between each of these crimes and poverty.

Each dot represents a precinct. As one might expect, murder, robbery and felony assault had positive, statistically significant (i.e., meaningful) relationships with poverty. By “positive” we mean that the rates – say, poverty and murder – went up and down together. By “significant” we mean that the statistical procedure generated two asterisks, indicating a probability of less than one in one-hundred that a coefficient, such as .51, was produced by chance. As for the magnitude of the coefficients, r’s can range from zero (no relationship) to one (strongest relationship.) In practice, those produced are indeed substantial.

What about the other index offenses? Check out these graphs:

Perhaps surprisingly, there’s virtually no relationship between poverty and the aggregate measure, the major crime rate. Here’s why. Grand Larceny was by far the category’s most frequent offense. Its relationship with poverty was also strongly negative, meaning that as poverty went up, grand larceny went down. That makes sense. “Grand” larcenies require a loss of $1,000 or more, making them far more commonplace in economically better-off places. New York City’s profusion of grand larcenies countered the effects of violent crime, making its rate a misleading indicator of the relationship between crime and place.

So what did we learn? Citywide scores can seriously mislead. New York City, whose leaders habitually brag about low crime, posted a 2018 murder rate of 3.5/100,000 pop., handily beating the nation’s 5.0 and, by substantial margins, virtually every other city of size. Indeed, when one considers Detroit’s jaw-popping murder rate of 38.9, or Chicago’s merely miserable 20.7, even the Bronx looks good. “Location, Location, Location” offered Los Angeles as another example of self-proclaimed success in the war against crime. After all, its 2015 murder rate was “only” 7.3 (N=279). Yet there were some startling exceptions within. Such as the bedraggled Florence neighborhood (Zip 90003, poverty rate 33.1%). With a population of 49,001, its eighteen homicides that year produced a murder rate of 36.7, five times the citywide figure. Still, neither Florence nor the Bronx managed to spoil their parents’ triumph. Los Angeles and New York simply have so many prosperous residents that their aggregate poverty rates remain fetchingly low.

Of course, protective factors likely matter. With nearly eight and one-half million residents and an astounding 28,069 persons per square mile, the “Big Apple” is by far the largest and most densely populated of the nation’s fifty major cities. Los Angeles, the runner-up in population, has half as many residents. Its density of 8,360, while on the high end nationally, is but a fraction of Manhattan’s astonishing 69,467 inhabitants per square mile. How did the prosperous burg get there? By ensconcing its well-to-do residents in pricey, access-controlled high-rises. Bingo! Instant security, and likely one of the reasons why the borough’s crime rates are low.

When it comes to crime, place isn’t just critical for New York and Los Angeles. In “Human Renewal” we wrote about the far smaller community of South Bend, Indiana (pop. 103,869). Coincidentally, its former mayor, Pete Buttigieg, is also a Presidential candidate. South Bend police posted data for 346 “criminally assaulted shootings” between 2015-2018. (If the link isn’t working we’ll happily share our copy.) Using Census population and poverty figures, we computed a shooting rate for each of South Bend’s ten Zip codes, then ran correlation analysis. Sure enough, the relationship between poverty and shootings was strong and positive (r=.68*). More poverty, more violence.

No matter. None of the Presidential candidates – nor, with a single exception (see below) any other politician of note – is talking about neighborhoods. Our favorite remedy, a “Marshall Plan” for America’s downtrodden places, isn’t on the radar. (We’ve been pushing for it since, um, 2008. Click here.) Perhaps they worry that focusing on place would bring in potentially controversial issues like race and ethnicity.

But we’re not running for office. Let’s return to the loser in New York City’s poverty/murder sweepstakes: the Bronx. According to the most recent Census estimate, blacks comprise thirty-six percent of its residents. Lamentably, more than one in four (26.7%) blacks who reside in the downtrodden borough live in poverty. And the consequences seem all too predictable.

According to NYPD’s “Supplementary Homicide Report” for 1998, ninety-one of that year’s 295 murders took place in the Bronx. Race and ethnicity were known for 88 victims and 72 assailants. These graphs (frequencies on the left, percentages on the right) depict the grim racial and ethnic distribution. Citywide, about one-third of New York City’s residents are white. Yet according to the 2018 report, whites figured as either victim or suspect in less than one in ten homicides.

Place, and the money it takes to live in a nice place, really, really matter.

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For a breath of fresh air, let’s consider the views of a political figure who tells it like it really is. We’re talking about the Hon. Randall Woodfin, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. Conveying the view that a community “is only as strong as its lowest quality-of-life neighborhood,” his recent “State of the City” speech set out Birmingham’s obstacles in a memorable (and remarkably candid) fashion:

In a city of 99 neighborhoods, 88 of them are majority black and 11 are majority white. Those 11 neighborhoods are the safest. Those 11 neighborhoods have the highest income, highest home property value. And in those other 88 neighborhoods that make up the fourth-blackest city in America, there’s a 29% poverty rate. You dig deeper into that for single families, it’s 43%. They don’t have vehicles. The property value hasn’t increased, unemployment is higher, and there’s too much crime.

Mayor Woodfin’s solution, a multifaceted “neighborhood revitalization program,” seems highly promising. Grab a ballot. We’re writing him in!

UPDATES (scroll)

12/30/24 Chicago murders are down 7% citywide from 2023. But when comparing police districts, the numbers are admittedly “uneven.” While the normally violence-beset Harrison District has suffered substantially fewer killings, the afflicted Ogden District is enduring a sharp increase, from 34 murders thru mid-December 2023 to 48 this year. And two beats within the violence-racked Grand Crossing area are even worse off, going from 12 murders in 2023 to 25 this year. Some are assigning blame to the increased lethality brought on by full-auto switches, extended magazines and assault rifles.

12/30/24 Chronically violence-beset Birmingham, Ala. just “broke another record.” Its 149th. homicide of the year topped the previous high of 148 set ninety-one years ago, in 1933. That’s led its city council to allocate $2 million in Federal American Rescue Plan funds to a slew of community-based initiatives that are intended, among other things, to combat the causes of gun violence. None directly involve policing.

10/21/24 A new study published by the Delaware Academy of Public Health examined the views of 374 African American men ages 15-24 who have guns and live in four crime & violence beset cities: Baltimore, Jackson, Houston TX, and Wilmington DE. More than two-thirds felt that their cities were dangerous places with few opportunities, and that survival required having a gun. They blamed their community’s problems to negative influences from music, social media and peers, and to poor socialization, with absentee parents and no suitable role models. “Mothers aren't raising kids; fathers aren't around. Not enough money for food. Children aren't being taken care of.”

9/23/24 Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin blames a “Glock switch,” an auto-sear that essentially turns the pistol into a machinegun, for enabling the shooters who opened fire in an entertainment district last Saturday night. At least four were shot dead and seventeen others were wounded in what police describe as a targeted shooting, with bystanders caught in crossfire. Birmingham’s murder count is up substantially this year, inflated by mass shootings that killed four persons in February and four in July.

11/7/22 Concerns about gun violence and gang activity led the Greenville County, S.C. sheriff’s office to deploy a task force. Its members focused their attention on nightclubs and other public places with high “high call volume” and known gang activity. During a one-month period its members arrested ninety persons, fifty-two on warrants, and issued 111 citations. Two stolen cars, eleven guns and substantial quantities of marijuana, meth, cocaine and fentanyl were also seized.

3/5/22 In Chicago’s violence-beset Lawndale neighborhood, a man in line at a hot-dog stand apparently reached in his pockets to pay. A handgun dropped to the ground. He picked it up and fired at a police officer standing behind him, grazing him in the head. He then repeatedly fired at a parked police car, striking an officer in the leg. Other officers pursued and arrested the gunman. Both wounded officers are expected to fully recover. So far the gunman has not been identified.

11/22/21 The recent slaying of an international student, and the robbery “at gunpoint” of a university worker, finds one of the nation’s premier places of learning, the University of Chicago, at the mercy of the violence and gunplay that besets its surroundings. Officials and campus staff want a larger police presence, outside and within. Chicago’s police chief agrees. “Having a large presence will not only add to safety but also the perception of being safe.” But others disagree. “The proof is literally in the existence of University of Chicago and the fact that it can sit inside one of the most terrorized neighborhoods when it comes to gun violence and think that epidemic shouldn’t touch their campus.”

10/11/21 In Philadelphia, up to 29-percent reductions in violence were experienced in the poverty-stricken blocks surrounding vacant parcels that got either a thorough cleanup or a major “clean and green” intervention. In a second study, a “full remediation” of abandoned homes led to “a clear reduction in weapons violations, gun assaults and shootings” in nearby areas. According to the authors, such findings suggest that high-need locations “may benefit the most from place-based investment.”

7/29/21 Data from the University of Chicago Crime Lab suggests that “historical structural racism and economic deprivation” have contributed to a widening gap in rates of homicide and deaths from disease between Chicago neighborhoods. Differences in murder rates between the safest districts (Lincoln, Rogers Park, Jefferson Park and Town Hall) and most violent (Harrison, Englewood, Austin and Gresham) increased from 13 times in 1991 to twenty-six times in 2020. According to the Census, the most dangerous districts are predominantly Black.

6/29/21 With 800 persons shot in New York City this year, the most since 2002, even vaunted Times Square is getting dangerous. One day after a tourist was shot, Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced that officers will “flood” the landmark with officers so that visitors keep returning. “They have to be safe and they have to feel safe.” Meanwhile seventy-seven persons were shot in Chicago over the weekend; so far, seven have died. Six were shot in one incident; eleven were shot in another two hours later.

9/9/20 An academic study found that lower-income persons and Black and Latino residents of Los Angeles, New York, Houston and Chicago reported far higher levels of financial and health risks from the Covid-19 pandemic than higher-income persons and Whites. Their infection and death rates have also been substantially higher. Many reside in densely populated neighborhoods and are employed in close-contact work such as warehousing and food service where protection measures may be lacking.

7/6/20 Last year Chicago’s gun violence toll over the Fourth of July weekend was six dead and 63 wounded. This year “at least 80” were shot, of whom “at least” 17 died. One of the fatalities was a 7-year old girl who was celebrating the holiday with her family in the Austin neighborhood. Other victims include a 14-year old shot dead and an 11-year old and a 15-year old wounded, all in the Englewood area.

6/29/20 Through June 21 there have been 295 murders and 1,250 shootings in Chicago, compared with 235 and 902 in 2019. These incidents are mostly happening in the city’s crime-scarred districts, including Harrison, Austin, Ogden and Lawndale. A recent weekend’s toll was at least 106 shot and 14 killed. On “a bloody Saturday,” June 27, eight were shot and killed including three children. One, twenty months old, was struck by a bullet as his mother drove in the Englewood neighborhood.

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Posted 2/9/20

MUST THE DOOR REVOLVE?

Bail and sentencing reform come. Then stuff happens.

For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. Must the door that feeds jails and prisons forever revolve? Can we unplug the thing without causing even more pain? Let’s start with three recent horror stories:

Last November, Charles Goforth, a 56-year old Chicago-area man, shot and wounded his girlfriend. He was soon arrested in Missouri. But a magistrate released him on an $8,000 cash bond and Goforth went home to his wife. On January 30 he revisited his victim, who was recuperating at home, and shot her dead.
“I can’t believe they let me out” said Gerof Woodberry, 42. New York City cops arrested him on January 10 for “stealing or attempting to steal” from four (count ‘em, four!) banks. Thanks to a new state law that abolishes bail for non-violent crimes, he was released two days later. Woodberry, who had served prison sentences in South Carolina for five strong-arm robberies, promptly robbed two banks in four days. He’s now in Federal custody, where the rules are different.
On October 13 two small children found their mother’s lifeless body on the bedroom floor of their New York City apartment. She had been beaten to death. It took two months for police to arrest her alleged murderer, Asun Thomas, 46. He had been living in a halfway house since being paroled in 2016 after doing sixteen years of a 20-year term for manslaughter.

We realize that Goforth, Woodberry and Thomas can’t be used to represent the universe of persons who are released pending trial or after serving a term of incarceration. They’re an “accidental” sample compiled from stories that caught your blogger’s eye while perusing The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, something he does most mornings. (And yes, he’s got subscriptions. You should, too!)

Click here for the complete collection of crime & punishment essays

Recidivism is a weighty subject. DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics has been studying it for some time. In 2018 it published data about recidivism for a sample of 401,288 convicted felons who were released in 2005 after serving prison terms in thirty States. During their first nine years of freedom the former inmates compiled an average of five arrests each. Nearly half (44 percent) were arrested during the first year, and sixty-eight percent during the first three years. By the end of the ninth year a full eighty-three percent had been arrested at least once. As for type of crime, Table 7 of the report indicates that regardless of the crime for which they were originally confined – violent, property, public order or drug-related – about four in ten were arrested at least once, post-release, for a crime of violence.

Research on Federal prisoners also paints a gloomy picture. A study of 25,431 Federal convicts released in 2005 indicates that within eight years half (49.3 percent) were arrested on new charges. Nearly one-third of the sample (31.7 percent) suffered another conviction, and nearly one-quarter (24.6 percent) were re-incarcerated. Since these were former Federal inmates, a majority of the original convictions were for drug trafficking. But about one-quarter (23.3 percent) of the post-release arrests were for assault.

Are there ways to help former inmates avoid reoffending? NIJ’s “Corrections & Reentry” webpage features reviews of 136 “programs” (approaches tailored to specific places) and thirty “practices” (methods used at multiple sites.) Each was rated as either “no effect,” “promising” or “effective.”

A “program” in Massachusetts’ capital city, the “Boston Reentry Initiative,” actually begins while offenders are still locked up. Meant for gang members and others at high risk of committing a violent crime, the voluntary effort – inmates must ask to join – offers everything from assistance in getting a driver’s license to help with substance abuse, housing and job training. After release there’s a day center; each former offender also gets a “case manager” who provides one-on-one help for up to eighteen months. BRI’s “promising” rating is based on an academic study that concluded participants were significantly less likely than non-participants to be arrested post-release. During their first three years back on the street, arrests for any crime befell 77.8 percent of the BRI cohort and 87.7 percent of a non-BRI control group. Arrests for violent crimes followed the same pattern (27.8 and 39.2 percent, respectively.)

Several efforts in NIJ’s “practices” category also seemed pertinent:

“Pretrial Interventions for Ensuring Appearance in Court” evaluated three approaches for combatting failure-to-appear and re-arrest: court notifications (reminders), cash and appearance bonds, and pretrial supervision, ranging from electronic monitoring to placement in a halfway house. Of these, only pretrial supervision demonstrated a statistically significant reduction on failures to appear (this effect, which led to a “promising” rating, was nonetheless considered “small.”) None of the methods, however, reduced rearrests.
“Day Reporting Centers” (aka “community resource centers” or “attendance centers”) offer non-residential services to parolees and probationers, including supervision, drug abuse treatment and job training and placement. A 2019 meta-evaluation of nine such efforts found that none was more effective in preventing recidivism than conventional probation and parole.
“Noncustodial Employment Programs for Ex-Offenders” offer job training, career counseling and educational services in settings such as halfway houses and group homes. Assistance is hands-on and can include resume preparation and coaching for job interviews. Alas, a review of ten programs concluded that their participants were just as likely to be re-arrested or convicted or commit a release violation as probationers and parolees who didn’t take part.

Glancing at the scorecards, we noticed that only a measly eight percent of practices and five percent of programs got NIJ’s “effective” nod. Even then, there seems to be pitifully little to brag about. Consider the well-regarded Boston program. While the difference between clients’ 77.8 percent re-arrest rate and the comparison group’s 87.7 percent rate may be statistically significant, its real-world implications are less than compelling. Even so, the program’s academic evaluators seemed highly impressed. Here are their journal article’s (“Controlling Violent Offenders Released to the Community: An Evaluation of the Boston Reentry Initiative”) final words:

...these findings suggest that individualized treatment plans, facilitated by mentors and supported by a network of criminal justice, social service, and community-based organizations, can positively affect gang-involved offenders returning to high-risk communities. Effective gang violence prevention policy should focus on developing programs that facilitate prosocial transitions for gang-involved inmates after release from incarceration.

As bad old “police science and administration” (your blogger’s undergrad major) gave way to the modern disciplines of criminal justice and criminology, university programs began looking on policing – indeed, all forms of social control – far more skeptically. Consider, for example, a recent lead story in John Jay college’s The Crime Report, “Why Re-Arrest Doesn’t Mean You’re a Failure.” Its source, an extensive essay by Professor Cecelia M. Klingele in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, argues that re-arrest is a poor proxy of recidivism, as it fails to consider positive “life changes” and unspecified “nuances” that would yield a more accurate assessment of desistance from crime. (And, one might assume, a far more upbeat one as well.)

While fine-tuning our measurement tools might yield some benefits, all this newfangled sophistication threatens to distract us from the reason we bothered in the first place. Whether recidivism stands at 77.8 or 87.7 percent, it’s flesh-and-blood people who pay the price. Powerful real-world examples of the human costs of crime, such as those that kicked off this essay, feed the fire of advocacy groups positioned well to the right of The Crime Report. Say, The Manhattan Institute. Its recent missive, “Issues 2020: Mass Decarceration Will Increase Violent Crime,” uses arrest, sentencing and reoffending data to argue that “given the extremely high rates of recidivism,” backing off on imprisonment can only lead to more suffering.

Consider the story of Shomari Legghette. Thanks to his early release from prison, the four-time loser with convictions for armed robbery, guns, drugs and assault was running loose on Chicago’s streets. On February 13, 2019 he was approached by officers who wanted to question him about some recent gunplay. Legghette ran off, and when confronted by police commander Paul Bauer, who happened to be nearby, the forty-four year old chronic offender pulled a gun and repeatedly fired, incflicting fatal wounds. (For an account of Leggett’s troubled life – in his own words, no less – click here.)

Full stop. Let’s look at some numbers. This graph uses LAPD’s UCR data to depict the city’s violent crime trend from 2010 thru 2018, the latest full year available:

“The Blame Game” mentions three key easings during this period: a 2011 act (AB 109, the “Public Safety Realignment Act”) that shifted confinement and supervision of “non-serious, non-violent” felons from state prisons and parole agents to county jails and probation officers; Proposition 47, a 2014 measure that reduced many felonies to misdemeanors; and, two years later, Proposition 57, which reduced sentences and facilitated early parole.

What caused the sharp, post-2013 uptick? Cops, prosecutors and the state peace officer’s association would say: “all three.” Their angst isn’t purely based on numbers. Consider, for example, Michael Mejia. After doing three years for robbery, the 26-year old Southern California resident was arrested for grand theft auto and served another two years. After his release he committed a string of violations. In the old days Mejia would have been returned to prison, but thanks to A.B. 109 he merely landed in county jail, and for brief periods, at that. On February 20, 2017 Mejia gunned down his cousin and stole a car. He then shot and killed veteran Whittier, Calif. police officer Keith Boyer and seriously wounded his partner.

Whittier’s grieving chief and the L.A. County Sheriff laid blame on California’s legal retrenchments. Sheriff Jim McDonnell complained that his jails had become a “default state prison” and that thanks to the letup, “we’re putting people back on the street that aren’t ready to be back on the street.”

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Not everyone sees it that way. According to the liberally-inclined Public Policy Institute of California, the uptick in violence was already in progress when Proposition 47, which it supports, came to be. That view was supported by researchers at UCI’s School of Social Ecology, who found no difference when comparing 2015 crime rates between California and “synthetic” equivalent states with like demographics but no changes in the laws. (Yes, that’s 2015 only.) Punching back, a conservative Oakland-based group, the Independent Institute, pointed out that property crimes such as car burglaries also surged after Prop. 47 took effect. In June 2018, the Public Policy Institute partly conceded. Yes, early releases may have somewhat increased offending, but only of the “property” kind. As for the spike in violence, that’s an artifact of changes in crime defining and reporting. And don’t fret, they added: recidivism is on the way down.

We’ll wait while the blues and the reds duke it out. And keep an ear to what’s happening in New York. On January 1st. a bail reform law went into effect, eliminating cash bail for misdemeanors and “non-violent” felonies, including some robberies and burglaries. That’s led to the release of many arrestees pending trial and, as the New York Times recently reported, is putting authorities “on edge”:

A few liberal prosecutors, including the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, have embraced the changes, pointing to states that saw lower crime rates after they eliminated cash bail. But many prosecutors and police officials worry that some defendants released under the new rules will continue to commit crimes....

Really.

UPDATES (scroll)

4/7/25 At the end of first term, outgoing President Trump commuted politically-connected Jonathan Braun’s 10-year Federal drug smuggling sentence. Braun was granted supervised release. But since then, he’s been repeatedly arrested for committing assaults; his most recent victim was a 3-year old child. Appearing before a judge on that charge, he flipped off the courtroom. Concerned that “someone could really get hurt,“ D.C. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto ordered that Braun be held. Without bail.

3/7/25 In 2018, a California Appellate decision required that San Francisco judges set bail based on the accused’s ability to pay. A 2021 California Supreme Court decision later extended this rule to the whole State. Just published in Criminology & Public Policy, a study of the rule’s effects found that defendants who benefited from these decisions and gained pre-trial release became less likely to plead guilty and suffer a conviction. But the liberalization did not significantly affect the likelihood that they would be arrested or convicted in the future.