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Posted 11/20/24

CITIZEN MISBEHAVIOR BREEDS VOTER DISCONTENT

Progressive agendas face rebuke in even the “Bluest” of places

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. This image from Google maps depicts a modest home in a working-class area of Los Angeles. We’ll have more to say about it later. But let’s begin with a major California city that’s even “Bluer” than L.A. We mean, of course, San Francisco. That’s where ardently progressive Mayor London Breed just lost her bid to continue serving the City by the Bay. While the victor, Daniel Lurie (a heir to the Levi Strauss fortune) is also “Blue”, he prides himself as being a moderate sort. In fact, his avowed goals of “restoring safety, ending homelessness and shutting down open-air drug markets” actually led the “Reds” to anoint him as their number-one pick.

     Across the Bay the story was much the same. Voters in “Blue” Oakland recalled Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County Dist. Atty. Pamela Price, two strong liberal voices who had only been in office since 2022. According to a spokesperson for the Mayoral recall, Oakland’s progressives “did the same thing they did in San Francisco. They ignored the crime. They ignored the poverty.”

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     Ditto, L.A. That’s where voters just handed D.A. George Gascon an overwhelming thumbs-down. A nationally-known progressive, his liberal policies, which forbid  charging juveniles as adults, barred the prosecution of a wide range of misdemeanors, and disallowed the use of sentence enhancements, made more than a few assistant D.A.’s livid. In his place the electorate installed Nathan Hochman. A former Federal prosecutor and (surprise!) defense lawyer, his campaign pledge to cast aside Gascon’s permissive agenda drew fervent support from police and, as one might expect, from the D.A.’s disgruntled subordinates. And ultimately from the public, who handed the self-avowed crime fighter a twenty-percentage point margin.

     And that’s not all. By an even greater margin of 40 percent California voters hollowed out a decade-old progressive measure, Proposition 47, that had watered down punishments for theft and drug crimes. Spanking-new Proposition 36 addressed the alleged consequences – a plague of smash-and-grabs that continues to beset retailers – by increasing penalties for group thefts and designating all thefts committed by repeaters as felonies. To combat the fentanyl and hard-drugs scourge that plagues the Golden State, punishments for drug dealing were also substantially stiffened.

     Still, even if true, Mr. Hochman’s reassurance that cops’ hands won’t be “tied” during his shift at best offers an incomplete solution. According to newly-appointed LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, the failure to prosecute “low-level” offending (read: bad-old George Gascon) made victims less likely to call police. Their reluctance to report crimes, he fears, has become so deeply entrenched that it’s actually exaggerated the magnitude of the so-called “crime drop.”

     Chief McDonnell wants citizens to call the cops even for relatively minor crimes. Problem is, the reluctance to prosecute may have made cops reluctant to act. In any event, what ultimately happens has never been controlled by the first two wheels of the criminal justice system. Courts with judges and a correctional system with probation and parole agents occupy the really definitive end. Even if cops and assistant D.A.’s do their very best, the consequences of criminal misconduct are for others to decide. As we’ve frequently pointed out, those “consequences” often seem insufficient, sometimes wildly so. Check out our November 8, 2024 update to “A Broken System”:

Darion C. McMillian, 23, was recently released from parole after being imprisoned for a 2019 shooting. And on November 4 he was on electronic monitoring for a pending drug case when Chicago police officers approached the double-parked car that he occupied. McMillian opened fire with a pistol converted by a “switch” to full-auto, killing Officer Enrique Martinez and, apparently by accident, the driver of his own vehicle. McMillian fled but was soon arrested. Officer Martinez, himself a young person, had less than three years on the job.

Soon after completing his parole term for the 2019 shooting, a crime for which he served four years in prison, McMillian picked up two arrests for felony drug offenses. Both times he was released with an ankle monitor to await further proceedings. He would soon use a homemade machinegun to murder Chicago police officer Enrique Martinez. A felon’s compassionate treatment was arguably responsible for a young officer’s violent death. And there’s been political consequences. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive figure who’s considered no friend of the police, caught a lot of flack. Here’s what Hizzoner announced a few days before the fallen officer’s funeral:

I heard from the family and am honoring their request and will no longer plan to attend the honors funeral services.

     Back to L.A. And to our image of that house. On November 7, 2024 its 93-year old resident told LAPD officers that she was hearing “knocking sounds” from underneath. Officers discovered that a 27-year old man had taken up residence in the crawl space. After “an hours-long standoff,” the naked trespasser

emerged. His L.A. Superior Court record is summarized above. As one might expect, his most recent tangle wasn’t his first. Also note that his record includes a felony conviction for crimes including “elder abuse,” which led to a prison term. His most recent offending – that crawl space thingy – is “only” a misdemeanor. So he was released, with a court date in December.

     Care to wager on his behavior until then?

     As we’ve repeatedly pointed out (see, for example, “Catch and Release,”) even chronic evildoers get breaks. Here, for instance, is our November 4, 2024 update to “A Broken System”:

Nineteen-year old Nhazel Warren had recent arrests for gun possession and fleeing when officers caught him illegally packing a pistol in July. He was released with an ankle monitor. Warren then committed a home invasion. He was arrested and released on bond and, again, with an ankle monitor. He went on to commit several more armed robberies; his most recent arrest was a week ago. Again, he was released on bond. And again, with a monitor. All along, Warren was supposedly being monitored by the Probation Dept. But there’s no record that they ever put his “tracking” devices to work.

Warren’s most recent release, which followed his reportedly fifth armed robbery arrest, was on $150,000 bail. Again, care to wager on how he’ll behave?

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     Misbehavior by releasees is commonplace. There’s a reason why one of our related posts (see below) was entitled “Cause and Effect.” Whether cops and prosecutors will vigorously address “lower level” offenses – and whether repeaters will be strictly dealt with by judges and agencies of supervision – is yet to be seen. Hopefully the measures promised by L.A.’s new D.A. and police chief will take hold, and there will be no need for us to wag “naughty, naughty” again.

     Check back!

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A Broken System     Cause and Effect     More Criminals (On the Street,) Less Crime?

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WANT BROTHERLY LOVE? DON’T BE POOR!

Violence is down in Philly, L.A. and D.C. Have their poor noticed?

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel.  Crime is reportedly down across the U.S. Comparisons between 2022-2023 reveal improvements in many violence-beset cities. Say, Philadelphia, where homicides plunged from 514 to 410. Less crime-struck places also got better. Murders fell from 438 to 386 in New York City and from 391 to 329 in Los Angeles.

     Yes, crime and violence have fluctuated over time. Spikes in violence brought on by the pandemic continue to affect large metropolitan areas. While Philadelphia residents seem much better off today than in 2021, when they endured 562 homicides, The City of Brotherly Love had “only” 280 killings in 2015. Still, 104 fewer residents lost their lives last year. That’s inherently meaningful. And the seemingly favorable trend continues. According to the City Controller, in 2024 Philadelphia experienced 193 fatal shootings thru October 2. That’s a stunning 42 percent fewer than on that day in 2023.

     Problem is, the benefits aren’t equally distributed. In 2023 Philadelphia suffered 1,666 “criminal shootings” (375 fatal; 1,291 nonfatal; fatal.) across its 45 ZIP Codes. The five most prosperous ZIP’s (left table, bottom row), average poverty 7.8 percent, suffered a cumulative 30 shootings, producing a rate of 19.2 per/100,000 residents. In contrast, the five neediest ZIP’s (right table, bottom row), average poverty 39.3 percent, endured a stunning 521 shootings. Philadelphia’s most economically-deprived residents were burdened with a per/100,000 pop. shooting rate of 246.3, nearly thirteen times worse than what their counterparts experienced.

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     And what about 2024? According to the Controller, the city suffered 838 shootings thru Sept. 30, 2024 (174 were fatal; 664 were nonfatal.) That’s about half the total number of shootings in 2023, so the trend seems favorable. Alas, benefits remained unequally distributed. Through Sept. 30, the five most prosperous ZIP’s had 8 shootings, producing a nine-month rate of 5.1 per/100,000. Their five counterparts suffered a grisly 240 shootings, yielding a nine-month rate of 113.5. That’s more than twenty-two times worse.

     Who really profits from “the great crime drop”?  After all, income-based disparities are by no means unique to Philadelphia. Los Angeles is served by twenty-one geographical police Divisions. They suffered a total of 329 homicides in 2023. Murder rates for each Division were computed using LAPD’s 2023 homicide report, its Division population counts and Census poverty data.

     Comparing the five LAPD Divisions at each end of the prosperity scale yields a contrast that’s shades of Philly. In 2023 LAPD’s five most prosperous Divisions, Pacific, Foothill, West L.A., West Valley and Devonshire (left table, bottom row), avg. poverty 9.8 percent, suffered an aggregate 38 homicides. That produced a murder rate of 3.5 per/100,000 residents. In sharp contrast, the five Divisions at the other end of the wealth scale, Rampart, Southeast, Southwest, Central and Newton (right table, bottom row), avg. poverty 26.6 percent, suffered 125 murders. That yields a homicide rate of 17 per/100,000, nearly five times worse. Like Philly, these hazards to life and limb continued into 2024. Although the number of homicides has trended down, the difference in the burden between affluent and poor  increased to six-times-plus (respective rates 1.9 and 12.2).

     Ditto, the District of Columbia. In 2023 its eight Wards endured a nearly lock-step relationship between poverty and homicide. Its four most affluent Wards (left table, bottom row), average poverty 5.1 percent, suffered an aggregate murder rate of 14.8 per/100,000 residents. In contrast, the four Wards on the economically-downtrodden extreme (right table, bottom row), average poverty 14.1 percent, endured a stunning homicide rate of 65.2 per/100,000. That’s more than four times worse. And while homicide seems to be substantially down in 2024, the poorer Wards continue to struggle with a murder rate that’s four times higher (partial-year rates 9.4 v. 37.7).

     In March, 2023 Philadelphia’s Lenfest Institute for Journalism published the results of a community poll about the issues facing the city. “Crime and public safety” topped the list of citizen concerns. Black persons and residents of the city’s less-prosperous areas were far more likely to complain about the effects of gun violence. Ditto, Los Angeles. After an outbreak of shootings in the chronically poor, violence-beset Watts area last year, the leader of an L.A. peace coalition told the Los Angeles Times that citywide drops in violence “don’t necessarily reflect our reality.” His views were echoed by a gang interventionist. “It’s time for our children to be able to play outside, be able to walk to and from school safely…This isn’t a color thing.”

     What can be done? Post-George Floyd, tactics such as stop-and-frisk have fallen out of favor. While some beleaguered places (i.e., Philadelphia, L.A. and D.C.) have embarked on a cautious re-set, aggressively policing violence-stricken neighborhoods inevitably leads to tangles with citizens. Officers are human, and frequently clashing with non-compliant souls can cause them to form stereotypes and develop attitudes that potentially distort all encounters. Black and Hispanic persons, who disproportionately inhabit poorer areas, are inevitably affected.

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     Improving the safety of economically-fraught neighborhoods clearly calls for a lot more than policing. L.A.’s impacted Watts residents offered two fixes: jobs and the economy. A landmark study by the Urban Institute found that properly addressing “distressed urban neighborhoods” requires a concerted effort to provide educational opportunities, job training, housing, child care, and the physical and mental health supports that are crucial to well-being. So here’s an idea. It’s become commonplace to partner officers with mental health professionals. Why not get social workers to ride along, as well? Once an immediate problem is under control, a knowledgeable specialist can assess things and start the complex and demanding process of getting a family – and its misbehaving members – the assistance they need.

     Improving the dynamics of urban areas requires that we look within. “Cities” are constructs. As we’ve repeatedly emphasized, it’s neighborhoods that really, really matter. So let’s start there!

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IS CRIME REALLY DOWN? IT DEPENDS…

Even when citywide numbers improve, place really, really matters

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. Finally, some good news. And from our Chief’s inner circle, no less! According to the deputy head of the spanking-new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Baltimore’s drop in killings is “the greatest success story” in the land. Indeed, its 2023 murder count of 262 is the “Charm City’s” lowest toll since 1970. Baltimore’s most recent quarterly numbers are also supposedly very promising. (For more trumpeting about the city’s comeback check out “With Baltimore homicides dropping below 300, who gets to take credit?”).

     We’ve often mentioned Baltimore’s struggle with crime and violence (see, for example, “Police Slowdowns, Part I.”) So the reported improvement was of great interest. Alas, the apparent turnaround came on the heels of some very bad news about our home burg. During his recent interview by the Los Angeles Times, LAPD interim Chief Dominic Choi observed that while his city’s violent crime numbers are about the same as last year, murders did increase about eleven percent when compared to the first half of 2023.

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     Chief Choi’s comments definitely got our attention. After all, if that spurt in killings continues, it could thrash L.A.’s reputation. But before bringing out the tinsel (for Baltimore) and the hankies (for L.A.) let’s see how they compare with other major burg’s. Say, Chicago and New York City. Cranking up our calculator (well, an Excel spreadsheet) we assembled 2015-2023 homicide counts for Baltimore, L.A., New York City and Chicago. Data came from the UCR, the Baltimore Sun, Chicago P.D., the L.A. Almanac, and the City of New York. And since the cities differ in size, rates were computed using population figures from the Census. Here’s the product:

     Each city has demonstrated substantial progress. Baltimore’s homicide numbers, for example, declined by 22.5 percent between 2021-2023. But disparities in population size can deceive. Switch to the graph on the right. Improvements notwithstanding, Baltimore wound up with a sky-high rate of 44.7 homicides per 100,000 residents. That’s twice that of bad-old Chicago. It’s also more than five times L.A.’s rate and ten times the Big Apple’s.

     Yikes.

     So is crime really on the mend? And if so, for whom? After a decade-and-a-half of poring through crime data, we’re convinced that (as our subtitle insists) place really, really matters. That, indeed, was the title of our 2020 post, “Place Matters”. To take in-depth looks within Baltimore and Los Angeles we compiled homicide counts for each city during the first four months of 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Each city’s population was split into high-poverty (red) and a low-poverty (green) groups of approximately equal size, and four-month (i.e., partial year) homicide rates were computed for each.

• Baltimore crime data came from its city website. We coded each homicide location’s ZIP code and obtained its poverty rate from the Census. To correct for ZIP’s that cross city boundaries, their percentage of Baltimore’s population was obtained from US Zip Codes. Baltimore residents were assigned to two groups of approximately equal size: those living within ZIP’s with poverty rates between 5.4% and 19.1%, and those residing in ZIP’s with poverty rates between 21.5% and 40.8%.
   
• Los Angeles crime data was also pulled from the city website. Homicide locations were coded for a police Division, and rates were computed rates using LAPD Division population and poverty figures from our 2023 post, “Does Race Drive Policing?”. As in Baltimore, L.A. residents were split into two groups of about the same size: residents of LAPD Divisions with poverty rates between 7.2% and 13.6%, and residents of Divisions with poverty rates between 14% and 36.3%. Here are the products:

     What’s the uptake? Despite a small, recent increase in homicide rates in L.A.’s lower-poverty zone, January thru April murder rates have improved for both cities since 2022. Still, poverty matters. A lot. Residents of Baltimore’s higher-poverty ZIP’s have consistently suffered from homicide rates that are at least twice as high as those endured by their more fortunate peers. Meanwhile, in comparatively tony Los Angeles, the proportionate disadvantage between affluent and not-so-affluent Divisions is about three-fold.

     And as far as comparing Baltimore and Los Angeles…fuhgeddaboudit!

     Residents of economically-deprived areas are well aware of their vulnerability. Say, the residents of Baltimore’s “Brooklyn Homes” neighborhood, where more than one in four live in poverty. That’s where on July 2, 2023 as many as ten shooters opened fire during a yearly celebration, killing two and wounding twenty-eight. According to the AP, the carnage – reportedly Baltimore’s worst-ever mass shooting – took place during the same week that the Feds bragged about reducing violence in the beset city. Their “success” was clearly lost on the war-weary sixty-six year old who bandaged the leg of a wounded teen. “They don’t even know what life is, they don’t,” she lamented. “All they know is guns.”

     Her son and grandson were killed in prior shootings.

     Violence and hooliganism don’t just plague Baltimore. “The safety numbers that are reflected citywide don’t necessarily reflect our reality.” Last year, after a shooting that wounded nine and killed two, that’s how the executive director of L.A.’s Urban Peace Institute described the gap between the city’s favorable overall numbers and life in violence-beset Watts. Burdened with a poverty rate of 21.9%, residents of LAPD’s 77th Street area endure one of the five highest homicide rates out of 21 LAPD Divisions. Switch to another member of the murderous “bottom five”, the adjoining Southeast area (poverty 23.7%). Click on the image to check out what happened at a local auto parts store this June.

     Of course, it’s not just poor areas. As we recently reported, violent crime has a way of intruding into assumedly “safe” places. Say, the upscale L.A. suburb of Tustin (poverty, 10.1%) where an off-duty member of the President’s Secret Service detail was accosted by an armed robber. (He’s still on the lam). Or, say, L.A.’s affluent Venice neighborhood (poverty 9.8%), which features miles of canals lined with “multimillion dollar homes.” That’s where a brutal attack on two middle-aged residents by a homeless man left the “shaken community” struggling with how to respond to the unhoused in their midst.

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     Crime and violence have a way of intruding just about anywhere. But the profound advantages that prosperous areas enjoy – not only in Baltimore and L.A., but everywhere – offers an obvious path for improvement. Here’s a closing shot from the closing shot in “Fix Those Neighborhoods!” (November, 2020):

…here’s a hint for Mr. Biden, who absent a coup, will assume the throne in January. Your predecessor talked up a good idea. Alas, it was just that: “talk.” America urgently needs to invest in its impoverished neighborhoods. A comprehensive “Marshall Plan” that would raise the educational and skill levels and improve the job prospects, lives and health of the inhabitants of these chronically distressed places seems the logical place to start.

     If you come up with a better solution, be sure to let us know!

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DE-PROSECUTION? WHAT’S THAT?

Philadelphia’s D.A. eased up on lawbreakers. Did it increase crime?

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel.  The slugfest between academics kicked off in July 2022. That’s when Criminology & Public Policy published Thomas P. Hogan’s “De-prosecution and death: A synthetic control analysis of the impact of de-prosecution on homicides”. Mr. Hogan, a lawyer, has served as a Federal prosecutor and D.A. He holds a Master’s in criminology and is a skilled statistician. His deeply-researched article, which focused on Philadelphia’s purposeful throttling back of felony and misdemeanor prosecutions between 2015-2019, compared its criminal homicide numbers and case characteristics with those of the other largest 100 U.S. cities, applying elaborate controls on everything from demographics to prosecutorial policies and resources. He concluded that Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner’s policy of de-prosecution, which he instituted in February 2018, only a month after taking office, had caused a “historically large increase in homicides” of about 74 more per year.

     And yes, there was blowback. In an elaborate critique, “De-prosecution and death: A comment on the fatal flaws in Hogan (2022)”, researchers Jacob Kaplan, J.J. Naddeo and Tom Scott argued that methodological and data issues essentially nullified Mr. Hogan’s findings. In a prompt and mind-numbingly elaborate rejoinder, “De-Prosecution and A Cordial Reply to Kaplan, Naddeo and Scott,” Mr. Hogan countered that it was the critique that was fatally flawed. Among its other failings, it supposedly relied on severe undercounts of Philadelphia homicides. He insisted that once these (and many other) errors were corrected, the contrarians actually lent his conclusions even more weight. He also insisted that his findings were not surprising. After all, they're consistent with the classic model of deterrence, which is based on “swiftness and certainty of apprehensions, then leading to sanctions”

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     Concerns about the effects of de-prosecution have drawn the attention of other academics. A new essay in Criminology & Public Policy, “Do progressive prosecutors increase crime? A quasi‐experimental analysis of crime rates in the 100 largest counties, 2000–2020”, concludes that progressive prosecutorial policies led to a statistically significant seven-percent jump in property (but not violent) crime rates.

     Slugfest over “cause” aside, what’s not at issue is that the alleged “effect” – an increase in violence – did take place, and that Philadelphia’s steep rise has been more-or-less in sync with its progressive D.A.’s tenure. Elected in a community where “Blues” outnumber the “Reds” seven to one, Mr. Krasner took office in January 2018 vowing to tone down the harsh, punitive policies of his predecessors. He was re-elected in 2021, and his current, second term will end in 2026.

     We used Philadelphia PD data to build this graph. After a steep retreat in 2013, when murders reached a low of 246, criminal homicides began to increase. In 2017 there were 315, and by the end of 2018 – Mr. Krasner’s first full year in office – they reached 353. After remaining at that level through 2019, murders really took off. In pandemic-addled 2020 they numbered 499, a single-year increase of 41 percent. And they kept going up, reaching a decade-and-a-half high of 562 in 2021. Things then toned down, and by 2023 killings were “only” sixteen percent higher than in 2019.

     Full stop. The pandemic supposedly increased violence everywhere. Switching to murder rates per 100,000 population, let’s bring in two demographically similar, violence-prone places, D.C. and Chicago. Check out this graph (click here for Philadelphia stat’s, here for Chicago, and here for D.C.)

As one would expect, each city experienced a substantial uptick during 2019-2020. Chicago’s rates increased the most, by 10.4 points. Philadelphia came in second at 8.8 points, and D.C. was third with 4.3 points.  Murders in Chicago and Philadelphia have since eased back. But as we recently mentioned in “America’s Violence-Beset Capital City”, D.C.’s criminal homicide count shot through the roof.

     Note that killings in Chicago and Philadelphia track quite closely. Might that bring the “cause” behind Philly’s increase (de-prosecution) into question? Actually, Chicago’s experience lends support to Mr. Hogan’s thesis. You see, Kim Foxx, its elected D.A., has also come under severe fire for her progressivism. While the political blow-back has been most harsh from “Red” ideological sorts, former members of her own staff have roundly blamed her for the Windy City’s violence problem.

     Philly, meet Chicago!

     The reasons for Philadelphia’s sharp, post-2018 spike in violent crime was ultimately addressed by State legislators. Pennsylvania House Resolution 216, adopted during the 2021-2022 session, established a committee to “investigate, review and make findings and recommendations concerning rising rates of crime, law enforcement and the enforcement of crime victim rights.” Issued in October 2022, its “Second Interim Report” blamed  D.A. Krasner’s progressive policies. Among many other things, he had prohibited assistant D.A.’s from charging crimes relating to marijuana or prostitution, strongly discouraged them from prosecuting lesser retail thefts, and severely limited requests to impose cash bail. More than a few prosecutors had objected. Thirty-one were promptly fired:

One of the 31 ADAs let go by DA Krasner in his first week in office told the Select Committee that DA Krasner’s mismanagement led to an office that is essentially full of defense attorneys who just want to get defendants out of jail.

     It’s not just Philadelphia and Chicago. Many current and former deputies have criticized Los Angeles County D.A. George Gascon for a “soft on crime” approach that, among other things, limits the use of sentence enhancements and prohibits transferring juveniles to adult court. Several sued alleging that he retaliated against them for opposing his policies; one was just awarded $1.5 million. Although a recall campaign failed, Gascon faces eleven challengers in the forthcoming primary. His prospects are decidedly uncertain.

     Posts in Police Issues’ “Neighborhoods” special topic frequently comment on the strong link between violence and poverty. Police precincts in economically downtrodden areas throughout the U.S. report substantially higher rates of murder, aggravated assault and robbery. For example, check out recent probes of D.C. (“America’s Violence-Beset Capital City”) and New York City and Los Angeles (“See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil”). Philadelphia is no exception. These graphs use Philadelphia’s official crime data to illustrate the relationship between poverty and criminal homicide during the first three months of 2013, 2018, 2023 and 2024 (each murder is a “dot”). Addresses were coded for their Zip’s, and Zip  poverty figures were drawn from the Census.

We computed the r (correlation) statistic between poverty and murder for each of the four three-month datasets. It ranges from zero, meaning no relationship between variables, to plus or minus 1, meaning a perfect association. In 2013 the relationship, r= .50, was of moderate strength. Generally, as poverty increased, so did homicide. By 2018 their link had become stronger, producing an r  of .69. And the correlations in 2023 and 2024 (.73 and .74) were even more substantial. Bottom line: residents of Philadelphia’s poorer areas were disproportionately affected by murder from the start. And things only got worse.

     According to Zipcodes.com, Philadelphia has 46 residential Zip’s. We broke them down into low- and high-poverty groups (less than or more than 20 percent poverty), then used population figures to compute homicide rates per 100,000 population for each:

One caveat is that a few Zip’s extend beyond the city limits, so some murder counts may be slightly understated. That aside, there is a profound difference in murder rates between better-off Zip’s and their economically-struggling counterparts. In 2013 the average murder rate for all 46 Zip’s was 3.5. But the average rate for the poorer (4.8) was two-and-one-half times that of the wealthier (1.9). And it got worse. In 2023 the disparity (1.5/10.5) was seven-fold, and in 2024 it was nearly six-fold (1.2/7.0). That’s why the r’s got so pronounced.

     Once again: residents of poorer areas got the short end of the stick from the very start. And things got worse over time. Much worse.

     No, we’re not blaming it all on de-prosecution. According to NIJ, “the likelihood of being caught and punished” are crucial to deterrence. That automatically brings cops into the picture:

The police deter crime when they do things that strengthen a criminal’s perception of the certainty of being caught. Strategies that use the police as “sentinels,” such as hot spots policing, are particularly effective.

An article just published in Criminology & Public Policy, “Can increasing preventive patrol in large geographic areas reduce crime?”, concludes that “increased police presence and increased police patrols” (say, a so-called “hot spots” approach) led to statistically significant reductions in both property and violent crime. And when cops (perhaps driven by the likelihood that D.A.’s won’t prosecute) step back, the consequences can be dramatic. “When police pull back: Neighborhood-level effects of de-policing on violent and property crime” examined the effects in Denver. A post-Floyd decrease in traffic and pedestrian stops (there were 32,000 fewer in 2020) was significantly associated with an increase in violent crime. And the corresponding drop in drug arrests was tied to an increase in property crime.

     Bottom line: “de-policing” is probably more likely than “de-prosecution” to encourage misbehavior. After declaring “a public safety emergency” in January, Philadelphia’s new Mayor, Cherelle Parker asked that officers return to using “stop and frisk,” a practice they had apparently discontinued after complaints it was being abused. The desire for a more active police presence is also percolating through violence-beset D.C. On March 11, Mayor Muriel Bowser signed “Secure D.C.” One of the massive bill’s provisions directs police to designate “drug-free zones” in areas troubled by crime and disorder. Another stipulates that violent crimes, whether committed by adults or juveniles, carry a “rebuttable presumption in favor of pretrial detention”. And a brand-new law invokes heavy penalties for directing organized retail theft.

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     A desire for more policing has even made itself felt in…San Francisco! Faced with a steep rise in drug use and homelessness, the most progressive major burg in progressive California recently loosened its reins on the cops. By a 60-40 majority, voters set aside a bucketful of rules that severely restricted what officers do and how they go about doing it. For example, instead of limiting pursuits to the most aggravated circumstances, cops can now chase if they have a “reasonable suspicion that a person committed, is committing or is likely to commit a felony or violent misdemeanor” (emphasis added).

     Your writer is for immediately de-commissioning de-prosecution (so long, Mr. Krasner!). It’s a lousy concept, and has probably led cops to pull back as well. After all, if a D.A. won’t follow through, why bother? As a former law enforcement practitioner he also supports focused policing; i.e., the “hot-spots” approach. Still, as our posts often point out, cops are human. And when some badge-wearers encounter uncompliant citizens, they seem unable to set aside their inner monsters. So before returning to a more aggressive posture, we’d prefer a pause. Let’s make a concerted effort to refine mechanisms, including selection, training and supervision, that can help officers take on – and maintain – the perspective of a skilled craftsperson at every encounter. Then, and only then, crank it back up.

     Deal?

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Want Brotherly Love? Don’t Be Poor!     Switching Sides     America’s Violence-Beset Capital City

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil     Full Stop Ahead     Cause and Effect     Hot Spots

AMERICA’S VIOLENCE-BESET CAPITAL CITY

Washington, D.C. is plagued by, among other things, murder.
Has the President noticed?

     For Police Issues by Julius (Jay) Wachtel. “We need the National Guard in D.C.” Recently delivered to reporters for the Washington Post, Councilmember Trayon White Sr.’s sobering call to arms aptly conveyed how citizens and officials feel about the Capital District’s unending struggle against crime and violence

     Just how bad are things? Using numbers from the Census,  the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer and agency websites, here’s where D.C.’s 2010-2023 homicide rates per 100,000 population sit on Police Issues’ list of “usual suspects”:

Between 2010-2021, D.C. and each of its companions except the Big Apple experienced steady upticks in homicide. But things turned around in 2022 when all but chronically crime-ridden Detroit enjoyed a decline. That so-called “great crime drop” continued in 2023. This time it included Detroit, where the murder rate fell 18.5 percent. But our nation’s capital was sadly left out. During 2023 D.C.’s murder rate increased by an astounding one-third, winding up only two-tenths of a point short of Detroit’s. According to the Post, “the District was deadlier than 55 of the country’s 60 most populous cities, behind only New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore and Memphis.”

Click here for the complete collection of crime & punishment essays

     Alas, the Post didn’t publish its data. Usual suspects aside, where does the District sit, crime-wise, among the nation’s major cities? With many agencies, including our hometown LAPD, still not fully aboard the NIBRS, we turned to the Major City Chiefs Association (MCCA). According to its most recent tally, which reports violent crimes from January thru September 2022 and 2023, the news for D.C. really is all bad. Using population figures, we calculated homicide and robbery rate per 100,000 residents and the percent change between 2022-2023 for the MCCA’s fifty-eight member cities. Again, note that these are nine-month rates. Here are comparos between Jan-Sept. 2022 and Jan-Sept. 2023 for the ten cities at each extreme of the murder and robbery spectrums:

As of September 30, 2023, Washington D.C. was “only” seventh worst murder-wise. Note that its rate increased thirty-seven percent in 2023, the most recorded by any of its counterparts. Ditto its astounding 67.5 percent leap in robbery, which helped it land in third place, robbery-wise. (We left out aggravated assault. Our review of pre- and post-2019 NIBRS numbers suggested that some agencies have been defining it differently.)

     Police Issues is far less concerned with aggregate crime rates than with what’s happening in the neighborhoods where people actually live. As our Neighborhoods essays frequently point out – most recently, in “See No Evil – Hear no Evil – Speak no Evil” –  economically-challenged places have always absorbed most of the brunt. D.C. councilmember White had plentiful reason to speak out. D.C. has eight Wards, and his – the Eighth – happens to carry the distinction of being the most dangerous.

     Just how dangerous?

     We downloaded 2023 crime data from Open Data DC. Our graph and table on the left report full-year rates/100,000 pop. for Homicide, Robbery and Aggravated Assault. And the graph on the right displays 2022 poverty percentages for each of the District’s eight Wards:

Sure enough, the Eighth can’t be beat. Its homicide rate is twice that of its closest competitor, the Seventh. By a comfortable margin, the Eighth is also worst in aggravated assaults and comes in second to the Seventh in robbery. Now check out poverty. The violence-ridden Seventh and Eighth Wards also happen to be (by far) the poorest, while the crime-free Third Ward is (surprise!) the most affluent. These graphs depict poverty's unholy influence on violent crime:

And just like in our previous forays (see, most recently, “Good News/Bad News”), the relationship between poverty and the serious property crime of burglary is far less pronounced:

The r coefficient is used to depict the strength of relationships (r’s range from zero, or none, to 1, or a perfect, lock-step association). All the r’s are “positive” (+), meaning that crime rates and percent in poverty increase and decrease together. But while poverty and violent crimes seem very closely associated, the relationship between poverty and burglary is only moderate.

     None of this should come as a surprise to the District’s political establishment and its hard-pressed residents. While the national media gloats about the supposedly steep decline in America’s crime rates (check out, say, NBC and ABC), the Washington Post keeps running stories about the District’s problems with violence. And yes, they have suggestions. A few days ago its editorial board penned “A Crime-free D.C. Starts With Drug-free Zones.” It favors having police (once again) designate “crime hot-spots” where drug possession and use are forbidden. And keeping persons accused of violent crimes in jail from arrest through trial. And broadening the definition of “carjacking.” And having all cases involving “organized retail theft” classified as felonies. And even getting cops to enforce the civil laws against fare evasion.

     Indeed, these provisions (and more) were part of “Addressing Crime Trends Now Act (ACT Now)”, a D.C. bill that Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced last October. Touted as “New Legislation to Support Safe and Effective Policing”, it would supposedly enhance “accountability for those who choose to commit crimes and inflict fear in our neighborhoods.” Long-standing legal constraints that have “made it more difficult for police to keep the community safe and hold criminals accountable for their actions” would also be relaxed:

The new legislation clarifies the distinction between a serious use of force and incidental contact with the neck, ensures officers can review their body-worn camera footage prior to writing their initial police report in certain circumstances, makes permanent clarification of vehicular pursuit, and defines what information will be posted publicly related to officer discipline and more.

      George Floyd forever altered the socio-political landscape in which cops work. One consequence was that police agencies across the U.S. abandoned long-standing practices such as stop-and-frisk. To be sure, after considerable fiddling, some cautiously returned them to the shelf. And as one would expect, there’s been blowback. Only two weeks before the Post’s editors championed “drug-free zones” its lowly reporters authored a story that concluded the Mayor and D.C. Council had “turned away from progressive strategies meant to ease the footprint of law enforcement in the community”. Hot-spots was back! (Officials, though, insist that its new, improved incarnation incorporates the very best aspects of “community policing”.)

     It’s not that we oppose being pro-active. After all, hot-spots does carry NIJ’s seal of approval. But several weeks ago, as we looked for something to write about, our attention fell on a Post reader’s skeptical reaction to the rebirth of “crime-free drug zones”:

I don’t think incarceration is going to do much but just fill prisons. But I don’t think excusing it and never calling out family structure break-down, kids with no boundary setting parents, etc, is the answer either. Because it’s my neighbors and my neighborhood and my community that winds up carrying the brunt of all of this weaponized empathy

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    Bingo! Let’s get back to the basics. Really, no matter how well policing is done, it’s not the ultimate solution. As we often do, let’s self-plagiarize from “Fix Those Neighborhoods!”:

Preventing violence is a task for society. As we’ve repeatedly pitched, a concerted effort to provide poverty-stricken individuals and families with child care, tutoring, educational opportunities, language skills, job training, summer jobs, apprenticeships, health services and – yes – adequate housing could yield vast benefits.

To be sure, the District would need a considerable chunk of change to give its needy neighborhoods a chance to prosper. Yet D.C. is America’s capital. It should exemplify our nation’s very best. Not, as things  stand, its very worst. (Well, almost very worst. Thanks, Detroit!). Perhaps Silly Circus (that’s what your author and his Federal colleagues called the Secret Service) could apprise the Chief of what’s happening all around him, twenty-four/seven. He obviously doesn’t know.

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Want Brotherly Love? Don’t Be Poor!     De-Prosecution? What’s That?     Shutting the Barn Door

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