Honestly, blaming it on the "Defund the police" movement is a lazy oversimplification. Even if cops decided to patrol or investigate less because of that movement, I wouldn't expect a massive spike in the murder rate. Sure, people might pick pockets or rob houses if they think nobody's watching, but murder?
Unfortunately I am not aware of professional studies of the matter. Perhaps there will never be. Given an academic system that is 99% affiliated with one political party, difficult to find people willing to scuttle their careers by researching topics that might place policies associated with that political party in anything but the most positive light.
https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_t...
Edit: Here is a chart showing sharp decline in 'officers in service' numbers in a progressive West Coast city that embraced 'defund the police':
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/10/after-september-s...
And the spike in murders in the same city:
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattlenews/article/2020-cri...
> Crime dashboard data shows that 52 homicides occurred in 2020 compared to 35 in 2019 — an increase of 48.57%.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article248169...
This is a straw man of the parent’s position. They say “ blaming it on the "Defund the police" movement is a lazy oversimplification”, not that it had “no effect whatsoever”.
It certainly seems plausible to me that having loads of people — particularly those in lower socio-economic strata - without employment for an extended period of time could certainly contribute to crime rate increases.
There’s no need for straw-manning/hysterics here, we can have a measured conversation or debate.
And given that the murder rate increase was national and not regional, it seems much more likely that it was nationally impacted. Maybe something like a pandemic which led to social stresses, economic stresses, and increases in gun purchases.
Another city in Washington, Spokane, saw about a tripling in homicides in 2020 and there was no "defund the police" movement in that city, no reduction in police force -- and also has a Republican mayor and a generally much more conservative take than Seattle.
You're simply reaching for a narrative rather than looking at the data.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-seat...
[2] https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/FinanceDepartm...
> Over 200 Seattle police officers quit amid nation protests, April 28, 2021
> Police Chief Adrian Diaz said Tuesday that the department is in a “staffing crisis” after more than 180 police officers quit last year and another 66 officers left their jobs so far this year, according to police data. “We are at record lows in the city right now. I have about 1,080 deployable officers. This is the lowest I’ve seen our department,” Diaz told KING-TV.
Why would the city lose 20% of its police force in 2 years? It is a mystery. What we know beyond reasonable doubt:
* The loss in deployable officers is not related to the City Council publicly embracing 'defund the police'.
* The loss in deployable officers has very little to do with the mysterious spike in murders that occurred during the same time period.
Obviously anyone that raises absolutely unfounded concerns around those points is just exhibiting hysteric lazy thinking.
You haven't shown the city council embraced defunding the police either. They cut a fraction of a percent from the police budget last year. Lots of cities had to make cuts to lots of departments. The $5.4 million the article said they fought about this year is under 2%. And it's just what the police spent over budget last year.[1]
[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-p...
You seem determined to ignore that the City Council did embrace 'defund the police', specifically a veto proof majority did vouch to pass a resolution to slash police funding by 50%. They eventually failed to pass it for whatever political reasons, but the intent is plain and clear. As a result police officers are resigning en-mass to distance themselves from the insanity. Perhaps you have an alternate explanation for the police exodus, please do share.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/22/seattle-poli...
Fort Worth increased police funding and had a larger murder rate increase than Seattle.[1] And I don't think Texas had stricter restrictions than Washington. That's just 1 example.
The summer protests kicked off the discussions about defunding police. Murder rates were higher already.[2]
The AP article said city council policies were 1 of 3 reasons Seattle police said they quit. A so called anti police climate in the city was another. Disagreements with department leadership was the last. It's worth noting they're under federal oversight for excessive force since 2012. They seem unwilling to admit they have a problem.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28643574
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/upshot/murders-rising-cri...
To think Bluebeard was rescuing us from the deleterious effects of too much CO2 in the air!
Being from New Orleans, a majority black city, its absolutely crazy to me that this is even a debate.
I think these BLM people seriously believe that police do more harm than good in black communities.
And they think that there's no co-orelation between funding and performance for the police.
> A repeat offender who was released from the King County Jail last weekend after attacking a security guard in Seattle was re-arrested a few hours later for a brutal attack that ended with that victim being hospitalized in intensive care, according to court documents and police.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/assault-suspect-leaves-...
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/abolitionist-candidates-runn...
1) Alternative first responder services, such as mental health experts to deescalate incidents that far too often end in tragedy 2) Invest in preventative measures to ensure communities and society at-large is healthy: provide educational, medical, and economic opportunities to materially improve people's lives
And more generally, police in America are long overdue for major reform. 'Qualified immunity' has let officers use violent and lethal force with impunity. They are supposed to be the trained professionals, yet their bar for use of force is _lower_ than an untrained civilian's. The oversight boards are a joke, with no teeth to actually hold police accountable. It's crazy when you think about all the principles espoused by America re: limited gov't and power to the People yet we have this superset class above the law they are meant to enforce. I expect them to be held to a higher standard, and to actually know the laws and people's rights so as not to infringe on them without consequence.
And from talking with a (civilian) criminologist inside SPD who studies this up close, the mentality of cops is disturbing — very 'us-vs-them' — they aren't 'peace officers' who 'protect and serve', but are above us and demand 'respect' and unquestioning compliance above all else. They're the high school bullies equipped with guns and a badge. Their training by US/Israeli ex-military is disturbing because they react to all of us a potential mortal threats rather than as a member of a common community. There's a reason we had Posse Comitatus, but now we've militarized police at the local level, and surprise — they act like it.
I enthusiastically am voting for NTK in the general. The fact is heavily-funded and well-armed police for decades _has not_ and cannot improve the situation anymore than the military occupation in Afghanistan did. Crime is a symptom of more systemic issues, particularly poverty and loss of faith in public institutions. In short, hopelessness and despair.
The scariest part about having my city's police force defunded (aside from cops not wanting to work here anymore) is the realization that my city council members are strongly influenced by the news cycles. News cycles can be tampered with. Truly, what is the news, but a way to tamper with our opinions? Opinions can be changed through repetition, and rage can be incited seemingly with little effort.
The modern warfront in the United States is our news feed. You can't exactly waltz an army into a country that's packing nukes. What you can do is hire an army to sway public opinion in a country in order to weaken them. Who knows, maybe next time we'll defund our military.
No, I think ignoring the facts is clinging to your ideology at all costs. Not many cities had official support? You can't be serious.
As the article says, murder is up more in cities with pop >100k. Under 25k, the murder rate rose 25%. In larger cities, up to 40%.
That is a substantial difference.
No one is claiming that some places had fewer murders than before. People are claiming that policies make differences (in this case, population size is a good correlate with party).
What's more likely?
1. High population size implies Democratic party policies implies less police funding implies higher murder rate
OR 2. High population size implies higher murder rate (potentially because of higher poor populations or more population density or many other reasons that aren't because of party).
Democratic party politics are correlated with higher population size. This is not controversial.
A high population size ought to correlate with more overall murders, but a similar murder rate. Moreover, in many countries, urban areas are less violent.
If you actually checked, then you'll see that Democratic and Republican controlled cities have seen an uptick in murder rate. In some cases, Republicans have a higher increase. So this isn't an issue with any particular party.
> in many countries, urban areas are less violent
This might be because of better mental healthcare, less drug/gang related violence, better gun control, or a variety of factors. If America had the same laws as other countries then this discrepancy would be strange however the US has been very slow at getting up to the current standards that most developed countries have adopted.
Believe it or not, there's a direct co-orelation between police having resources available to fight crime and reduced crime!
Crazy right?
But we can't eliminate the possibility that all those thousands of new murders were all done by racist police officers.
Has anyone looked into this?
Could be a huge story.
Wouldn't want anyone to get the crazy idea that police actually do good things for black communities.
"Cities Reverse Defunding the Police Amid Rising Crime"
1. Cities increase police funding in response to increased crime
2. Therefore, decreasing police funding increases crime.
However, 2. does not follow from 1, since many other factors affect crime rates, from legislation to enforcement and from social issues to societal issues.
In fact, even the inverse of 2. does not follow from 1: increasing police funding does not decrease crime rates.
If you disagree, please provide an academic source for the direct causal relationship between police funding and crime rate.
Can you explain why these leaders with highly paid staff of analysts who have way more knowledge and data, are doing this?
EDIT: while you're downvoting me, be sure to downvote the leaders and news media who lied to you as well.
"""In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would reinstate $92 million for a new precinct after scrapping the project last summer. The mayor of Baltimore, who led efforts as a city councilman to cut the police budget by $22 million last year, recently proposed a $27 million increase.
After attacks on Asian-Americans and a rise in homicides in Oakland, Calif., city lawmakers in April restored $3.3 million of the $29 million in police cuts, and the mayor is now proposing to increase the department’s budget by $24 million. Los Angeles’s mayor has proposed an increase of about $50 million after the city cut $150 million from its police department last year."""
Someone robbing houses is directly going to cause a massive uptick in violent crime. What if the resident is home and tries to defend themselves? The victim (of the home invasion) might shoot the invader in self-defense but be charged with murder anyway. Or the robber might kill the homeowner during a struggle even if they only intended to steal property initially.
Plus, people aren't inherently "good" and "bad" or "criminals and non-criminals". There's complexity to how being a victim of crime can lead a person to commit other crimes, how "non-violent" crimes can quickly become violent, etc.
Blaming "Defund the police" is kinda short-sighted, but certainly there have been massive shifts in how police see themselves, their jobs and their communities and how people see and interact with the police, and that those changes are part of the cascade of changes that lead to increases in murder rates.
We’re not served well by the constant prideful “we’re the greatest country in the world”. There are some wonderful things to be proud of.
However, the fact is, we’re a rather violent society. We’re a society that loves alcohol. We’re a very insecure people. We don’t get to the root of the problems. They are in the psyche.
But the bridge between alcohol and insecurity on one side and murder on the other that you seem to erect seems rather uncertain to me. Scandinavians drink like fish, suffer from a lot of seasonal depression, but their rates of murder aren't that high. Nor are rates of murder in rural USA regions originally settled by Scandinavians.
Murder seems to be strongly correlated with gang activity in the U.S.
How come that the entire political scene on all levels collapses into just two poles, with the predictable result that many places are de facto one party places?
Why doesn't America have local Ross Perots in various corners of the country, starting their own political parties specific for one place only?
In a multiparty system, it is much more normal to be a swing voter.
People take cues.
Moreover, we prefer to fix other people's problems (Iraq, Afghanistan) to fixing our internal problems.
We see this with charities too. Charities eagerly want to help out people who get whacked by natural disasters overseas. That's great and I'm sure those people appreciate it. Where are they they in the US taking care of our homeless, our veterans, our unemployed?
They give more shits about people losing their jobs in Timbuktu than they do about our own citizens losing jobs due to outsourcing and poor government policies.
1. We didn’t fix any problems in Iraq or Afghanistan. We made things worse. The reason was not really a preference, it was revenge, bad info, and protecting strategic reserves.
2. Charities do work locally. They also work internationally. If I am passionate about a specific issue, or about helping as many humans as possible, it’s not clear that it’s preferable to only help others after you’ve fixed all your internal problems.
I definitely agree that people take cues from their leaders. That’s why the investigation into January 6 is such a big deal.
The nature of our evolved brain prioritizes those proximate; I'm unclear of an argument why helping these people is superior, especially when you can make a bigger difference, more cheaply, by helping people in poorer countries.
> Do what you will there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient‘s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.
My personal view is help your local people first (no matter where you are) and others next. If you want to do good somewhere else the best way to do it is not via feelgood “remittances” but by going there and putting in the hard work, hiring locals, teaching locals, etc., so they may become self sufficient and not need ‘charity’.
Where is the pushback against those lies and collusion between the media and a candidate. It’s okay if 10 or 30% just ignore something because it’s not their bag, but 90% of the media refusing to cover it and denying it and all the fact checkers in cahoots?
I think that’s a big deal.
You may have some good points, but it's unlikely anyone will dig through your screed to be influenced by your ideas. (But thank you for at least making it short!)
And granted, I took some license but I wasn't intent on saying there was a literal agreement by the media and fact checkers, but that's like saying there is no pricing collusion between airlines -yeah, I'm sure they are not calling each other, but they are following each other's lead so to speak and that's what media and fact checkers do.
By 90% I mean exposure -Impressions and eyeballs. How many articles, tweets, reddits, etc.
The desire for truth is over.
Its a war of ideology now, which has never ended well historically.
I live in the suburbs and still visit family in Portland. Over the past few months, I've seen great improvements. There are no longer massive camps along 205, now it seems like a few sprinkled camps with four or five people, every half mile or so. I walked in Oak's Bottom (my kids attend Trackers school) and I saw three park rangers (not police) patrolling the park, querying people who camp there. I did not see any garbage inside the park at all, and this is a very dense forested park. I only saw one tent (I know there are more) but I do think the city has really made a concerted effort to break up large camps, remove garbage aggressively, and move people into temporary housing.
My point is that progress is being made. But, I often wonder if I'm not seeing all neighborhoods and if this is just happening in the wealthier neighborhoods. I do feel like the places in SE and NE that I go to, there are visible differences from even a few months back.
Maybe you feel like this is not the real story; if so, I'm interested in hearing that. I've been worried about my city for years, but I do feel like we are finally grappling with it as a society and making progress.
I find it way more likely, and interesting, that covid had a major role in the rise of homicides. The lockdowns/restrictions and their social / mental health impacts: people losing their loved ones, jobs, financial/mental struggles, domestic violence, &c. You can live in the most policed country in the world, if you're locked down with your abusive/violent partner for X months violence will happen
The sad part is plenty of people warned about this sort of thing but they were (and still are) censored, bullied, harassed, gaslit, you name it.
This myopic fixation on exactly one single disease to the exclusion of literally everything else in life is gonna go down as one of the worst public policy fuckups of all time.
You're mixing up defunding the police with demilitarizing the police.
Two different topics.
Those people are mostly not being listened to because small government is a dirty word to most of the people currently pushing to defund the police and because viewing crime through an economic lens is out of vogue in favor of a racial one and people who are seriously studying minimum viable policing historically tend to be from one of those two camps.