{"id":1763,"date":"2020-08-03T09:18:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T16:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1763"},"modified":"2020-08-03T09:18:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T16:18:58","slug":"murder-explodes-in-cities-big-and-small-as-police-come-under-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1763","title":{"rendered":"Murder Explodes in Cities Big and Small as Police Come Under Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WSJ documents<\/a> the surge in murder across the country.\u00a0 The question is:\u00a0 Why is this happening?\u00a0 Let me ask that question another way:\u00a0 When the police are hobbled by relentless and viciously slanted attacks on their basic decency, by movements to defund and disband them, and by other movements to have them do bake sales instead of street patrols, what did you think was going to happen?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let’s not kid ourselves about the extent of the problem.\u00a0 As the article notes:<\/p>\n

A Wall Street Journal analysis of crime statistics among the nation\u2019s 50 largest cities found that reported homicides were up 24% so far this year, to 3,612. Shootings and gun violence also rose, even though many other violent crimes such as robbery fell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When murders spike by a quarter, let’s be clear.\u00a0 The country is in a murder crisis.<\/p>\n

Police and academics who study crime have long debated why homicide rates rise or fall, citing variables including demographics, incarceration rates, drug epidemics, the economy and policing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How’s that?\u00a0 The murder rate is affected by the number of criminals incarcerated rather than out on the street; the extent of drug trafficking, and the prevalence of effective policing?\u00a0 Goodness gracious!\u00a0 Who woulda thunk it.<\/p>\n

I thought these paragraphs presented a fair-minded and intriguing view of the causes we’re dealing with:<\/p>\n

One explanation for the divergence between homicide and other crime might reside in what is known as \u201croutine activity theory,\u201d which holds that crime is a function of three factors: The supply of offenders, the supply of victims and the intervention between the two by society\u2019s guardians\u2014including police, schools and churches.<\/p>\n

Police in many departments said robberies, burglaries and rapes are down so far this year because more people stayed home during Covid-19 lockdowns, leaving fewer prospective victims on the streets, in bars or other public places. Burglars weren\u2019t likely to break into homes filled with people under lockdown, they say.<\/p>\n

Homicides, on the other hand, are up because violent criminals have been emboldened by the sidelining of police, courts, schools, churches and an array of other social institutions by the reckoning with police and the pandemic, say analysts and law-enforcement officials in several cities.<\/p>\n

Anecdotally, many police departments point to a rising tide of gang violence, in which rival groups of mainly young offenders battle over control of neighborhoods, catching rivals and innocents in the process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I’ve noted before, African Americans become murder victims in numbers grossly disproportionate to their representation in the population as a whole.\u00a0 When we abandon the policies that brought us a generation-long decline in murders\u00a0 —\u00a0 policies like increased incarceration, proactive policing, and a determined fight against drug pushers\u00a0 —\u00a0 and instead fall back to the disastrous, kumbaya policies of the Sixties and Seventies, African Americans will bear a disproportionate share of the bloody results.\u00a0 Now, in an era of heightened concern about showing decency toward all our citizens, is no time to indulge “benign neglect” toward the murder epidemic afflicting all of us, but blacks in particular.<\/p>\n

We know how to deal with this because we’ve done it before.\u00a0 Time to turn away from the academic fantasy-land policies we know fail (however fashionable they may be in Portland, Seattle, and Bill de Blasio’s New York), and return to the Reagan-Bush-Clinton policies we know work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WSJ documents the surge in murder across the country.\u00a0 The question is:\u00a0 Why is this happening?\u00a0 Let me ask that question another way:\u00a0 When the police are hobbled by relentless and viciously slanted attacks on their basic decency, by movements to defund and disband them, and by other movements to have them do bake sales instead of street patrols, what did you think was going to happen?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\nMurder Explodes in Cities Big and Small as Police Come Under Attack - Crime & Consequences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1763\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Murder Explodes in Cities Big and Small as Police Come Under Attack - 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