{"id":3670,"date":"2021-05-07T09:52:01","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3670"},"modified":"2021-05-07T14:00:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T21:00:23","slug":"baltimores-disastrous-experiment-with-de-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3670","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore’s Disastrous Experiment with De-Policing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen J.K. Walters writes<\/a> in the City Journal:<\/p>\n

A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city\u2019s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.<\/p>\n

This experiment has been an abject failure<\/a>. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered<\/a>\u2014one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56\u2014ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Walters traces the history, which ironically includes an attempt to emulate the “Broken Windows” approach to policing that James Q. Wilson and George Kelling proposed in their famous 1982 Atlantic<\/em> article. The approach had worked very well in New York, back when New Yorkers knew how to elect good mayors.<\/p>\n

The problem, Walters says, is that Baltimore’s attempt was pathetically bad.<\/p>\n

The problem was not just turmoil among BPD leadership and meddling (or worse<\/a>) by O\u2019Malley, but a fatal misunderstanding of what had worked in New York. There, the broad spectrum of criminal activity was addressed efficiently and with community engagement. Detailed data helped guide resources to crime hot spots. Chief William J. Bratton implemented the Broken Windows<\/a> theory-inspired community-policing<\/a> methods pioneered by social scientists George Kelling<\/a> and James Q. Wilson<\/a>, who understood how small manifestations of disorder could grow to larger ones. Minor offenses that made residents feel unsafe or hinted at acceptance of violence were addressed in order to improve quality of life, strengthen communities, and prevent serious crime.<\/p>\n

In Baltimore, however, Broken Windows was misunderstood and misapplied. It mutated into a malignant variant, \u201czero tolerance\u201d policing\u2014and BPD conduct became not just intolerant but unfocused and excessive. As David Simon, a veteran Baltimore crime reporter and creator of HBO\u2019s The Wire<\/i>, summed things up<\/a>, O\u2019Malley \u201ctossed the Fourth Amendment out a window and began using the police department to sweep the corners and rowhouse stoops and [per Norris] \u2018lock up damn near everyone.\u2019\u201d That sometimes even included Wire<\/i> crew members on their way home from a long day of filming.<\/p>\n

True Broken Windows policing, in Kelling\u2019s words, creates \u201ca negotiated sense of order in a community\u201d and involves collaboration between cops and residents. As one BPD vet put it<\/a>, \u201cYou go to a community\u2014before we come in, [we should ask], \u2018What are the main things you all can\u2019t stand?\u2019 Everybody playing music at 11:30 at night, kids sitting on the corner, the prostitutes using the little park over there to work their trade. Now, \u2018What don\u2019t you care about?\u2019 See the old guys sitting down at the corner playing cards every night? They could stay there all they want. . . . Then the police come in and do what the neighborhood wants. You just don\u2019t go out and lock everybody up.\u201d But, he concluded, \u201cwe went overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelling had warned that \u201cIf you tell your cops, \u2018We are going to go in and practice zero tolerance for all minor crimes,\u2019 you are inviting a mess of trouble.\u201d That\u2019s exactly what Baltimore got: stratospheric arrest rates (over 110,000 in 2005, in a city of 600,000), no meaningful reduction in homicides, an ACLU lawsuit<\/a>, and an erroneous<\/a> but widely shared<\/a> feeling that Broken Windows was bunk and policing was not the answer to the city\u2019s crime problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Zero tolerance” policing is not<\/strong> “Broken Windows” policing, as anyone who has read and understood the original article would know. Yet the myth persist. I have had reporters ask me for my comments on “zero tolerance\/broken windows” policing. Naturally, I ask them which of those two very different things they are asking me about. Many are stunned by the question. They have no clue that the two are entirely different.<\/p>\n

Zero tolerance fueled resentment, and by the time left-wing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took office, cutting the police budget in response to a city budget crisis had substantial support.<\/p>\n

These cuts were followed by the Freddie Gray case and the ensuing riots. State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby prosecuted police officers, none of whom were convicted, but declined to prosecute “lower-level offenders,” thus condemning the city to a downward spiral of disorder. But Ms. Mosby cherry-picks data of crime declines actually caused by the Covid pandemic and shutdowns as evidence that her strategy works.<\/p>\n

As the numbers at the top of the article indicate, Baltimore now has 10 times the national homicide rate and close to double the rate of a decade ago. When the pandemic passes and people — including criminals — fully return to their prior activities, we can expect to see increases across the board.<\/p>\n

How bad does crime have to get before people wake up and stop electing officials like these? Do we have to get back to the hellish 1980s rates? Let’s hope not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen J.K. Walters writes in the City Journal: A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city\u2019s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency. This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered\u2014one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56\u2014ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black. Walters traces the history, which ironically includes an attempt to emulate the “Broken Windows” approach to policing that James Q. Wilson and George Kelling proposed in their famous 1982 Atlantic article. The approach had worked very well in New York, back when New Yorkers knew how to elect good mayors. The problem, Walters says, is that Baltimore’s attempt was pathetically bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policing","category-prosecutors"],"yoast_head":"\nBaltimore's Disastrous Experiment with De-Policing - 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=3670\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Baltimore's Disastrous Experiment with De-Policing - Crime & Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stephen J.K. Walters writes in the City Journal: A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city\u2019s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency. This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered\u2014one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56\u2014ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black. Walters traces the history, which ironically includes an attempt to emulate the “Broken Windows” approach to policing that James Q. Wilson and George Kelling proposed in their famous 1982 Atlantic article. The approach had worked very well in New York, back when New Yorkers knew how to elect good mayors. 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