Good News: The Pandemic Surge In Crime Is The Fault Of Police Or Something

See, it’s not the fault of criminals, and certainly not the fault of Democrats who run the cities where crime is surging and have historically been soft on crime. Nope, it’s the police, according to Ryan Cooper at The Week

The pandemic crime surge is a policing problem

The last several years have seen a building movement for criminal justice reform in America, culminating in the massive George Floyd protests around the country last summer. Progressive district attorneys like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco have been elected promising to cut back on cash bail, reduce the severity of sentences, prosecute crooked or violent cops, and so forth.

But reformers are running into a backlash. Krasner is up for reelection this year, and police unions are blaming him for the surge in violent crime that has happened in his city over the last year. They are backing a conservative challenger, Carlos Vega. A similar thing is happening in San Francisco, where a group of right-wing tech elites (with the typically tone-deaf slogan of “V.C. Lives Matter”) are trying to recall Boudin.

These arguments are a crock. A return to brutal war-on-crime tactics will not reduce crime — that will require staying the course on reform.

This is Liberal Thought, where cracking down on people who commit crimes will not reduce crime. Tell it to NY City, where the city was crime infested under Mayor Dinkens, then Rudy Guiliani came in, cracked down, and significantly reduced the crime rate.

The argument from police unions and Big Tech barons is the classic reactionary position on crime from the 1980s and ’90s. These reformers are supposedly being soft on crime, so the argument goes, and so the criminal class is emboldened. Therefore we need to “get tough” and start brutally punishing offenders to set an example.

So, being soft on criminals reduces crime? Now, that is a crock. And Cooper attempts to argue this for several more paragraphs

Unfortunately, there are several giant holes in the argument. Take Krasner: As Joshua Vaughn writes at The Appeal, while Krasner has put through many worthy reforms (he has cut future sentences by 20,000 years compared to the prior DA) he is not even close to the radicals who think the police should be abolished altogether. Indeed, many activists have criticized him for continuing to use steep cash bail amounts for certain crimes. Krasner has not at all halted prosecution of serious crime — on the contrary, he has prosecuted over 99 percent of homicides, and over 98 percent of non-lethal shootings, in which Philadelphia police made an arrest. Unfortunately, the cops made arrests in only about 40 percent of homicides and less than 20 percent of non-lethal shootings.

Uh, that’s because there are so many shootings, and, contrary to TV shows, most get away with it, especially since so many in these Democrat run cities refuse to snitch. Gang members won’t even snitch on members of other gangs. They’ll just retaliate.

The logic of the police unions is that if you punish murderers, there will be fewer murders. And it turns out that a great many criminals are escaping with impunity — it’s just the fault of the police. On the raw numbers, any Philly murderer has a better-than-even chance of evading the cops. In fact, it’s worse than that. Typically something like a third of murders basically solve themselves because the culprit is found at the scene, or there is very obvious evidence. Philly cops are doing barely better than that — meaning that if you kill someone and take any steps at all to cover your tracks, you’re all but guaranteed to get away with it. Krasner is more than willing to prosecute violent offenders, but Philly cops are too lazy or incompetent to catch most of them.

See? It’s the fault of the police. No mention that the crimes are being committed, and that they are rising, and were rising even before the pandemic. More often, police are there to clean up the crime, not to stop it.

Investigations into policing demonstrate that the most important part of detective work is community relations. Forensic evidence is rarely decisive; what matters are detectives who are trusted by the citizenry and witnesses who are willing to cooperate. It follows that, by the logic of the police unions, the biggest obstacle to reducing crime is the terrible reputation police departments have earned for themselves by constantly hassling, abusing, and killing people. People are much less willing to talk to police when departments are constantly in the news for mercilessly gassing and beating unarmed protesters, or choking somebody to death for trying to pass a fake $20 bill.

Again, it’s all the fault of the police, who are supposed to build relationships and squishy stuff. All Floyd had to do was comply. Put hands on steering wheel. Say “I had no idea it was a fake bill.” Cops would have written a statement, then moved on, because they don’t have time for something like that. The Treasury Department would have gotten an email, and could have followed up with Floyd if they chose. Local cops don’t care, it’s too hard to backtrace a fake bill, there is more important crime going on, and it’s not their job. Don’t want to have a run in with the cops? Don’t commit crime. It really is simple. If you get pulled over for speeding, don’t give the cops crap: you broke the law. Take the ticket and move on.

These are all promising strategies. But they will require more reform, not less — frankly, Krasner, Boudin, and other reformers have barely gotten started. In particular, it will require a total overhaul of recalcitrant police departments across the country, who seem to view crime sprees as useful political leverage they can use to escape accountability. Voters in Philly, San Francisco, and elsewhere: don’t fall for it.

How’s that defunding working out? Not well. Have fun in your unhinged Dem run cities.