Crime wave now spreads in US

[Remiel]

Probably around the time frightened, trigger happy cops became generally immune to consequences for killing people just to avert risk to their own skins. I swear to God it seems we now live in an age where civilians exist to be the human shields for cops rather than the other way around.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Remiel

[Icebound]

Based on the topic title, this thread has lost its way. Policing per se, was being discussed in another thread nearby.

But to get back to the crime wave.

Scientific American has this take: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-recessions-increase-crime/

Some findings:

1. "young males with no more than a high school education—the demographic group that commits the most crime—they found that average wages and unemployment rates were directly linked to the incidence of property crimes. ....Hard times also lead to more domestic abuse."

2. "[they]....traced murder rates against the Consumer Sentiment Index—a survey of how people view their current financial situation and how hopeful they are about the future. They found that lower index scores strongly correlate with higher murder rates."

3. ".... but “marginal consumers—the shopper who goes to discount stores—many of those consumers turn to street markets during an economic downturn. These are often markets for used goods, but some are stolen goods. As demand increases, incentives for criminals to commit crimes expand.”

4. "... a direct economic stimulus can act as a salve. Communities in the 1930s that spent more on public works programs had lower crime rates than other communities,..."

Is it just possible that, these are factors that are really coming into play. In particular, in what direction is the "Consumer Sentiment Index" trending these days? Has the post-recession recovery reached everybody?

...

[sharkman]

I actually named the thread "And so It Begins" and the mod decided to change the name recently. So helpful these mods.

[Charles Anthony]

CORRECTION: The OP wrote "Crime wave now spreads in US" as a tag to accompany the thread.

The mod did not fabricate the "Crime wave now spreads in US" title out of thin air.

The mod used the OP's own words "Crime wave now spreads in US" as the title since "And so It Begins" is obviously meaningless without knowing whatever "it" happens to be.

EDIT: I named this thread "And So It Begins" for a reason. The mod has seen fit to change the name.

That is a stupid title. What was the reason for naming it so??

Regardless of your reason, by deliberately hiding the rest of the truth, you leave the reader to presume the mod invented the title of the thread and is thusly injecting bias. Is that how "it" works?

or

This place is NOT a poetry circle. Did you NOT want the topic of discussion to concern "Crime wave now spreads in US" despite you having strung those exact words in that exact sequence as a tag???

[sharkman]

There is a reason this thread got several pages of posts. The stupid title helped. Have you got any more insults for me?

Edit: I will add that insinuating that I was trying to hide the rest of the truth is beyond silly. I simply said the mod has seen fit to change the name. That's because the mod changed the name. Try to connect the dots here.

Edited June 10, 2015 by sharkman

[Icebound]

Well I didn't mean to cause an argument about the NAME of this thread....

I did, however, want to address the content.

The OP made two particular assertions:

1...Basic serve-and-protect police work can't be done, and arrests are way down,

2...crime is way up.

The implication being that, with all the negative media attention, policing is becoming less aggressive, and thus crime is increasing.

...and the rest of the thread, instead of addressing the OP argument.... deteriorated into yet another unhelpful generalization pro- or anti- police.

While the OP assertions above may be true in some local areas, there is absolutely no evidence that it is a systemic country-wide phenomena. Baltimore and New York may show fewer arrests, but Denver is in the middle of an offensive and arrests are way up.

If one was to use country-wide fatal police interactions as a measure of aggressive policing, then this year is actually trending UP over last, and WAY up over two years ago (wikipedia numbers).

New York's murder rate is up in 2015, but all other crime is down. (New York Daily News numbers)

There is also absolutely no evidence that any of this is because of less-aggressive policing. My previous post has the summary of crime expert's thinking on the relationship between certain type of crime, and the financial and psychological health and outlook for the population.

How is YOUR financial and psychological outlook trending? Are the law-abiding buying more stuff on the grey market?

Finally, the media's part in all this.

The media's JOB is primarily to report wrong-doing, and especially when nobody else is. Of COURSE, there are thousands of police forces with hundreds of thousands of police WHO NEVER GET MENTIONED in the media... exactly because they are doing their jobs well.... and when they do get mentioned, their heroism tends to be deemed of local interest and doesn't make the national news.

That may be too bad, but it can be mitigated by social media like youtube and twitter. Activists use it to show the individual incidents of wrong-doing.... supporters can use it to highlight individual incidents of heroism.

[sharkman]

My original theory was something to the effect that people are resisting arrest, not obeying an officer's orders, and some kind of escalation/chaos happening. Standing there and refusing to be arrested, or as in the Summer Jam semi riot, trying to break into a concert without paying simply because you want to.

"Hey, I don't care that everyone else paid!"

"It's my pool party and I'll fight if I want to"

Reader, try to look at the big picture here. Why are little teenagers refusing to submit to police officers? I mean at the very start of the altercation. The very beginning. This new mindset that is spreading across the US that says my will trumps any law I feel like breaking. Any theories out there, or should we continue to blame the cops every time some little snot nosed idiot decides he is above the law?

[eyeball]

We should continue to rebel every time some idiot cop decides he is the law.

[bush_cheney2004]

We should continue to rebel every time some idiot cop decides he is the law.

Yeah..."WE" should rebel....fight the power....pigs !

[Shady]

Yeah..."WE" should rebel....fight the power....pigs !

Don't you love it when a white privileged person gets brave when they don't have the same risks.

[Argus]

My original theory was something to the effect that people are resisting arrest, not obeying an officer's orders, and some kind of escalation/chaos happening. Standing there and refusing to be arrested, or as in the Summer Jam semi riot, trying to break into a concert without paying simply because you want to.

But they've been doing that anyway, hence all these problems when they get shot or beat up. All the 'incidents' I've seen have been the result of people not obeying the police, and refusing to stop or submit to arrest.

[Shady]

But they've been doing that anyway, hence all these problems when they get shot or beat up. All the 'incidents' I've seen have been the result of people not obeying the police, and refusing to stop or submit to arrest.

Exactly. I'm still wondering when being placed under arrest became optional. I always thought one had until after the arrest to pursuit legal action. Apparently that's changed recently. Now being placed under arrest is an impromptu debate, or even more.

[kimmy]

What crime wave?

The announcement in the Wall Street Journal last week of a "new nationwide crime wave" grabbed national attention. In an Op-Ed, author Heather Mac Donald argues that the "two decades-long crime decline" in the United States has now been replaced by "gun violence spiraling upward in cities across America," thanks to a "Ferguson Effect" that has damaged police morale and effectiveness nationwide.

(...)

Mac Donald's recital of frightening statistics plays special attention to the problems in New York City and Los Angeles, America's two largest cities and most prominent urban success stories in crime reduction in the past two decades.

(...)

We are told shootings are up in both Los Angeles and New York, and that "the most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months."

Is there a nationwide crime wave? On current evidence, probably not, and a careful analysis of official statistics in New York and Los Angeles provides reason for reassurance rather than alarm.

Let's start with the uptick in violence in New York City. The most recent official crime statistics indicate that so far in 2015, the city has experienced significant declines from 2014's ultra-low levels in burglary, robbery and larceny. At the same time, total homicides for the first five months of the year at 135 are higher than in 2014 — but quite close to the pace of 2013 and around 30% lower than in 2010.

At their current rate, killings in New York City would end 2015 as either the third or fourth lowest year in the city's modern history.

( ...)

And if such an effect has indeed increased the New York homicide total, should it also get credit for the 223 fewer robberies so far in 2015 when compared to the previous year? How about the 974 fewer burglaries in five months?

For Los Angeles, some categories of crime are up from 2014 but the best indicator we have for "spiraling gun violence," the homicide rate, is down by 14.7% during the first five months of 2015. What spiral?

The whole premise of a "national crime wave" (an "Obama crime wave", according to the article cited in Sharkman's opening post) rests on some deceptive cherry-picked stats.

Crime stats can’t just keep falling forever. And in places like New York, crime rates have reached astonishing depths. Inching back upward — to levels that would be historic lows just a few years ago — isn’t indicative of a coming national crime wave.

(...)

Mac Donald’s points about violence against cops are also misguided. For example, she writes that the killings of “Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., in July 2014, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 and Freddie Gray in Baltimore last month—have led to riots, violent protests and attacks on the police.” She then adds, “Murders of officers jumped 89% in 2014, to 51 from 27.”

But that jump in 2014 was after a historic low in 2013. That low came after a 20-year decline in homicides of police officers. Even the 2014 figure is 51 murders of cops out of a police force of 600,000 to 800,000 (depending on what source you’re consulting). In terms of raw data (compiled from the FBI and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund), it’s still the sixth safest year for cops since the 1950s, and below the average over the last 10 years, a period in which the number each year trended downward. If you look at the rate of murder of cops, the relative safety of cops today is even more impressive.

If the homicides of cops in 2014 had been disbursed evenly over the course of the year, we’d have expected to see about 21 killings of cops from August 9th through the end of the year. Yet of the 51 murders of police officers last year, just 19 occurred after the death of Michael Brown on August 9th. Of course, crime isn’t evenly distributed over the course of the year. But if Mac Donald is right, we should have seen at least a bump in killings of cops after August 9th. That just didn’t happen.

By Mac Donald’s reasoning, we should also be seeing a continuation of last year’s upward trend in murders of police. But homicides of cops are down so far this year. As of today, the number of cops murdered by firearms in 2015 is down 27 percent from last year.

The argument Mac Donald is making today is the same argument many were making in 2011, when there was also a slight uptick in homicides of cops. Critics then warned that “anti-police” and “anti-government” sentiment was making cops afraid to do their jobs, and that efforts to hold rogue cops more accountable were empowering criminals. The next year, we saw the second lowest number of murders of cops to date. The year after, we saw a record low.

This "crime wave" story from the Wall Street Journal was penned by Heather MacDonald, a senior member of a right-wing think-tank that promotes a law-and-order agenda. And it's not surprising that the biggest fans of her column have been police unions. It's a theory being promoted by, and for, people who have a vested interest in convincing the public that there really is a crime wave rising in America:

Mac Donald’s piece itself was incredibly cynical. It tied into a growing backlash against police reform from law enforcement groups, police unions, and the law-and-order crowd, and has circulated widely among those groups. Implicit in her argument is the idea that the average police officer is incapable of doing his job properly if other police officers are getting criticized, rebuked, or held accountable for misconduct. It’s hard to think of another profession in which holding bad actors accountable evokes such mass anger and resentment among others who do the same job — not even in the military, where war zone soldiers face much more of a day to day threat than your average cop.

-k

[On Guard for Thee]

But they've been doing that anyway, hence all these problems when they get shot or beat up. All the 'incidents' I've seen have been the result of people not obeying the police, and refusing to stop or submit to arrest.

Then you either haven't been paying attention, or have been very selective in the incidents that inform your opinions.

[On Guard for Thee]

Exactly. I'm still wondering when being placed under arrest became optional. I always thought one had until after the arrest to pursuit legal action. Apparently that's changed recently. Now being placed under arrest is an impromptu debate, or even more.

I guess you can get your head around that getting shot before you even get arrested rather tends to obviate those legal options...eh

[Shady]

I guess you can get your head around that getting shot before you even get arrested rather tends to obviate those legal options...eh

Who was shot before being arrested? Not in Ferguson, Not in New York, not in Baltimore.

[Black Dog]

Who was shot before being arrested? Not in Ferguson, Not in New York, not in Baltimore.

If cops are shooting people after they get arrested, that's an even bigger problem. But a few names off the top of my head: Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, John Crawford...

[GostHacked]

The rule of law only works because everyone has the idea that it's a good system. When more and more citizens cast it aside, it becomes effectively useless in those communities. It seems like a tipping point of some kind.

The PATRIOT Act and the NDAA are not good law systems in which a US citizen can be detained without charge and without interrogation for a certain amount of time, or in some cases, indefinite. That is not a good system to me. The other thing is without actions from the likes of Snowden, one would have no idea how to even attempt to challenge the system in a court.

Challenging the system via courts would be futile in my view. Important articles of the bill of rights have been marginalized via new laws. How does one even start to challenge that?

[kimmy]

But they've been doing that anyway, hence all these problems when they get shot or beat up. All the 'incidents' I've seen have been the result of people not obeying the police, and refusing to stop or submit to arrest.

Once again, the fatal injuries to Freddie Gray were inflicted after he was already restrained hand and foot and locked in the back of a police van.

You don't find that problematic to the narrative that you're promoting?

-k

[cybercoma]

And besides, who knew the punishment for an unarmed person disobeying police was death without trial?

[GostHacked]

Once again, the fatal injuries to Freddie Gray were inflicted after he was already restrained hand and foot and locked in the back of a police van.

You don't find that problematic to the narrative that you're promoting?

-k

I keep bringing up Kelley Thomas, but incidents like that seem to get ignored.

[On Guard for Thee]

Who was shot before being arrested? Not in Ferguson, Not in New York, not in Baltimore.

Well where do you wanna start. There was the guy in Utah who was walking along with his earplugs in listening to music, then the guy in SC who was shot as he reached for his drivers license after the cop asked hi for it, then there was the 12 year old kid in Cleveland, and I could go on

[Shady]

Well where do you wanna start. There was the guy in Utah who was walking along with his earplugs in listening to music, then the guy in SC who was shot as he reached for his drivers license after the cop asked hi for it, then there was the 12 year old kid in Cleveland, and I could go on

I have never posted anything discounting those particular instances. But the problem with you people, is that you want to lump all instances in the same category. When Ferguson, New York and Baltimore are completely different than the situations you mentioned.

[On Guard for Thee]

I have never posted anything discounting those particular instances. But the problem with you people, is that you want to lump all instances in the same category. When Ferguson, New York and Baltimore are completely different than the situations you mentioned.

So you people only prefer cherry picked stories and not ones that oppose your position. Got it.

[Icebound]

"It's my pool party and I'll fight if I want to"

Reader, try to look at the big picture here. Why are little teenagers refusing to submit to police officers?

...

Funny you should mention.... pool parties....

Well, Here is a little background on swimming pool and race relations that you may find interesting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/troubled-waters-in-mckinney-texas/395150/

So no, maybe you don't blame the cops, but the politicians and city planners instead....

"....for example, in 1957, a young man backed by the NAACP sued to force the integration of a brand-new swimming pool. When the judge made it clear the city would lose, citizens voted 1,758-89 to have the city sell all of its recreational facilities rather than integrate them. The pool was sold to a local Lions’ Club, which was able to operate it as a whites-only private facility."

This particular example is from 1957, but the article goes on to show context of how such ideas are being applied today.... So, yes, Pools are a particular sore point.

"Although many whites abandoned desegregated public pools, most did not stop swimming. Instead, they built private pools, both club and residential, and swam in them …. Suburbanites organized private club pools rather than fund public pools because club pools enabled them to control the class and racial composition of swimmers, whereas public pools did not...."