Ashley Luthern of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looks at the direct costs of a shooting. It adds up to more than $700,000. $400,000 on prison.
Tag: crime
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Prop 47 in California
In the Washington Post.
In the 11 months since the passage of Prop 47, more than 4,300 state prisoners have been resentenced and then released. Drug arrests in Los Angeles County have dropped by a third. Jail bookings are down by a quarter.
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Robberies up 23 percent in San Francisco. Property theft up 11 percent in Los Angeles. Certain categories of crime rising 20 percent in Lake Tahoe, 36 percent in La Mirada, 22 percent in Chico and 68percent in Desert Hot Springs.
It’s too early to know how much crime can be attributed to Prop 47, police chiefs caution, but what they do know is that instead of arresting criminals and removing them from the streets, their officers have been dealing with the same offenders again and again. Caught in possession of drugs? … Caught stealing something worth less than $950? That means a ticket, too.
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“Frustrating, frustrating,” said Zimmerman, the police chief…. “Just sending our officers to deal with problems that never get solved.”
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“Aren’t we lulling him into a sense of security?” Goldsmith said. “How does it end? There’s no more incremental punishment. We let the behavior continue. We let the problems get worse. And all we can do is wait until he does something terrible, until he stabs somebody or kills somebody, and then we can finally take him off the street.”
Does America have problems? Yes. Is prison the answer? No. Seriously, if we can’t figure out a better solution to mental illness, drug addiction, and vagrant crimes than — at great expense — locking losers in cages forever, we’re pretty effing stupid!
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It’s more dangerous to be black than to be a cop
I heard this somewhere recently and it made me go, really? So I thought I would double check.
Indeed, one is more at risk to be murdered as a black person in America than as a police officer.
For 2013 and 2014 I get an average of about 80 officers killed on duty per year (this excludes correctional officers, traffic accidents, a few other categories.) That’s a rate of 9.0 per 100,000 (based on 885,000 officers).
Meanwhile the homicide for blacks in 2013, men and women, is 15 per 100,000. (Based on a black population of 41.7 million and 6,261 homicides in 2013.) That’s crazy. Blacks are three or four times more likely to be shot and killed as on-duty police officers.
[Now of course one could quibble that cops are only on duty 1/6 of the time and a good chunk of cops never see the street. Meanwhile being black is a 24/7 job. So hour by hour it might be more dangerous to be a cop. But stop quibbling. Even with a flawed comparison, sometimes you just need a stat just to smack you on the side of the head.]
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Violent crime steady in 2014
As I suspected (and hoped) crime was not up last year. Of course it was up some places (and thus down in others). What a country we live in: we can send a man to the moon and don’t know how many people were murdered in 2014 until late September, 2015.
When the 2015 figures come out in a year and show a 2 percent increase in homicides, mark my words: people are going to scream about skyrocketing crime. I mean, people in NYC have been screaming for skyrocketing crime (yes, I “for” as well as “about”) since, well, De Blasio (about 2 years now). Imagine the crescendo if crime were actually go up nationwide. Gee, I wonder if some will blame Obama?
From the Crime Report: “Murders, which are the most accurately reported crime, decreased .5 percent last year to 14,249, the FBI said. The total was a drop of nearly 15 percent from the 2005 national count.”
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Baltimore Equals New York City in Homicides
I often joked about this, but I really never thought this day would happen.
On August 16, both New York and Baltimore had 208 murders. Baltimore has added another 8 since then. I’m not certain about NYC. New York City has 7.5 million more residents than Charm City.
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Atwater v. Lago Vista (2001)
Fifteen years ago I published my very first op-ed. Sniff. You never forget your first, even though it was kind of a forgettable op-ed. (I’ve published close to 30 op-eds since then… jeeze.)
Atwater was a Texas case, no less, in which a woman (Gail Atwater) was arrested for a seat belt violation. Now a seat belt violation wasn’t even a jailable offense. But the Court said it was constitutionally OK to arrest someone, even for a non-arrestable offense. I still don’t understand this logic. Now these arrests could be prohibited by law or policy (which the Court recommended) but constitutionally the Court said it’s OK to arrest people for even the most minor of traffic violations.
Keep in mind this isn’t really relevant to Bland’s arrest. She was initially placed under arrest for some variation of failure to obey (or maybe not, maybe the officer decided to arrest on the discretion granted to police in Atwater?) and then charged with assaulting a public servant, a felony. Either way, it’s worth pointing out that the legal standard for an arrest — particularly traffic related, particularly coming out of Texas — is really low.
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“In a Dream, I Saw a City Invincible”
That’s the motto of Camden, New Jersey. It’s from a Walt Whitman poem. A comment to a previous post made me think more about Camden. I’ve been through there a few times. Caught the River Line. Looked down from the PATCO Speedline. And I know a lot of my old 78s are from Camden. That’s about it.
I wish I knew more about what’s going on there with policing. My knowledge, very limited, consists of the following:
A) There were issues.
B) The police department was basically disbanded; there was some police-union busting.
C) Murders were way down in 2014.
D) Obama said nice things about what was been going on there recently.
E) There are still issues.
That’s it. I wish I knew more. What happened to the cops who were on the job then? Who are the cops on the job now? Let me know.
[Update: a 2019 post.]
Checking just now, murders in Camden were way down in 2014: just 33 compared to 58 in 2013. That’s a great reduction! The 2015 pace seems in line with 2014. But this is a city with just 77,000 people. 33 murders? It’s not great. Even by violent US standards, a city with 77,000 peoples should have maybe 4 homicides a year. Not 33.
The other night I was talking to a friend of mine. She had just received a #BlackLivesMatters bracelet and said I could get one, too. I confessed, a bit apologetically, that I won’t wear a #BlackLivesMatters bracelet. It’s not that I don’t care about black lives. It’s because I don’t agree with the ideological baggage that goes with the hashtag. I work with police. #BlackLivesMatter, in my humble opinion, sees police as the problem. [If that logic doesn’t make sense and you’re liberal. Let me say this. I’m not wearing a “pro-life” bracelet either. And that despite the fact that I absolutely love life.]
It’s the “petite intelligentsia” that worry me. (Yeah, I’m coining that term, damnit.) What bothers me is the public shaming of people who “don’t get it.” Maybe O’Malley doesn’t “get it,” but does that make him “not human“? Come on, now.
The Left has a horrible tendency to cannibalize itself. (Sanders isn’t the problem, Ted Cruz is!) Remember that great peace protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention? (I don’t. I wasn’t born yet. But thank God liberals helped get Nixon in office. We never had Humphrey to mess things up.)
From the fringe and not so fringe left, there can be no acceptable intellectual disagreement. If you don’t agree with the politically correct movement of the moment, the only acceptable form of disagreement is silence.
I’m not willing to pass the progressive ideological linguistic litmus test. While trying to talk about real police issues on CNN, I was berated for using the word “ghetto” to describe, well, the ghetto. (See pp 16-17 of Cop in the Hood if you want a more articulate defense.) I’ve been interrupted for using the word “riot” to talk about, well, a riot. Most recently, I was actually reproached on NPR for using the word “criminals” to describe, well, people who commit crimes. My message to the Left: stop this!
When Batts got fired, somebody asked me, “But what does this do for the ‘reform’ movement?” I think my answer was something none-too subtle like, “If Batts is ‘reform,” fuck ‘reform’! [If you make your position clear, reporters will paraphrase a bit.] I don’t care what Batts labeled himself. He wasn’t a reformer because he failed at reform. Batts made the problem worse. You don’t get credit for what you want to do. You don’t get credit for what you should do. You get credit for results.”
I want to improve policing. And right or wrong, I see #BlackLivesMatter, the movement, not the concept, as more into blaming police than saving black lives. Maybe that’s the point. But then pick a more accurately descriptive hashtag.
The other day I received a flyer (from a young white woman at a George Clinton concert in Queensbridge Park): “Stop Police Terror” it said. Gosh, I’m not for police terror. My eye jumped to the bottom: “Stop Mass Incarceration Network.” What’s not to like? I am against mass incarceration. I wrote a book against mass incarceration! Great cause. Except for this:
The powers-that-be have continued to unleash their cops to kill and brutalize people…. These killings are the spearpoint of an overall program of suppression that includes mass incarceration and all its consequences. This program of suppression especially targets Black and Latino people and has genocidal implications…. Which Side Are You On?
Well, they’re having a march in NYC on October 24, if you’d like join. But given these facts, I’m definitely on the side of police.
Is it not possible for one to think there are problems in policing without believing police are evil? You need to let people argue the former without preaching the latter. I want police to kill fewer people. And I think the best way to get police to kill fewer people (blacks included) is to, well, get police to shoot less often.
So if you take the macro lessons of history and racism and violence and conflate that with individual police incidents today? Well, maybe history will prove you right… but I doubt it. Focusing on police as the problem rather than the solution will result in more black deaths (see Baltimore post-riot).
And if you think this “seasonal uptick” in Baltimore homicides is a small price to pay for a step toward a better society? Well, personally I think you’re morally and intellectually delusional. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But hell on earth is paved with people who do the wrong thing and say, “gotta try harder!” (Put that on your inspirational poster.)
But back to Camden…. Now I understand that these murders are, well, crimes. In theory, the state investigates crimes and then arrests and prosecutes the offender. In theory “justice” is served (which happens about a third of the time). But if a cop kills you, there’s little recourse. It is different when the state takes your life. This matters. This matter a lot. I do understand. But still, just look at this part of Camden. These little flags are murders since 2003. What are we going to do about it?
Let me zoom in on just a few blocks. And these are really small blocks. From top to bottom is half a mile. This whole area is about one-fifth of a square mile.
You might not believe what a small area this is. So here’s google satellite view so you can see individual homes.
I want you to see the individual homes. I want you to understand that people are born here, grow up here, live here, and die here. This is America, too.
Atlantic to Sheridan on Louis Street? 2,000 feet and 20 homicides. How many people even live there? I don’t know. A few hundred? There have been about 24 homicides within a few hundred feet of Bonsall Elementary School. Gosh, I wonder why their test scores are slightly below average? Must be the “soft bigotry low expectations.”
In Camden there’s hardly a corner where somebody hasn’t been murdered. And #BlackLivesMatter says murder at the hands of police is the biggest problem? Get real.
Let’s talk black lives. Let’s talk War on Drugs. Let’s talk mass incarceration. Let’s talk racism and a whole class of people left behind by a free market and political system that couldn’t give a damn. Let’s talk good policing. Let’s talk police abuse. But you can’t demand intellectual acquiescence as a precondition.
As to police in Camden? I got no clue. Let me know what’s going on. But more importantly, tell me how we’re going to make things better?
Updated homicide numbers
2018: 22
2017: 23
2016: 44
2015: 32
2014: 33
2013: 57
2012: 67
2011: 52
2010: 39
2009: 35
2008: 53
2007: 45
2006: 33
2005: 35
2004: 49
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How was your weekend?
300 Men marched against violence In Baltimore. I guess since was no looting or violence associated with the march, it did not make national news.
But apparently the criminals weren’t listening. “At least 21 people were shot since Friday,” reports the Sun. To put it in perspective, as Justin Fenton did, that rate of violence would be 92 shot in Chicago. Or 279 people shot in New York City. Now that would be a story.
The level of carnage, the lost and broken lives, is almost impossible to comprehend if you’re not there. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
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Homicides down in Baltimore (but still up)
You know how all them criminal justice “experts” say it’s inevitable that homicides go up in the summer? Well for at least the second year in a row, homicides in Baltimore are down, June compared to May.
After the riot, homicides more than doubled.
Pre-April 27, 2015: 0.58 homicides a day.
April 28 – May 31, 2015: 1.44 homicides a day.
June 1 – 29, 2015: 1.0 homicide a day.
Before the riots, homicides were up in Baltimore about 30 percent compared to 2014.
Post-riot, Balto homicides are up about 75 percent compared to the same time last year. Shootings even more so.
42 people were killed this year in May, but no, “regression to the mean” is not inevitable when it comes to people killing each other. Not included a body or two dropped tonight, the good news, I suppose, is we’re down to just 1 murder each and every day.
Of the 144 people killed so far this year in Baltimore: 131 are male, 127 are black, 122 were shot. 104 victims, 72 percent of the total, win the trifecta by being all three.
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“Group on the corner, disorderly, no further, anonymous”
I don’t want to make too much out of this, but there is something just a little funny about a reporter being robbed on camera and then running, in tears, to the police. No, it’s not funny because somebody is robbed. No, it’s not funny that she was traumatized by it. It is just a little funny because at the same time she might be filing a report about police brutality, who does she run crying to when threatened? The police.
Or… maybe she’s just harassing an innocent unarmed youth. After all, the guy said he didn’t do it.
It’s the moral equivalence that bother police. The idea that people would take word of the mob purse snatcher as equal to a cop’s word. Even worse is the idea, which I hear a lot of, that these guys are actually morally superior to working police officers. It’s absurd. (You can get another take on this from a previous post.)
Here’s the thing about the guys who were threatening her: it’s not like they just appeared yesterday and won’t be here tomorrow. Police deal with these guys literally every day. These dozen youths are out there every night in the streets of Baltimore. They might not always be acting up quite so much. But sometimes they are. Too many people pretend it’s all about bad police oppressing good people. But they don’t live or work in neighborhoods where they get harassed by these specific youths. But good people do. And they call the police. I’m talking class, not race.
Police handle “routine calls for service” like this every hour. When I texted my friend working the Eastern last night wishing him well, he replied, “Thanks brother. Just another night in the hood! Lol.”
A typical call may be because Pops called 911 because these kids on the corner, in front of his house, are being loud, rowdy, breaking bottles, and otherwise disrespectful. You get the call. You pull up. You’re solo. There they are. Deal with it. That’s what cops do. Every goddamn day. You know, I got tired telling the same group of drug dealers to get off the same corner every goddamn night. But I did. I had to. It was my job.
Usually what happens in the ghetto stays in the ghetto. Literally and figuratively. I spoke to many teenagers in the Eastern who had never been downtown. Never been out of Baltimore. Never left their neighborhood. It might be one thing to never leave your neighborhood if you live somewhere nice, but if your whole world is centered around Rutland and Crystal? (Go on, google-steet-view 1511 Rutland Ave, Baltimore MD 21213 and take a look around. Hell, buy that home for $8,000!) Take a stroll down the 1700 block of Crystal Ave. No wonder you’re messed up. Who do you think is pulling the trigger on 200-plus homicides a year in the city of Baltimore? Since Freddie Gray died in police hands — between April 13 and April 26 — there have been 8 murders in Baltimore.
So yesterday — along with hundreds of peaceful protesters — a bit of the ghetto broke out of the ghetto. Now if you’re so ideologically inclined you might think that’s good. Or, if you’re in a restaurant where things are being thrown through the windows, you might not (while praying that a Molotov cocktail doesn’t follow suit). But here are a dozen human being society tries to ignore, until we put them in prison. I’m not talking about the protesters. I’m talking about these dozen thugs.
And I don’t actually blame these kids for being foolish — I know they’re fools, but hell, they never had a chance. Look where they grew up. Look at their parents — as much as I blame the people who apologize for their bad actions. Those who call mindless violence a “rebellion” or “giving voice to the voiceless.” Those who blame police for trying to calm a disturbance. Those who believe in the false ideal of the gentleman thug.
So we pay police to deal with the problems of our country and to somehow contain these kids so they don’t beat up working tax-paying voters. We, collectively, have failed. And then we wait for police to make a mistake and blame it all on them.