Posted on 02/01/2021 7:38:27 AM PST by karpov
Criminal justice in America is at a crossroads. The ongoing debate about racial justice in policing, incarceration, and prosecution became a national fixation following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Since then, it has remained a flash point in our politics.
The election of Democrat Joe Biden, whose party is aligned with Black Lives Matter, who called Antifa “an idea,” and who cites “systemic racism” as the major problem facing black Americans, will make the next four years challenging for proponents of effective policing. This challenge will be felt not only by those on the thinning blue line but also by those living in deteriorating urban enclaves that saw homicides and shootings spike in the second half of last year.
Most law-enforcement policies are a function of decisions made by state and local governments, many of which have acted in recent months to hamstring cops and hack away at policing budgets. But the incoming Biden administration will have significant influence over how the debate plays out on the ground. The next attorney general will set the agenda at the Department of Justice, and there is every reason to expect the agenda to go backward, reverting to Obama-era practices. The Obama DOJ, for instance, initiated numerous “pattern-and-practice” investigations of police departments based on racial disparities in various enforcement outcomes.
Should a Biden administration reinstate this model, cities could see crime continue to rise. A troubling study, coauthored by Harvard economists Roland Fryer and Tanaya Devi, assessed the impact of pattern-and-practice investigations under President Obama and found a strong causal connection between some of those investigations—the ones that followed viral incidents of police use of force—and spikes in serious crime. In Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Ferguson, and Riverside (California), investigations led police to scale back proactive policing.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
One of the biggest root causes of our problems today is the lack of enforcement of our existing laws. This is suicidal for the nation. They seem to be trying to create mayhem.
Yes, but THE biggest problem is a dishonest press. For example:
Trump says, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard".
The headline the next day in the New York Times read, "TRUMP INCITES MOB". I'm not sure that it's even possible to distort something more than that.
Yep. That pretty much nails the whole thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.