Posted on 05/24/2016 6:01:41 AM PDT by KeyLargo
The Nationwide Crime Wave Is Building
As the homicide rate keeps rising in many cities, even some who dismissed the Ferguson effect admit the phenomenon is real.
By Heather Mac Donald May 23, 2016
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey has again drawn the wrath of the White House for calling attention to the rising violence in urban areas. Homicides increased 9% in the largest 63 cities in the first quarter of 2016; nonfatal shootings were up 21%, according to a Major Cities Chiefs Association survey. Those increases come on top of last years 17% rise in homicides in the 56 biggest U.S. cities, with 10 heavily black cities showing murder spikes above 60%.
I was very worried about it last fall, Mr. Comey told a May 11 news conference. And I am in many ways more worried now, he said, because the violent-crime rate is going up even faster this year.
Mr. Comeys sin, according to the White House, was to posit that this climbing urban violence was the result of a falloff in proactive policing, a hypothesis I first put forward in these pages last year, dubbing it the Ferguson effect. The FBI director used the term viral video effect, but it is a distinction without a difference. Theres a perception, Mr. Comey said during his news conference, that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crimethe getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, What are you doing here?
The reaction to Mr. Comeys heresy was swift. White House spokesman Josh Earnest immediately accused the FBI director of being irresponsible and ultimately counterproductive by drawing conclusions based on anecdotal evidence.
Mr. Comeys dressing-down was the second time he has been rebuked..
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Now everyone knows why the number of people getting a carry license is skyrocketing - esp. since 2009. Gee, what happened that year to cause that...can’t think of anything in particular. Sunspots? Globull Worming? Nope, I got nothing.
Trump needs to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep James Comey in charge of the FBI. Repair the building, update computers, hire more staff... WHATEVER IT TAKES...
Bet the other side of her sign says, “Arm Gangstas.”
by drawing conclusions based on FACTS.-)
Message to working / taxpaying folks.. Thats rain, I aint really pi$$ing on you......
I thought of: Messaging to white people that hate crime laws only apply to you because everyone else is eternally innocent of racism. But your suggestion is a good one too, thanks.
Being “rebuked” by White House spokesman Josh Earnest is like being threatened by a three-year-old. The hard part is not laughing.
Published: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 12:01 a.m. CDT By MICHAEL BARONE-Creators.com
University of Missouri at St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld has had second thoughts. Like many academic criminologists, he had pooh-poohed charges that skyrocketing murder rates in many cities in 2015 and 2016 result from a Ferguson effect a skittering back from proactive policing for fear of accusations of racism such as those that followed the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
Now, after looking over 2015 data from 56 large cities, hes changed his mind. Homicides in those cities were up 17 percent from 2014. And 10 cities, all with large black populations, saw homicides up 33 percent on average.
These arent flukes or blips, this is a real increase, Rosenfeld said. The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect.
Rosenfeld thus parts company with the liberal Brennan Center, whose analysts argued that the 2015 homicide increase in large cities was not a national pandemic. He parts company also with FiveThirtyEight analyst Carl Bialik, who dismissed a 16 percent homicide increase in 59 of the 60 largest cities in 2014 and 2015 as a less dire picture than the one painted by reports in several large media outlets.
But a 16 percent or 17 percent increase in homicides in major cities that account for a large share of the national murder toll is, in historical perspective, very dire indeed. The most accurate word is unprecedented.
The only double-digit increases in national murder statistics going back to 1960 are 13 percent (in 1968), 11 percent (in 1966, 1967 and 1971) and 10 percent (in 1979). Read at: http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2016/05/23/barone-ferguson-effect-threatens-to-harm-black-americans-most/ahcuons/
Yes, Theres a Ferguson Effect
Hostility toward police has led to a rise in crime, but what can we do about it?
By Robert VerBruggen May 23, 2016
The evidence is now clear: the much-debated Ferguson Effectin which heated protests lead to hesitant cops and higher crimeis real. In cities such as Baltimore and Chicago these three phenomena emerged at the exact same time. Nationwide, many urban areas, especially those with large black populations, saw substantial increases in homicide between 2014 and 2015. And new data collected from big-city police departments indicate that the problem may be ongoing, with a 9 percent rise in homicide between the first quarter of 2015 and the same period this year.
It hasnt happened in everywhere, it hasnt affected every type of crime, and we dont fully understand every aspect of it. We definitely dont know what to do about it. But the increase in violence is real, and even early critics of the Ferguson Effect are beginning to acknowledge it.
The criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, for example, was once quick to point out that the Ferguson Effect was hard to detect in the St. Louis area itself (which saw protests and riots after the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a grand jurys decision not to indict the officer involved). But in July, the Department of Justice will be releasing a nationwide analysis from Rosenfeld that reaches a different conclusion. The only explanation that gets the timing [of cities homicide spikes] right is a version of the Ferguson Effect, Rosenfeld told the Guardian. The solution to fraying relationships between police and those they protect, he says, is a focus on community policing and a more effective response to serious crimes.
More on the Ferguson Effects implications in a bit. But first, its worth looking back ...
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/yes-theres-a-ferguson-effect/
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