[HN Gopher] Murder rate rose by almost 30% in 2020 in the US
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Murder rate rose by almost 30% in 2020 in the US
Author : atlasunshrugged
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-09-24 10:31 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210924103924/https://www.nytime...
|
| https://archive.is/xuynD
| giardini wrote:
| I've always heard that the murder rate and other assault stats
| was most strongly correlated with the number of males between the
| ages of ~16 and 26.
| enono wrote:
| I'm just eyeballing it here, but it looks like there was a
| similar increase in homicides (i know there is a difference
| between homicide and murder) during the spanish flu pandemic from
| 1918-1920
|
| https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/doc...
|
| Also y'all should not be so confident in your diagnosis of why
| the murder rate spiked so much this year. Hindsight is 20/20 and
| this is a highly complex / multivariate problem. Simple answers
| are probably wrong here
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Simple answers are probably wrong here
|
| I would argue the opposite in this case. The increase started
| at the same time in almost every large city in the US, but not
| in other countries in the world. If the same thing happens in
| 30 cities at the same time, I'm not looking for 30 root causes,
| I'm looking at what was the commonality in those 30 US cities
| around that time that was different from what was going on in
| the rest of the world.
| felistoria wrote:
| I don't think it has to do with defunding the police at all. I do
| think is has to do with removing the ability of the police to
| make arrests or when they do the person is just released. In
| Portland, when they arrest someone, the DA just releases them.
| About a month ago the female owner of a coffee shop was blasted
| out of no where with an uppercut by a homeless guy. The dude was
| arrested and let out in less than 24 hours. How do you let
| someone violent like that just roam the streets? The only way the
| actually put someone away anymore is for murder. Stuff like this
| is definitely one factor as to why murder rates are up.
| bjourne wrote:
| Isn't it a little presumptuous of you to think that you know
| what caused the spike when criminologists who study all kinds
| of crime rates for a living does not know?
| felistoria wrote:
| It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come to the logical
| conclusion that catch and release of criminals will lead to
| more crime.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Same story in Chicago. Not sure if it's because holding them
| would cause overcrowding or what but it's a huge problem
| spamizbad wrote:
| Illinois had, at one point, the most crowded prisons in the
| nation. They're still technically over capacity, but it's no
| longer that extreme.
|
| In my opinion, if you want to throw more people in prison,
| you need to invest in the infrastructure to house them.
| Voters quickly lose their appetite for "Law and Order"/"Throw
| away the key" when the tax man comes by asking to build a new
| prison and hire more prison guards. I don't see many people
| advocating for more IDOC funding although I'm sure they
| exist.
|
| Should we be locking more people up? Maybe, but how are we
| going to pay for it? And is that _really_ the correct answer
| when the United States incarceration rate is already several
| times higher than the OECD average? I would say the smarter
| course of action is to address root causes of these problems
| - building more prisons and trying to incarcerate our way out
| of the problem is just creating our own gulag archipelago.
| [deleted]
| GoodJokes wrote:
| Prison is not effective and inhumane.
| cbsmith wrote:
| > I don't think it has to do with defunding the police at all.
|
| That seems like a reasonable on conclusion given that the
| totals for May 1 & Jun 1 were already record setting...
| drbojingle wrote:
| I agree. It's not as if police actively go searching for
| murderers to catch. They respond to issues that have already
| happened.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The dominant mindset these days is that prison should be about
| rehabilitation, not punishment. It sounds wonderful and
| unobjectionable on its surface. But it is wrong. Not _entirely_
| wrong, but wrong nonetheless.
|
| Because prison also serves as a risk reduction measure for the
| general public. While I do want our justice system to try its
| hardest to rehabilitate people, I hold the abhorrently
| unpopular opinion that some portion of the population just
| needs to be kept away from the rest. I hear plenty of local
| news stories about a suspect who has 20+ prior offenses being
| let go from custody awaiting trial. Why in the world do we let
| people with such a track record out of jail, much less with no
| cash bail?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I'll back up your unpopular opinion and say we should have a
| new Australia. Some people are never going to rehabilitate,
| keeping them in prison costs a ton of money, and they'd
| probably enjoy being on an island somewhere better
| anyways...even if it would be a ridiculously lawless place.
|
| The only problem is I think we're all out of inhabitable
| places.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Problem is the same with the death penalty, sentencing some
| innocent people, because that's essentially what you'd be
| sentencing them to. Some innocent people (tried guilty)
| will be sent there and immediately become slaves or killed.
|
| Have a minimal force to enforce basic rights? Well to
| actually configure that safely, you're back at a prison.
| maxmcd wrote:
| The United States has the largest prison population in the
| world and the highest incarceration rate. Every time there is
| a crime thread on HN it is full of anecdotal stories about
| how we can be tougher on crime. It boggles my mind that this
| is the accepted framing.
|
| You're not going to "see" the lives that wasted in prisons
| that would have been reasonably rehabilitated in other
| countries.
|
| You would have to think the criminal justice system in the
| united states is extremely fair and that we have a
| dramatically different population to place such a high
| priority on the people that are possibly victims of crimes
| over people that are inappropriately incarcerated.
| darawk wrote:
| It's almost as though the framing of "tougher" vs "softer"
| is a ridiculous over-simplification of the matter.
|
| We should be tougher on violent crime and softer on non-
| violent crime.
|
| EDIT: I want to amend this to say that even the increase in
| nuance that I just suggested is probably not nuanced
| enough. Some kinds of violent crime we are probably too
| harsh on, and some kinds of non-violent crime (e.g. serious
| white collar financial crime, or certain types of
| safety/environmental violations at scale) we could probably
| stand to be a bit harsher on.
| scarmig wrote:
| Severity of punishment isn't the best way to
| disincentivize crime. If you have two justice regimes,
| one where 50% is caught and punished and the other where
| 25% is but punishment is twice as harsh, the former will
| be far more effective at decreasing crime.
|
| (Mostly) abolish prisons, and put tons of police officers
| into the community.
| maxmcd wrote:
| I disagree. Straight from the wikipedia intro:
|
| > According to a 2014 Human Rights Watch report, "tough-
| on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled U.S.
| prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United
| _St...
| darawk wrote:
| It doesn't seem like you read what I said. I'm not
| defending "tough on crime laws". And I specifically said
| we should be softer on non-violent crime. So i'm not sure
| what it is you're responding to.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| Over half of all individuals in prison in the US are
| serving for violent offenses. Even if we released every
| non-violent offender currently incarcerated, the US would
| still be in the top 15 countries in the world for
| prisoners per capita.
|
| Everyone railing against the prison system in America
| seems to have bought into a myth that our prison system
| is out of control because of harsh sentences for "minor"
| infractions like drug offenses and theft. The reality is
| that American society, for whatever reason, is more
| violent than most other societies in the world. You can
| try and make the argument that the prison system is at
| fault, but I think it's more likely that other more
| fundamental aspects of America are larger factors
| contributing to it, and attempting to abolish the police
| or overhaul the prison system are unlikely to do much, as
| that's simply treating symptoms and not the disease.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I'd also like to point out that enforcement also has a
| disproportionate effect on skilled crime vs. unskilled
| crime. Pickpocketing is one example; in areas that
| enforcement against pickpocketing goes up, the crime
| nearly disappears, because it becomes not worth it to
| learn the skill (and it's more likely that those who
| could teach you the skill are in prison).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It boggles the mind, but it does at least explain why we
| got the prison state we have.
| koboll wrote:
| >prison should be about rehabilitation, not punishment
|
| It should. But simply letting people out is neither.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| 1. The US has the most incarcerated people per capita in OECD
|
| 2. US prisons seem to be awful. They should be about
| rehabilitation, but they are focused on punishment.
|
| 3. Because of point 2, we are reluctant to imprison some
| offenders, in fear of destroying their lives and chances of
| rehabilitation.
|
| 4. The cash bail system is not the norm across the world. It
| is weird to only jail people who can't afford to pay.
|
| Are there any attempts to copy Norway's Halden prison in the
| US?
| xtracto wrote:
| > 2. US prisons seem to be awful. They should be about
| rehabilitation, but they are focused on punishment.
|
| Just the other day I watched a video of an interview of an
| American person who spent time in a prison here in Mexico.
| He described American prison as "a hotel" when compared to
| Mexican prisons. There is a really good documentary about a
| prison in Tijuana [1] showing an example of that.
|
| My point being that prisons in the USA are actually quite
| good, compared to most prisons in the world. That doesn't
| make them acceptable. The problem is that the general idea
| of the prison system in the world just doesn't seem to be
| working.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqi4ZpR2OWI
| valdiorn wrote:
| Prisons serve 4 roles; rehabilitation, punishment, deterrent
| and public safety. How you balance these is done differently
| in many countries.
|
| The US seems to historically have focused on the punishment
| aspect most of all.
|
| I'd say deterrent and then rehabilitation are the main ones
| in the UK.
|
| In Scandinavia it's mostly about rehabilitation and public
| safety, with punishment being almost non-existent.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| You're simplifying the opposing position in a way that isn't
| fully honest. There are at least four purposes incarceration
| can serve: rehabilitation, retribution, dissuasion, and
| separation.
|
| Rehabilitation meaning, giving people the tools and resources
| to avoid recidivism. Retribution being, punishment or justice
| for the benefit of the victim. Separation being physical
| removal of people incompatible or dangerous to society.
| Dissuasion being what you describe, punishment that rational
| actors will take into account when deciding to take an
| action.
|
| Pro-rehabilitation people argue that rehabilitation should be
| the first priority, and retribution the last, with separation
| there when necessary (think: life sentences for people who
| murder without remorse) and dissuasion somewhere in the
| middle. Compare prison to something like an inpatient
| addiction recovery center, which aims to rehabilitate and
| separate (although sort of in the reverse way) and how much
| more constructive that is.
|
| I don't think there's very many people at all (even among
| like hardcore prison abolitionists) who believe that it's
| possible to entirely do away with _some_ form of separation
| of people who are dangerously incompatible with the norms of
| society. If nothing else, mentally ill people who can exhibit
| violent behaviors will continue to exist.
|
| All that said, your comment also has very little to do with
| murder rates. Those don't really correlate a lot with petty
| crime or even petty violent crime. Someone who makes a living
| breaking into cars doesn't suddenly jump to murder.
| aaomidi wrote:
| It's wrong when you focus ONLY on prisons.
|
| That's the thing people miss from the conversations. Those
| who want to abolish police and prisons aren't just saying
| shut them down and we're all good. They're saying shut them
| down and spend money in directly increasing the quality of
| life for people.
|
| Crimes increase as poverty and class divide increases.
| Decrease those and you've actually managed to solve the
| source of the problem, rather than trying to find a solution
| for the consequence (increase in violent crimes).
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Alternatively, people that aren't intelligent and/or have
| impulsivity issues have a hard time holding down jobs - and
| those people very well might still commit crimes even after
| throwing money at them.
|
| A classmate of mine had a successful tile laying business.
| He got on meth. He put cameras in people's homes. He stole
| things. He then tied up a girl and raped her all night.
| aaomidi wrote:
| "people that aren't intelligent and/or have impulsivity
| issues have a hard time holding down jobs"
|
| So why does the US have more of this? All of these
| descriptions ignore that America is seemingly the worst
| place out of everywhere for this? Why?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Poor broken families & communities with low education and
| few options generate large numbers of such people.
|
| A simple look at the background of violent offenders
| shows this.
|
| This is partially an economic problem, but also has
| social roots with multigenerational feedback loops. >50%
| of violent offenders were physically abused, raped, or
| neglected by parents. Many were unwanted or abandoned by
| one or more parents.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > I don't think it has to do with defunding the police at all.
| I do think is has to do with removing the ability of the police
| to make arrests
|
| Or a mixture of the two.
| felistoria wrote:
| True
| furyofantares wrote:
| The first thing that came to my mind wasn't anything to do with
| defunding the police, nor with releasing more people during the
| pandemic -- it was that folks in domestic violence situations
| during lockdowns spent a lot more than 30% additional time with
| their abuser, and had fewer options if they wished to leave, and
| fewer opportunities to prepare to leave
| zamalek wrote:
| Exactly, there are many other explanations. Being stuck at home
| is also a situation where domestic violence could erupt for the
| first time. Another one is that a burglar in 2020 would be
| almost guaranteed to find someone at home.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| The pandemic was global, the huge spike in homicide was
| American. If you look at North and South America, the majority
| of countries had a decrease in homicide in 2020, most of the
| ones with an increase had a small increase. This includes
| countries with some of the highest homicide rates in the world.
| El Salvador had the highest homicide rate in the world in 2018,
| during 2020 it decreased almost 45%. El Salvador had a
| significant response to the pandemic including a 30 day curfew.
| If lockdowns cause homicide shouldn't it have showed up there,
| and in the rest of the world?
|
| The only country in the Americas with an increase approaching
| the US was Chile with a 28% increase. What was going on in
| Chile?
|
| "Political unrest in the country continued into 2020. Following
| a period of relative peace amid mobility restrictions
| associated with the coronavirus pandemic, violent clashes
| between security forces and protestors resumed a year after
| demonstrations over high living costs and extreme inequality
| had first erupted in the capital Santiago."
|
| Chile also has drug trafficking homicides, not sure if that
| increased in 2020. The fact that two of the countries with
| massive increases in homicide rates had political unrest at the
| same time isn't proof, but it's a clue.
| steve76 wrote:
| After a shooting, notice that you start getting tourists. Most
| people love murder. It gives them rep.
|
| Nice things, being a parent, are only met with cynicism, even
| hostile disgust. Build something nice. It will be torn apart
| today. That's what's honest right? Turning back into an animal.
| All those things like civility, mutual respect, abstract thought,
| jurisprudence, that's just phony superstitions, made up by the
| powerful for oppression. They're too dumb, too white, even though
| their origins are from Mesopotamia and a Mediterranean antiquity.
|
| George Soros, you are a modern day Don Quixote. You tilt at the
| windmills of lawless amorality and self-righteous license.
| Liberty means the powerful acknowledge they really can't force
| anyone to do anything. Whether to advance or to retreat is always
| a personal individual decision. How can you transcend conventions
| when you can't even master the basics of what it means to be
| human? Here's an idea, if you are going to spend a lot of money
| and effort only to make things worse, don't do it. Go away. Don't
| even try to fool yourself. The world is better without you. Life
| becomes so much nicer and easier once you get far away from all
| these violent stubborn fools.
| archsurface wrote:
| I can't read the article, but would think this is a no brainer
| due to lockdowns - along with increased suicide, divorce,
| domestic abuse.
| bradlys wrote:
| lol - so people do people think BLM and defund the police
| actually had a real effect? I'm confused because black people
| still get murdered by cops all the time and I haven't seen any
| metros defund their police to levels _below_ what they were in
| the last five years. Biggest "defund" I've seen is not increasing
| their budget again for the 30th year in a row.
|
| Weird political commentators coming into HN.
|
| Article has no details on the reasons either. It has no clue.
| Just quotes stats. Btw - overall crime was down for the year.
| Violent crime went up 4-5%. Murder was just way higher and of
| course is a headline and click getter. I wouldn't be surprised if
| the majority of the murder was gang related and literally no one
| except those in gang ridden neighborhoods gives a shit. (So no
| one because no one cares about the poors)
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| Here in New York City & New Jersey, bail reform was passed circa
| 2019. This limited when bail could be imposed on people,
| including the almost complete elimination of mandatory bail. It
| is completely up to the District Attorney's discretion.
|
| The idea was that illegal drug dealing shouldn't come with an
| unusual burden for bail, given that its non-violent. This was
| heralded as a victory almost immeadiately: there was little
| change in crime rate within the first months of it being passed.
|
| This seemed really strange to me. Why would you declare victory
| like this so prematurely? It was just _months_ after it was
| passed that people said "look no difference, more humane." Such
| proclamations should be waited at least two years so you could
| handle any noise.
|
| Also noted in this thread has been the new hyper progressive DAs
| who don't prosecute unless its really bad. Take SF with Chesa
| Boudin, who doesn't prosecute thefts under the felony limit
| (roughly $1000) _at all_.
|
| There's a lot to be said about whether these all form moral
| hazards but I leave that to one's own interpretation. I will say
| that people under ~35 never knew a New York City so dangerous you
| couldn't walk around at night.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Why two years? Why do the people interacting with the system on
| a daily basis not get to make observations on a major change in
| the system in "just" months?
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| You can't say "there was no difference in crime" with only a
| few months of data.
|
| It's too noisy. There isn't enough data.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > It's too noisy.
|
| [Citation Needed]
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| I'm surprised two people are debating this.
|
| Statistics over small timescales, e.g. months, will not
| be as accurate as statistics over large timescales. This
| isn't disputed (unless it is? I'd be curious if you know
| people who think statistics with fewer numbers are more
| accurate than statistics with more numbers.
|
| As for if a few months of data was enough to proclaim
| victory, NYC's current surge in crime seems evident to me
| that a few months was not enough data.
|
| As for if this is directly relevant to the surge in
| crime, I leave that to your own conclusions.
|
| As for why I picked two years, it was an arbitrary guess.
| My point is that we need more data before announcing
| "bail reform solved problems."
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > I'm surprised two people are debating this.
|
| With Marxists, everything is a debate until their side
| wins.
|
| As we're seeing with the murder rate, Afghanistan and the
| southern border, that means we all lose as a country.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Murder rose over 35 percent in cities with populations over
| 250,000 that reported full data. It also rose over 40 percent in
| cities 100,000 to 250,000, and around 25 percent in cities under
| 25,000.
|
| The difference has been noticeable in my city. Murders within the
| city used to be kind of common, maybe two or so a month, but such
| crimes were non-existent in the suburbs. Lots of overdoses, but
| never murders. Now though, there are multiple murders per week
| within the city, and a few a month in some of the suburbs.
|
| Scrolling through the local news is just painful. City or
| suburbs, kids or adults, the news is full of people killed. Stats
| back up that this is already the second deadliest year in the
| region, after last year.
|
| And since this will come up. It's a mildly blue city in a very,
| very red state. We definitely did not defund the police, if
| anything, we upfunded them in response.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| > if anything
|
| Sounds real scientific like.
| mywittyname wrote:
| So, local governments publish their budgets, so I can see
| that the increases happened. But they don't publish their
| reasoning for the increases, thus, I can only guess on the
| intent.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| If you read the meeting minutes for the local government
| meeting you will find their thoughts. If the meeting
| minutes seem duplicitous, you can always make a FOIA
| request. You can also look at which candidates receive
| funding from various local government unions and fraternal
| orders.
|
| I don't read meeting minutes for most cities, but I do
| follow my own. Essentially with crime increasing the city
| council members in my extremely blue city were scared to
| cut police funding (fearing being blamed for a crime
| increase). It's nothing nefarious. It just means activists
| need to do better challenging status quo opinions.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _If you read the meeting minutes for the local
| government meeting you will find their thoughts_
|
| Oh yes because government officials never lie on
| record...
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Perhaps I misunderstood the grandparent post. But police
| funding seems like a straightforward, highly politicized
| issue. It's not like there's some sketchy backroom deals
| over an innocuous sounding contract.
| [deleted]
| GoodJokes wrote:
| Overall crime is down.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| A lot of people in this thread seem to have made up their minds
| about why more people are killing each other in America.
|
| I read the article and still haven't made up my mind. Thought I'd
| post a comment for anybody thinking the same.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| It might just be as simple as people feel more anonymous and
| thus more emboldened when everyone is wearing masks.
| Lammy wrote:
| If I may throw my speculation into the ring: I assume it's
| because people are hurting for money and thus also for
| necessities like housing, food, and self-determination. My
| understanding of murder vs homicide was that murder requires
| intent, but some searching suggests robbery can count as that
| intent: https://www.danielsonlawfirm.com/murder-manslaughter-
| homicid...
|
| "A person is guilty of capital murder if the person attempted
| to commit or did commit a violent crime such as kidnapping,
| robbery, or arson, and in doing so, the person causes the death
| of another human being."
|
| Obviously murder is always bad, and I can't just forgive
| murderers even if I feel sorry for them, but I believe the fear
| and stress of not being able to survive in this world and
| economy we've built can push people over all kinds of edges
| they would otherwise never approach. I refuse to believe that
| anybody would want to be a murderer in a hypothetical "perfect"
| world, even the extreme cases like serial killers. I believe
| there's always an emotional hole trying to be filled.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| The robbery rate went down in 2020 along with most other
| types of violent and non-violent crime. Shootings and
| homicides were the only types of crime that skyrocketed.
|
| In addition, low wage workers who got laid off made more
| money than they were making working. And there was a
| moratorium on evictions.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I would think that people of that sort have had more money
| than ever with the federal unemployment benefits.
|
| Maybe working keeps people from murdering.
| angelzen wrote:
| Here is a Vox article citing a book that appears to have
| looked at LA crime data in some depth. Their thesis is the
| murder rate has little to do with general criminality rates,
| but rather with gangs and easy access to loaded guns. I am
| too tone-deaf to American politics to say how much bias
| should I read in those sources, but seems an interesting
| perspective. The book was published in 1999, before the
| hyper-partisan era, so perhaps that's a good sign.
|
| > "Only a minority of Los Angeles homicides grow out of
| criminal encounters like robbery and rape," they find
| (there's no reason to believe the pattern would differ in
| other cities). So even if it could be shown that American
| robbery and rape rates are across-the-board higher than those
| in similar countries (which doesn't appear true today), that
| still wouldn't explain why America has so many more homicides
| than other countries. Again, Zimring and Hawkins's LA data
| was revealing.
|
| > "A far greater proportion of Los Angeles homicides grow out
| of arguments and other social encounters between
| acquaintances [than robbery or rape]," they find.
|
| > This is where guns enter the story. The mere presence of
| firearms, according to Zimring and Hawkins, makes a merely
| tense situation more likely to turn deadly. When a gang
| member argues with another gang member, or a robber sticks up
| a liquor store, there's always a risk that the situation can
| escalate to some kind of violence. But when people have a
| handheld tool that is specially engineered for killing
| efficiently, escalation to murder becomes much, much more
| likely.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9217163/america-guns-europe
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Is-Not-Problem-
| Violence/dp/0195...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, but it can be fun to speculate and share information. One
| interesting theory that I have is that it relates to stimulus
| checks and Drug crime. A huge amount of money flowed into the
| economy and it's plausible that The Fallout of drug
| organizations fighting to capture that influx of cash
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| That is an interesting theory. Along similar lines, with
| people debating whether policing has anything to do with it,
| I thought "mafia thinks it can get its hits in now." Seems
| outlandish, though.
|
| My best guess is that people cooped up and afraid are more
| likely to kill. I wonder how it went in other countries. I
| also wonder whether the distribution of methods of murder
| (gun, etc.) was much different from 2019 (probably not).
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, I think a lot of these theories can be easily tested
| by looking at the demographics and details of the crimes.
| For example how many of the murderer than victims
| cohabitated or how many were drug related
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > My best guess is that people cooped up and afraid are
| more likely to kill.
|
| People who are cooped up and _angry_. (I mean, they are
| afraid, too, but I think the anger is more the cause of
| murders than the fear.)
|
| What are they angry about? Being cooped up. _Still_ being
| cooped up. Having their job put on hold, their self-worth
| threatened, their financial well-being threatened. And they
| have more time to spend of social media in a filter bubble
| (from either side), getting more angry about everything
| else.
| WealthVsSurvive wrote:
| In the simplest terms, there is more murder because there is
| less trust. Monetary, personal, institutional, future,
| material: true or not, the perception is enough.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Causality is such a wasteful discussion point. Most of the time
| you can simply look in a different, non-causality-focused
| direction and find enough good ideas to design a better
| outcome. At the very, very least it's a good idea to go multi-
| model with causality.
| ameminator wrote:
| Uh, I disagree with a lot of the commenters here. I _do_ think it
| had something to do with the "defund the police" movement, the
| BLM riots and the absolute unwillingness of police agencies
| around the country to address crime. However, I can also
| acknowledge that keeping people shut out of their jobs and
| participation in public life is an easy way to forment social
| unrest.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| Do you have and data or more thoughts on this?
|
| I ask because we tend to associate the police with "fighting
| crime" where the reality seems to be that they are mostly
| "responding to crime that has already happened". There will
| certainly be a few examples of police stopping crime in the
| moment but you would literally needs cops everywhere to even
| try to catch a decent percentage of violent crime that is
| committed.
| drekipus wrote:
| > mostly "responding to crime that has already happened".
|
| Yes the police, and justice, are to act as a deterrent to
| crime, moreso than "respond before a crime happened"
|
| I highly suspect that the respect for the law has dropped,
| and with ideas of defunding the police, there's probably less
| resources as well.
|
| This is what was asked for.
| vb6sp6 wrote:
| Is there data to suggest any of this?
| drekipus wrote:
| Data to suggest that the law is meant as a deterrent or
| data to suggest my suspicions?
|
| (Edit: because I don't think "data" can help you in
| either of these situations)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Either way. Data. (It's not data only if it supports one
| side. Either it's data no matter which side it supports,
| or it's not data.)
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Good, most USA thugs need to be bulldozed into mass graves.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I wonder if anyone really thought this whole 'defunding the
| police' idea through.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Defunding the police is about taking away their military grade
| equipment, nothing to do with your everyday murder.
|
| I find it way more likely, and interesting, that covid had a
| major role in the rise of homicides. The lockdowns/restrictions
| and their social / mental health impacts: people losing their
| loved ones, jobs, financial/mental struggles, domestic
| violence, &c. You can live in the most policed country in the
| world, if you're locked down with your abusive/violent partner
| for X months violence will happen
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| > Defunding the police is about taking away their military
| grade equipment, nothing to do with your everyday murder.
|
| You're mixing up defunding the police with demilitarizing the
| police.
|
| Two different topics.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| We are gonna see the effects of these lockdowns and
| restrictions play out for years. We've got an entire
| generation of kids growing up that have missed more than a
| year of school and still aren't back to "normal school. Wait
| until they become adults!
|
| The sad part is plenty of people warned about this sort of
| thing but they were (and still are) censored, bullied,
| harassed, gaslit, you name it.
|
| This myopic fixation on exactly one single disease to the
| exclusion of literally everything else in life is gonna go
| down as one of the worst public policy fuckups of all time.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| You might be surprised to learn that there are even whole books
| about the topic complete with reading groups, speaking events,
| and discourse.
| vharuck wrote:
| As the article mentions, murder rates rose across the country.
| And not many cities actually had official support, let alone
| took action, for defunding or restructuring police forces.
|
| Honestly, blaming it on the "Defund the police" movement is a
| lazy oversimplification. Even if cops decided to patrol or
| investigate less because of that movement, I wouldn't expect a
| massive spike in the murder rate. Sure, people might pick
| pockets or rob houses if they think nobody's watching, but
| murder?
| darthnebula wrote:
| >>Honestly, blaming it on the "Defund the police" movement is
| a lazy oversimplification
|
| No, I think ignoring the facts is clinging to your ideology
| at all costs. Not many cities had official support? You can't
| be serious.
| angelzen wrote:
| Do you seriously propose that 'defund the police' has no
| effect whatsoever on the murder rate? Here is a list of
| largest 100 American cities by party affiliation. Feel free
| to research whether political affiliation of the city
| leadership, thus propensity to embrace 'defund the police'
| policies, has anything to do with the spike in murders.
|
| Unfortunately I am not aware of professional studies of the
| matter. Perhaps there will never be. Given an academic system
| that is 99% affiliated with one political party, difficult to
| find people willing to scuttle their careers by researching
| topics that might place policies associated with that
| political party in anything but the most positive light.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_t.
| ..
|
| Edit: Here is a chart showing sharp decline in 'officers in
| service' numbers in a progressive West Coast city that
| embraced 'defund the police':
|
| https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/10/after-
| september-s...
|
| And the spike in murders in the same city:
|
| https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattlenews/article/2020-cri.
| ..
|
| > Crime dashboard data shows that 52 homicides occurred in
| 2020 compared to 35 in 2019 -- an increase of 48.57%.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Has there been any data that indicates that policing has an
| impact on murder rates ever? Even the murders in the CHAZ
| in Seattle at the height of defund the police were much
| more spur of the moment incidents. Not the type of thing
| someone is likely to reconsider if the police force were
| doubled.
|
| And given that the murder rate increase was national and
| not regional, it seems much more likely that it was
| nationally impacted. Maybe something like a pandemic which
| led to social stresses, economic stresses, and increases in
| gun purchases.
|
| Another city in Washington, Spokane, saw about a tripling
| in homicides in 2020 and there was no "defund the police"
| movement in that city, no reduction in police force -- and
| also has a Republican mayor and a generally much more
| conservative take than Seattle.
|
| You're simply reaching for a narrative rather than looking
| at the data.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Seattle cut less than 1% of the 2020 police budget in
| August.[1] About as much as they increased it from 2019.[2]
| And your source for the murder spike said other violent
| crimes decreased.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-
| protests-seat...
|
| [2] https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/FinanceDe
| partm...
| angelzen wrote:
| https://apnews.com/article/seattle-police-government-and-
| pol...
|
| > Over 200 Seattle police officers quit amid nation
| protests, April 28, 2021
|
| > Police Chief Adrian Diaz said Tuesday that the
| department is in a "staffing crisis" after more than 180
| police officers quit last year and another 66 officers
| left their jobs so far this year, according to police
| data. "We are at record lows in the city right now. I
| have about 1,080 deployable officers. This is the lowest
| I've seen our department," Diaz told KING-TV.
|
| Why would the city lose 20% of its police force in 2
| years? It is a mystery. What we know beyond reasonable
| doubt:
|
| * The loss in deployable officers is not related to the
| City Council publicly embracing 'defund the police'.
|
| * The loss in deployable officers has very little to do
| with the mysterious spike in murders that occurred during
| the same time period.
|
| Obviously anyone that raises absolutely unfounded
| concerns around those points is just exhibiting hysteric
| lazy thinking.
| derstander wrote:
| > Do you seriously propose that 'defund the police' has no
| effect whatsoever on the murder rate?
|
| This is a straw man of the parent's position. They say "
| blaming it on the "Defund the police" movement is a lazy
| oversimplification", not that it had "no effect
| whatsoever".
|
| It certainly seems plausible to me that having loads of
| people -- particularly those in lower socio-economic strata
| - without employment for an extended period of time could
| certainly contribute to crime rate increases.
|
| There's no need for straw-manning/hysterics here, we can
| have a measured conversation or debate.
| angelzen wrote:
| Compare:
|
| > Honestly, blaming it on the "Defund the police"
| movement is a lazy oversimplification
|
| Alternatively:
|
| > While the 'defund the police' movement is likely making
| matters worse, there are other potential confounding
| causes. For example, having loads of people --
| particularly those in lower socio-economic strata -
| without employment for an extended period of time [...]
|
| I am all for the 2nd approach, but I will object to the
| 1st.
| xmprt wrote:
| Your second approach is just a different way of saying
| the first.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Thanks for those references.
|
| Being from New Orleans, a majority black city, its
| absolutely crazy to me that this is even a debate.
|
| I think these BLM people seriously believe that police do
| more harm than good in black communities.
|
| And they think that there's no co-orelation between funding
| and performance for the police.
| angelzen wrote:
| There is a tragedy of the commons at play, of which
| 'defund the police' is but the last installment. The
| local Seattle prosecutor was notorious for years for not
| prosecuting crime. He recently lost his primary and will
| likely be replaced from the left by a true 'defund the
| police' candidate. Seattle hasn't even experienced
| 'defund the police' to its fullest extent, the worst is
| yet to come.
|
| > A repeat offender who was released from the King County
| Jail last weekend after attacking a security guard in
| Seattle was re-arrested a few hours later for a brutal
| attack that ended with that victim being hospitalized in
| intensive care, according to court documents and police.
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/assault-suspect-
| leaves-...
|
| https://www.teenvogue.com/story/abolitionist-candidates-
| runn...
| mijkal wrote:
| 'Defund the police' means we reallocate the every-
| increasing funding for armed agents who want for nothing
| (not unlike the US military -- look at the municipal
| budget allocations for police vs schools etc) and invest
| those funds into:
|
| 1) Alternative first responder services, such as mental
| health experts to deescalate incidents that far too often
| end in tragedy 2) Invest in preventative measures to
| ensure communities and society at-large is healthy:
| provide educational, medical, and economic opportunities
| to materially improve people's lives
|
| And more generally, police in America are long overdue
| for major reform. 'Qualified immunity' has let officers
| use violent and lethal force with impunity. They are
| supposed to be the trained professionals, yet their bar
| for use of force is _lower_ than an untrained civilian's.
| The oversight boards are a joke, with no teeth to
| actually hold police accountable. It's crazy when you
| think about all the principles espoused by America re:
| limited gov't and power to the People yet we have this
| superset class above the law they are meant to enforce. I
| expect them to be held to a higher standard, and to
| actually know the laws and people's rights so as not to
| infringe on them without consequence.
|
| And from talking with a (civilian) criminologist inside
| SPD who studies this up close, the mentality of cops is
| disturbing -- very 'us-vs-them' -- they aren't 'peace
| officers' who 'protect and serve', but are above us and
| demand 'respect' and unquestioning compliance above all
| else. They're the high school bullies equipped with guns
| and a badge. Their training by US/Israeli ex-military is
| disturbing because they react to all of us a potential
| mortal threats rather than as a member of a common
| community. There's a reason we had Posse Comitatus, but
| now we've militarized police at the local level, and
| surprise -- they act like it.
|
| I enthusiastically am voting for NTK in the general. The
| fact is heavily-funded and well-armed police for decades
| _has not_ and cannot improve the situation anymore than
| the military occupation in Afghanistan did. Crime is a
| symptom of more systemic issues, particularly poverty and
| loss of faith in public institutions. In short,
| hopelessness and despair.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That's nothing. You should see the graph of pirates vs
| global warming.
|
| To think Bluebeard was rescuing us from the deleterious
| effects of too much CO2 in the air!
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| The graph of illegal immigrants to crime is crazy too!
| curriculum wrote:
| As a counterpoint to your example of Seattle, Republican-
| led Fort Worth saw it's homicide numbers increase by 59% in
| 2020 (even more than Seattle) despite increasing their
| police budget over the same period:
|
| https://www.star-
| telegram.com/news/local/crime/article248169...
| Proven wrote:
| 1) You could also find some not so random city where
| murders decreased. I don't think anyone has any doubts
| where murders went up and why.
|
| 2) From your article it shows it could be due to a very
| similar reason (the difference is here they didn't
| intentionally cut down on it).
|
| > Manny Ramirez, the president of a union representing
| officers, has said that a decrease in proactive policing
| is a factor.
| floor2 wrote:
| Crime doesn't really work the way you're suggesting.
|
| Someone robbing houses is directly going to cause a massive
| uptick in violent crime. What if the resident is home and
| tries to defend themselves? The victim (of the home invasion)
| might shoot the invader in self-defense but be charged with
| murder anyway. Or the robber might kill the homeowner during
| a struggle even if they only intended to steal property
| initially.
|
| Plus, people aren't inherently "good" and "bad" or "criminals
| and non-criminals". There's complexity to how being a victim
| of crime can lead a person to commit other crimes, how "non-
| violent" crimes can quickly become violent, etc.
|
| Blaming "Defund the police" is kinda short-sighted, but
| certainly there have been massive shifts in how police see
| themselves, their jobs and their communities and how people
| see and interact with the police, and that those changes are
| part of the cascade of changes that lead to increases in
| murder rates.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| No actually you're wrong.
|
| Believe it or not, there's a direct co-orelation between
| police having resources available to fight crime and reduced
| crime!
|
| Crazy right?
|
| https://archive.is/5fIqM
|
| But we can't eliminate the possibility that all those
| thousands of new murders were all done by racist police
| officers.
|
| Has anyone looked into this?
|
| Could be a huge story.
|
| Wouldn't want anyone to get the crazy idea that police
| actually do good things for black communities.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| How does that article prove your claim?
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Well I'll let the headline of the Washington post article
| do the 'splainin'
|
| "Cities Reverse Defunding the Police Amid Rising Crime"
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Your proposition:
|
| 1. Cities increase police funding in response to
| increased crime
|
| 2. Therefore, decreasing police funding increases crime.
|
| However, 2. does not follow from 1, since many other
| factors affect crime rates, from legislation to
| enforcement and from social issues to societal issues.
|
| In fact, even the inverse of 2. does not follow from 1:
| increasing police funding does not decrease crime rates.
|
| If you disagree, please provide an academic source for
| the direct causal relationship between police funding and
| crime rate.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| There's academia and then there's real life and in real
| life the leaders are realizing Defunding the Police is a
| stupid idea.
|
| Can you explain why these leaders with highly paid staff
| of analysts who have way more knowledge and data, are
| doing this?
|
| EDIT: while you're downvoting me, be sure to downvote the
| leaders and news media who lied to you as well.
|
| """In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would
| reinstate $92 million for a new precinct after scrapping
| the project last summer. The mayor of Baltimore, who led
| efforts as a city councilman to cut the police budget by
| $22 million last year, recently proposed a $27 million
| increase.
|
| After attacks on Asian-Americans and a rise in homicides
| in Oakland, Calif., city lawmakers in April restored $3.3
| million of the $29 million in police cuts, and the mayor
| is now proposing to increase the department's budget by
| $24 million. Los Angeles's mayor has proposed an increase
| of about $50 million after the city cut $150 million from
| its police department last year."""
| iammisc wrote:
| This is the most disingenuous form of misinformation
| imaginable. While certainly true that murder is up
| everywhere, it is not true that it is up the same amount.
|
| As the article says, murder is up more in cities with pop
| >100k. Under 25k, the murder rate rose 25%. In larger cities,
| up to 40%.
|
| That is a substantial difference.
|
| No one is claiming that some places had fewer murders than
| before. People are claiming that policies make differences
| (in this case, population size is a good correlate with
| party).
| xmprt wrote:
| Why are you correlating population size with party when you
| can literally look up the voting records of cities?
|
| What's more likely?
|
| 1. High population size implies Democratic party policies
| implies less police funding implies higher murder rate
|
| OR 2. High population size implies higher murder rate
| (potentially because of higher poor populations or more
| population density or many other reasons that aren't
| because of party).
| iammisc wrote:
| > High population size implies Democratic party policies
| implies less police funding implies higher murder rate
|
| Democratic party politics are correlated with higher
| population size. This is not controversial.
|
| A high population size ought to correlate with more
| overall murders, but a similar murder rate. Moreover, in
| many countries, urban areas are less violent.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| IMHO. This wasn't about cities defunding police as it was about
| DEMORALIZING the police. People will cite: "Look the crime rate
| was country wide so it couldn't be the result of specific
| cities defunding." But no. It is that the policing forces are
| demoralized nation wide. They do less patrolling, less
| aggressive tactics, less pull overs, less arrests etc. Police
| are more timid now. This is the result. I expect it to become
| much worse - with SF city the goal nation wide.
| leet_thow wrote:
| Read the comments at r/Portland to witness people realizing the
| law of unintended consequences in realtime.
| felistoria wrote:
| People said that instagram page Portlandlookslikeshit was an
| exaggeration. Just drive through Portland for a few hours.
| The city is completely trashed. Even just driving through on
| I-5 you see trash all over the sides of the road.
| xrd wrote:
| You don't see any improvement at all over the past few
| months specifically?
|
| I live in the suburbs and still visit family in Portland.
| Over the past few months, I've seen great improvements.
| There are no longer massive camps along 205, now it seems
| like a few sprinkled camps with four or five people, every
| half mile or so. I walked in Oak's Bottom (my kids attend
| Trackers school) and I saw three park rangers (not police)
| patrolling the park, querying people who camp there. I did
| not see any garbage inside the park at all, and this is a
| very dense forested park. I only saw one tent (I know there
| are more) but I do think the city has really made a
| concerted effort to break up large camps, remove garbage
| aggressively, and move people into temporary housing.
|
| My point is that progress is being made. But, I often
| wonder if I'm not seeing all neighborhoods and if this is
| just happening in the wealthier neighborhoods. I do feel
| like the places in SE and NE that I go to, there are
| visible differences from even a few months back.
|
| Maybe you feel like this is not the real story; if so, I'm
| interested in hearing that. I've been worried about my city
| for years, but I do feel like we are finally grappling with
| it as a society and making progress.
| felistoria wrote:
| I don't typically drive on 205 to be honest, but I-5 is
| still covered in garbage and downtown is unbelievably
| bad. Really sad to see and I avoid downtown as much as
| possible because of it. It's been a couple weeks since
| I've drove through but I am going through tomorrow so I
| guess I'll see if there has been any improvement.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Are you sure these consequences were entirely unintended?
| dpweb wrote:
| I don't see more policing or better militarization as the
| answer. These crimes are symptoms of core problems, that run
| like currents through society.
|
| We're not served well by the constant prideful "we're the
| greatest country in the world". There are some wonderful things
| to be proud of.
|
| However, the fact is, we're a rather violent society. We're a
| society that loves alcohol. We're a very insecure people. We
| don't get to the root of the problems. They are in the psyche.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am not an American, so I do not have a dog in this fight.
|
| But the bridge between alcohol and insecurity on one side and
| murder on the other that you seem to erect seems rather
| uncertain to me. Scandinavians drink like fish, suffer from a
| lot of seasonal depression, but their rates of murder aren't
| that high. Nor are rates of murder in rural USA regions
| originally settled by Scandinavians.
|
| Murder seems to be strongly correlated with gang activity in
| the U.S.
| felistoria wrote:
| I think it has to do with gangs and and high rate of drug
| addiction in this area. I live in the Pacific NW where
| heroin/meth is running rampant and homelessness is
| everywhere. The city just looks trashed now.
| codehawke wrote:
| Having one party in control of most major cities, where
| most crime is, for 50+ years now is working wonders.
| c0nducktr wrote:
| And yet that party is _still_ preferable to the
| alternative, according to the voters. Funny how that
| goes.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One of the really bad things about two party systems is
| that people start to consider their voting record a part
| of their personal identity. That leads to massive
| ossification of voting patterns in individuals.
|
| In a multiparty system, it is much more normal to be a
| swing voter.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One thing that puzzles me a bit about the U.S. is
| nonexistence of viable _local_ parties. Something similar
| to the Scottish National Party in the UK or Freie Wahler
| in Bavaria.
|
| How come that the entire political scene on all levels
| collapses into just two poles, with the predictable
| result that many places are _de facto_ one party places?
|
| Why doesn't America have local Ross Perots in various
| corners of the country, starting their own political
| parties specific for one place only?
| ferdowsi wrote:
| We do. The Socialist Alternative are a viable party in
| places like Seattle, local politicians often run as
| independents aligned with organizations like DSA, etc.
| mc32 wrote:
| It surely doesn't help that politicians sow division to
| weaken and conquer their constituencies and vilify each other
| creating animosity and discord. Instead of trying to unite
| our people they want to foment differences.
|
| People take cues.
|
| Moreover, we prefer to fix other people's problems (Iraq,
| Afghanistan) to fixing our internal problems.
|
| We see this with charities too. Charities eagerly want to
| help out people who get whacked by natural disasters
| overseas. That's great and I'm sure those people appreciate
| it. Where are they they in the US taking care of our
| homeless, our veterans, our unemployed?
|
| They give more shits about people losing their jobs in
| Timbuktu than they do about our own citizens losing jobs due
| to outsourcing and poor government policies.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Wow, this is all over the place. A few thoughts:
|
| 1. We didn't fix any problems in Iraq or Afghanistan. We
| made things worse. The reason was not really a preference,
| it was revenge, bad info, and protecting strategic
| reserves.
|
| 2. Charities do work locally. They also work
| internationally. If I am passionate about a specific issue,
| or about helping as many humans as possible, it's not clear
| that it's preferable to only help others after you've fixed
| all your internal problems.
|
| I definitely agree that people take cues from their
| leaders. That's why the investigation into January 6 is
| such a big deal.
| mc32 wrote:
| Do you remember when everyone claimed Hunter Biden's
| laptop with compromising information was Russian
| disinformation and now the WaPo relented and says that
| yeah, it's legit?
|
| Where is the pushback against those lies and collusion
| between the media and a candidate. It's okay if 10 or 30%
| just ignore something because it's not their bag, but 90%
| of the media refusing to cover it and denying it and all
| the fact checkers in cahoots?
|
| I think that's a big deal.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| If it fits people's ideology they don't hold it
| accountable.
|
| The desire for truth is over.
|
| Its a war of ideology now, which has never ended well
| historically.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| From my perspective, I think it's a big deal to get the
| details right, without needing to obviously exaggerate
| ("everyone claimed ... disinformation", WaPo says "it's
| legit" [some is, some remains unproven], 90% of the media
| [by what measure? Certainly not reach, as Fox has a
| significant minority of the market], "all the fact
| checkers in cahoots" [there does not appear to be any
| evidence of cahooting]).
|
| You may have some good points, but it's unlikely anyone
| will dig through your screed to be influenced by your
| ideas. (But thank you for at least making it short!)
| angelzen wrote:
| Anecdote. I have observed the works of a West Coast
| church for a few years. The walls are plastered with
| photos of charity work in Africa, Asia or Caribbeans.
| Every other week stories from far away lands makes into
| the sermon. Was an interesting recent moment when the
| pastor had the public realization that perhaps spending
| some of that effort in the local community is long past
| due.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's surprising to me how this is when the whole point of
| a church is to serve the local community and those that
| want to help overseas have "missions" which some people
| malign as semi imperialistic.
|
| My personal view is help your local people first (no
| matter where you are) and others next. If you want to do
| good somewhere else the best way to do it is not via
| feelgood "remittances" but by going there and putting in
| the hard work, hiring locals, teaching locals, etc., so
| they may become self sufficient and not need 'charity'.
| angelzen wrote:
| Having lived in both poor and rich countries, I never saw
| a fervor for helping far away lands in a poor country.
| The are simply not enough resources to mount effective
| overseas charity campaigns.
| mc32 wrote:
| And they should not. They should help themselves before
| anyone else. Now, there are wealthy congregation is some
| places and surely they have enough funds to help locals
| in need as well as others -that's fine, but do it in a
| helpful way, don't just send money and call it a day, and
| also help your people in another state of province if the
| locals they're in has all their needs met. Don't just go
| for "exoticism".
| angelzen wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder if this is selective pressure. The
| impact of charity work overseas, if at all affordable, is
| much higher than the often thankless charity work at
| home. People gradually steer into the more impactful
| work, which happens to be overseas by simple economic
| reasons.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Plenty of people have thought it through in great detail over
| the last 30yr.
|
| Those people are mostly not being listened to because small
| government is a dirty word to most of the people currently
| pushing to defund the police and because viewing crime through
| an economic lens is out of vogue in favor of a racial one and
| people who are seriously studying minimum viable policing
| historically tend to be from one of those two camps.
| drbojingle wrote:
| I wonder if police ever actually stopped murders from
| happening. Do you have any evidence that they did and have now
| stopped doing so? Police usually show up to crime scenes, not
| murders in progress. It's a murder after all, not a siege.
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