City Murder Rates

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Doady

Police can only make a difference if the criminals actually get punished, and fact is the police can't inflict punishment by themselves, and these days they might even be discouraged from inflicting it.

In what world do you live in where it is normal for police to "inflict punishment" on criminals?

[Gresto]

Up to 64 in Toronto, which is comparatively higher than normal.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Gresto

Up to 64 in Toronto, which is comparatively higher than normal.

More like 74, no?

[Steely Dan]

Guys, take your stupid and petty sniping at at each other back to the CE toilet.

don't wreck the worthwhile parts of this forum.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by badrunner

In what world do you live in where it is normal for police to "inflict punishment" on criminals?

Doady is a talented satirist.

[Elkhanan1]

Originally Posted by Acajack

More like 74, no?

Correct

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Doady is a talented satirist.

lol I see that now. You never can tell these days. Some people are beyond satire and they really do think like that or worse, to the point they're totally dismissive of out of control and ongoing human rights violations by the police.

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Doady is a talented satirist.

If that was satire then I'm a republican.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by subterranean

If that was satire then I'm a republican.

Check Doady's post history.

[AviationGuy]

If I heard correctly on the news yesterday, Houston had 7 homicides and 22 shooting injuries over the weekend. Totally nuts. I was there admiring the new construction, not even thinking about what was happening. Road rage has been a big problem lately, too, and I can see that considering my driving experience on the freeways and tollways. It was insane, even on Sunday.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

iheartthed, you have plenty of examples where increasing investments in police brought down murder rates. São Paulo is a very good example of it: the most populated state in Americas brought the rates down after a very comprehensive policy of reducing crime rates. I hear in Colombia they had some success but I'm not familiar with their experience. And New York itself.

I don't think Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore or St. Louis are helpless. There are certainly plenty of things the local police could/should do to bring those rates down.

Chicago has more police officers per resident than New York. Chicago's murder rate is about 7x New York's. Detroit has fewer police officers per resident than Chicago and New York, but it's only off by about 1/5 of New York's. Yet, Detroit's murder rate is more than 10x New York's, and almost 2x Chicago's. Pouring more police into Detroit or Chicago is not the answer.

[Crawford]

Yeah, the idea that more police = reduced crime is madness. Police are reactive, not proactive. Some dope dealer isn't gonna think twice about shooting a rival if there are more cops on the local payroll.

The greatest increase in police hiring occurred in the 1960's and 1970's, concurrent with the greatest increase in crime.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Chicago has more police officers per resident than New York. Chicago's murder rate is about 7x New York's. Detroit has more police officers per resident than either Chicago or New York. Detroit's murder rate is more than 10x New York's, and almost 2x Chicago's. Pouring more police into Detroit or Chicago is not the answer.

Maybe improving training, investing on equipment, cameras?

I mention São Paulo not only because it's a perfectly safe place or out of civic proud. There are other safe cities in Americas like Lima or Santiago, but they've always been safe. São Paulo is a good example because it used to be very violent and became safe in a relative short time span.

There was no changing on legislation as criminal law is a federal matter in Brazil. São Paulo is much wealthier than Brazil, but it also was when it was violent. Income inequality is a problem in Brazil/São Paulo and while improved only slightly, it certainly didn't impact crime rates as other states saw a big increase of crimes in the same period São Paulo rates were plunging.

What was done here was basically throw money on the problem, but in a smart way.

That's why I don't buy this idea is too difficult or even impossible to mitigate the high crime rates in many US inner cities. It's an unreasonable conformism.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, the idea that more police = reduced crime is madness. Police are reactive, not proactive. Some dope dealer isn't gonna think twice about shooting a rival if there are more cops on the local payroll.

The greatest increase in police hiring occurred in the 1960's and 1970's, concurrent with the greatest increase in crime.

I'd definitely argue YMMV on that.

Montreal has the most cops per 100,000 of all of Canada's big cities. By a longshot I think. It's in the range of 225 per 100,000, whereas other cities including Toronto are in the 175 range.

Montreal has pretty much the lowest homicide rate of all of the big cities. It's around half the rate in Toronto.

And Montreal is in a municipal election campaign right now and the outgoing mayor who is actually considered somewhat woke by most, yesterday promised she'd fire 250 more cops if she gets re-elected.

[Acajack]

And even if we assume that more cops won't reduce murders, is there any evidence that fewer cops won't make things worse?

My guess is that the best approach is more resources to public safety in general: ample ones on both the enforcement and preventive sides.

As opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Maybe improving training, investing on equipment, cameras?

I mention São Paulo not only because it's a perfectly safe place or out of civic proud. There are other safe cities in Americas like Lima or Santiago, but they've always been safe. São Paulo is a good example because it used to be very violent and became safe in a relative short time span.

There was no changing on legislation as criminal law is a federal matter in Brazil. São Paulo is much wealthier than Brazil, but it also was when it was violent. Income inequality is a problem in Brazil/São Paulo and while improved only slightly, it certainly didn't impact crime rates as other states saw a big increase of crimes in the same period São Paulo rates were plunging.

What was done here was basically throw money on the problem, but in a smart way.

That's why I don't buy this idea is too difficult or even impossible to mitigate the high crime rates in many US inner cities. It's an unreasonable conformism.

That sounds exactly like the U.S. though.

The largest, most commercially vibrant financial center of the nation that attracts more immigrants or internal migrants sees a precipitous fall in violence while most other cities struggle. Even though there’s little sign of a specific policing policy or legislative change that other cities haven’t tried.

Even though inequality didn’t fall in NYC and LA, there was a mass wave of immigration from the Caribbean and Mexico that preceded the fall in violence.

I do not believe that poverty directly contributes to violence, (personal relationships with violent individuals is the highest correlation by far) but I do think that stable neighborhood blocks with attentive neighbors deter the worst criminal activity, and those blocks in the rust belt were deeply destabilized by the Financial Crisis and exacerbated by the pandemic.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, the idea that more police = reduced crime is madness. Police are reactive, not proactive. Some dope dealer isn't gonna think twice about shooting a rival if there are more cops on the local payroll.

The greatest increase in police hiring occurred in the 1960's and 1970's, concurrent with the greatest increase in crime.

That may be true, if police are mandated to retain purely reactive policies and tactics. I'm sure there could be a pages long debate on the merit of things like stop and frisk or "random" traffic stops, but I think it would be hard to argue that these things don't prevent crime to some extent. The real debate is whether or not the marginal increase in crime prevention justifies the immoral aspects of such policies.

I think it's pretty obvious though that just juicing police budgets with additional officers or even better, military-grade equipment, is not the magic wand to solve crime problems in urban areas. The reality is that basic market forces have been the biggest reducers of crime in American cities. Gentrification and the return of the professional middle-to-upper class to inner city neighbourhoods has likely done exponentially more to reduce crime in NYC than any policy implemented by a local official. It's no surprise that if there's no poor people left in the neighbourhood, crime drops dramatically.

I do wonder whether these forces just displace crime around the country. Does a criminal who is pushed/priced out of Harlem just go onto a similar lifestyle in say, Atlanta? Given the national decreases in crime across the board until very recently, it would appear that it doesn't. I think this would be a fascinating topic to dive into.

[subterranean]

There is, however, a direct correlation between police response time and incidence of burglary/theft/robbery. People are emboldened and are literally walking into Target, Fred Meyer and other department stores, loading up carts, and walking out. Also burglary, vehicle theft, catalytic converters...which I'm sure adds to homicides when caught in the act. Not exactly comparable to thug on thug violence, but a contributing factor.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by subterranean

There is, however, a direct correlation between police response time and incidence of burglary/theft/robbery. People are emboldened and are literally walking into Target, Fred Meyer and other department stores, loading up carts, and walking out. Also burglary, vehicle theft, catalytic converters...which I'm sure adds to homicides when caught in the act. Not exactly comparable to thug on thug violence, but a contributing factor.

Yes, it turns out that widely publicizing that you won't respond to crimes below a certain threshold isn't a great strategy for reducing petty crime.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

That sounds exactly like the U.S. though.

The largest, most commercially vibrant financial center of the nation that attracts more immigrants or internal migrants sees a precipitous fall in violence while most other cities struggle. Even though there’s little sign of a specific policing policy or legislative change that other cities haven’t tried.

But isn't that a coincidence? It's not like São Paulo is the only city/state thriving, attracting migrants. In fact, it grows slightly below national average for while.

What the state did was investing heavily on police as things were indeed very bad back then. I brought the numbers above and apparently investiments on the state police/public safety is at R$ 30 billion or over 1% of the GDP. In the US terms, that would be like New York metro area dumping about US$ 25 billion on the local police. Results would show up.

Originally Posted by Acajack

And even if we assume that more cops won't reduce murders, is there any evidence that fewer cops won't make things worse?

My guess is that the best approach is more resources to public safety in general: ample ones on both the enforcement and preventive sides.

As opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I agree. It's very hard to believe decreasing the size of police force will help crime. And obviously resources must be spent wisely.