| Can you expand on the backing off part, though? Peter Moskos has written a lot on this. As part of his PhD, he spent two years as an actual cop in Baltimore. Now he is a professor of criminology in New York. IMO, he does a good job writing in a balanced and truthful perspective about crime. "I don't know what's going on everywhere (or even most-where), but I can tell you a bit about Baltimore. And I suspect it holds true in many cities. I looked calls for service, arrest numbers, and crimes. Most dramatic is the drop of arrests in Western District....Now there are good and not so good reasons for this drop in arrests. But leaving that why: it happened. Police were less involved, by choice and necessity, and violence skyrocketed. Just because correlation does prove causing, correlation certainly doesn't mean causation is impossible or even unlikely. I mean, what else changed in the Western except police and crime?...Cops stopped making discretionary arrests and being proactive in clearing corners and frisking subjects. Look, it's no surprise where shootings happens and who gets shot."
http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/01/the-baltimore-6-effect.h... And then read this one about Chicago: http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/11/the-best-of-times-worst-... And a few other posts http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/02/defining-ferguson-effect... and http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/03/chicago-violence.html And the question I would ask is, "what should have been done to prevent this spiraling into a life of crime, and why wasn't it?" My reading is that there is a total breakdown in discipline in many of these families and communities. The kids that end up being problems are not getting discipline at home, and they're not getting it from the school (see http://www.isegoria.net/2014/12/the-monster-factory/ or http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/02/tfa-alumnus-... ) I also think that when you have open-air drug dealing, and gangs openly controlling the streets, then that turns senior gang members into role models, and it incentivizes young teenagers to join gangs for protection. Then as part of joining, they get involved in beefs and violence. That is my take from reading various ethnographies. The reason nothing is being done is because prevailing opinion does not agree with me. The emphasis over the past fifty years has been less discipline in schools. ( http://www.city-journal.org/html/who-killed-school-disciplin... ). There was a police crackdown in the 1990s, but it was more targeted at keeping violent people out of the nice neighborhoods, rather than completely eliminating gang violence in the ghetto neighborhoods. I think that is because the liberals see the police as suspect and problematic, and don't want to empower them, and because the conservatives don't really care about the ghetto as long as it doesn't effect them. |
I don't know what the solution is, how to prevent so many American youth who would perhaps have been contributing members of society and culture. I found it rather surprising that such kinds of conditions exist in a developed country like the US; its usually something you find in less developed countries.