NYC cops did a work stop, yet crime dropped(arstechnica.co.uk)
arstechnica.co.uk
NYC cops did a work stop, yet crime dropped
https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/
37 comments
>in the social "science" around crime
This is likely to provoke strong reactions from people who think you're against social science as a whole, but you raise an important point: much of what passes for academic social science is political activism in disguise.
This is likely to provoke strong reactions from people who think you're against social science as a whole, but you raise an important point: much of what passes for academic social science is political activism in disguise.
Especially the closer you get to certain topics (like crime).
In regards to the "broken windows" model of policing, which sounds eerily like Kristallnacht:
"But the authors argue that the data suggests the opposite is true. “The results,” they write, “imply that aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.” Rather than proactive policing deterring major crime, Sullivan and O’Keeffe think it’s more likely that this kind of aggressive enforcement “disrupts communal life, which can drain social control of group-level violence.” In other words, overly aggressive policing brings a level of social disruption that actually leads to more crime—and the reduced proactive policing during the slowdown produced a calming effect."
Emphasis, mine.
Link to Nature article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0211-5
"But the authors argue that the data suggests the opposite is true. “The results,” they write, “imply that aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.” Rather than proactive policing deterring major crime, Sullivan and O’Keeffe think it’s more likely that this kind of aggressive enforcement “disrupts communal life, which can drain social control of group-level violence.” In other words, overly aggressive policing brings a level of social disruption that actually leads to more crime—and the reduced proactive policing during the slowdown produced a calming effect."
Emphasis, mine.
Link to Nature article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0211-5
There is evidence for both situations — the general case seems to be that either too much OR too little police presence leads to disruption.
Ideally, police would be responsive to community demands. So, if a high-crime community demands more aggressive policing in the Broken Windows mold, they get it. Conversely, if community representatives see that policing is causing more trouble than it's solving, they should be able to request an easing-off without being deemed "pro-crime".
Unfortunately, most cities tend to take a much more top-down approach with the allocation of enforcement power.
Ideally, police would be responsive to community demands. So, if a high-crime community demands more aggressive policing in the Broken Windows mold, they get it. Conversely, if community representatives see that policing is causing more trouble than it's solving, they should be able to request an easing-off without being deemed "pro-crime".
Unfortunately, most cities tend to take a much more top-down approach with the allocation of enforcement power.
> if a high-crime community demands more aggressive policing in the Broken Windows mold, they get it
I think what a lot of people would like is more policing but less aggressive policing.
Such as the ability to call the police for minor crime like broken windows and know the police aren't going to shoot someone dead. e.g http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/17/australian-woman-... (but there have been a number of other examples, especially involving non-white people)
"Minneapolis police are investigating, but their work has been hampered because the officers’ body cameras were switched off. The police department said the squad car's camera also failed to capture the incident."
How convenient.
I think what a lot of people would like is more policing but less aggressive policing.
Such as the ability to call the police for minor crime like broken windows and know the police aren't going to shoot someone dead. e.g http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/17/australian-woman-... (but there have been a number of other examples, especially involving non-white people)
"Minneapolis police are investigating, but their work has been hampered because the officers’ body cameras were switched off. The police department said the squad car's camera also failed to capture the incident."
How convenient.
Police need to be a part of and work with communities. One of the problems with the Ramboification of the police is that everyone is treated as a criminal. Officers are always looking for evidence of some crime, and can't wait to use whatever new toys they have picked up from the military. This leads to communities not wanting the police around which then leads to more serious crime.
An example situation might be a person who sees some neighbor waving a gun around and generally being pretty dangerous. That person should call the police, but since that person likes to smoke pot every once in awhile they will probably not call the police out of fear that they will end up who one being harassed and treated as a criminal. The police and DAs have made it such that it is in everyone's interest to never speak to the police, and that is how policing fails.
Admittedly not all police officers are like I describe above, but since you'll never know who you will interact with you have to assume they are one of the bad ones. I once had a police officer acquaintance and even he would tell me stories how he would never want to be pulled over by some of the guys he worked with.
Finally, I'm not sure how society comes back from this mistrust. Once trust is broken it is so hard to regain. Body cameras can help, but then you see the above where they are turned off.
An example situation might be a person who sees some neighbor waving a gun around and generally being pretty dangerous. That person should call the police, but since that person likes to smoke pot every once in awhile they will probably not call the police out of fear that they will end up who one being harassed and treated as a criminal. The police and DAs have made it such that it is in everyone's interest to never speak to the police, and that is how policing fails.
Admittedly not all police officers are like I describe above, but since you'll never know who you will interact with you have to assume they are one of the bad ones. I once had a police officer acquaintance and even he would tell me stories how he would never want to be pulled over by some of the guys he worked with.
Finally, I'm not sure how society comes back from this mistrust. Once trust is broken it is so hard to regain. Body cameras can help, but then you see the above where they are turned off.
We need to switch the mentality of our police units. Right now, the mentality is that of a soldier who is going to run in, kill or lock up all the bad guys and save the good guys.
This black-and-white view of policing ends up getting a lot of citizens killed. Police officers often end up getting called out to fill the gap in social services, so why not allocate funds to those programs to help people out of poverty? I mean, I know the reasons (police unions and the prison-industrial complex) but it would make more sense than making the police do this crap.
Right now, the police have to act as social workers. When your social worker carries a gun, anything they do to help you sounds more like a command than advice (and the police often confuse the two as well, since maintaining a sense of control is rule #1 of modern policing).
Myself, I don’t fuck with the police. I don’t volunteer information to them either; I don’t trust the police to be good at their job, so anything you say will only serve to get you in more trouble. And I grew up as an upper-middle class privileged white kid.
This black-and-white view of policing ends up getting a lot of citizens killed. Police officers often end up getting called out to fill the gap in social services, so why not allocate funds to those programs to help people out of poverty? I mean, I know the reasons (police unions and the prison-industrial complex) but it would make more sense than making the police do this crap.
Right now, the police have to act as social workers. When your social worker carries a gun, anything they do to help you sounds more like a command than advice (and the police often confuse the two as well, since maintaining a sense of control is rule #1 of modern policing).
Myself, I don’t fuck with the police. I don’t volunteer information to them either; I don’t trust the police to be good at their job, so anything you say will only serve to get you in more trouble. And I grew up as an upper-middle class privileged white kid.
Kind of like this: [1], where the mortality rate seemingly goes down as doctors go on strike.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/slightly-blighty/201510...
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/slightly-blighty/201510...
Now this is more interesting, because they're actually looking at the hard mortality numbers. A dead body is a dead body. There is a sensational statistic that in the U.S., medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death, or maybe preventable death. I take that high ranking with just as much a grain of salt as crime stats, because there are competing explanations (like patients themselves aggressively shopping around for unnecessary treatments) or in this case, from your article, an indictment of the bureaucracy that compels doctors to treat badly: While physicians were technically on strike during the four months of the dispute, most did not in fact adhere to the industrial action regulations. In truth, most doctors in Jerusalem provided care in a private or partially private context, so, while participating in spirit, they did not actually withdraw services.
Very interesting find. Thanks!
Very interesting find. Thanks!
You're cherry picking the article. They also looked at the amount of reported crime (i.e. 911 calls, non-emergency calls etc), which also dropped.
Except incidents of major crime also decreased, if you continue reading.
Again, as I posted below, the quote is reports of major crime dropped during the slowdown period. Arrests remained constant, reports dropped. Reports of crime != crime. I maintain: focus on the bodycount. Corpses can't be hidden.
It does put a hole in the "broken windows" theory of policing. Supposedly if you have cops around all the time busting everyone for minor violations, things won't escalate to larger crimes. But in this case, with the cops doing pretty much the minimum they could get away with, more serious crimes didn't go up.
arrests for crime also != crime, btw
The reports of crime dropped.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
- Charles Goodhart, Economist
- Charles Goodhart, Economist
Where is all this epistemological sophistication when we're discussing crime statistics that favor more draconian police tactics?
All over the comments section?
Seriously, nothing gets HN outraged like police tactics, draconian or otherwise.
Seriously, nothing gets HN outraged like police tactics, draconian or otherwise.
Yeah and the whole point of the article is to discuss why. Thanks for your contribution anyways
The headline says "crime dropped". It's clearly misleading, parent is just correcting it.
To be fair to OP, the mention that reports dropped specifically doesn't happen til the end of paragraph 5, and therefore the headline is misleading.
"Researchers are now arguing about what this tells us."
Don't we have like tons of history showing us that police doesn't actually exist to fight crime? Not much to argue about, unless you believe in government propaganda.
Don't we have like tons of history showing us that police doesn't actually exist to fight crime? Not much to argue about, unless you believe in government propaganda.
[deleted]
One question seems to have been left unexplored: why did the stoppage stop? Could it have been that police themselves observed by the drop in crime how superfluous or even deleterious their usual contributions to society must be? "We've got to get back to work, or else there will be much less work to get back to!"
What was the purpose of this article? It didn’t give a definitive conclusion either way nor did it give enough information to discuss intelligently.
That's Huffington Post level of reporting.
Yeah, crimes dropped because cops aren’t reporting in to work, thus not reporting to file crime rates.
— in other news, the water is wet.
Is arstechnica broken for anyone else? Every time I scroll down, the page slowly scrolls back up.
I've seen poorly coded ad scripts do that, they assume you're scrolling over them if you've gone past by the time they load and pull you back up the page.
Seems ok for me (iOS 10 in Reeder's embedded browser)
During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events.
So the crime that dropped was that which the cops stopped pursuing because there were no calls about it. No action means no official, recordable data.
There's a lot of shady and shoddy data in the social "science" around crime. As has been said more generally, torture the data enough and it will tell you whatever you want to hear. IMHO, the best indicator to look at is murder rate, because there is a body which has to be dealt with and accounted for in the stats, despite any political pressures.