Better Get Used to It: The Ferguson Effect Is Real

[SVPete]

Better Get Used to It: The Ferguson Effect Is Real
BY JACK DUNPHY
pjmedia.com
JANUARY 27, 2016

Crime numbers such as these prompt the question: What’s to be done about it? ... Both the neighborhoods mentioned above are patrolled by officers from the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, one of 21 patrol stations in the city. ... 77th Street is among the leaders in violent crime in Los Angeles, as reflected in the fact that six of the ten most violent neighborhoods in the county are within its borders. Seventy-seventh Street Division led the city in murders last year (as it does most years), ... a 10 percent increase from the previous year, mirroring a similar rise in murders that occurred in the city as a whole. Overall violent crime in Los Angeles was up 20 percent in 2015, with robberies up by 12 percent and aggravated assaults up by 27 percent.

But despite this rise in crime, arrests in Los Angeles were down by almost 10 percent in 2015. Why? There is an ongoing effort in this country to deny the existence of the “Ferguson effect,” i.e., the increasing reluctance among police officers to subject themselves to the risks attendant to proactive policing (see here and here for but two examples). Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, was demonstrated to have been fully justified in doing so, which was clear enough within hours of the incident. Despite this, he was driven from his job and vilified in the media. ...

In Los Angeles, two police officers are still awaiting a decision on whether they will be prosecuted in the August 2014 shooting death of Ezell Ford, who, when he tried to wrest an officer’s handgun from its holster, paid for it with his life. Though LAPD Chief Charlie Beck ruled the shooting to be “in policy,” i.e., justified under both the law and department guidelines, the civilian police commission – mayoral appointees without even a trace of expertise in policing – ruled the shooting to be “in policy” as to one officer, but “out of policy” as to the other, subjecting him to discipline or even termination.

Actions have consequences. Sadly the consequences of the BLM mobs' racism are being felt by those the BLM mob claim to be supporting.

[SVPete]

The Ferguson Effect Continues to Fester
BY JACK DUNPHY
pjmedia.com
MARCH 18, 2016

Consider the recent announcement in New York City that police and prosecutors will now focus their efforts on “serious crimes” and deemphasize enforcement action on “minor offenses” like public drinking, littering, and public urination. In doing so, the NYPD will abandon the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, which prescribes that by taking action against minor breaches of the law police will lower the frequency of major crimes as well, thus enhancing the quality of life for all the city’s residents, particularly those living in neighborhoods most affected by crime. NYPD Commissioner William Bratton was a pioneer in this model of policing during his first tenure in the job, during which New York saw a drastic reversal of the escalating crime rates that had made the city all but unlivable. To illustrate the point, consider that there were 2,262 murders reported in New York in 1990 and just 352 in 2015. Imagine the thousands of lives that would have been taken if the murder rate had remained constant.

The NYPD did not achieve this by concentrating only on “serious crime” as is now proposed, but rather by cracking down on both serious and minor violations of the law. It was only a few short months ago that Bratton and coauthor George Kelling wrote in City Journal of the crying need for Broken Windows policing. The sub-headline on the article read: “It has saved countless New York lives—most of them minority—cut the jail population, and reknit the social fabric.” All true, and all compelling reasons for continuing the practice. So compelling, in fact, that one can’t help but wonder why Bratton would acquiesce to this sudden reversal.

If the law enforcement priorities reflected by this change in policy are unclear, the political priorities are not. Mayor Bill de Blasio seeks to minimize confrontations between police and lawbreakers, and he knows that lawbreakers are concentrated most heavily in those black and Latino neighborhoods most often ignored by the New York media. Better to let criminals run wild (as long as they stay out of the tonier districts of Manhattan) than risk an incident like the one that has endangered Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s future in Chicago.

IOW, the "Ferguson Effect" has afflicted pols as well as police officers and departments. As Dunphy, who has decades of LE experience, points out, the "small stuff" that isn't "sweated" becomes "big stuff" as petty thugs self-promote to bigger and worse thugs.