This is, possibly, a very silly question coming from a person with a rural childhood, who is progressively moving to larger and larger cities. This question was inspired by another thread: “do san francisco los angeles et alii prove the failure of progressivism” (not sure how to make a link).
My question is this, how do people expect police to stop petty crime?
Let’s take an example, you run a small shop in a city. You come to open up some early morning, you discover the door is broken into. You check that cameras and see a person with a mask broke in and stole a small number of goods (say, 500$ worth). How do you expect the police to effectively find the criminal?
Another scenario: you are a clerk at a gas station. Some person comes in waving a weapon and demands you give them all the cash in the register. You comply, but manage to hit a panic button under the desk. Ten minutes later the robber is gone and the police arrive (best case scenario). You describe said generic person. I can imagine, if the person isn’t wearing a mask, then the store camera will help; but I suspect that it is very rare such footage really helps capture someone. What could the police do that has any reasonable chance of catching this criminal?
Some people have referred to the Police as “Armed Historians” because of that observation.
NYC went through a period of high crime in the 1970s (and some level of police corruption), they were instructed to focus on the “big stuff” versus petty crime. Some of the reforms were to also focus on petty crimes. “Broken window policing” or somesuch.
What they found, was this shift indicated to the populace that they were also serious about fighting crime. It was discovered (surprise!) that a lot of petty criminals they arrested for minor stuff, also had warrants out for their arrest for serious crimes and things like that, and by taking these guys off the street the overall crime rate dropped dramatically. Ignoring “pettty crime” is not a recipe for success.
I recall one discussion of this in NYC that said when they started things like spot enforcement of turnstile jumping, they would find the people they arrested often had other outstanding warrants.
IMHO the biggest problem is the court system bottleneck. Someone might acctually be arrested for a crime, but in general they would then be released until their court date, many months away; and then had to live knowing they could face jail in a year. Other reforms have pushed elimination of cash bail, since it’s basically a means of incarcerating the poorest, guilty or not.
In fact, a lot of petty crime tends to be by addicts to feed their habit - these people are not rocket scientists, they are sufficiently brazen and lacking critical thinking, and commit sufficient crimes regularly, that they are not difficult to catch.
Remember the TV series Night Court? People don’t seem to be taken to court the same day/night they are arrested in real life. Perhaps that would be a step in the right direction.
You need to remember that most petty crime offenders are repeat offenders. Suppose you want to make $30,000/year. So you steal $500 worth of goods. Except for the stuff you use yourself you are only going to get pennies on the dollar for it. So you need to do hundreds of thefts a year to maintain a reasonable income. Consequently the police only need to solve a very small percent of crimes to catch you. So a concerned citizen may see you when you are breaking in and call the cops. Or a cop might recognize your face on the video…
Broken Windows theory was never proven and deemed an overall failure. There is a reason it is no longer practiced.
Yes, crime went down at the time but it went down everywhere, including places where it was not practiced.
The theory was further undermined by the officer slowdown in the city from December 2014 to early January 2015. For three weeks or more, cops all but stopped arresting and ticketing people for minor infractions. Arrests dropped by 66% and summonses by 90%, yet overall crime went into a steep decline.
ETA: I know this is FQ but I wonder if “Broken Windows” is hampered by making a LOT more criminals who then find it much, much harder to get back into society and get a job and then need to return to crime? Probably for another thread unless there is data on this for FQ.
As I understand it, that’s part of the intent behind Community Policing. Police being a present and active part of the community, learning the local shop owners and residents, being aware of regular habits and patterns, interacting positively with the community on a frequent basis. It means being more likely to be right there when a crime is committed, or deterrence by presence. It also typically means better community relations because the cops are locals themselves.
Add in a couple of reliable confidential informants.
As has almost certainly been said, in the 90s some police forces started enforcing more trivial violations. This was said to discourage more serious crimes. Reportedly forces now do this less often. Low staffing levels and pay, and increased calls might be a factor. I don’t know if it worked as well as first advertised. Also it was not always popular within communities, particularly if there were historical issues.
The Freakonomics guys claim that the decrease in crime in the US in the 90’s was attributable to Roe vs. Wade.
Police presence in general, patrolling, will have an impact on crime rates in general, but it can also have detrimental impacts on community relations primarily from profiling.
With the tightness of the labor markets, police forces are not immune. The number of LEO’s across America and especially in large metropolitan ares have declined, not neccesarily because of “defund the police” movements but just simply because of tightness of labor markets.
There seems to be a fair amount of ideological division on the subject of “broken windows” policing.
This site seems to have a fairly even-handed summary of the efficacy of “broken windows” policing. In fact, the author ends up coming down on the side of its effectiveness being positive.
One point the article makes is that the addition of “zero tolerance” was not a part of the original description of broken windows policing.
More specifically, “broken windows” policing came to be confused in many places with zero tolerance, a notion that most believers in “broken windows” reject. Zero tolerance means virtually certain arrest and arraignment for the most minor offenses, with little flexibility on the arresting officer’s part. “Broken windows,” in its original formulation, calls for officer discretion and heavy involvement by the community in restoring order to its streets.
And this is where “Community Policing” can help. I doubt most petty criminals commute for work, so they’re committing crimes within a reasonable distance of their home base.
At some point, a lot of people will know, “Yeah, it’s Bob LePetiteThief who’s robbing all the corner stores.” If the cops are on good terms with the local populace, finding Bob isn’t that hard.
It’s that “being on good terms” that’s the sticking point with most policing these days.
I believe the main problem is there was a distinct racial bias involved. White kid steals a candy bar and he gets a stern talking to. Black kid steals a candy bar and he’s standing before a judge.
Though NYPD Commissioner William Bratton is a big proponent of broken windows policing, there’s no evidence that the policy is effective in reducing violent crime. At the same time, the effects of order-maintenance policing are felt disproportionately by members of minority groups. In August, responding to critics’ claims that these policies unfairly target people of color, Bratton told the Associated Press that “it’s not an intentional focus on minorities. It’s a focus on behavior.” Bratton added, “We are not a racist organization—not at all.”
Maybe Bratton is right. But even if broken windows isn’t explicitly racist, it’s inherently classist, and the two are close enough as to be functionally indistinguishable. - SOURCE
I’ve always maintained that petty crimes are better addressed by community support rather than law enforcement. Community Policing is a good start, but police officers trained to respond to every situation with force should not be operating at the community level. Why is Bob LePetiteThief robbing stores? Is he unhoused and feels like he has no alternative? Is he a stupid kid with poor impulse control? Is he just in it for the thrill? Whatever the reason, Bob needs someone other than a guy with a gun to show up and throw him in jail. If he’s unwell he needs treatment. If he’s desperate, he needs a lifeline. If he’s a kid he needs support and healthier outlets.
FYI, this is what activists actually mean when they say “defund the police,” they mean less money for folks waiting to respond violently to a community issue and more money for the social workers and support programs that are actually proven to reduce crime and improve neighborhoods.
That is what I remember too, and the data sounded very plausible, with many parallel timelines in the lag of the different states where the leaded gas was phased out at different times.