Racism.
Ya know, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and answer the question legitimately. And there’s actually an answer that fits within FBJJ’s assertation but isn’t too surprising when you think about it. Why are the cops in the “ghetto” not as thorough as the cops in the rich part of town? Because they’re not the same police force.
Large cities aren’t always one big metropolis. They’re often made up of one large city that you know by name and dozens of smaller cities that touch but are completely separate entities. These smaller cities may all use the same county court system, but are completely independent governments with different mayors, city council members, and, yes, even police forces. And in the cities with small populations but huge houses, you oftentimes have situations where you have a fully funded police force with very little crime to deal with. So when real shit goes down, which is somewhat rare, they have the manpower to throw everything they can at it. Cops in the inner city? They don’t have that luxury.
Which part of my post is that in response to? Are you saying you want the police to arrest people when a crime has committed in…THE HOOD? Or are you saying you don’t want the police to arrest people when a crime has committed in…THE HOOD? Or are you saying you’ll make up your mind when a crime has committed in…THE HOOD? Or are you trying to start a new internet meme where you end each post with the nonsense phrase when a crime has committed in…THE HOOD?
Bravo.
Anyway, I like to catch true-crime shows like 48 Hours, showing cops going about the mundane business of investigation. I don’t get the impression that they view crime in poorer neighborhoods less seriously or that they’re concealing their disdain from the cameras. Possibly these cases are harder to pursue if potential witnesses have a policy of not talking to the cops, while more middle-class venues are more relaxed (and I guess upper-class neighborhood residents are also less cooperative because they just call their lawyers), but I don’t know of any studies that tend to support this.
Then there’s the show Jail, which drives home the point that rich or poor, a lot of people are just fuckin’ stupid.
Fault me for feeding the trollmonster… but actually clearing crimes in bad nieghborhoods is significantly simpler and detectives look to knock those out with some aggressive footwork.
Why is this? 1… usually everyone in the area knows who did it… longstanding beefs… someone owes someone money… somebody sold somebody flex… well it’s pretty clear its gong down.
Care about? I generally cared more when I worked in worse neighborhood. You get a sense that the people are desperate and really need you… when I worked in high end areas other than some niceties… they generally wanted to NOT see you and for you to clear up important matters like… who’s going to get that dead possum off my street… or can you cite my asshole neighbor for watering his lawn on the wrong day…
I get the impression that the OP is about 13 and knows not one thing of which he is asking.
Cops get promoted for such things as clearing cases.
Thirteenth this month, maybe.
Perfect example of the issue:
TLDR version: Albuquerque police are unaware that a serial killer is operating in the city until a body surfaces at his disposal site. 11 bodies are found at that site. All victims were prostitutes and/or addicts, so missing person reports were round-filed. 5 years after the discovery, no suspects. No changes in procedure for reports of poor people disappearing.
Because your question has an obvious answer.
Don’t take it personal, this is the dope. Recent join dates are suspect for many reasons. It passes with time.
Because there’s no oil in bad neighborhoods.
To be fair, I think he was asking the world in general, not you specifically.
This was nagging at me - the show I was thinking of is actually called The First 48.
My WAG
The police take all crimes seriously and aggressively. The police run down all available leads, they interview family and friends, dust for prints, search for DNA evidence, ballistics…
The problems:
Manpower. Resources in inner city are finite. They will always suffer with a crimes\detectives ratio. 2013 saw a drop in murder rates overall, but your major cities still had hundreds of murders. Chicago had 412 in 2013, down from 600 in 2003 but that’s STILL A SHITLOAD OF MURDERS. Many cities still have almost one murder every day. Unlike TV shows, real police departments do not have an army of detectives to dedicate to one crime at a time. Most murders will have two detectives assigned, and those detectives will be handling a large caseload.
Seemingly random nature of some crimes - Crimes where the victim did not the criminal are always harder. If you and I have a history of squabbles and fights and you end up dead, police are gonna be all over me. If I did it, I would likely be convicted. But if you were killed over a squabble by a person unknown to you, then the police would NEED the help of eyewitnesses from the community. Someone would have to SEE the crime or NOTICE a particular individual. Which brings us to to…
Witnesses in inner cities can be uncooperative - not wanting to get involved, general distrust of police, fear of retaliation, the idiotic ‘no snitching’ credo, all coupled with the fact that eyewitness testimony can unreliable in general…
CSI TV shows are bullshit - the level of ‘scientific certainty’ they have in CSI TV shows just doesn’t happen in real life. Real crimes scenes often are contaminated before police arrive, there may be no usable fingerprints or hair and fiber, recovered bullets cannot always be matched, suspects cannot be identified by security cameras on the street…
**Technical Skill **- Some cops and coroners and crime-scene techs are top-notch. But all are just people. The skilled will often go where they can get the best pay, which means the biggest budgets. Cities\counties with tighter budget restrictions don’t usually get the top guys. In any department, there will a mix of good\ competent and lazy\moron.
Politics - Departments will likely focus resources on cases where there is more media scrutiny\public outcry\pressure from politicians. This is human nature.
And if that weren’t enough…just because they made an arrest and got a conviction doesn’t mean they *actually solved *the case.
I devoted* entirely* too much time to that.
MY WAG.
My experience has been that cops generally don’t give too much of a shit when gang bangers or criminals kill each other. Of course, they try to find a culprit if they can but they don’t tear out their hair trying to find a criminal that killed some other criminal because past experience tells them that you end up with a dozen suspects with no way to really narrow it down any further unless someone comes out and points a finger at someone. If they kill a “civilian” then they try pretty hard whether the victim lives in a good neighborhood or a bad neighborhood.
People get killed in crappy neighborhoods every week and the pressure is constant and doesn’t let up, it won’t go away because you solved one murder, you need to solve dozens to make a dent. When someone gets killed in some rich fancy part of town, there is new pressure and all you have to do is solve that one murder to get rid of that pressure so there may be more pressure to solve murders in places where murders are rare.
Also people in the rich part of town just get more protection. I remember cops driving through riot torn parts of town durign the LA riots, driving right by stores that were getting looted while the store owner tried to flag down the cops. But the cops couldn’t stop because they were on their way to creating a human wall of cops around places like Beverly Hills.
Yes, and yes.
I love reading pure stupidity like this. FBJJ, you don’t know the difference between your butt and a burnt biscuit when it comes to law enforcement. All you have is your biased viewpoint and you cling to it like an addict does to a syringe, rejecting everything you are told that points out that you are so wrong, you’re not even in the same zip code with right.
Oh, and for your enlightenment - arrest quotas were done away with a long time ago. Now the cops can bust as many people as they need to.
The irony, it burns!
Your link does not mention police ignoring missing persons reports.
In Rochester, N.Y. in the late 1980s a serial killer was preying on poor women/prostitutes in the city. In response, local law enforcement organized a task force, performing surveillance to watch over potential victims and otherwise conducting a massive investigation. A state police helicopter spotted the killer (Arthur Shawcross*) revisiting a body dump site.
Apparently police in that case forgot they were supposed to ignore non-wealthy crime victims.
There’s a media tendency to preferentially sensationalize crimes involving middle or upper-class families, apparently on the grounds that such coverage leads to higher ratings/newspaper sales compared to similar crimes in impoverished areas. Doesn’t mean police generally share the same outlook.
*Shawcross began killing women after being paroled on an earlier child murder conviction.
Lol, no they haven’t.