Summary: The role of the police might be a fulcrum on which the future of America turns. Their role and situation is poorly understood by Americans, taken for granted by most, and despised by a large and increasing number. Radical changes in policing is one of the many large social engineering experiments in which the Left has enrolled us – as lab rats. The outcome will teach humanity much, and might determine the future of America.
Soon there will be no exit from the path we are on.
Police in our inner cities have a difficult job. The job is dangerous. The oft-quoted occupational fatality rate of 13.3 officers per 100,000 (vs. the national average of 3.5) is high but misleading. It combines those officers working at desks with those on the street, and those patrolling violent inner cities with posh suburbs. Their suicide rate is higher than their occupational fatality rate.
We expect much of them, beyond the responsibility of carrying arms and putting their lives at risk. The regulations governing their actions are vast, contradictory, ever-changing – with (on the books, at least) often severe consequences for violations by officers engaged in potentially violent engagements on the street. Many of the situations they face would challenge even Harvard social scientists, such facing violent “domestic disputes”, violent mentally disabled people, a hostile crowd while arresting a criminal, or standing on a dark street facing a giant mob while pelted with rocks and bottles. For those with neither experience nor empathy, sitting a comfortable office, these transform from pants-wetting terrifying to childishly simple exercises.
For all this, we pay them little. Starting salaries are $36,000 at the Detroit PD and $42,500 for the NYPD, rising to $85k after 5.5 years. An important intangible traditional benefit was the public’s respect for the “thin blue line.” Wikipedia describes this as “a term for the police that is used to assert that they are the line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos.” America’s Left will test this theory (this “assertion”), with us as their lab rats.
An equilibrium developed, as usual. Inner city police were recruited and retained in adequate numbers to keep crime at tolerable levels, at a tolerable cost. They were often brutal and corrupt. The system survived the mysterious 1970 – 1991 rise in crime, surviving until it receded. In scores of posts I documented how this system provided little justice and put violent offenders in often third-world-like prisons. Guilt was determined by prosecutors, punishment by plea bargains. As a result, US crime stats are fiction – since plea bargains reduce offense in exchange for lighter sentences (i.e., actual crime rates are higher). This is why homicide rates are one of the few reliable indicators (dead is dead).
With high US crime rates (relative to our peer nations), a better system would have required vastly more money. A triple or quadruple of funding for the entire system, from street cops to parole officers. Neither Left or Right cares to do that. Accused felons demanding jury trials would collapse the system immediately.
Complicating all this is the fantastically high crime rate by African-Americans (details here). With deep causes in the collapse of Black families and Black communities beginning in the 1960s, I doubt anyone has a clue how to fix it – and now few dare to even discuss it. Few of our elites, Black or white, care about the resulting flood of African-American blood daily shed (mostly by their peers). The Left discovered this only when they realized its political utility (their recommendations are irrelevant to its causes).
The revolution begins
“The worse, the better.”
— One of the most powerful revolutionary insights, ever. Attributed to the Russian revolutionary socialist, Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1928 – 1889).
Now the situation has changed. The African-American community has evolved during the past generation to esteem its criminals (although they are their usual victims). Many of the “victims” they lionize are career violent criminals. In a better world, their mothers would want them removed from society. This delegitimizes the police. Black Lives Matter and the broader Left are only completing this long process.
This makes law enforcement, or even maintaining public order, impossible in our inner cities. America is founded on some degree of consent by the governed. Our institutions are not equipped to be occupying forces. As such, we see them shattering a little more every day on TV. The situation has radically changed – it is a revolution – and police officials are responding irrationally. But what would a rational response look like? Should we hope or fear their rational response?
Now the Left moves in for the kill. Without effective opposition, the pursuit phase of battle begins as they chase down their dispirited foes. Their information dominance in the media allows them to shape the narrative (e.g., few see the videos disproving the “largely peaceful protestors” story). Their policies are unleashing chaos in the cities they run.
- Easy bail, allowing criminals to quickly resume their careers.
- Allowing convicted felons to vote – a new special interest group.
- Increasing numbers of complex regulations for police on the street.
- Defunding police.
Best of all – decriminalizing crime, such as California’s Proposition 47 (called in Orwellian fashion, the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act”) which made theft of under $950 a misdemeanor (i.e., ignored by police in our high crime society). Other states have followed suit. People have slowly adjusted to this new jubilee. Stores quickly reported dramatic increases in shoplifting; (see here, here, and here). Grab some goods, jump into a car idling outside – it is shopping in the New America. The rest of us pay higher prices. Expect more increases in theft but with less press coverage (who dares oppose the narrative?). How much of this misdemeanor theft is reported? Why bother?
What next?
What is the part of our society most sensitive to these changes? My guess (guess!) is the police. There are already reports of police being dispirited. Good news for donut shops, bad for those on the street needing protections.
Perhaps more significant factors are recruitment and retention of inner-city police forces. How many people with good alternative careers – the people police want to recruit – will join urban police forces in the high-crime cities run by the Democratic Party? At the other end, how many people with good alternatives will want to stay? Especially once they qualify for full retirement – with the lure of a lower-stress (perhaps higher-income) second career.
These effects probably will appear in the next year or so (people only slowly change their life plans). But some evidence of increased retirements has already begun. Like the retirement of NYPD Deputy Inspector Richard Brea. The NYPD has responded to the flood of retirement applications by putting restrictions on them – probably creating a corps of people pulling paychecks but doing as little as possible (with as little risk as possible). Also, see similar news from Milwaukee and Minneapolis.
The effect of these things could be immense. Every organization relies on a small fraction of its people who are their best leaders and a cadre of exceptionally competent performers. Losing many of these quickly can hollow it out.
{Assistant Chief Regina Howard said}”Every single day, there are resignation and retirement letters coming up to the chief’s office from members we wouldn’t have expected.” “These are lieutenants, captains, that play integral roles as it relates to this department,” Assistant Chief Michael Brunson said. “They had dates they were planning on retiring. Because of the environment, because of what’s going on in the zeitgeist, they are deciding to push those retirements up because of this.” {Source.}
As for the effect on crime rates, they are already rising in the cities being used as Leftist experiments in social engineering. While future generations will welcome the data from this test of deliberate destabilization of society, the poor and vulnerable will suffer the most. This likely outcome does not bother the Left, as it seems likely to bring to unprecedented power in America. Some eggs get broken to make an omelet. Soon many cities will have screens like this for Chicago (from the aptly named “Hey Jackass” website). Of the total of 429 homicides, police killed 3 (probably most or all of them justified).
Another inevitable result that will surprise people!
Private security has been a growth industry, growing faster than government law enforcement workers (1.6 to 1.2 million). While the Left can defund the poor of police protection, the urban rich and upper-middle class hire their own (as they have done in education, replacing broken city schools with private ones). No need to guess at how this will play out.
“South Africa and Brazil Show What Defunding the Police Means.”
“Get ready for private security forces – for the middle class.”
By Emma Freire at Human Events, 16 July, 2020.
Adding yet another burden on the middle class will just further shrink their numbers. This is a feature, not a bug, to our elites. The independence of the middle class has long been an annoying limitation to the power of our rulers.
When we have lost hope for a better future, we have lost everything.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. For something different, see “The Swallow – a story of the WWII Night Witches.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about racism, about crime, about prison, about our criminal justice system, and especially these…
- Our prisons are a mirror showing the soul of America. It’s not a pretty picture.
- More about the collapse of the American Criminal Justice System.
- Final thoughts about America’s Criminal Justice System.
- The Disgrace of Our Criminal {in}Justice System, and hints of reform in the air.
- Can We Fix Our Shameful Prisons? Why they should be, and why we might not do so.
- Important – America’s unspeakable problem: African-American’s crime rates.
- Harsh truths about mass incarceration in America.
- The Boomers see the ruin of their dreams.
- See America’s dark revolutionary future.
Answers to questions few ask about policing
Evaluating Police Uses of Force.
By Seth Stoughton, Assoc. Prof. at the University of South Carolina School of Law.
In a better America, this would be an influential book. See Robert VerBruggen’s review at National Review.
“The book is incredibly topical, clearly written, and at 352 pages relatively brief. …{It catalogues} statutes, policies, training practices, tactics, and court rulings from across the country. Cops’ use of force is subject to numerous standards at once …the federal Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, state laws governing homicide and other crimes of violence, departmental policies on proper tactics, and even the community reactions to viral videos that shape the broader debate — and Stoughton et al. discuss the matter in depth from all of these angles.”
From the publisher …
“Police violence has historically played an important role in shaping public attitudes toward the government. Community trust and confidence in policing have been undermined by the perception that officers are using force unnecessarily, too frequently, or in problematic ways. The use of force, or harm suffered by a community as a result of such force, can also serve as a flashpoint, a spark that ignites long-simmering community hostility.
“In Evaluating Police Uses of Force, legal scholar Seth W. Stoughton, former deputy chief of police Jeffrey J. Noble, and distinguished criminologist Geoffrey P. Alpert explore a critical but largely overlooked facet of the difficult and controversial issues of police violence and accountability: how does society evaluate use-of-force incidents? By leading readers through answers to this question from four different perspectives – constitutional law, state law, administrative regulation, and community expectations – and by providing critical information about police tactics and force options that are implicated within those frameworks, Evaluating Police Uses of Force helps situate readers within broader conversations about governmental accountability, the role that police play in modern society, and how officers should go about fulfilling their duties.”
Other good books about this vital subject
Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration
The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
Locked In
An essential book about our broken criminal injustice system: Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
