MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Lack of Policing makes crime rise? Who knew?
|
wsj.com
As New York City Police Make Fewer Arrests, Violent Crime Rises
Ben Chapman
5-6 minutes
Officers made 84,930 arrests between Jan. 1 and Aug. 9, a 39% drop from
the same period last year, according to the New York Police Department.
Homicides, meanwhile, rose 29% to 244 from Jan. 1 to Aug. 2 from the
same period last year. The city also recorded an 84.6% rise in shooting
victims to 1,017 during those dates compared with the same period in 2019.
In the past few weeks, the police, the mayor, other politicians and
criminologists have debated the significance of falling arrests at a
time when crime is rising in New York City as it emerges from a
public-health crisis that has devastated its economy.
Joseph Pollini, a former NYPD lieutenant commander and adjunct lecturer
at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that fewer arrests, even
for low-level offenses, can lead to more crime.
“If there’s nobody taking hard-core police action on the streets, from
the lowest level to the highest level, it creates a big kink in the
system,” he said.
NYPD Chief of Crime Strategies Michael LiPetri said the drop in arrests
hasn’t affected crime rates. He cited gun arrests, which have fallen a
moderate 8% to 1,899 from Jan. 1 through Aug. 9 compared with the same
period in 2019.
Mr. LiPetri said New York City police have intentionally made fewer
arrests for years, as part of a strategy that focuses on violent crimes
while reducing overall arrests for less-serious offenses. The number of
arrests made by the NYPD began to decline in 2010, he said, as crime
rates fell to some of the lowest levels in decades.
Officers guarded a New York City precinct last month amid a protest on
the sixth anniversary of the death of a man who was placed in a
chokehold by police.
Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
“We reformed, and obviously it worked,” Mr. LiPetri said in an interview.
Several factors have steepened an overall drop in arrests this year, he
said, including lockdown measures to contain the pandemic, which led to
less traffic on city streets and a reduction in some criminal activity.
At the same time, a large number of officers fell ill with Covid-19
during the height of the surge in April, Mr. LiPetri said.
The drop in arrests was also a result of the large protests that
followed the May 25 killing of George Floyd in police custody in
Minneapolis, Mr. LiPetri said, as the NYPD diverted some officers away
from their normal patrol duties to oversee the demonstrations.
Weeks after the marches died down, officers were still working to solve
crimes committed around the protests, including vandalism of police
vehicles and widespread looting in Manhattan, Mr. LiPetri said. He also
said a new law that criminalizes an officer’s use of a chokehold has had
a chilling effect on enforcement.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has defended the law. He
said that police have begun making more arrests after overcoming many
challenges this year, including delays in prosecutions due to the
coronavirus.
“I don’t doubt for a moment things are swinging back the other way very
quickly,” Mr. de Blasio said at a press conference last week.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, said he
believed officers in some precincts were staging an intentional work
slowdown, based on reports of slow response times from residents and his
conversations with officers.
He sent a letter to Mr. de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea in
July asking for an investigation into the matter. “The city needs a
better response to this, to determine if this is just a crime surge, or
is it a lack of proper enforcement,” Mr. Adams said.
NYPD officials have denied an intentional slowdown. But law-enforcement
unions and some criminologists have said that officers, sensing a
general atmosphere of hostility toward police, are less likely to take
action.
Write to Ben Chapman at Ben.Chapman-at-wsj.com
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
