An Early Warning That Policing May Be in Decline | Police departments across the country are solving far fewer crimes than they did before 2020.
An Early Warning That Policing May Be in Decline | Police departments across the country are solving far fewer crimes than they did before 2020.
New data reveals that crime-solving rates are at record lows.
While headlines tend to focus on falling clearance rates in large liberal cities, the decline occurred nationwide in both red and blue cities, counties and states. The violent crime clearance rate, for example, fell considerably between 2019 to 2022 in big cities, which tend to be led by Democrats, as well as in small cities and suburban and rural counties, which tend to be led by Republicans.
It's not necessarily the case though that fewer crimes are being actually "solved," in the most precise sense of the term.
It could be that the current heightened interest in police oversight and focus on investigation of (and huge lawsuit payouts as a consequence of) wrongdoing by the police has made it less likely that people will be railroaded/framed for crimes they didn't actually commit, so the rate at which crimes are marked as solved has declined, even as the rate at which they actually are solved hasn't.
That's definitely a big chunk of the drop in case clearance rates since the 1960s. It's not as clear that there have been actual changes to police honesty recently though.
While this certainly sounds plausible, even rational and perfectly logical, it's also the exact sort of argument that could easily be spurious. Now, i'm not making that accusation (nor do mean to imply it), but do you happen to have any data backing up this assertion?
Portland Police collects 1/4 of a billion dollars every year.
For that:
They don't respond to 911 calls:
They don't do traffic enforcement:
They don't have a gang/gun violence taskforce:
Even the bike theft team is gone (after having one of their own bikes stolen).
So what are they doing with 1/4 billion a year?
Stockpiling tear gas in case people complain.
I dunno, it looks like it’s pretty much in line with the long-term trend for the past 60 years. It’s also interesting that crime has been generally declining over those same periods (both long-term and short-term), suggesting that catching and punishing offenders isn’t as big a factor in reducing crime as most people assume.
It has always been a question of fulfilling the needs of people. Crime is so often caused by desperation.
Often it is greed
They're also making up crimes. First hand account here.
Why solve when you could shoot
Why do actual work when you can collect overtime by hanging out at a crime scene with your buddies for an hour or two?
Best warning I have ever had. More of this please. Pigs don't solve crimes anyway.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The exact causes of the decline in arrests are difficult to pinpoint, but the timing is clearly tied to the summer of 2020, suggesting that changes in policing and America’s dwindling confidence in law enforcement since the killing of George Floyd played a role.
Low morale and extreme stresses in the departments have led to high levels of resignations among older and more experienced officers and significantly fewer recruits to replace them.
It also means significantly longer response times, leaving clues to grow stale and witnesses to disappear before officers arrive.
For a long time, conventional wisdom pointed to factors beyond the control of law enforcement — such as whether a witness was present or whether physical evidence was left behind — as the primary drivers of solving crimes.
But newer research from a criminologist, Anthony A. Braga, presents a clear connection between the amount of investigative resources dedicated to a crime and the likelihood of its being solved.
Civilians can respond to low-level incidents that don’t require an officer, take reports over the phone and aid investigators in solving cases.
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This is by percent, but not by total volume.
This could easily mean that crime is on an incline.
They directly say that this is not the case.
The comments here should be good. All well thought out and reasonable. munching popcorn
The solve rate for rape is 25%? That's horrifying. What the fuck? We have more tools available to solve crimes now than ever before in history. Get off your asses and give people some justice!
There are many issues with this, mostly that a large number of victims don’t immediately seek help and because of the delay (often months or years) cant have a rape kit done.
This reduces the evidence available for finding and prosecuting the offenders.
Justice is something that you tell children to help sleep at night along with tales of Santa and the tooth fairy.
"Early" warning that we've got some issues with policing, eh.
"Early"