|
A false choice |
Debates over crime reduction are often binary, pitting the police against alternative approaches. |
President Biden got bipartisan applause at his State of the Union speech this past week when he declared, “The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police.” |
But it is actually not an either-or between law enforcement or other options. Biden made that clear, pushing against a false choice “between safety and equal justice.” |
Both sides work best together, experts said: Policing stops violence in the short term, while other social services offer ways out of a life of crime over the longer run. |
“You want to invest in policing — in proper policing,” said Jamein Cunningham, a criminal justice expert at Cornell University. “But you have all these other areas that need to be addressed,” he added, citing poverty and lack of access to education as contributors to crime. |
More focused policing — targeting the people, places and problems that disproportionately contribute to violence — is effective. In 2009, violent crime fell in Philadelphia after officials deployed foot patrols to high-crime areas. Targeted policing strategies in dozens of other cities have produced similar results. |
Alternative approaches to reducing crime have worked, too. Summer job programs consistently lower criminal activity among participants; one in New York City reaches 75,000 young people each year. A Philadelphia program that turned vacant public spaces into parklike settings reduced shootings, burglaries and crime overall. |
Although it has gotten less attention amid news of Covid, inflation and war in Ukraine, the U.S. is enduring a spike in homicides. The country’s murder rate last year reached its highest point in a quarter-century. |
So far in 2022, murders in U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, are up even more overall, according to the crime analyst Jeff Asher. Elevated levels of violence may not be a pandemic-induced blip. |
Americans seem worried: 51 percent of adults in 2021 said they believed more crime was happening in their area, up from 38 percent in 2020, Gallup found. |
A comprehensive response to this problem would cost potentially billions of dollars nationwide — more than some cities and counties can pay for, at least without federal support. But any action, experts say, could make a difference. |
Better policing |
Policing, in general, reduces crime and violence. Every addition of 10 officers prevents one homicide, a study found. The effect on the number of Black people killed is twice that. |
But policing as it is widely practiced now also carries grave costs, including harassment, wrongful arrests and deaths, which disproportionately hurt minority communities. |
The best policing approaches focus on the slivers of city blocks and other places where crime and violence often break out, known as “hot spots.” They comprehensively take on underlying problems contributing to crime, like drugs, guns and housing. They target repeat offenders. |
In much of the country, such strategies require a rethinking of policing, leaving behind more confrontational and sweeping tactics. Those aggressive approaches are largely ineffective — and they can backfire, turning communities against the police. |
|
Other solutions |
Non-policing strategies can complement law enforcement, particularly programs that help people lead healthy, productive lives. |
“If we hopefully bring the right package and right resources to other social programs, we can have similar or better effects at lower costs and let police focus on doing a more limited job well,” said Sara Heller, a University of Michigan economist who has studied non-policing solutions. |
Early interventions, like preschool programs, seem to reduce arrests later in life. Initiatives for adolescents, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, can reduce crime and violence. Some programs that help people of all ages, including addiction treatment, also appear to help. |
Some successful measures focus on improving people’s environments. Installing more street lighting helps fight crime. So does reducing access to alcohol and guns. |
The effects of single interventions on crime are usually modest. And some, like violence interrupters, are inconsistent. But many programs have other benefits; getting children into a high-quality preschool or drug users into treatment has value beyond crime-fighting. |
Striking a balance |
Policing appears to work best in the short term, generating reductions in crime that are nearly immediate but level off over time. The alternative approaches can take longer to work, but their effects can last for years. |
Between the 1990s and the 2010s, America’s murder rate fell by more than half. The variety of credible explanations for the decline suggests that no single factor was solely responsible. It was a mix: more and better policing, the end of the crack epidemic, reduced exposure to lead, video games keeping kids indoors and out of trouble, and more. |
The balanced approach worked then. For an inherently grim problem, that history is a reason for hope. |
For more |
|