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The emotionalism that crime evokes is amazing, most would never think that things have improved. Yes I understand reporting anomalies and other challenges like reasons departments may not report all crimes, that may explain some of these reductions, but it appears things have been improving.

Why then is this always an issue? Are scare tactics being used on citizens so we are willing to give more money for crime control? Is this about special interest groups looking out for themselves with regards to money? Do PDs have something in common with education, always asking for and demanding more money to do the job properly? Is America starting to wake up to this?

I do believe carry rights are helping this trend, but I will be blasted for that no doubt.

Spike,

I don't believe this is as much about a federal take over as it is about a corrupt system. It is taboo to talk about dollars driving crime prevention, but I have become more convinced of it based on recent events. Please understand though I think the same about education-entrenched special interests groups in both.

Reading Crystal's comments about incentives to make arrests, having that at least somewhat confirmed in person and believing statistics are monitored in precincts and play a role in promotions etc. makes me wonder about incidents like Freddie...

Known bad guy in high crime area...Runs, police give chase thinking maybe they will get him on something? Just looking at the number of his arrests for low level drug crimes, and the numerous ones that were dismissed, how effective was this approach at reducing crime? Could it possibly be about numbers? Take this case out of the equation to eliminate the passion, there are lots of similar cases.

We pay for this type of crime control, and when it runs amok we pay for litigation, settlements etc...

Again, not aiming this at the rank and file. Have to believe they are given direction to do this. It just seems costly when evidence shows the violent crime is trending down. Is society spending wisely on all of this low level stuff when the costs, measured in what we have seen lately, are astronomical?

I also believe in major cities, that the city should be allowed to require certification including back ground checks within a reasonable wait time. Combine this with over-turning the ruling against stop and frisk if it is applied non-discriminatory (whatever that means and if it is even possible, LOL!)and I think crime rates would fall measurably. Police could still make arrests for folks that were carrying illegally, but law abiders would have comfort in knowing they could protect themselves. The crooks would also realize people had the potential to return fire which, IMO, would deter crime.

I am not sure the majority of police in major cities would support this though?

I doubt you'll be blasted in these quarters H4W... most CF'ers support carry, concealed or otherwise.

As for the rest of it, there aren't any easy answers. We have legalized MJ in Colorado and there is clear evidence all around that it is contributing to increased drug use by teenagers and adults. I trend libertarian in most things but having greater and greater numbers of intoxicated people at all times of the day or night is not in societies best interest.

Spring time here sees the hippie flower children rasta people showing up. For the most part they just hang out on street corners begging for money, weed or food. (Seriously, I saw a guy last week with a very nicely made cardboard sign asking for donations of Weed, money or food...) Anyway, most of Freddie Gray's arrest record revolved around drugs, the so called victim-less crimes. But when you look at a city of this size with unemployment rates greater than those of the Great Depression can anyone tell us that drug crimes are victim-less?

Agree with all of what you said. To be honest, I am tired of the out of control taxes. Education and crime prevention are areas I would like to cut. Regarding the MJ, I hope what we are seeing is just an immediate reaction to the changed course that over time will correct itself?

I understand everyone here probably supports carry, but I cannot believe the number of people who think there is next to no relationship between carry rights and crime. Maybe that is just the people I speak with in person.

I say give them both what they ask for. I think teachers are under paid and have to put up with a lot of crap from moron parents. Law enforcement should have weapons more advanced than the criminal roaming the street. Also, the Police have the right to probable cause when they encounter anybody.

By Ann Coulter May 7, 2015, 12:01 am

Astronomically low crime rates may be one of the greatest public policy triumphs in history. All this time, liberals have been lying in wait, dying to undo all the accomplishments of the last 20 years.

A quarter century of peace has lulled ordinary people into taking their safety for granted. They naturally assume that everyone regards it as a good thing that people are able to go about their lives without being raped, beaten, slashed or murdered.

They don’t know liberals. I’ve been warning you since 2001 that, as soon as we left the room, liberals would start emptying the prisons and loosing predators on us again.

The stunning crime reduction of the last couple of decades is being called a “public policy disaster” from every news outlet — even the news outlets currently being looted in Baltimore.

Last week, The New York Times’ Andrew Rosenthal praised Hillary Clinton, saying she had “correctly identified this country’s racist incarceration policies as a wrong that must be righted.”

The New York Times’ working assumption is that the only way to judge the criminal justice system is to ask if Al Sharpton is unhappy.

The next day, yet another opinion piece hailed Hillary for confronting “American problems of poverty and violence, racial injustice and criminal policing,” and her switch from a “conventionally tough-on-crime politician” to, presumably, a conventionally soft-on-crime politician. The column’s only complaint was that “the solutions she was listing have been known for years. For decades.”

Yes, we spent all of the 1970s and 1980s trying those solutions — and our cities were war zones.

It wasn’t politicians, but the public that finally demanded that the criminal class be taken out of circulation. Politicians had no choice: Either they had to build more prisons or be voted out of office.

Democrats, social workers, liberal judges and criminologists fought like mad to keep criminals on the street, coming up with ever-more creative excuses for why prison doesn’t work and continuing to demand that we “close the achievement gap.”

So much blood is on their hands! The “root cause” advocates are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of murders, rapes, slashed faces, broken limbs and ruined lives.

By abandoning the left’s “close the achievement gap” crime-fighting policies, the nation’s murder rate was halved — to say nothing of the rape, assault and burglary rates. At least 150,000 Americans who would have been murdered under the old policies are still alive.

In New York City alone, about 10,000 people — almost entirely minorities — are not dead because the “close the achievement gap” crime policies were finally jettisoned.

But now we’re hearing the exact same nonsense.

No — we tried this. Remember?

The left has been in a blind rage ever since all their idiotic ideas about fighting crime were unceremoniously dropped by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Instead of understanding criminals, Giuliani thought we should lock them up. And guess what? It worked! In his first three years as mayor, the drop in crime in New York City alone was responsible for 35 percent of the reduction in crime nationally.

When the murder rate in New York plummeted an amazing 20 percent his first year in office, The New York Times heralded this accomplishment with an article titled: “New York City Crime Falls but Just Why Is a Mystery.”

Over the course of his mayoralty, the number of murders in New York declined from about 2,000 a year to a few hundred a year –- and kept falling as Mayor Michael Bloomberg continued his predecessor’s crime policies.

The results weren’t so great in cities that refused to implement Giuliani-style policing. While New York became a wonderland, some cities continued their decline into dystopian nightmares. Detroit didn’t turn around. Baltimore didn’t turn around. Philadelphia and St Louis didn’t turn around.

The end of crime in New York made life possible again.

Major building projects, redeveloped waterfront areas, concerts in the park — all this would have been impossible, but for Giuliani and Bloomberg virtually eliminating crime in New York.

It never occurs to Brooklyn hipsters — i.e., white liberals — just why it is they can live in Brooklyn at all. Before Giuliani, among the borough’s famous residents was Tyrone Graham, known as the “Spiderman rapist,” a criminal with a long rap sheet, who nonetheless managed to spend a few months of 1986 breaking into a dozen apartments, mostly in Brooklyn, to rape, rob and brutalize the occupants.

Tyrone was finally put away for the two-hour rape of Eileen Ross, a blind woman, in her 500 East 77th St. Manhattan luxury apartment, forcing her to flee the city and move to Oregon.

As New York Newsday described the Dinkins era attack:

“Graham smashed Ross on the head with a wooden mallet, raped her twice at knifepoint, forced her to cook him breakfast, tormented her by saying he had killed one of her beloved beagles, and did blind one dog.

“After tying her up with wires from a stereo headphone, Graham stole a leather suitcase stuffed with a $2,000 mink coat. He also stole a videocassette recorder, jewelry, five pounds of shrimp, $80 and a bank card.”

This was an everyday occurrence in the 1980s. Today, the Upper East Side, as well as most of Manhattan, is safer than any small town in Utah.

That was life in New York pre-Giuliani. Liberals want it back.

+1 Spike

Sleepy,

I do agree with paying police officers more, though for education only individual teachers would get more and some would lose-pay for performance. We spend enough on education. Pay the cops more, and spend less on incarceration for low level crimes. I know Anne disputes this, but the economic cost is huge and more than just the cost of housing them. Focus that police power more on the violent/drug distribution/gang/organized crime/and support for anti terrorist type activities.