“This effective police chief should emphasize low-level policing that targets graffiti, vandalism, prostitution, low-level drug sales, public drinking and urination, and aggressively loud music under the theory that policing small crimes often prevents larger crimes.”
Baltimore set a record in 2017 for the highest number of murders per capita ever recorded for the city. With a population of 650,000, the city recorded 343 murders, roughly one per day. For comparison, New York City has a population of almost 8 million, yet recorded 290 homicides in 2017. Baltimore has long struggled with violent crime and gang violence, and will continue to do so until it addresses the root causes of crime and ceases to make politically correct excuses for it.
Activists and politicians point to the fallout of the opioid epidemic, or systemic failures like unequal justice and a scarcity of decent opportunities for many citizens. Academics blame the police, accusing them of taking a hands-off approach to fighting crime since six officers were charged in connection with the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose fatal spinal cord injury in police custody triggered massive protests and the city’s worst riots in decades.
All of this is reminiscent of conservative thinker Thomas Sowell who famously said that liberals tend to blame everybody for the crime except the criminal.
Politicians fail to confront criminals, and, combined with academics and activists, they make excuses for criminals and attack the police officers as racist.
The violent crime isn’t part of a cosmic conspiracy that discriminates against black people, or a rigged criminal justice system that forces them into crime, but is simply a part of a long running trend seen in American cities. Politicians fail to confront criminals, and, combined with academics and activists, they make excuses for criminals and attack the police officers as racist. All of these things increase crime.
For example, a teenage punk slugged his high school principal two times in 2016, leaving him with black eyes and lacerations because the principal told the student to turn down his music. In court the judge gave the 19-year-old youthful offender status and sentenced him to a conditional discharge – as long as he stays out of trouble for three years he’ll dodge prison and a criminal record. The judge also said the youth “made [them] very proud” for completing the family therapy program to which he was sentenced.
There is a measure of redemption associated with the criminal justice system, but lenient sentences like this and bevy of excuses only encourages more criminal behavior. Real solutions for Baltimore will come from a police chief that uses a real-time crime mapping system to determine where to send officers.
Baltimore needs to hold police brass accountable, establish anti-gang units, and reestablish stop and frisk policies (liberals love gun control, but hate an effective policy that actually takes guns out of the hands of criminals). This effective police chief should emphasize low-level policing that targets graffiti, vandalism, prostitution, low-level drug sales, public drinking and urination, and aggressively loud music under the theory that policing small crimes often prevents larger crimes.
The difference between coddling of criminals by politicians and activists compared to the law and order approach reminds me of a story told by an ancient Chinese thinker:
Now take a young fellow who is a bad character. The loves of his parents, the efforts of the villagers, and the wisdom of his teachers and elders are all the three excellent disciplines that are applied to him, and yet not even a hair on his shins is altered. It is only after the district magistrate sends out his soldiers and in the name of the law searches for wicked individuals that the young man becomes afraid and changes his ways and alters his deeds. So, while the love of parents is not sufficient to discipline the children, the severe penalties of the district magistrate are. This is because men became naturally spoiled by love, but are submissive to authority … that being so … punishments should be severe and definite so that the people will fear them; and laws should be uniform and steadfast so that the people will be familiar with them.
Until the strong principles of law and order are applied in Baltimore it will continue to be a violent city that delivers a brutal experience for its people. All the talk about systematic injustice and the trap of poverty is supposedly inspired by liberals caring for those that live in the inner city. But ironically, their policies help create a death spiral for cities like Baltimore that become incredibly difficult to change.
