[Salon] Violent Crime Is Escalating As Our Criminal Justice System Is In Crisis

VIOLENT CRIME IS ESCALATING AS OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS IN CRISIS
                                                                  BY
                                          ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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Americans are now experiencing a crime wave after decades of decline. Shootings have surged in recent years. In 2020, gun deaths reached their highest point in U.S. history—-in the midst of a pandemic. In 2021, Philadelphia had more murders than much larger cities such as New York and Los Angeles. Many cities set records for the number of murders, among them Indianapolis, Louisville, Toledo, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Portland, Boston and Rochester.

One reason for this growth in violent crime is that our criminal justice system is in a state of crisis, caused, in part, by the vocal and aggressive “defund the police” movement. Robert Boyce, a retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, blamed the nationwide murder surge on a sharp decline in arrests and pretrial detention. “Nobody’s getting arrested. People are being picked up for gun possession and they are just let out over and over again.”

Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University, in his book “Uneasy Peace,”
argues that intensive and often aggressive policing and incarceration policies have helped reduce crime in the past few decades to the great benefit of low income and minority neighborhoods. He notes that Chicago had 267 more fatal shootings in 2020 than the previous year and that New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta saw fatal shootings increase by more than 30%.

Dr. Sharkey finds merit in the argument that the “defund the police” movement has been substantially wrong and possibly counterproductive because more policing, not less policing, has been commonly associated with crime reduction. What’s more, anti-police protests may have directly contributed to a police pullback in some cities. And sudden declines in police-civilian interactions have been associated with an increase in local crime.

The Brennan Center at New York University reports that, “Black Americans and Latinos are disproportionately the victims of lethal violence. For black men under 45, homicide is the leading cause of death, accounting for nearly a third of fatalities. For Latino men in the same age group, it is the second leading cause of death.”

The criminal justice system is in a state of crisis. The number of crimes committed by those who have been arrested many times and, even when charged with violent crimes, are out on the streets, would fill many pages.

Early in January, Manhattan’s newly elected District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has advocated what his critics call a “soft on crime” approach, intentionally omitted all of the facts about a violent theft with an assault and robbery recidivist receiving a mere charge of “shoplifting.” The New York Police Department’s Sergeant Benevolent Association accused Bragg of meddling in the arrest report of Christian Hall, who had been arrested 21 times, with 9 open cases, including robbery with a deadly weapon and assault. DA Bragg is accused of removing key pieces of information about Hall’s criminal record, including the fact that he had used a weapon in his latest robbery.

The newly elected Bragg has announced policies to downgrade burglary, armed robbery and drug dealing from felonies to just misdemeanors, even as the number of robberies soared by almost 20% early in January. Other New York City District Attorneys have been sharply critical of Bragg’s “soft on crime” approach. Staten Island DA Michael McMahon said Bragg is “rolling out a welcome mat for criminals to commit serious crimes without any consequences.” Queens DA Melissa Katz said, “Holding dangerous, violent offenders accountable must always be a top priority of my office.”

Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton criticized the Manhattan DA for “handcuffing cops by decriminalizing just about everything in New York City.” He said that newly elected mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, “has his hands tied in terms of crime.”

In Chicago, nearly 100 people charged with murder are free to walk the streets thanks to bail reform, as are 852 people charged with aggravated gun possession. Since this policy went into effect in 2017, crime in Chicago has skyrocketed and 75% of people on electronic monitoring—-rather than in jail—-are violent criminals. Chicago police arrested 133 people for violent crimes last year while they were on electronic monitors. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart revealed that 90 people accused of murder are free along with 40 people charged with attempted murder and 852 people charged with aggravated gun possession. He said that, “It is making the community significantly less safe.”

Those guilty of criminal activity in many cases have long criminal records, and should have been in jail. Consider some of the recent examples:

*In 2021, an Asian man, Yao Pan Ma, 61, was kicked in the head in New York City in a hate crime which left him in a coma. He died 8 months after the attack. The perpetrator had been arrested 15 times. Among his crimes was the kidnapping of a 23-year-old woman from an apartment on Staten Island and sexually assaulting her.

*Darrell Brooks, Jr. the man who killed six people by plowing his SUV into a crowd of people at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin was a repeat criminal and was out on a minimal $1,000 bail and was divested away from pretrial detention by Milwaukee DA John Chisholm. Later, the judge admitted that the bail “was unacceptably low.”

*On Nov. 11, Kenneth Burney was charged with attempted murder. He reportedly shot and wounded three Wauwatosa, Wisconsin police officers in a hotel while he faced serious charges including disorderly conduct with use of a dangerous weapon. He was a habitual criminal with domestic abuse assessments. He was released on a $1,000 signature bond in March. This only asks for a promise to pay the bond money if he fails to show up.

*A man is facing federal charges of carjacking Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) in Dec. 2021 at gunpoint in Philadelphia’s FDR Park. At the time, he was awaiting trial for stealing another car and had a string of arrests. Philadelphia City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, in whose district the carjacking occurred, said, “Right now in the city of Philadelphia, people feel like there’s a sense of lawlessness…We have to figure out, how do we get ahold of this senseless violence.” Sixteen hours before the Philadelphia carjacking, Illinois Democratic Senate Majority leader Kimberly Lightford was also the victim of a carjacking in a Chicago suburb.

Both of these Democratic legislators who were carjacked had supported major police reforms, with Lightford pushing for large cuts in police spending. Some other liberal office-holders who once supported major cuts in police spending are changing their minds, as reality is making it clear that the path they have been following is only making things worse. San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed recently issued a broadside against “a reign of criminals who are destroying the city” and calls for less tolerance of “bull-hit progressive policies,” as she announced plans for more aggressive policing. In December, Breed launched an emergency police intervention to curb open drug use, brazen home break-ins and other criminal behavior and argued for “more aggressive policing.” After Black Lives Matter and other groups called for cities to defund the police last year, Mayor Breed announced that San Francisco would be the first to do so and cut $120 million from police spending. In December, she changed course and asked the Board of Supervisors for more police funding.

In progressive Portland, Oregon, soaring crime caused the City Council to restore $5.2 million of the $15 million it cut from police budgets during last year’s anti-police protests. Portland has recorded more murders in 2021 than much larger San Francisco and had twice as many homicides as its larger neighbor, Seattle.

There was a time, not too long ago, when both liberals and conservatives agreed that effective law enforcement is necessary in any civilized society. Consider the words of the distinguished liberal, Professor Sidney Hook: “As a citizen, most of the rights guaranteed to me under the Bill of Rights become negatory if I am hopelessly crippled by violence, and all of them become extinguished if I am killed.” When it comes to letting even violent criminals out on bail, he writes, “…the right of a person out on bail when he is charged with committing the same kind of violent offense, and to be granted bail even when he is charged with committing the offense a third time—-a right which he legitimately claims since he has not yet been found guilty of the first offense—-conflicts head on with the rights of his victims who can legitimately claim that the suffered this violence because the person at bar enjoyed his constitutional right to be free on bail.”

It was Dr. Hook’s belief that the problem of crime in our society can only be solved if we “begin the quest for intelligent solutions…to reorient our thinking in the current period to the rights of the potential victims of crime, and to the task of reducing their number and suffering.”

There are even those in the “defund the oolice” movement who reject the very idea of punishment for those who are guilty of criminal activity. In her important book “The Need for Roots,” the French philosopher Simone Weil, dipping deeply into her own roots, which were both Jewish and Christian, expressed the view that, “Punishment is a vital need of the human soul…But the most indispensable punishment for the soul is that inflicted for crime. By committing crime, a man places himself, of his own accord, outside the chain of eternal obligations that bind every human being to every other one…punishment alone can weld him back again; fully so, if accompanied by consent on his part; otherwise only partially so…the only way of showing respect for somebody who has placed himself outside the law is to reinstate him inside the law by subjecting him to the punishment ordained by the law.”

It is important that we restore our criminal justice system and make sure that violent criminals are removed from society. When police misconduct arises, as in the George Floyd case in Minnesota, it is important that police officers involved in wrongdoing be held responsible.   Thus, the police officers in this case were found guilty and are now serving time in prison. Reacting to police misconduct by calling for defunding of police departments is, as we have already seen in San Francisco, Portland and elsewhere, counterproductive. It makes our most vulnerable citizens, particularly minorities in the inner city, even more victimized by crime and violence. Fortunately, some city officials have now recognized this reality. Let us hope that congressional advocates of hostility to the police follow their example. Keeping violent criminals off the streets should not be an issue that divides liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats.
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