Posted on 10/27/2022 8:28:53 AM PDT by Starman417
Years ago I was writing about blacks and Democrats and looked at the impact Rudy Giuliani made in New York City. Over the course of his tenure from 1994 – 2002 there were 3,440 fewer black murder victims in the city than there might have been had New York simply experienced the average nationwide crime decline between 1994 & 2002. “That’s 3,440 families that did not lose a son, a father, a breadwinner, or a role model. 3,440 black men still alive to take care of and support their families…”
Saving 3,400 black lives and keeping 3,400 families intact didn’t happen in a vacuum. Those lives were saved by better policing, or more accurately, actual policing, via a program “Broken Windows”. The Broken Windows policing approach was developed by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1982. “Broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.”
And in the early 90’s the visible signs of crime in New York City were everywhere. Subways were covered with graffiti; Times Square was nothing but peep shows, liquor stores and vacant storefronts. But there weren’t only signs of crime, there was actual crime, and a lot of it, with violent crime and murder rampant. In 1993 there were 2,420 murders in NYC for a rate of 13.3 per 100,000, almost 50% above the national average of 9.51.
With the advent of Broken Windows, the city started cleaning up graffiti, arresting the squeegee thugs who intimidated drivers stopped at red lights and started targeting petty criminals. Giuliani knew what he was doing. Before his election he said that “he cared about statistics, but the real measure would be whether people actually felt safer. That, he said, was the ultimate test of policing and political leadership.” By the time he left office in 2002 he had delivered both the statistics and a feeling of safety – at 960 the murder rate had plummeted by 64% or 4.75 per 100,000, 15% below the national average. As the crime rate plummeted the city and its citizens thrived. Times Square transformed from a seedy denizen of hookers and pickpockets and drug dealers into a shining tourist Mecca filled with glistening theaters and hotels and restaurants. SoHo and Chelsea and Greenwich Village transformed into vibrant, inviting places. New Yorkers and tourists alike felt like New York was once again a place they could enjoy without feeling like they were in a war zone…
The point of all of this is, small things matter. Subways covered in graffiti, people urinating in the streets, homeless camping out on sidewalks and kids stealing beers and Nyquil from CVS… none of these things by themselves send a society into the abyss. But when they’re tolerated they tell the perpetrators that laws don’t matter, and soon shoplifting turns to burglary turns to robbery which turns to assault and sometimes murder. And, as criminals and crime proliferate and violence becomes more common, those law abiding citizens who can, flee for safer pastures, and all that remain in cities are criminals and their next victims who don’t have the resources to escape or can afford their own personal protection militia. That’s when dystopia goes from being the fiction of Hollywood blockbusters to reality.
None of this is particularly insightful requiring an above average IQ to see. But just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s common. The idiocy of the anti Broken Windows theory, if one might call it that, was demonstrated by the clearly low IQ mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2015 in the wake of the death of Freddy Gray in police custody. The mayor stated that “while we try to make sure that they (protestors) were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well”. So the chief law enforcement officer of the city of a major American city decided to give “protesters” space to destroy said city. What was important was not the right of private property owners to retain their property, not the desires of citizens to be safe in their communities, not the expectations of taxpayers that their leaders would enforce the law… no it was the wishes of those intent on destruction.
Small things lead to big things and the results were predictable, although protesters destroying property are not exactly small things. In 2014 there were 211 murders in Baltimore for a rate of 33.84 per 100,000 citizens. Already high compared to the national average of 4.44, things got a lot worse afterwards and every year since 2015 the city has had over 300 murders with 2021 coming in at 337 and a murder rate of 58.27 per 100,000.
And of course the thing about murder is that it is the most extreme crime possible. It’s at the top of the crime pyramid if you will – as an example, out of a given set of criminals, 80% might be willing to commit robbery, 40% assault and perhaps 2% murder. We therefore can assume that if the tip of that crime pyramid is getting bigger, the lower part is growing in tandem, if not more.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
And, way back in 1850 there was an essay that outlined the Parable of the broken window...
Some of the men whose statistical lives were saved were good men, breadwinners, role models, true fathers. Most were straight out thugs, not killed in thug wars.
Enforcing the small laws, fare jumping, public urination, graffiti, are excuses to stop and frisk. There was also stop and frisk with less cause, just a way to keep lowlifes from carrying weapons.
Stop and frisk is unconstitutional. And the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, with reasonable limits on minors and convicted felons.
Look at New York City today with a murder rate that is more than three times higher than the murder rate in Boise, Idaho.
Lots of folks think women are focused on abortion. Wrong. It’s crime.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2022/07/07/women-new-gun-owners/
Women buying guns more than ever.
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