more like Nationwide BLACK Crime Wave Is Building more like Nationwide BLACK Crime Wave Is BuildingYes, There’s a Ferguson Effect
Hostility toward police has led to a rise in crime, but what can we do about it?
By Robert VerBruggen • May 23, 2016
The evidence is now clear: the much-debated “Ferguson Effect”—in which heated protests lead to hesitant cops and higher crime—is real. In cities such as Baltimore and Chicago these three phenomena emerged at the exact same time. Nationwide, many urban areas, especially those with large black populations, saw substantial increases in homicide between 2014 and 2015. And new data collected from big-city police departments indicate that the problem may be ongoing, with a 9 percent rise in homicide between the first quarter of 2015 and the same period this year.
It hasn’t happened in everywhere, it hasn’t affected every type of crime, and we don’t fully understand every aspect of it. We definitely don’t know what to do about it. But the increase in violence is real, and even early critics of the “Ferguson Effect” are beginning to acknowledge it.
The criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, for example, was once quick to point out that the Ferguson Effect was hard to detect in the St. Louis area itself (which saw protests and riots after the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer involved). But in July, the Department of Justice will be releasing a nationwide analysis from Rosenfeld that reaches a different conclusion. “The only explanation that gets the timing [of cities’ homicide spikes] right is a version of the Ferguson Effect,” Rosenfeld told the Guardian. The solution to fraying relationships between police and those they protect, he says, is a focus on community policing and a more effective response to serious crimes.
More on the Ferguson Effect’s implications in a bit. But first, it’s worth looking back ...
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/yes-theres-a-ferguson-effect/