City Murder Rates

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I agree. It's very hard to believe decreasing the size of police force will help crime. And obviously resources must be spent wisely.

NYC's police force has decreased in size over the past 20 years, as population has risen, and crime has fallen.

Now this doesn't mean that crime has fallen because the force was reduced, obviously. The smaller headcount is largely a consequence of the dramatic drops in illegal activity, however. Plus technology and data-driven deployments allow police to do more with less.

[downtownpdx]

Originally Posted by Acajack

And even if we assume that more cops won't reduce murders, is there any evidence that fewer cops won't make things worse?

My guess is that the best approach is more resources to public safety in general: ample ones on both the enforcement and preventive sides.

As opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Agreed. You gotta think about 911 calls too. If more cops doesn't necessarily prevent crime, and I really don't know that's the case, a city should at least have enough to rapidly respond to emergency calls. Criminals getting away with zero consequences, or even lives even being lost is unacceptable. Preventative approaches are important too, of course, and both need attention.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NYC's police force has decreased in size over the past 20 years, as population has risen, and crime has fallen.

Now this doesn't mean that crime has fallen because the force was reduced, obviously. The smaller headcount is largely a consequence of the dramatic drops in illegal activity, however. Plus technology and data-driven deployments allow police to do more with less.

That makes sense, though. If crime is dropping then you may reassess how many cops you need - downwards.

But reducing the number of cops when crime is on the rise?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NYC's police force has decreased in size over the past 20 years, as population has risen, and crime has fallen.

Now this doesn't mean that crime has fallen because the force was reduced, obviously. The smaller headcount is largely a consequence of the dramatic drops in illegal activity, however. Plus technology and data-driven deployments allow police to do more with less.

What about their budget? At least down here in São Paulo, it was not only the size of the force, but they spent heavily on equipment, intelligence.

And as pointed out by other forumers, New York greatly gentrified. In São Paulo, specially as we're talking about the state as a whole, there is no comparable phenomenon. Several neighbourhoods gentrified, but not on the scale necessary to force rates from 35/100,000 to 6/100,000.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Several neighbourhoods gentrified, but not on the scale necessary to force rates from 35/100,000 to 6/100,000.

There's the obvious answer, previously discussed, which you are all too eager to sweep under the rug...

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by subterranean

There is, however, a direct correlation between police response time and incidence of burglary/theft/robbery. People are emboldened and are literally walking into Target, Fred Meyer and other department stores, loading up carts, and walking out. Also burglary, vehicle theft, catalytic converters...which I'm sure adds to homicides when caught in the act. Not exactly comparable to thug on thug violence, but a contributing factor.

That's an important point. Here in this forum we're mostly urbanites, somewhat liberal folk and it's a bit easy to overlook crime, to see it only as suburbia anti-urban fantasy.

However, there's another thing in common: we are all males here, and women have a very different perspective on this. We feel safe to walk late in the night, not worrying about minor crimes. For a woman, it's a bit more complex.

The overall feeling of unsafe, that even tolerance for petty crimes creates, ruin the urban experience for them.

Originally Posted by badrunner

There's the obvious answer, previously discussed, which you are all too eager to sweep under the rug...

Again, São Paulo didn't reduce crimes by "killing all the bad guys". I didn't google it, but I bet police killed even more people back in the late 1990's when crime rates were gone through the roof.

It's quite surprising that you actually believe police killing criminals/allegedly criminals help to reduce crime. I don't.

[badrunner]

Do those numbers include civilians murdered by cops? (serious question)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Yuri

But isn't that a coincidence? It's not like São Paulo is the only city/state thriving, attracting migrants. In fact, it grows slightly below national average for while.

What the state did was investing heavily on police as things were indeed very bad back then. I brought the numbers above and apparently investiments on the state police/public safety is at R$ 30 billion or over 1% of the GDP. In the US terms, that would be like New York metro area dumping about US$ 25 billion on the local police. Results would show up.




I agree. It's very hard to believe decreasing the size of police force will help crime. And obviously resources must be spent wisely.

Now if we're being realistic, then we have to admit there is only so much money to go around.

I've said before that more resources should go into both enforcement and prevention.

But what happens if there isn't enough money for both?

The most often and loudly voiced answer for a year and a half has been "prevention", the more reflective angle to "defund the police".

I am not sure I agree though, as I do think that the totally innocent (ie most of us) have a greater right to be protected from crime than people whose lives have already started to go off the rails have to having the state help set them right, or to a second or third chance.

I mean, I know that the latter can pay off dividends, but if forced to choose...

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by badrunner

Do those numbers include civilians murdered by cops? (serious question)

You yourself did post the number of people killed by São Paulo. It was 800, right?

In Brazil, according to the number provided by states' public safety secretaries, there were 43k murders in Brazil. They use, obviously, the legal definition, and I guess most of people killed by the police are not counted as murders. Many of those deaths happening during confronts. Yesterday, for instance, that was a major police operation in Minas Gerais against bank robbers that killed 25 (!!!). I don't think those will be consider murders.

If you want to know how many people were killed in Brazil, without be qualified as murder or not, than the best source is the Ministry of Health. They have a category called deaths caused by other people something like that. It's about 50k yearly.

Those 7k are violent deaths that for different reasons were not considered murders, or 15% of total.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Now if we're being realistic, then we have to admit there is only so much money to go around.

I've said before that more resources should go into both enforcement and prevention.

But what happens if there isn't enough money for both?

The most often and loudly voiced answer for a year and a half has been "prevention", the more reflective angle to "defund the police".

I am not sure I agree though, as I do think that the totally innocent (ie most of us) have a greater right to be protected from crime than people whose lives have already started to go off the rails have to having the state help set them right, or to a second or third chance.

I mean, I know that the latter can pay off dividends, but if forced to choose...

On top of that there's a big private safety industry, including everything from just an unarmed old man in a shop to heavily armed security guards to protect banks. According to Google, there are 500k people employed in this industry here in Brazil and I imagine it worths tens of billions.

Police should be able to work as dissuasion element, to keep things in order. Violence is the most anti-social behaviour around, and there is no reason for the progressive camp to be lenient with it.

[badrunner]

You can't have it both ways. You can't excuse the thousands of civilian deaths at the hands of police by saying that they are all just violent criminals anyway, then turn around and claim that those killings have absolutely zero material effect on crime rates in Brazil. That does not compute.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by badrunner

You can't have it both ways. You can't excuse the thousands of civilian deaths at the hands of police by saying that they are all just violent criminals anyway, then turn around and claim that those killings have absolutely zero material effect on crime rates in Brazil. That does not compute.

But I'm not excusing those deaths. I'm just saying the fact of Brazilian police being lethal, didn't help São Paulo to improve its rates on the past two decades.

In Rio de Janeiro state, for instance, police kills even more than São Paulo's in absolute numbers, even though RJ state population is only 1/3 of SP's. It goes without saying Rio is much more violent than São Paulo. Crime rates actually improved a bit there, but nowhere near close the scale of São Paulo.

Investing on police, improving crime rates, has nothing should with police killing more. It means police has good condition to do a better job.

[badrunner]

There must be a lot of innocent people getting murdered by cops then.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by badrunner

There must be a lot of innocent people getting murdered by cops then.

Or, when there is a societal breakdown and lack of economic opportunity, there is constant stream of young people willing and able to turn to crime to replace whatever numbers are killed by police. You're argument requires some static number of criminals that can be dwindled down with every murder committed by police.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by badrunner

There must be a lot of innocent people getting murdered by cops then.

Certainly and unfortunately. But I rather live (and everybody else I suppose) in a city with 600 murders a year than one with almost 4,000 (SP 20 years ago). And again: it’s not like SP police was less lethal back then, probably the opposite.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Or, when there is a societal breakdown and lack of economic opportunity, there is constant stream of young people willing and able to turn to crime to replace whatever numbers are killed by police. You're argument requires some static number of criminals that can be dwindled down with every murder committed by police.

So you think thousands of violent criminals getting killed every year would have zero material impact on crime rates? They'll just immediately be replaced and the crime rate will stay exactly the same? Something like that would dramatically reduce crime rates in this country, obviously. But we have these inconvenient little things like civil rights, due process, rule of law...

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by badrunner

So you think thousands of violent criminals getting killed every year would have zero material impact on crime rates? They'll just immediately be replaced and the crime rate will stay exactly the same? Something like that would dramatically reduce crime rates in this country, obviously. But we have these inconvenient little things like civil rights, due process, rule of law...

In the U.S.? No. In Brazil, much more likely.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

In the U.S.? No. In Brazil, much more likely.

You're right about that part, the criminals will be able to replenish their numbers much more quickly in Brazil.

It's still very naive to ascribe all of Brazil's successes (if we could believe the official figures) to "good policing" and "investment" while completely ignoring and sweeping under the rug the one distinguishing feature of Brazilian policing.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by badrunner

So you think thousands of violent criminals getting killed every year would have zero material impact on crime rates? They'll just immediately be replaced and the crime rate will stay exactly the same? Something like that would dramatically reduce crime rates in this country, obviously. But we have these inconvenient little things like civil rights, due process, rule of law...

That's a very bold and problematic assumption, that you can "kill crime away". It doesn't work like that and Rio de Janeiro is there to prove it. If the murder rates a high, the odds of police being more lethal are way bigger as you're in an environment of lawlessness. Criminals will be replaced very quickly in such environment. In a place where crimes are under control, like São Paulo, police will have a harder time to use excessive force.

Heck, Chicago would have solved its problems as criminals are killing other criminals way faster than criminals and police in São Paulo combined. They should have seen their murder rates to have already fallen.

Really, that sounds like those "tough on crime" type of people, that believe if you kill all criminals, we'll live in a paradise.

[badrunner]

It's not an assumption that suspension of civil rights and rule of law can lead to lower crime. Just look at authoritarian countries. It's not that we don't know how to fight crime. It's that we have different values.