A January 1, 2022 New York Daily News article claimed “New York’s soul-crushing crime surge continued to accompany the soul-crushing COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, as homicides and shootings continued well above pre-pandemic levels of 2019, NYPD end-of-year data shows. By the time the ball dropped in Times Square on Dec. 31, the NYPD had investigated 485 murders in 2021 — 17 more than the 468 reported in 2020. The uptick was a 3% increase over 2020 and a massive 52% jump from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when 318 murders occurred.
The “surge” happened despite the fact that, according to the FBI, New York City has the largest metropolitan police department in the country with 436 officers per every 100,000 residents. This is 43% higher than Los Angeles with only 249 officers per every 100,000 residents and 49% higher than Houston. New York also spends $638 per person on its police department, more than Los Angeles, Detroit. or Chicago. While former Mayor de Blasio’s pledged to cut police funding, the NYPD actually received a $200 million budget increase in May 2021. To fight the crime “surge,” new Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, is reviving the Department’s plain-clothes anti-crime unit that was closed down in 2020 because of its history of abusive practices in minority communities. Adams, who is African American, promises that his administration will fight crime more effectively without resorting to racial stereotyping.
Curiously, the actual crime figures tell a somewhat different story than the Daily News. In November 2021, the number of murders in New York City declined from the previous November by over 17% and in 2021 the Department, without the addition of the anti-crime unit, was able to increase gun possession arrests. The overall crime increase during the 2021 “surge,” including the gun possession arrests, was only 3.4%.
Many criminologists, crime specialists, question whether increased spending on police and new hires is the best way to address crime. According to Aaron Chalfin, a criminologist at the University of Pennsylvania who supports additional police hiring, historically “homicides fell after more officers were hired 54 percent of the time.” Of course, that means homicides did not decrease 46% of the time. Chalfin acknowledged, “Crime goes up and down for a million reasons that are completely independent of the police.” Based on his own research, Chalfin found that statistically it took the addition of between ten and seventeen new police officers to reduce the homicide rate by one person. Each patrol officer currently costs the New York City about $180,000 annually in salary and benefits.
Chicago pledged to hire an additional 1,000 officers in 2016 following an increase in gun violence, but the incidents began to decline before the new officers were on the job. According to Tracy Siska, executive director of the Chicago Justice Project, “As long as Chicago has a cold winter, crime is going to drop.” In 2019, after the new police were on patrol, the number of shootings in Chicago surged again.
Meanwhile, studies show that there are better ways to lower crime rates, including improving the condition of people’s lives. In a survey of criminal justice experts, 85% called for increased spending on housing, health care, and education as effective ways to reduce crime.
In December 2020, the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn stopped regular police patrols on a two-block stretch of the busy Mother Gaston Boulevard for parts of five days. Police were replaced with a group from the Brownsville Safety Alliance that stationed “violence interrupter and crisis management groups” in the area. During that period, only one 911call was made from Mother Gaston Boulevard and that turned out to be a mistake. A randomized study of improved lighting in New York City housing showed that it reduced outdoor, nighttime crime by 36%. In Philadelphia, cleaning up vacant lots led to a reduction in gun violence by 29% burglaries by 22%, nuisance complaints by 30%.
Police are often the problem. They were in Minneapolis and in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. They were in New York City where the Civilian Complaint Review Board wants 65 police officers disciplined because of their attacks on protestors during Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Many of the incidents were documented with video footage by the New York Times.
Tamara Nopper, a sociologist at Rhode Island College argues “crime data is always a tool of police propaganda. If crime is low, the police are doing their jobs. If crime is high, we need to give more money to the police. The police always win.”
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