Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Meanwhile, in DC....
Here in Minneapolis, despite what crime-yellers on Next Door might say, serious violent crime is way down this year, with homicide and robberies down about a third and carjackings down almost half compared to last year.
Often this kind of decline is part of a national trend, but results are varied this year. Unfortunately, Washington DC is seeing things go the other way, as homicides are up nearly 30% and robberies up over 60% compared to last year. It's hard to say what has gone wrong there, but violent crime tends to build on itself.
I'm sure that some in Washington will blame "liberal prosecutors," but, ahem, that's not really a difference between DC and many of the places seeing a decrease, which also have relatively progressive elected prosecutors.
The truth is that there is a lot more we don't understand than we do about crime. Still, I'm convinced that these worst kind of crimes are committed by a relatively small group of people and the key is to clear cases, make arrests, and incapacitate them. The problem is that too often law enforcement reacts by going after proxy crimes (narcotics, gun possession) rather than raising their clearance rates against those committing these very worst crimes-- leaving them free to commit more of those crimes.
