{"id":301849,"date":"2021-07-17T01:07:09","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/progressives-upside-down-view-of-nyc-crime\/"},"modified":"2021-07-17T01:07:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T22:07:09","slug":"progressives-upside-down-view-of-nyc-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/progressives-upside-down-view-of-nyc-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"#Progressives’ upside-down view of NYC crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Progressives’ upside-down view of NYC crime<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an article of faith among New York City\u2019s progressive leadership that punishment does not deter crime and that putting criminals in jail is at least as evil as whatever they did to get there. <\/p>\n

From this perspective, sending someone to jail is the worst thing that society can do: It not only destroys the life of the perpetrator but also creates a false sense of accomplishment, while ignoring the socioeconomic \u201croot causes\u201d of crime.<\/p>\n

New York City has radically decriminalized \u201cquality of life\u201d offenses, from littering to public urination to fare evasion, largely on the principle that arresting people is never the answer. In the summer of 2020, the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice boasted that \u201cthe number of New Yorkers held in New York City jails has plummeted, shrinking by 27 percent in 10 weeks, a steeper population decline than in all of last year,\u201d bringing the city\u2019s incarcerated population down to the lowest level since 1946.<\/p>\n

This would be salutary if it reflected a falling crime rate, but the release en masse of prisoners, driven by concern about COVID-19, came at a moment when murders and shootings were rising more quickly than ever recorded before. When incarceration is conceptually decoupled from crime, politicians are free to boast about emptying jails.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Close
Crime has been on the rise in NYC despite the decrease in those incarcerated.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest twist on the premise that jail is worse than crime is the notion that calling the police is itself a form of violence. Since, on this view, the police routinely commit brutality against black people, and interactions with police frequently result in the death of black men, it is unconscionable to call the police in most situations, especially when it may involve entwining a black life with law enforcement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, it may be tantamount to ordering a black person\u2019s execution. Alvin Bragg, the likely new Manhattan district attorney \u2014 who opposes jail time for people convicted of \u201cviolent felonies\u201d (his quotation marks) \u2014 cautions that calling the police on black people risks \u201cthe police shooting of another black man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To minimize police intervention, advocates have called for treating violent crime involving guns as a public-health issue, akin to the campaign against smoking that reduced cigarette usage and the incidence of lung cancer. Mary Bassett, former city health commissioner, demanded \u201ccommunity-based interventions\u201d to deal with shootings, employing \u201cthe use of \u2018credible messengers\u2019 and community-mobilization techniques that aim to media<\/a>te conflicts between individuals and groups and prevent retaliatory violence before it occurs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Someone
Gun violence has increased but gun arrests have decreased in 2021.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images\/EyeEm<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Such \u201cviolence interruption\u201d programs receive significant funding and get reintroduced every year as an innovative solution to violent crime. Claims that these efforts work are inevitably based on studies of tiny catchment areas that provide limited evidence for replicability of the model. Mayor Bill de Blasio has been promising a new rollout of more \u201cCure Violence\u201d practitioners since July 2020, as shootings and murders continue to climb.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When New Yorkers of Asian descent were being\u00a0attacked and beaten routinely\u00a0on the streets, de Blasio\u2019s wife, Chirlane McCray,\u00a0advised witnesses\u00a0to violent hate crimes to \u201cjust try interrupting it\u201d by \u201cdistracting\u201d the perpetrator \u2014 for instance, by asking the victim of an ongoing beating to tell you the current time. \u201cThis is risky,\u201d she concluded, after encouraging bystanders to intervene \u201cphysically.\u201d At no time does the mayor\u2019s wife advise people to call the police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a\u00a0similar plea<\/a>\u00a0in regard to anti-Semitic violence associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asking people on Twitter to \u201ctake NYC\u2019s free, 1hr bystander intervention course.\u201d According to the Web site, \u201cthe trainings explore the meaning of safety, of being an effective ally, and how identity plays a role in the ways we choose to intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resistance to calling the police is based on the premise that a racist institution will impose an inequitable intervention when it responds. But even the\u00a0bystander-intervention training<\/a>\u00a0assumes that the \u201cidentity\u201d of the intervenor \u201cplays a role\u201d in the act of intervention; a white person, one presumes, must tread lightly when intervening in a violent attack perpetrated by a nonwhite, lest racist modes of defusing tension intrude and replicate the racist structures that we seek to avoid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Alvin
Alvin Bragg is the democratic nominee for Manhattan district attorney.<\/figcaption>
Carlo Allegri\/Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crime is a problem to urban progressives, but app<\/a>arently not for the reasons that bother everyone else \u2014 that crime victimizes people and has huge costs. The problem, from the progressive standpoint, is that the race of many perpetrators is a political inconvenience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seth Barron\u2019s new book is \u201cThe Last Days of New York<\/a>.\u201d<\/em> Adapted from City Journal.<\/a><\/em>\n <\/div>\n