{"id":33395,"date":"2021-06-20T15:16:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T20:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=33395"},"modified":"2021-06-20T15:16:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T20:16:38","slug":"its-not-just-here-in-minnesota-ctd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/06\/20\/its-not-just-here-in-minnesota-ctd-2\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not Just Here In Minnesota, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen J. K. Walters, chief economist at the Maryland Public Policy Institute<\/em><\/strong>, etc, has a countering view on the Baltimore phenomenon<\/a> of lowered violent crime during the pandemic. Briefly, he’s not a fan and thinks we’re seeing rank amateurism from prosecutor Marilyn Mosby:<\/p>\n

And now Baltimore is among the national vanguard in a new trend: de-prosecution. While it was widely perceived that early in her tenure Mosby put the brakes on prosecution of many \u201clow-level\u201d crimes, once the pandemic began she made that policy explicit (nominally<\/a>\u00a0to ensure that overcrowded prisons not become Covid spreaders). She dismissed over 1,400 pending criminal cases and quashed as many warrants for possession or \u201cattempted distribution\u201d of controlled dangerous substances, prostitution, trespassing, public urination or defecation, minor traffic offenses, and more.<\/p>\n

A year later, she revealed that this policy was not just a Covid palliative but an\u00a0experiment<\/a>\u00a0with human subjects; declaring it a big success, she proclaimed that \u201cthe era of \u2018tough on crime\u2019 prosecutors is over in Baltimore.\u201d She\u00a0pointed to<\/a>\u00a0a 20 percent reduction in violent crime and a 35 percent decline in property crime in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period last year. With all the confounding variables at work during the pandemic, of course, no social scientist worth her salt would proclaim such a complex experiment complete\u2014much less successful\u2014with just a year\u2019s worth of data (or a subsample thereof).<\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve got\u00a0data you like<\/a>, however, \u201cthe science\u201d or logic can be overlooked. So Mosby claimed that a 33 percent decline in 911 calls mentioning drugs and a 50 percent decline in calls mentioning sex work during her experiment proves that \u201cthere is no public safety value in prosecuting these offenses.\u201d To the contrary: with drug use and prostitution\u00a0de facto<\/i>\u00a0legal in Baltimore, many residents still wasted their time calling the cops about the dealers, junkies, hookers, or johns on their block. [City Journal<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He thinks … well …<\/p>\n

A simpler explanation is that Mosby is just not very good at her job. Pre-pandemic,\u00a0violent crime surged<\/a>\u00a0on her watch; homicides (averaging 55 per 100,000 residents) have run one-fifth higher than in any prior administration. Conviction rates\u00a0fell<\/a>\u00a0as soon as she took office. According to Sean Kennedy of the Maryland Public Policy Institute,\u00a0in 2017<\/a>\u00a0only 12 percent of murder, attempted murder, or conspiracy-to-commit-murder cases resulted in a guilty plea or verdict for the murder charge.\u00a0In 2018<\/a>, only 18 percent of gun-crime defendants were found guilty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not the kind of statement designed to elicit agreement and analysis from the inside<\/em>, but it may be accurate. It’s worth noting, though, that Walters is a fan of the Broken Windows<\/em> philosophy of policing, which raises a red flag for me. If he had considered and rejected the lead poisoning<\/em><\/a> theory of crime waves, then I’d be contingently happier, but he betrays no consciousness of it – which leaves me wondering if he’s well versed in the subject, or simply doesn’t like the work of Mosby.<\/p>\n

But Walters provides a lot of context to the crime drama in Baltimore, so it’s worth a read.<\/p>\n

[h\/t Andrew Sullivan]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen J. K. Walters, chief economist at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, etc, has a countering view on the Baltimore phenomenon of lowered violent crime during the pandemic. Briefly, he’s not a fan and thinks we’re seeing rank amateurism from prosecutor Marilyn Mosby: And now Baltimore is among the national \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33396,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33395\/revisions\/33396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}