Detroit’s ShotSpotter: A Billion-Dollar Gamble on Gun Violence Tech?
The Rising Cost of Safety: What This Means for Your Future The deployment of gunshot detection technology like ShotSpotter in cities across the United...
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Detroit’s ShotSpotter: A Billion-Dollar Gamble on Gun Violence Tech?
The Rising Cost of Safety: What This Means for Your Future The deployment of gunshot detection technology like ShotSpotter in cities across the United...
Read more (Full Article) »
CrimethInc. June 11: The History of a Day of Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity Including a Chronology of Events 2004–2017 June 7, 2017
CrimethInc. Slave Patrols and Civil Servants A History of Policing in Two Modes 15th March 2017
Comrade Frank Talk Radical Resistance for Prison Abolition by Comrade Frank Talk, a Captive New Afrikan Revolutionary June 15, 2021
Lagos CP charges officers on proactive policing, receives security equipment
By Adebola Isimijola, Lagos The Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, CP Tijani Fatai, has charged senior officers of the command to strengthen proactive policing, improve intelligence gathering and sustain prompt responses to security threats across the state.Fatai gave the charge during a strategic security meeting with Area Commanders, Divisional Police Officers (DPOs), Commanders of the…
There's no organization that cares more about black lives than police departments. They are putting themselves on the line every single day to try and protect the thousands of law-abiding, hard-working black residents of high-crime neighborhoods. And when the police back off, very predictably – we've seen this again and again after moments of mass hysteria about phony police racism – crime goes through the roof.
In 2020, after the George Floyd riots, you had the largest single increase in homicide in this nation's history: 29%. Everybody's celebrating now that crime is coming down, but it's coming down from an unprecedented high. So it's a little early to celebrate, as far as I'm concerned, when you still have these completely grotesque assaults that are going on in cities by drug-addicted, mentally ill people who should be in prison or in mental institutions.
But nevertheless, though crime remains at a completely unacceptable rate, the property crime, the assaults, there have been baby steps towards giving secret permission to the cops to try and be a little bit more proactive, to do a little bit more of the essential broken windows policfing. Nevertheless, there's a lot more that could be done.
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The U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 – the largest single-year increase in more than a century.
The year-over-year increase in the U.S. murder rate in 2020 was the largest since at least 1905 – and possibly ever, according to provisional data from the CDC. (Final data is not expected to differ much from the provisional data.) There were 7.8 homicides for every 100,000 people in the United States in 2020, up from six homicides per 100,000 people the year before. The rise in the nation’s murder rate last year far exceeded the 20% increase measured in 2001, which was driven by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
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https://grokipedia.com/page/Broken_windows_theory
The broken windows theory is a criminological framework positing that visible cues of minor disorder—such as unrepaired vandalism, loitering, or public intoxication—erode community norms of order, signaling vulnerability and thereby fostering escalation to more serious criminal acts if left unaddressed. Formulated by political scientist James Q. Wilson and consultant George L. Kelling, the theory draws on an analogy: a building with one broken window, if not fixed, invites further breakage and neglect, ultimately leading to broader decay and opportunistic crime. It emphasizes proactive policing of low-level infractions to restore informal social controls, rather than reactive responses solely to felonies, arguing that disorder undermines residents' willingness to intervene and perpetuates a cycle of antisocial behavior.
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https://grokipedia.com/page/Ferguson_effect
Analyses of FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data by Heather Mac Donald documented sharp homicide increases in major cities following the 2014 Ferguson unrest and subsequent scrutiny of policing practices. In 2015, murders rose by over 50% in several cities with large black populations, including a 63% increase in Baltimore after the Freddie Gray incident amid broader de-policing, and significant upticks in Chicago and St. Louis, correlating temporally with reduced proactive enforcement inspired by Ferguson-related protests. These patterns persisted into 2016, with Chicago experiencing a 58% homicide surge, which Mac Donald attributed to officers' risk aversion under heightened public and media scrutiny rather than socioeconomic factors.
Empirical studies have drawn causal links between post-Ferguson scrutiny and crime via reduced police activity. A 2021 study by Cheng and Long examined St. Louis policing data, finding that after Michael Brown's 2014 death, self-initiated arrests fell 62%, foot patrols dropped 82%, and pedestrian checks declined 76%, persisting for over two years; this coincided with significant rises in homicides and aggravated assaults, particularly in high-minority neighborhoods reliant on prior proactive strategies. Across 60 large U.S. cities, the analysis showed that areas with higher black populations experienced steeper misdemeanor arrest declines and a 10% homicide increase, supporting deterrence-based mechanisms where de-policing disrupts crime prevention in vulnerable precincts.
Further causal evidence comes from Premkumar's 2020 analysis of 52 cities with high-profile police shootings versus controls, revealing that intense media scrutiny led to up to 33% drops in arrests for low-level offenses like marijuana possession, without declines in serious crime arrests, followed by 10-17% increases in murders and robberies. Effects were amplified in communities with greater awareness of incidents, yielding straightforward inferences of scrutiny-induced officer pullback driving violent crime upticks, distinct from unrelated trends. Disaggregated findings across these studies indicate the strongest impacts in high-minority districts with histories of intensive stop-and-frisk or broken-windows enforcement, where reduced discretionary policing removed key deterrents without socioeconomic confounders fully explaining the rises.
A 2020 NBER working paper by Tanaya Devi and Roland G. Fryer Jr. examined the impact of Department of Justice "pattern-or-practice" investigations following high-profile police incidents in five cities. The analysis found reductions in police arrests by approximately 5-10% and increases in violent crime by similar margins, attributing these outcomes to decreased proactive policing under heightened scrutiny.
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https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27324/w27324.pdf
Abstract
This paper provides the first empirical examination of the impact of federal and state "Pattern-orPractice" investigations on crime and policing. For investigations that were not preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force, investigations, on average, led to a statistically significant reduction in homicides and total crime. In stark contrast, all investigations that were preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force have led to a large and statistically significant increase in homicides and total crime. We estimate that these investigations caused almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies. The leading hypothesis for why these investigations increase homicides and total crime is an abrupt change in the quantity of policing activity. In Chicago, the number of police-civilian interactions decreased by almost 90% in the month after the investigation was announced. In Riverside CA, interactions decreased 54%. In St. Louis, self-initiated police activities declined by 46%. Other theories we test such as changes in community trust or the aggressiveness of consent decrees associated with investigations -- all contradict the data in important ways.
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BLM costs far more lives than it saves.
The Fascist Slide of the 20’s
How COVID-19 Marked The Backlash Against Progressive Populism — Could Bernie Happen Today?
The shift we are describing—from the widespread delegitimization of police after Ferguson (2014) to the "law and order" crackdowns of 2020 and beyond—is one of the sharpest ideological U-turns in recent American history. COVID didn't do it alone, but it acted as both an accelerant and a crucible. Here's how the pandemic created the conditions for this reversal.
1. The Shutdown Shattered the "Peaceful Protester" Framework
The Ferguson protests and the 2020 George Floyd uprising were fundamentally different in their physical context, and COVID defined that difference.
· Ferguson (2014): Protests happened in a functioning society. People went to work, kids went to school, businesses were open. The spectacle of police in riot gear was an intrusion on normalcy.
· Summer 2020: Normalcy didn't exist. Cities were ghost towns. The usual anchors of civic life were gone. The visual was no longer protesters vs. a functioning city, but chaos layered onto an already apocalyptic emptiness. This made the protests feel less like a moral claim on a healthy society and more like a symptom of its collapse.
2. The "Broken Windows" Theory Literally Materialized
"Broken Windows" policing is based on the idea that visible signs of disorder—broken windows, graffiti, public drinking—signal that no one is in control, inviting more serious crime. COVID created this environment organically, and the public felt it viscerally.
· Empty Streets: The sudden absence of "eyes on the street" (commuters, shoppers, tourists) made every city feel unsafe. The natural surveillance that prevents petty crime vanished.
· Closed Businesses: Boarded-up storefronts became physical broken windows. A closed shop next to your apartment wasn't just an economic statistic; it was a daily reminder of disorder and vulnerability.
· Encampments: With shelters closing due to outbreaks and services collapsing, unsheltered homelessness and visible mental health crises exploded in public spaces. For many residents, this was a firsthand experience of a "disorder" that police might traditionally manage.
This was the perfect petri dish for a "law and order" backlash. People didn't need a think tank to tell them disorder was rising; they saw it out their window every day.
3. The "Defund" Movement Met a Real Crime Wave
The 2020 protests successfully moved the Overton window, making "Defund the Police" a mainstream slogan. However, COVID was simultaneously brewing a perfect storm for violent crime.
· The Spike: In 2020, homicides surged by nearly 30%, the largest single-year increase in modern U.S. history. Other violent crimes also rose.
· COVID-Specific Causes: The pandemic shattered informal social controls. Schools closed, community programs shut down, and youth jobs vanished. This was coupled with massive psychological stress, substance abuse, and a breakdown in the police-community trust needed to solve crimes. Clearance rates for murders plummeted.
· The Narrative Collision: The public heard a message of "defund" while experiencing a very real and frightening sense of physical danger. The progressive argument that you could reimagine public safety in the long-term crashed into the immediate, primal need for safety now. The homicide spike gave "law and order" a concrete, visceral counter-argument.
4. The "Essential Worker" Rebranding of Police
COVID redefined "essential." While white-collar America worked from home in sweatpants, police (alongside nurses and grocery clerks) had to physically show up. The public narrative shifted: cops weren't abstract agents of systemic racism in an op-ed; they were the ones who would respond to a 911 call in a plague year. They were the ones dealing with the mental health crisis on the subway when everyone else was isolated. This gave political cover for a move away from reform rhetoric and back toward traditional public safety demands.
5. From "Capitol Riot" to "Broken Windows": A Bifurcation of Fear
The Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021, was a crucial turning point. The progressive left looked at the violent storming of the Capitol and saw a failed insurrection emboldened by lenient treatment from police. The response should have, in their view, been a crackdown. But the broader suburban and moderate public looked at the same event and made a simpler calculation: the world feels utterly lawless, from the street to the Capitol.
This generalized anxiety about lawlessness didn't break neatly along partisan lines. For every person radicalized against the right by January 6, another was radicalized by the viral videos of "smash-and-grab" robberies and carjackings that filled social media in 2021-22. The "Broken Windows" comeback was driven by this second group, who saw both the progressive prosecutor and the populist rioter as two heads of the same chaotic beast. The demand wasn't for systemic change, but for order.
In short: COVID didn't just change policy. It created a tangible, daily, physical experience of disorder for millions of Americans who had previously been insulated from it. This made the intellectual critiques of policing from the Ferguson era feel like a luxury they could no longer afford, paving the way for a roaring comeback of the most basic, "sweep the streets" form of law and order.
TEST BANK For Policing America Challenges And Best Practices Tenth Edition By Kenneth J Peak And William H Sousa Updated For 2025 2026
Gain a competitive edge in your criminal justice studies with this comprehensive Test Bank for the Tenth Edition of 'Policing America: Chall
Seattle’s having a moment 🔍⚾ From J.P. Crawford’s walk-off magic to growing protests over police surveillance cameras, the city is wrestling with what “safety” really means. Dive into the debate and the drama: https://hyperlocalnews.website/seaen/seattle-victories-and-protests.html