Where Is The Plan, Dammit?

So, the unofficial start of the summer season began with the observance of Memorial Day weekend. And like has happened for about the last five years, street violence in obscene numbers broke out in urban cities. Chicago has become the poster child for murders, nonfatal shootings and roving bands of youths taking over public spaces while tourists are attacked. In Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend, 52 people were shot, leaving 11 dead. In Milwaukee over the same Memorial Day weekend, 13 people were shot, leaving 3 dead. The following weekend had 46 shot, nine dead in Chicago and a one-year-old shot and killed after being struck by an errant gunshot during a gun battle in Milwaukee. Major news outlets basically ignored it. Over the past 12 months, 682 people have been murdered in Chicago and 489 have been Black, yet nothing from the NAACP or Black Lives Matter. The newly elected Democrat mayor had a busy weekend schedule and didn’t take the time to comment on the violence. It appears that the plan to address the violence is to not talk about it as in nothing to see here, move along. That is not an operational plan.

MoneyGeek, a personal finance technology company, listed the 15 most dangerous cities in America. They came up with the list by analyzing FBI crime statistics for 2021. Among those cities are the usual suspect locations: Chicago, St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Cleveland, Oakland and Philadelphia. The state of Louisiana had 3 cities that made the most dangerous list. The common denominator with all these cities is that they all are led by a Democrat political class. The same people who supported, and in many cases did in fact defund police departments and passed no-bail legislation for most crimes including some serious felony offenses. MoneyGeek pointed out the economic impact of crime on cities and also pointed out that their information can help people learn about what to expect from visiting or living in those locations. This is what is referred to as quality of life issues.

This crime trend has been going on for at least the last 5 years. Drilling further down into the data shows more stunning information. More analysis from the site World Population Review on crime in 2018 showed a slight decrease in violent crime. They attributed the slight decline to a relaunch of Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative that, “brings together law enforcement, prosecutors and community leaders to develop comprehensive remedies for the most pressing crime issues.” Let me stop and expand on that. Notice that the emphasis was on attacking crime. Repeat offenders were identified, arrested, faced certain prosecution and incarceration. This was the same approach that led to the great crime decline of the late 1980s, and all throughout the following decade and into early 2000. Removing these actors from law-abiding society led to historic decreases in crime, violence and disorder all across he same cities that are currently experiencing out-of-control record numbers of crime, violence and disorder. What changed that led us to this current surge in crime? Criminal apologists went on their jihad against the criminal justice system. This was the same time frame that the War On Cops began in earnest. Many of the current class of George Soros-supported woke political activist prosecutors were elected to office in St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Milwaukee. This along with defunding police agencies and enacting no bail policies show that it is not a coincidence that most of these same cities are among the head of the class of most dangerous cities in America. This soft on crime approach is the antithesis of Project Safe Neighbor. But there is more.

The World Population Review analysis shows that the areas with the highest crime rates have poor housing conditions, large families with small incomes, failing schools, high poverty, bad health problems and homes with parents who have previously been in trouble with the law and that the motivation for violent crime has led to the formation of gangs. To put it bluntly, these are the characteristics that create ghettos. They are the result of failed urban policies. These urban pathologies nurture cultural dysfunction and cultural rot. This is what happens when your city has an over-abundance of single-parent homes, ineffective parenting, no work history, school failure, drug and alcohol abuse and questionable lifestyle choices by young people. Poverty becomes a lifestyle that leads to permanent membership in the underclass and government dependency.

This is why I point out that reducing crime, violence and disorder is a combination of elected officials creating better public policy along with more effective public safety efforts. Instead, these inept officials continue on the path of creating government dependency for a voting base and then thrust all of this chaos into the lap of law enforcement agencies to fix. I have incessantly pointed out that most of what we send police to deal with are not things police should be involved in in the first place. For instance, traffic enforcement, while necessary for the smooth flow of transportation, too often is used for revenue purposes. Many of the use of force and deadly force situations occur during a traffic stop. Then, after a police deadly use of force, these same incompetent city officials call for police reform instead of acknowledging that their own failure contributed to the conditions leading to a need for and over-reliance on law enforcement. Police reform is the low-hanging fruit and the most convenient thing for feckless politicians to reach for to keep the heat off themselves.

So what should happen? Two things. First, law enforcement executives need to continue to demand additional funding. The two sources I used for crime data point out that a lack of additional police funding is contributing to the increase in crime, violence and disorder. Additionally, these police executives need to demonstrate the courage to point out the failed urban policies and name names. Stop trying to cover for these incompetent mayors and city councils in an effort to save your job. What about the front-line street cops? They are the ones whose lives and careers are in danger.

And finally, come up with an operational plan to attack crime. I am seeing too many law enforcement executives who have gone down the rabbit hole of uttering catchy buzz phrases like “community partnering” and other abstract nonsense. These are social engineering experiments developed in schools of social welfare by people who have no real-life experience inside ghettos. These inane ideas don’t work. These experiments have transformed street cops away from being crime fighters and instead turned them into community ambassadors. Look at and copy the Project Safe Neighborhoods model.

Stop trying to fix the police. That is working on the wrong thing. Fix the ghetto instead.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of America’s Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com