No Surprise: the Ferguson Effect Appears to be on the Rise in American Cities
[guest post by JVW]
The Ferguson Effect is the idea that once civic unrest and riots begin in response to alleged police wrongdoing, police everywhere react by being less willing to patrol neighborhoods in which they are clearly unpopular and become less likely to respond to lower-level crimes in fear that they could escalate to something far more drastic. It was named for Ferguson, Missouri, site of the fatal shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer in 2014. The Obama Justice Department later exonerated the officer, though it did suggest that the department was “racially biased.” In the meantime, Ferguson and its neighboring city St. Louis, along with other metropolitan areas throughout the country, reacted with large protests which oftentimes turned violent, and as a result those communities saw an increase in crime and murder over the subsequent years as police reduced their footprint in those communities. Though there are plenty of left-leaning sociologists who argue that other factors better explain the increases in mayhem, some former skeptics of the Ferguson Effect have begun to acknowledge that there is at least some merit to its thesis.
The recent riots in response to the George Floyd murder (and that of Ahmaud Arbery too) suggest that we are once again seeing the sad effects of the Ferguson Effect when urban police and their bosses in city hall no longer wish to patrol the streets. Writing in City Journal, Heather Mac Donald had begun to piece together post-riot statistics that paint a grim picture:
In Minneapolis, shootings have more than doubled this year compared to last. Nearly half of all those shootings have occurred since George Floyd’s death, according to a Minneapolis Star Tribune analysis. [. . .]
In Chicago, 18 people were killed and 47 wounded in drive- and walk-by shootings last weekend. [. . .] The previous weekend in Chicago, 104 people were shot, 15 fatally.
New York City’s homicide rate is at a five-year high; the number of shooting victims was up over 42 percent through June 21 compared with the same period in 2019. The number of shootings in the first three weeks of June was over twice that of the same period in 2019, making this June the city’s bloodiest in nearly a quarter century, according to the New York Times. [. . .]
Milwaukee’s homicides have increased 132 percent. “In 25 years, I’ve never seen it like this,” a Milwaukee police inspector told the Police Executive Research Forum, referring to the violence and the low officer morale. Shootings are spiking in Indianapolis. Other cities will show similar increases once their crime data are published.
[. . .]
So far this year, more people have been killed in Baltimore than at this point in 2019, which ended with the highest homicide rate on record for that city. [. . .]
To be sure, not all of these increases can be directly attributable to the George Floyd riots. Homicides were already on the rise in cities such as New York and Baltimore, both of which have suffered from mayors and other local politicians who distrust police and pander to local anti-police activists. And of course Chicago has long been a mess, beset by a violent gang culture combined with a ridiculously corrupt city hall and a clannish police culture, so shootings there tend to wax and wane (though lately they have certainly waxed) based heavily upon local factors. Yet, as Ms. Mac Donald points out, police shootings are a pretty small part of the danger that black men face in urban environments:
While 307 people have been murdered this year in Chicago, the Chicago police have killed three suspects, all armed and dangerous. In 2018, the New York Police Department recorded its lowest number of fatal civilian shootings — five — since records were first kept in 1971. (Data from 2019 have not been published.) All five victims were threatening or appeared to be threatening officers with guns or knives.
She then goes on to detail the steps that police are taking to roll-back law enforcement presence in some of our most beleaguered neighborhoods, as well as report a rise in anti-police sentiment oftentimes leading to violence against law enforcement. This will no doubt presage significant quality-of-life issues in the days, weeks, and months to come. For instance, if you think the NYPD will respond to your calls about rowdy teens setting of firecrackers in your neighborhood or that Baltimore PD will come break up that loud house party across the street at 2:00 am, you are going to be in for a rude awakening. Ms. Mac Donald reaches a grim — but arguably realistic — conclusion:
These are no longer the warning signs of a possible breakdown of civilized life. That breakdown is upon us. If local and national leaders are unable to summon the will to defend our most basic institutions from false and inflammatory charges of racism, they have forfeited their right to govern. Unless new leaders come forth who understand their duty to maintain the rule of law, the country will not pull back from disaster.
Happy Independence Day Weekend.
– JVW