The Mistakes We Cannot Make Again

As crime rises, so will the temptation to crack down. Yet vengeance is not justice.

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Late last week I was talking with a good friend, and he asked an excellent question. “Are these times really as hard as they seem? Or have we lost historical perspective? Does every generation face the challenges we face?” It’s a great question, and it immediately brought to my mind an offhand comment the New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg made in a podcast last spring. 

I’ve referred to it before, but what she said was something like this. 2020 started out like 1974 (impeachment), became 1918 (pandemic), which led to 1929 (a stock market crash), and then transformed into 1968 (with massive urban unrest). Since that podcast, things only got worse. We moved into 1876 (a viciously disputed election), followed it up with another 1974 (second impeachment), and then experienced 1975 (a lost war and a panicked evacuation). 

I haven’t even mentioned January 6, which was the closest we’ve come to 1861 in my lifetime.

At the risk of further deepening the gloom, I’m going to add another date to the mix. Tomorrow the FBI is expected to release its Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 2020. On Wednesday the New York Times published a preview. The 2020 murder rate is expected to have risen by a stunning 29 percent, the largest increase since 1968 (there’s that date again) and the largest one-year increase since the FBI has been keeping statistics. 

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  1. B Phillips

    Good article - but I think it is worth mentioning the PERCENTAGE of murders is way up, year over year, but the actual murder rate is historically not record breaking (at least for the U.S.) - 21,000 in 2020 compared to 23-24,000 per year in the early 90's.

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    Ben Connelly

    Smarter policing, not tougher policing. I agree entirely.

    I agree overall that what we desire is justice, which is dispassionate and impartial, not vengeance, which is cruel. But I think three strikes laws should be reformed, not done away with entirely. James Q Wilson’s original work has not been discredited (and I would argue is responsible for some of the crime drop even if it’s been misused or misapplied at times). Recidivism still makes up a disproportionate amount of crime. Crime operates on a similar Pareto/skewed distribution that many other things in life do.

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    Frank Lee

    If people would not commit crimes against other people the entire argument from the left that police are too mean and violent would go away.

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    Frank Lee

    "I haven’t even mentioned January 6, which was the closest we’ve come to 1861 in my lifetime."

    Obvious indication that the author lacks the ability to sort out relative true meaning of historical events. Hyped up political and media narrative that becomes a part of the scripture of the political chattering class bible that the faithful cannot let go of. The FBI clears the event as a random protest with a few hotheads, and yet still the disciples yell "IT WAS A BREATHTAKING INSURRECTION AGAINST THE PEOPLE!!!" Please... keep repeating it if you want to lack credibility as a real thinker. Or keep repeating that, and Trump Russia Collusion and Trump supporters taking horse tranquilizer and border agents on horseback whipping Haitians. It is all the same... fake news ginned up for political theater and clicks.

    Now the coup that was Russiagate... that is a crucible of historical political malfeasance that Durham will help put down in the history books (the non CRT version).

    Getting back to the off topic, I am really starting to see clearly that the species of left does not understand human nature... does not understand how people systems really work or do not work. Liberals (not the classic type) need to read Haidt and pay attention. He demonstrated that liberals tend to fixate ONLY on the moral filters of fairness and harm. They generally ignore the other moral considerations like loyalty, authority (except for that which benefits their politics because they feel that is more fair) and sanctity. Non-liberals tend to factor all of that and develop views and opinions that are comprehensive in consideration.

    So liberals think it is unfair to incarcerate so many people for crime and they neutered the police... the fixate on the harm to those criminals and their families and decided it just had to stop... and now crime is exploding in these places. My liberal friends have two responses... one... disbelief because they really expected the removal of police would result in a more peaceful world for the poor victim that is the urban criminal.... and that the people would just settle down and be good. They just think we need to wait longer. The second response is like this piece... apparently just accept it because it is better than the alternative. And as pointed out in the article it is usually white uppity liberals in exclusive low-crime neighborhoods that hold both of these views.

    One thing for sho... the minority urban community is not happy with the Democrat party over this. The increase in crime is the best campaign gift to Republicans and probably Trump too. Just keep doing the same things and expect a different outcome.

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  5. alevi

    I think you should look into the failures of the community correction model and rehabilitation models in the 1960s and 70s, and how that led to the hugely successful refocus towards a broken windows type apparoach, and modifications through the early 2000s using police community engagement. Rehabilitation and other non-punitive/lockup techniques largely failed. They will again.

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  6. Trumeau

    I always found it frustrating than when we talk about mass incarceration we only do a racial comparison but never a gender one. The vast majority of offenders are men and that is one of the issues that very few people want to discuss. It’s much easier to call America a racist country than a misandry society.

    I also think that one of the reasons for the increase in murders has a lot to do with the current trend that wants to demonize law enforcement. They sure deserve some criticisms and changes. For my part I think unions are too strong and keep too many bad cops. But this constant criticisms by politicians, media, and activists embolden bad actors to seek revenge on their enemies and to reduce the amount of people who will go to the police to resolve problems.

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  7. Scott Watson

    You had mentioned in an AO podcast on the idea of risk assessment used by the military as a way to better train police officers. Do you have any links to this topic? Great article!

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  8. Brooklyn Expat

    Wise, moving words, and well said.

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  9. Mathew A

    I joined the army at 18. Where I had my first drink and found that it's a great way to blow off some steam from a stressful job. At 20 I went to my first rave, and discovered real drugs such as ecstasy and acid, mushrooms etc are WAY better for that (probably not a surprise that many of those are in FDA trials now, but I digress).

    Of course drugs are really expensive so I took to selling drugs to keep the party going. Which eventually led to me being setup by somebody else, and getting busted.

    So at 21 years old, I was facing 17 years in prison for a "crime" where nobody was hurt, but unless of course you think partying and having a good time is a crime. (note my work performance never suffered here. Moreover, I would estimate that probably 25% of my barracks was doing something illegal of one type or another, and probably closer to 50% in the support barracks. I just got caught)

    Lucky for me the judge only gave me 10 months. I got out, went to school, and eventually got married and settled down (that's when the partying stopped of course). I also got my CPA license, and my MBA, and am now 20+ years later head of finance at a mid sized firm.

    I think the War on Drugs is one of the biggest failures in our country. We've spent over a trillion dollars, locked up millions of people and anyone can get any drug they want at any time.

    All we do is lock up people for something that shouldn't be a crime in the first place. Something the vast majority of people grow out of as they mature.

    For the very small number of people that have a drug problem. They should be treated medically not criminally.

    More broadly, I think our justice system is focused WAY too much on punishment and not nearly enough on rehabilitation.

    Yes, there's a subset of people that should probably be locked up for life. But a large number of them were just the ones that got caught doing something stupid.

    Many of them will go on to lead productive lives if given the chance.



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  10. Al Moser

    So many police are frustrated in my state that when they arrest criminals they are immediately released because many AGs refuse to prosecute. This has to also be part of the equation for the certainty of punishment. Right now, more cops my not lead to less crime if, even after arrest, there is no certainty of punishment.

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