Baltimore ending year with 32% homicide clearance rate, one of the lowest in 3 decades

By artappraiser on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 1:07am |

.@janders5 reports: Baltimore ending the year with 32% homicide clearance rate, one of the lowest in three decades https://t.co/GdGuQ2WPVB
— Luke Broadwater (@lukebroadwater) December 30, 2019

URL:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-crime-policy-20191230-zk2v2auuhbgq3f7zsh3t7rt6cm-story.html

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This is the crux of it: If you can shoot someone today with impunity, you are going to go down to a corner and do it again. And again. If the deterrent has collapsed, then 340 murders a year should shock no one. https://t.co/m26tVNDTYp
— David Simon (@AoDespair) December 31, 2019

Baltimore's murder clearance rate, 1964 to 2019 and the number of murders cleared per year over the last 2 decades (note no data for 1999). The former has fallen consistently while the latter has been relatively steady since 2000. https://t.co/VaEt8cj67F pic.twitter.com/O09sDYDAOe
— Jeff Asher (@Crimealytics) December 31, 2019

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 1:10am

It's like if The Wire was non-fiction documentary the last 18 years or so

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 2:21am

Nationally, violent crime (except rape) is declining

Cities. Like Baltimore and Chicago are outliers.

University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, who authored several studies on the spike, has found that something akin to a “Ferguson Effect” likely did contribute to increased murder rates in a handful of cities, like Chicago and Baltimore, but that the “demoralized cops” explanation was unsupported by the data. A study he co-authored in March found “no evidence” that arrest rates had any effect on homicide rates in the cities and time period examined, a correlation one would expect to see if a dip in proactive policing was really to blame.

“The uptick in homicide was more likely associated with a crisis in police legitimacy: People, especially in disadvantaged minority communities, drawing even further back from the police,” Rosenfeld told The Marshall Project. “There is an avalanche of research right now in criminology pointing in that direction, that declining legitimacy is associated with increases in crime.” Predatory violence might increase, for example, because offenders believe victims and witnesses will not contact the police to report incidents.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/30/new-fbi-data-violent-crime-still-falling

There has been a decline in homicides in some, but not all Chicago neighborhoods.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/10/chicago-crime-rate-statistics-data-violence-segregation/599317/

Lack of belief in police legitimacy may be playing a role in the homicide rate. This creates a problem finding solutions when the head of the Department of Justice says that communities that do not respect the police may receive less policing. Barr ignores why police are not respected.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/4/20995074/william-barr-police-protest-shootings-consent-decree

by rmrd0000 on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 8:04am

As long as the Superpredators remain respected, guess that's all that matters.

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 9:23am

background:

In Baltimore, a Revolving Door at Police Chief

by Richard A. Oppel Jr. @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 9, 2019

The job of commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department has proved to be one of the most tenuous in the country.

The mayor this week selected Michael Harrison as the city’s fifth police chief in four years, and asked him to try to solve a list of persistent problems that chased most of the others from the job. Among the tasks: Reducing one of the nation’s highest murder rates; building trust among residents who widely view the department as racist, corrupt and indifferent; and earning the support of rank-and-file officers.

And lately, doing all of this under a federal court order intended to curb the department’s long history of abusive and discriminatory practices.

If that were not enough, perceived success has often boiled down to one yardstick — the tally of murders and other violent crimes — whose roots, many experts say, lie to a large extent in a stew of deeper problems beyond the reach of a police chief.

Those include the privation in some of the country’s poorest big-city neighborhoods, where incomes, and life expectancy, are stunningly lower than in Baltimore’s prosperous districts.

Mr. Harrison, 49, has a reputation as a reform-minded superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, and has won plaudits for overseeing sweeping changes in police practices required after the Justice Department found widespread civil rights violations and other abuses.

“He understands the similarities between us and New Orleans,” Mayor Catherine Pugh of Baltimore said in announcing his appointment.

Baltimore was the subject of its own scathing Justice Department investigation in 2016 that found that its police force had systematically harassed and hounded black residents for years, among other abusive practices. But the city has struggled to carry out its consent decree, and Baltimore officials hope Mr. Harrison’s appointment will smooth the process. [....]

He was sworn in March 12, 2019 according to the Baltimore PD website. On his biography there, it said he was a member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, which was new to me so I checked their website out. Didn't explore it much yet. From their "About Us" page, is clear that they are not a minor organization:

The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) serves as the conscience of law enforcement by being committed to Justice by Action. NOBLE has nearly 60 chapters and represents over 3,000 members worldwide that represent chief executive officers and command-level law enforcement officials from federal, state, county, municipal law enforcement agencies, and criminal justice practitioners. The combined fiscal budget oversight of our membership exceeds $8 billion. NOBLE serves more than 60,000 youth through its major program components which include: Mentoring, Education, Leadership Development, and Safety.

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/31/2019 - 12:11pm

Baltimore ending year with 32% homicide clearance rate, one of the lowest in 3 decades

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