“The Ferguson effect may be real. And it may be an improvement.”
“Did the Ferguson shooting make police less proactive?”
Shjaback, Decker, Wolfe, Pyrooz
18 September 2017, Washington Post opinion piece
Consider the statement made by these four professors of criminal justice and sociology. In the piece they make the statement, “In some places, particularly those - like Ferguson - that were using stops to generate additional city revenue, could de-policing represent a correction of practices that served no genuine public safety purpose?”
And yet we read in Thomas Jackson’s (former Ferguson Chief) excellent new book Policing Ferguson Policing America, “…this pattern-or-practice report from the US Department of Justice has been accepted as gospel despite being full of outrageous misinformation, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, hearsay, gossip, and rumor. The report is so biased, so one-sided, so inadequately researched and verified – indeed, so completely wrong – that it’s impossible to know whether it’s a function of the haste with which it was prepared or of a willful effort to present its predetermined conclusion, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.”
According to Jackson, a former Ferguson city attorney said, about the report, “You can’t say that, it won’t hold up in litigation.” To which Christy Lopez (former DOJ attorney) said, “Well, we aren’t litigating, are we?”
What we do know, is that the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2016 was released less than a week after the professors opinions were published. Let’s take a look:
· Murder up 8.6% from 2015
· Rape up 4.9%
· Aggravated Assault up 5.1%
· Robbery up 1.2%
Only in some university protected bubble would a 8.6% murder rate increase (translating to nearly 900 more African-American males being killed than 2015) according to Heather Mac Donald. Yet, in the words of professors Shjaback, Decker, Wolfe, Pyrooz, they somehow believe, “it may be an improvement.”
Street Realities Versus Academic Theory
You know the man or woman’s experience out in the field should count. The designer, accountant and even the guy sitting in front of his computer screen in the office have their perspective. Spread sheets, computer designs, pages of data and input and theory, classroom lectures, books, computer programs and formulas said that if value X is inputted here, and survey results Y are entered on this line, then bingo, the resultant numbers clearly state Z is the correct answer.
I guess it works – at least in some fields. Each year I head to my accountant at tax time. I give him the X’s and Y’s and he enters them into a trusty laptop program and tells me how much I’ll bleed on April 15th.
But does that translate to the real world? Can those academics, academicians, professors and PhD’s lose sight of what goes out in the field? I mean, in theory many automobiles such as the Ford Pinto looked good on paper or in the design room yet, didn’t they were prone to burst into flames when struck from behind? Weren’t those same designers circling their wagons when information from the field clearly showed a problem? How about all those other car designs that mechanics in the field, dealing with the cars on a daily basis, said this design is faulty and dangerous?
Sometimes the worst offenders of this are chiefs of police. More and more political, they support the party line, despite evidence to the contrary, in order to maintain their position and advance their career. The FBI – UCR was not even dry on the paper when Newsweek posted this piece, here’s an amazing quote “The president and the attorney general want a return to the crime-fighting strategies of the 1990s,” Ronal Serpas, former superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department and current chairman of Law Enforcement Leaders, tells Newsweek. He defines such strategies as “high rates of punishing the bogeyman, and low rates of success.”
Low rates of success? Let’s see, violent crime went down for 20 years using proactive policing and incarceration of violent offenders. Translate that to the lives saved in the minority community alone! Yet, Mr. Serpas state that was “punishing the bogeyman, and low rates of success.”
Where does common sense come in or when did it leave the building?
More nonsensical examples are the PERF 30 Principles and Policy #4:
“Adopt de-escalation as formal policy: Agencies should adopt general orders and/or formal policy statements making it clear that de-escalation is the preferred, tactically sound approach in many critical incidents.”
Yet, when actual research is done on the impact of de-escalation policies on officer safety, we see: “The observations gained through this research were to objectively examine a controversial nation-wide policy recommendation in the name of officer safety. Regardless on the origin of policy, de-escalation policies have not yet proven to be to the benefit of officer safety.”
“The findings suggest that a nation-wide de-escalation policy would negatively impact safety of the nation’s police officers and hypothetically limit local authority in creating alternative policy to benefit police safety.” (An Analysis of a Nation-wide Use of Force De-escalation Policy and the Impact on Officer Safety; Brian Landers; Masters Thesis; 2017)
Let’s also refer back to former DOJ attorney Christy Lopez. She states (Policing the Police; CCS Law 10/5/2016; YouTube):
“What the law lets police do is too often not necessary to keep police and the public safe.”
Improperly quoting Graham v. Connor she states, “In the United States, Graham v. Connor sets a standard for what force is reasonable, and says that for force to be reasonable, it must be necessary.” It doesn’t say this but she goes on, “In the United States I believe we need to revisit this and make sure we are restricting police to using force only when it’s necessary.”
Lopez’s comments are similar to PERF, Seth Stoughton and other academic notions on restriction of police use of force more than the law allows.
Great, in theory.
Experience – Real Experience
When I was a rookie cop, and yes, I can remember that long ago…I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I was open to gaining experience, though I don’t have a PhD, I have years of experience confronting and dealing with violence and violent people. I’ve been to countless murder scenes and felonious assaults including all manner of bludgeonings, stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults.
Far from seeing de-policing as in any way positive, or “an improvement,” I’ve rather seen the positive effects of proactive policing and the tragic impact of “the Ferguson effect.” I have seen that on the streets and in the community as violent crime continues to increase as academics espouse absurdities, parroted by politicians, even sports figures, in full conflict with the realities of the street.
Violent crime is up and for the second year in a row and that in no way, is an improvement!
