The ongoing debate about racial justice in policing, incarceration, and prosecution became a national fixation following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
Most law-enforcement policies are a function of decisions made by state and local governments, many of which have acted in recent months to hamstring cops and hack away at policing budgets.
A troubling study, coauthored by Harvard economists Roland Fryer and Tanaya Devi, assessed the impact of pattern-and-practice investigations under President Obama and found a strong causal connection between some of those investigations-the ones that followed viral incidents of police use of force-and spikes in serious crime.
In Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Ferguson, and Riverside, investigations led police to scale back proactive policing.
A Biden administration could also decide to reduce or eliminate federal aid to local police departments already under new financial pressures as cities around the country move to cut funding to law-enforcement agencies.
Progressive critics say that the 1033 program represents the "Militarization" of local police and leads to a perception of cops as an occupying force in communities.
Denying local police equipment will only make it harder for them to do their jobs during a time of increasing violent crime.
Monday, February 1, 2021
Soft on Crime
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