Reflections On Crime & Criminal Justice
Lately, we’ve been talking a lot about criminal justice reform. Bail and sentencing laws in many states have been loosened. Reformist district attorneys won election in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and other cities.
Criminal justice reform is very much needed, especially when it comes to lower level, non violent offenses. In the past several decades, our society engaged in excessive incarceration, with insufficient opportunities for rehabilitation of offenders. This was especially true for those who engaged in non-violent and/or relatively minor crimes.
That needed to be changed. It’s good we’re moving in a different direction.
With that said, in many respects, I think we’re not approaching this wisely. When it comes to more violent offenders, and those who repeatedly commit crimes, we’re often going far too easy. As a result, we’ve put public safety at risk.
The 3 AM Robbery
It was early 1994. I was 10 years old, and living in Torrance, California.
Torrance is an affluent suburb in the Los Angeles area. When I was growing up, Torrance was known for it’s excellent schools, proximity to the beach, and overall sense of safety and security.
The section of west Torrance where I lived was dotted with mid-sized single family homes. As we used to say, “Nothing ever happens here.”
That changed on an early weekday morning. My dad used to get migraine headaches, and would sometimes sleep in the living room, where the air was cooler. My mom was in the master bedroom, and my younger sister and I slept in other bedrooms.
Around 3 AM, I awoke to a commotion. Someone was running, and my mom was screaming. I then heard my dad’s voice, my dad running outside more screaming from my mom and our dog (just a few months old) barking.
My parents came and got us out of bed. Soon, the police arrived. Officers were searching our backyard, guns drawn.
Here’s what happened: A man broke in to our home. He seemed to have cut a screen in a window, and crawled in. He entered my parents’ bedroom, and was on the floor near my mom, looking for jewelry or other valuables.
When my mom woke up, she first thought my dad was on the floor, and called out his name. She quickly realized it wasn’t him. She screamed, and kicked the man a few times. He stumbled out of the bedroom, and went down the hall. At this point, my dad chased him (through a door which led to our backyard), and they fought outside briefly. Some construction work was being completed in the backyard, and the robber grabbed a loose brick. He threw it at my dad.
Right before this happened, my mom was screaming for my dad to come back in the house. She quickly realized that the man who was robbing us might have a gun.
The brick hit my dad, though thankfully he was not seriously hurt. The man fled, and was captured just a few minutes later. He was hiding in a vehicle in a house around the block, and a police dog found him. He was bitten multiple times. The police cleaned him up, and my dad was able to identify him.
We learned that the man who robbed us had prior criminal convictions, and a history of drug addiction. Since the robbery at our home involved a physical altercation, there would also be assault charges.
California’s 3 Strikes Law had not yet taken effect, or he would have faced decades in prison. I can’t recall exactly how long he was sentenced for, but I’m certain it was at least 4 or 5 years.
An Era Of Violence
What happened to my family on that night was a microscopic blot, in the grand scheme of Los Angeles criminal activity. 1993, followed closely by 1992, were the bloodiest years in Los Angeles history, as measured by total murders.
As Jill Leovy chronicles in her wonderful book Ghettoside: A True Story Of Murder in America, the period from the mid 1980’s through the early 1990’s was known by LAPD veterans as The Big Years. Officers bounced from murder scene to murder scene, barely able to keep up with the carnage. Many poorer communities faced catastrophic rates of violence.
While prominent cases involving serial killers (like The Night Stalker) gained national attention, most victims remained anonymous and forgotten by the broader public. In South Los Angeles, Compton, Inglewood, Watts, Pacoima, Pico Union, East Los Angeles and elsewhere, violence became an ever-present specter.
Most killings went unsolved. Young black men were at particularly high risk.
Movies like Boyz N The Hood, & Menace II Society chronicled this era in urban Los Angeles. While I thought both of these movies were compelling, these are real people’s lives we’re talking about. For those who lived through it, there was no leaving the theater at the end of 90 minutes.
Of course, it wasn’t just murders. Robberies, particularly carjackings, reached epidemic levels. The quality of life in the greater Los Angeles area was deteriorating dramatically, and the fear was real.
We’ve been talking about Los Angeles, but similar trends played out throughout the nation. Murder rates peaked in the first few years of the 1990’s, and began gradually (and then quickly) falling after that. The same was true of robbery, aggravated assault, and other violent crimes.
Whether you lived in Houston or St. Louis or Washington DC or New York City, there was no escape. Every city was going through it’s own version of The Big Years.
What Led To The Reduction In Violent Crime?
From 1994 to 2000, the murder rate fell consistently. It held relatively steady throughout the 2000’s, and began to drop sharply again around 2009. With some variations, the same was true of aggravated assault, robbery, and similar crimes. Why did this happen?
As with most social phenomenona, there are multiple causes. Economists Steven Levitt and John Donohue argued that increased access to abortion (thanks to Roe V. Wade) was a major contributor to the drop in crime that began in the 1990’s. Economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes explored how childhood lead exposure was associated with criminal behavior, and argued that the reduction in lead exposure was an important factor in the drop in violent crime.
Of course, there are also more obvious, conventional arguments for why crime dropped. Thomas Marvell & John Moody found that the increase in police had a marked effect on crime rates. The same was true of increased incarceration.
The Scope & Impact Of Incarceration
Of course, we cannot consider incarceration solely from a lens of crime. Incarceration carries serious costs for communities. These range from the loss of working age adults (which has an adverse economic impact on the entire community), to worsened cognitive, behavioral and health outcomes for children growing up in high-incarceration neighborhoods. In short, incarceration carries very serious consequences for both those put in prison, and those who remain in a community afterwards.
The United States, over the past 4 to 5 decades, has built a mass incarceration machine. As of 2018, the United State had the world’s highest incarceration rate, with 698 out of every 100,000 Americans being held in some sort of correctional facility.
Since most inmates are held in state correctional facilities, we have to keep a close watch on state incarceration numbers. Some states, like Florida, Texas and Georgia, incarcerate at levels well above the national average.
To be sure, plenty of those in prison pose a threat to public safety, and have earned their time in jail. For those who commit certain acts, there is no solution but to remove them from the public. I am not, by any means, a prison abolitionist.
Aside from safety concerns, I am not opposed to criminal justice having some retributive role. Doing wrong to others should, in some cases, result in the abridgement of one’s own freedoms. I recognize that this sort of talk is anathema in some criminal justice circles. In my view, it is also the truth.
The thing is, even taking all of this into account, our approach to incarceration has long been quite flawed. We don’t focus nearly enough on rehabilitation, especially when compared to other nations. Our prisons are hotbeds for violence, which carries long-lasting effects for those incarcerated.
Clearly, we need to make changes. In recent years, there have been a slew of criminal justice reforms, across various states. It is important to take a close look at these changes, and consider whether they’re working, or if we should take a step back to reassess.
Getting Bail Reform Right
New York implemented a new bail reform law in early 2020. The law eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. For those charged with violent felonies, cash bail remained. New York has traditionally not allowed consideration of danger posed, as a factor in bail decisions.
The bail law was quickly reformed, to provide for possible cash bail in a greater number of cases, including where someone was a persistent offender. The changes also expand the variety of pretrial release conditions which judges might impose. It is important to note that cash bail will not be required in this expanded variety of cases.
New Jersey reformed it’s bail laws several years earlier, in 2017. New Jersey operates under the presumption that defendants (except those facing life sentences or accused for the most serious crimes) are entitled to an assessment of whether they pose a threat to public safety. This assessment is conducted through the use of an algorithm, which considers many factors in deciding whether to grant bail.
It is important to take a look at the real numbers behind bail reform. In New York, during 2020, the overwhelming majority of those awaiting trial were not re-arrested. However, a small but growing fraction of defendants were released on supervised release (as an alternative to jail). Of those defendants, 2% to 3% were rearrested on felony charges each month.
Since the total number of people in supervised release increased, the number of crimes committed increased. This is certainly cause for concern.
In New Jersey, after changes to bail, there was a minimal difference between those who re-offended while on cash bail, vs. under the new system. Since it has been several years since the passage of the law, it seems that we have more than enough data indicating that changes to bail have not led to a dramatic spike in crime.
Algorithms are not a panacea to our problems, whether in criminal justice, or any other field. I have written before about the danger of relying too heavily on algorithms, and falling prey to their biases and blind spots.
Yet, I do think if we can build algorithms in a more transparent manner, and pair them with human judgment, that can lead to better outcomes. What might this look like? Bail for the most dangerous violent crimes, like murder and attempted murder should be heavily restricted, if not outright forbidden.
Yet, for most other offenses, we should calculate the risks to public safety, and the chances that a defendant might not show up in court. These risks should be considered by a judge, who hears input from both defense attorneys and prosecutors.
The algorithm should be reviewed and debated every 5 years, in as open of a manner as possible. We must look carefully at the prior performance of the algorithm, identify flaws, and chart a path forward.
Prosecution Of Theft & Other Minor Offenses Must Be Escalated For Repeat Offenders
In San Francisco, the Walgreens drugstore chain has closed 17 locations over the past five years. Target is limiting it’s hours. This isn’t really due to a lack of demand. In large part, it is due to a sharp spike in levels of theft at numerous locations.
Organized theft rings are widespread in San Francisco, as well as Los Angeles, New York City, and other major cities. In a sign of how brazen things have become, a shoplifter in a bicycle filled a garbage bag with various items, and rode out of the store.
Security and store employees (who have often faced violence when attempting to confront shoplifters) offered minimal resistance. I can’t blame them.
This epidemic of shoplifting has multiple roots. One likely cause seems to be Proposition 47, a 2014 California ballot measure. Proposition 47 eased penalties for shoplifting, theft, forgery, and receiving stolen property, for amounts under $950.
Proposition 47 also eased the personal use of most illegal drugs (i.e. possession of smaller quantities). These offenses, which were once treated as felonies, would now be classified as misdemeanors.
In some respects, Proposition 47 was a positive step. It reduced the state’s prison population, allowing California to save money on incarceration. We also avoided some of the negative impact which incarceration has on communities.
The negative effects of Proposition 47 are the subject of considerable debate. A study from the Public Policy Institute of California found that while this legislation did not increase levels of violent crime, property crime (especially thefts from automobiles) increased. However, recidivism also dropped.
We need to be pragmatic in how we address these sorts of non-violent crimes. There is no reason to return to the days of the 3 strikes law. At the same time, we cannot gloss over the very real costs imposed by theft, and other seemingly petty offenses.
Retail theft increases losses for stores. This means stores pass the losses on to customers. In some cases, they close locations (as is happening in San Francisco). This creates further challenges for those who live in a community, and need access to medicine, food and other necessities. We saw this in Baltimore after the riots following Freddie Gray’s death.
A loss of retail stores also means a reduction in employment. In San Francisco, which is home to some of the most powerful technology companies on the planet (and many employees of such companies), this might seem like less of an issue.
Yet, few working class folks are employed at Salesforce or Google. The loss of a job is devastating to middle and lower income families. Also, people who live in less well-off neighborhoods, are often more reliant on neighborhood retail stores for daily needs. Online retail, while growing, isn’t as widely used in less well off communities.
For these reasons, I think we need to look at changes to Proposition 47. What might a solution look like? Perhaps we reduce the threshold for more serious penalties for theft, from $950 to $300.
Also, we must aggressively prosecute repeat offenders. As with many other crimes, a relatively small group of people are responsible for a large amount of crime.
It does appear that many of those who engage in extensive shoplifting face challenges with substance abuse. Therefore, an important part of any incarceration for such folks, should focus heavily on long-term rehabilitation. Yet, letting them remain on the street, and continue to commit these crimes, is simply not an option.
What Should We Do About The Rising Rate Of Shootings And Murders?
In 2020, murders spiked sharply in most major American cities. The causes for this increase in violence have been the subject of considerable debate.
Some experts argue that the COVID-19 pandemic is largely to blame. Many states, including California, released prison inmates early, in order to stem the spread of COVID-19 within jails.
Schools were closed. This meant lots of unoccupied, unsupervised time for many teenagers. Individuals and families were isolated and sometimes jobless, which meant additional social and economic stress.
All of these realities collided in 2020, to create a perfect storm of violent crime. If this were an aberration, we might just treat it as a tragic but temporary blip.
Here’s the problem: shootings and murders are continuing to increase in 2021. I write this in the summer of 2021, and it appears that death tolls around the nation will be considerably higher than in 2020.
The economy is improving quickly, and the threat of COVID-19 is considerably reduced. Thus, it is tough to fully attribute today’s murder rate to the pandemic. Schools are set to fully reopen in the fall. All of this might help bring murder rates down.
Yet, let’s consider an alternative. Nationally, murders have fallen quite a bit, since peaking around 1993.
What if we’re shifting to a cycle of somewhat higher murders? The causes might be unclear years into the future, but perhaps this is a new trend? What should we do?
It isn’t clear that crime trends are entirely within our control. How much we can do might be limited. Yet, there are a few things we might consider.
First, to what extent has skepticism of the police led to a problematic cycle, where police are less actively patrolling neighborhoods, and residents are cooperating with police infrequently? I suspect this is a reality.
The police are increasingly demoralized. Police departments are facing serious retention issues, with many officers leaving their jobs. In a time of increased crime, this can seriously damage public safety.
How do we break this cycle? The only lasting solution, trite as it might sound, is for police and the communities they serve, to engage each other, day in and day out. Until we have a greater level of trust between police officers, and those they serve, things are going to be difficult.
Many officers, and many community members, are doing this every day. We’ll need more of it. Whether it’s police officers helping with youth athletics and mentorship, or simply meeting residents of a neighborhood, there really is no other way.
As the police establish greater trust with residents, it also becomes possible for them to turn to deal with negative elements in a lawful but more aggressive manner. As local residents feel more comfortable with police, the chances of cooperation increase.
Secondly, we need to continue supporting violence intervention specialists. If you aren’t familiar with this term, it refers to those who work with those who are at risk of perpetrating or becoming victims of violence. These specialists tend to be folks who grew up in similar circumstances, and in many cases, are former gang members themselves.
Those who intervene in violence have a unique role to play. They are able to rapport with those on the street, with credibility and empathy. This often isn’t true of those in law enforcement, or even many community leaders like sports coaches or religious leaders. Someone who has been in similar situations before, will simply know more about what life is like for a young person living in troubled circumstances.
To be sure, this isn’t the only part of the solution. Law enforcement has a role to play here, as do schools, social service providers, and most of all families.
This will be a team effort. The police, on their own, cannot break this cycle of violence. Those who can connect with young people facing trouble are absolutely vital.
Some Final Thoughts
We’re in the middle of a crime wave — more specifically, a wave of violent crime. When murders are up by 25% in just one year, we can’t hide from reality.
The actual number of murders remains relatively low, when we compare it to peak levels of the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. We’re not back in The Big Years — yet.
The question is, do we want to avoid regressing to those times? Given the immeasurable costs that crime (especially violent crime) imposes on our society, I believe the only rational answer is yes.
By following the steps above, I’m optimistic that we can at least partially mitigate the current issues we’re facing, while continuing to create a more equitable justice system. We’ve made so much progress in the past few decades. We can’t give up now.
