The Trend of Defunding The Police Is Only Going To Empower Criminals And Lead To More Violence
By Theodore Shoebat
With the verdict being for the George Floyd case now final, the anti-police movement is now even more emboldened. Calls for defunding the police have been amplified in a current trend that is pursuing the downgrading of law enforcement. If these people succeed, what will be the end result? Its obvious: more crime. We know this from very recent history. In the late 1980s, New York City defunded its police due to severe budget restraints because the city was facing fiscal problems. New York City’s police force went down to 30,000 officers, a decrease from the 36,000 it had in 1975. This lower number was not substantial enough to adequately deal with crime in such a massive city. Murder rates went up, with the City recording 2,245 homicides in the year 1990. Officers had a backlog of calls as they answered each request for help, one after the other. Residents, in fact, were complaining that cops were not responding to crimes quick enough.
If city’s start to “defund the police”, except people to complain about higher crime rates and slow police responses. In the midst of soaring murder rates, one killing grabbed enough media attention that sparked reforms in favor of increasing police funds. This was the story in which a tourist from Utah, Brian Watkins, was brutally stabbed to death in front of his family on a subway platform by Johnny Hincapie. Increased spending for the police was absolutely needed, and the cover of the Daily News read: “Dave do Something,” speaking to Mayor David Dinkins. The Mayor then commenced a meeting with Council Speaker Peter Vallone and put together a plan for greatly increase the hiring of officers. The name of their proposal was “Safe Streets, Safe City”and rose the number of police officers to 38,000. The required higher taxes, but New Yorkers did not mind paying more money if it meant a safer city. When Dinkins’s term as mayor ended, Rudy Giuliani took his place and inherited this police force which helped lead to a tremendous decrease in crime.
If a city like Minneapolis decides to “defund the police” it will boost the crime rate. This is quite obvious given the fact that the crime rate is already horrid in this city. According to the Star Tribune:
Violent crime has surged to record highs across Minneapolis this year, rising in more prosperous neighborhoods that typically experience few such incidents while continuing to exact the heaviest toll in the city’s poor, ethnically diverse areas.
Through last week, the city had logged 3,674 violent crimes — defined as homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults — up 17% from the previous five-year average for this period, according to a Star Tribune analysis of police statistics.
City Council members, who have hollered about defunding the police, are now complaining about the high crime rate. They have pressed Police Chief Medaria Arradondo to deal with the high crime rates. Arradondo had to reassure them that the police department has the capacity to handle the soaring gun violence, as well as continuous daylight carjackings and robberies in parts of Minneapolis. With so much high crime, should we be surprised if officers actually shoot and kill people? People complain when cops kill people, but should we be surprised that this happens with such a high crime rate? Also, with the anti-police atmosphere and propaganda, many people are leaving the police force out of fear that they will be prosecuted for using force during arrests. Decline in police numbers means less police, which means more crime. In certain areas of Minneapolis it has become normal to hear gunshots. Dave Hall, who lives near Lowry Avenue on the North Side, says:
“So it’s almost the sense of normalcy, but also scary at the same time … So it’s almost the sense of normalcy, but also scary at the same time”
Violent crime has gone up by 17% in Minneapolis’s low-income neighborhoods, and 30% in the city’s higher-income areas. For example, the area of Linden Hills recorded ten violent situations so far in 2021, a substantial increase from 3 violent situations which it had on average for the previous five years. The area of Lowry Hill recorded twelve robberies, up from the five-year annual average of roughly two. The Star Tribune continues to report:
But in terms of raw numbers, the increase in violence that intensified after the unrest over the police killing of George Floyd is exacting a heavier toll on neighborhoods already suffering the effects of trauma, poverty and lack of access to adequate health care. In a city with some of the worst racial disparities in the U.S., those areas tended to have higher concentrations of Black, Latino and other nonwhite residents.
In the North Side’s Hawthorne neighborhood, for example, there were 213 violent crimes so far this year, a 36% increase from the year-to-date annual average of 157 such incidents. The areas of Whittier, Jordan and Near North saw equally large increases. Criminals feel empowered to commit crimes. Belal Hijazi, owner of the Full Stop gas station on Lowry Avenue, described the confidence of the criminals:
“ ‘I can sell drugs here, I can shoot here,’ they carry guns, they don’t care about anything”
Looking at Minneapolis, it is obvious that anti-police sentiment, if it succeeds in thriving, will only lead to more violence.
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