Overall, the researchers believe that “the police beating of Frank Jude resulted in a net loss of approximately 22,200 911 calls reporting crime the year after Jude’s story broke,” and that’s during a span in which there were about 110,000 911 calls to the police total. And while black people are 40 percent of the population in Milwaukee, “Over half (56 percent) of the total loss in calls occurred in black neighborhoods.” There was no such drop for calls reporting automobile accidents, further supporting the researchers’ theory that the effect had to do specifically with crime reports. Eventually the overall number of calls returned to where it was “supposed” to be.None of this should be a surprise to anyone. If you think that the cops are acting as an occupying army in your neighborhood, you're not going to call them.
The referenced beating was yet another case where the local prosecutors dragged their feet and, when they eventually brought the eight cops involved to trial, all were acquitted by (wait for it) all-white juries.
The Bush Administration DoJ had better luck. Four pleaded guilty, receiving sentences of between 12 to 32 months. at trial, one cop got off, the others were found guilty and sentenced to between 15 and 17 years in prison. All appealed and one got to be resentenced (and was resentenced to the same term).
(H/T)
Not tring to pick nits here, but how, exactly, do they know all those calls weren't made? A guess?
ReplyDeleteWe have these commercials here that claim that "2/3 of all domestic violence cases are never reported"....Same question: How do they know?
I think it is someones estimate.
Well, I can't vouch for their numbers, but in the poor neighborhoods where I have lived, almost no-one called the cops, and those who so much as talked to them were viewed with suspicion. I had people calling me a snitch because I answered the door and talked to two SF detectives once. What was I supposed to do, tell them to go away? They were detectives for crissakes.
ReplyDeleteAs long as a sizable fraction of the population of a neighborhood has reason to hate and fear the cops, they aren't going to trust one another. Or that has been my own experience, especially over the drug prohibition laws. How well that translates to the rest of the country, I can't rightly say. What I can say is that I do know of some murders that could have been prevented if the people involved would have called the cops at some point in the escalation, but nobody did for rear of someone being busted for drugs.
-Doug in Oakland
Not a guess. Calls to 911 dropped off, with no corresponding reduction in crime.
ReplyDelete