Reply to Homicides in 2025: NYC 118, Baltimore 59, DC 75

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Boston has 12 murders so far this year and around 40,000 less people than DC. Incredible. [/quote]

There's one big difference between Boston and DC....[/quote]

What is that (what is the difference)?[/quote]
Poor people, no education, no hope, generational poverty. I lived in the hood when I first moved here. Conflict is what they are engaged every waking hour. The ones who would like to get out, don't have the money. They live in stress, anger. Gave me anxiety.
I didn't even mention mental health/SN. Crime is the norm. 
Super messed up, but it was created by society, politics, history. 
Poor in US, any race, seem more messed up that many other places.[/quote]

There are poor people in every city. In many cities there are many poor immigrants who come here with nothing but trauma and even they don’t commit crimes like the urban folks here. We should all stop making excuses for these people “oh but they’re poor and their parents were poor, what do you expect” and actually hold them all accountable to basic standards. When you hold people accountable, they will change their behavior. When you make excuses for them, they won’t.[/quote]

I agree with this. I'm liberal. But I've lived in DC for 20 years.

It's not just poverty here. There is something else going on, and it's psychological, and it cannot be addressed with social services and "violence interruptors." I'm glad community services has worked in Baltimore, but in DC, when solutions like that have been implemented, there is a lot of grift. Look at the Trayon White situation -- he was taking bribes from "violence interruptors" in exchange for using his power to funnel more contracts to these groups. Who were bribing a public official. It's the most DC scandal you could possibly come up with, and Trayon getting re-elected after being expelled from office is the most DC consequence.

So yeah, it's not just poverty. It's apathy, it's total disregard for other people, it's a belief that the system is never going to work for you, so you might as well exploit and abuse the system. There is little faith.

DC needs a top to bottom overhaul of public officials and a different attitude about community and safety. We need a mayor and council who places the safety and security of citizens (all citizens, of all colors and backgrounds) above feeling sorry for criminals. Guess what, most of the victims of violent crime in DC are also poor and black, can we focus on helping them instead of wringing our hands over how racism and poverty MADE someone commit murder/rape/armed robbery? Lots of poor people don't become violent criminals. Most of them, actually. Why not protect and defend the many law abiding people in this city instead of allowing ourselves to be held hostage by a small minority of violent a$$holes who, yes, may have had hard lives but are now making everyone else's life miserable as a result? Reward people for following the law and being kind to their neighbors, and hold those who can't accountable.[/quote]

I completely agree with you. Violence interrupters and social programs help a little but can only take you so far. There needs to be a complete cultural overhaul in DC, but unfortunately that requires confronting the rotten cultural attitudes of many residents and that means it's not likely to change soon. This was exemplified when the city convened a task force to figure out how to deal with drivers with expired and fraudulent temporary tags, and the task force recommended taking no action because enforcement has the potential to adversely impact minorities.

The entire edifice of city government is geared toward making excuses for and coddling antisocial jerks. It's really unfortunate, and it doesn't have to be this way.[/quote]

My understanding of Baltimore’s approach is that the law enforcement and prosecution piece of the strategy really focused on the small minority that perpetuated the violence and took their time building cases and charges that would stick.  This was instead of focusing solely on things like arrest numbers.  This had an effect of not spreading the police force as thinly and being better able to clear cases that put the worst offenders away.

Again, does not necessarily explain macro trends.  But it shows that it has to be the violence interrupters + cutting off the flow of new recruits through community investments + clearing out the most violent members of the population that do not respond to intervention.[/quote]

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