Eeek! You can never be too safe!

The media critics at FAIR recently aired an answer to "copaganda"  (~28 minutes), the NY Times report (here and here) of  rising murder rates attributed to the "Ferguson Effect." This means the public's distrust of police means police withdraw from traditional crime prevention.

They interview the author of Usual Cruelty, Alex Karakastanis (of https://civilrightscorps.org/) who says the reporters are biased, and assert things fictional for many of their arguments. In effect, the Times is actually speculating there's a connection between police and murder rates. Murder rates far more often correlated with poverty, toxic masculinity--things not really connected with the police.

The truth: murder is at historic lows despite a recent upswing, perhaps more connected to COVID than policing. More police means less crime is a common meme, promoted by every mystery or crime procedural, but the truth is that police solve ~20% of crimes, and only ~2% of serious crime. Perry Mason they ain't.

Actually crime statistics are based on something the police define, and the published crime statistics  reflect that. For example, those statistics do not include police crime, wage theft (five times the reported robbery/burglary stats), clean water act violations, etc.

That the Times authors limit the debate to exclude lots of white collar crime and police crime--even poverty--makes it seem like there are really a narrow range of views. It's then possible to blame the victim, for example, asserting civil rights protests of police violence are to blame for rising crime rates.

Lately, bail reform (the "revolving jailhouse door") is blamed as adding to crime. Evidence is that detaining people who can't afford bail actually harms public safety, disrupting lives already on the brink, making crime, assault, murder, more likely. As Anatole France says: "The law in its magnificent equality forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the street and stealing bread."