The Crime Rate Of The United States.
As calls for comprehensive police reform take front and center in the national conversation, policymakers may have concerns about whether Unifed changes would lead to an increase in the incidence of violent crime, based on academic literature that supports a negative relationship between violent crime and the number of police officers.
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To assess the relationship between comprehensive police reform and violent crime, this column examines violent crime rates over time in jurisdictions where the police department fulfilled a reform agreement with the U. The compiled data cover the entire timeline within which the agreements were reached and fulfilled. These agreements emphasized institutional reforms to address systemic police misconduct—as opposed to isolated instances of wrongdoing—and as such, serve as appropriate benchmarks for the type of comprehensive police reform advocates are calling for today. The data show that in the years following these agreements, violent crime rates declined in all 10 of the analyzed jurisdictions, following the national trend.
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This analysis undermines potential concerns that comprehensive police reform would increase violent crime and lends additional support to efforts to implement such reforms. InCongress authorized the U. The resulting section of the U. Code, 42 U.
Constitution or other federal laws, such as the rights to be free from excessive force; unreasonable stops and searches; arrests without warrants or sufficient cause, or in retaliation for exercising free speech; and discrimination based on factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, and sex—including sexual orientation, gender identity, and LGBTQ status. When the court determines that the agency has met and sustained the requirements of the reform agreement, it terminates the consent decree. If Crim consent decree or memorandum of agreement led to an increase in violent crime in any of the 10 jurisdictions, then one would expect to observe an adverse trend in the violent crime rate in that jurisdiction, accounting for any national movements.
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In particular, if the rate had been decreasing pre-agreement, then one would expect it to either increase, remain constant, or decrease at a slower pace post-agreement. If the rate had been increasing pre-agreement, on the other hand, then one would expect it to increase at a faster pace post-agreement. If the rate had been constant or fluctuating slightly pre-agreement, then one would expect it to increase post-agreement. As demonstrated in the charts below, however, the pre- and post-agreement rates in all 10 jurisdictions either exhibited trends that were the opposite of the scenarios above or that followed the national trend. In fact, violent crime rates declined in all 10 jurisdictions post-agreement, following the national trend.
This evidence shows that comprehensive police reforms are associated with less violent crime, not more. In all four jurisdictions where the police departments fulfilled a consent decree with the division, the pre- and post-agreement rates followed the national trend.
Are crime rates in the United States the highest today that they have ever been?
In Pittsburgh, for example, the rate followed an upward national trend from tothe year in which the consent decree entered into force. Sincethe year in which the consent decree was terminated, the rate followed a downward national trend for more than 15 years. In Easton, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D. The other four jurisdictions exhibited trends opposite of what one would expect if comprehensive police reform increased violent crime. In Beacon, New York, the rate had been fluctuating slightly pre-agreement but decreased slightly post-agreement.]
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