Letter to the editor, Re “Why Don’t You Just Call the Cops?” (Op-Ed, Oct. 1):
Matthew Desmond and Andrew V. Papachristos argue that highly publicized instances of police brutality against blacks lead to a drop-off in crime reporting, and that that drop-off is the likely cause of the nationwide rise in homicides and shootings. “When citizens lose faith in the police,” they write, “they are more apt to take the law into their own hands.”
“At this point, the data supporting the Ferguson effect are stronger than the evidence offered by Mr. Desmond and Mr. Papachristos to discredit it.”
They offer their theory as a way to “debunk” the “Ferguson effect” — the idea first proposed by me that a decrease in proactive policing is behind last year’s 11 percent increase in homicides nationwide.
Their theory deserves further study. But there are already counterexamples to it. Homicides and shootings are up nearly 50 percent in Chicago this year. But 911 calls are also up, despite the November 2015 release of the video of a Chicago officer killing Laquan McDonald and several controversial police shootings since then.
Citizen calls reporting shots fired are up 41 percent through Oct. 3 compared with the same period last year; 911 calls reporting a person with a gun are up 25 percent, according to the Chicago Police Department. Robbery calls are up 20 percent, and mental health calls, up 17 percent. What has dropped in Chicago is proactive policing: Pedestrian stops are down 82 percent through Sept. 27, compared with the same period last year.
In Milwaukee, where Mr. Desmond and Mr. Papachristos based their research, 911 calls have risen sharply after contested police incidents more recent than the 2004 police beating studied by Mr. Desmond and Mr. Papachristos.
At this point, the data supporting the Ferguson effect are stronger than the evidence offered by Mr. Desmond and Mr. Papachristos to discredit it.
This letter to the editor originally appeared in the New York Times
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Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal.
This piece originally appeared in The New York Times