5 ms·

I don't think it will work. Minneapolis has one of the highest crime rates in the country, just as Baltimore did, and that city saw crime rates rise even higher

I don't think it will work. Minneapolis has one of the highest crime rates in the country, just as Baltimore did, and that city saw crime rates rise even higher after protests led to tighter regulations on the Police ... but I don't live in Minneapolis and so I'm curious to see how it will turn out. I support this as a great social experiment.

notatoad 6y ago
I don't believe the suggestion here is to disband the concept of having police entirely, just to disband the current police department.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  Fair enough. The devil is in the details of course. But I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    > I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police. About that... >When New York police officers temporarily reduced their “proactive policing” efforts on low-level offenses, major-crime reports in the city actually fell, according to a study based on New York Police Department crime statistics. https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    An alternative interpretation is that crime rates are so high because police spending is the wrong way to deal with the problem. Money that could be spent on drug treatment programs is instead being spent 10x on a paramilitary organization that openly admits and jokes about its policy is to shoot first and ask questions later.
  - ravitation 6y ago
    Historically police department reorganizations have actually often involved increases in "policing," in addition to structural changes in what "policing" looks like...
  - notatoad 6y ago
    is reducing crime rates the goal here? reducing the abuses committed by police department is a benefit to society, even if the reported crime rate rises (up to a point, of course)
remarkEon 6y ago
My sense is that most (but not all) of the people cheering this on are like you. They don't live there, they have no family there, and they have no ties to the city or the state. Spoke with a childhood friend last night, and he's leaving the city and moving to Minnetonka once his lease is up in August. Everyone else he knows is doing something similar. Obviously this is all anecdotal, and like you said we get to watch a massive experiment play out in real time. With the advent of more virtual work, people are going to bail on places where they see risk as too high. I don't live there anymore, was born in Iowa, but grew up in Minneapolis and moved there when I was 5. People, especially in tech it seems, have an element of optimism that's useful in most situations. I don't share that in this case. We've approached a sort of social contagion where if you don't support the most extreme positions you are shamed (literally, like the Mayor was).
- xenihn 6y ago
  I feel this way about San Francisco. I'm getting out this month, and I'm not coming back until I have to. I can leave without a COL salary adjustment so long as I stay in the state. I imagine lots of other people are doing the same thing as me. There's little point to staying in the city as a renter if you don't have to go into the office. There's almost no point in staying if you can't go into the office, even if you wanted to. We're also helping out everyone else by leaving if you think about it. Landlords will be forced to reduced rents even further for the people who can't leave but don't qualify for aid, and aren't lucky enough to be in a rent-controlled unit.
- spamizbad 6y ago
  It’s interesting that we never consider the status quo to ever be an extreme. Perhaps part of why these root-to-branch efforts seem so extreme is because the Overton window has been shifted so far to the right wrt Criminal Justice we’ve lost perspective. American policing is not exactly a shining beacon of civil achievement. It has a long history of being both problematic and largely ineffectual at establishing law & order within the confines of the US constitution. When violent crime started dropping precipitously in the 90s researchers scrambled to figure out the recipe so it could be repeated and amplified. Ultimately they came up empty handed. Interestingly, the Environmental Lead Hypothesis emerged as a likely cause (especially because the pattern can be seen across different countries, cultures, and criminal justice systems) but does have its own share of detractors. But regardless, we don’t actually have solid evidence our current approach to law & order is even effective. It’s largely a faith-based system. And it’s performance is abysmal... So we should be open to “radical” change as micro-optimizations aren’t going to help us here.
projectileboy 6y ago
But the high crime rate and low rate of actually solving and punishing crimes reinforces the argument. It’s worth comparing various police-related statistics between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Police across America do indeed have systemic problems, but Minneapolis does seem to belong to a handful of truly bad police departments.
karlakush 6y ago
The white flight from Minneapolis is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before if the city council goes through with this.
toomuchcabbage2 6y ago
I detect a trend.

notatoad 6y ago

I don't believe the suggestion here is to disband the concept of having police entirely, just to disband the current police department.

macspoofing 6y ago
Fair enough. The devil is in the details of course. But I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  > I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police. About that... >When New York police officers temporarily reduced their “proactive policing” efforts on low-level offenses, major-crime reports in the city actually fell, according to a study based on New York Police Department crime statistics. https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
- moron4hire 6y ago
  An alternative interpretation is that crime rates are so high because police spending is the wrong way to deal with the problem. Money that could be spent on drug treatment programs is instead being spent 10x on a paramilitary organization that openly admits and jokes about its policy is to shoot first and ask questions later.
- ravitation 6y ago
  Historically police department reorganizations have actually often involved increases in "policing," in addition to structural changes in what "policing" looks like...
- notatoad 6y ago
  is reducing crime rates the goal here? reducing the abuses committed by police department is a benefit to society, even if the reported crime rate rises (up to a point, of course)

remarkEon 6y ago

My sense is that most (but not all) of the people cheering this on are like you. They don't live there, they have no family there, and they have no ties to the city or the state. Spoke with a childhood friend last night, and he's leaving the city and moving to Minnetonka once his lease is up in August. Everyone else he knows is doing something similar. Obviously this is all anecdotal, and like you said we get to watch a massive experiment play out in real time. With the advent of more virtual work, people are going to bail on places where they see risk as too high. I don't live there anymore, was born in Iowa, but grew up in Minneapolis and moved there when I was 5. People, especially in tech it seems, have an element of optimism that's useful in most situations. I don't share that in this case. We've approached a sort of social contagion where if you don't support the most extreme positions you are shamed (literally, like the Mayor was).

xenihn 6y ago
I feel this way about San Francisco. I'm getting out this month, and I'm not coming back until I have to. I can leave without a COL salary adjustment so long as I stay in the state. I imagine lots of other people are doing the same thing as me. There's little point to staying in the city as a renter if you don't have to go into the office. There's almost no point in staying if you can't go into the office, even if you wanted to. We're also helping out everyone else by leaving if you think about it. Landlords will be forced to reduced rents even further for the people who can't leave but don't qualify for aid, and aren't lucky enough to be in a rent-controlled unit.
spamizbad 6y ago
It’s interesting that we never consider the status quo to ever be an extreme. Perhaps part of why these root-to-branch efforts seem so extreme is because the Overton window has been shifted so far to the right wrt Criminal Justice we’ve lost perspective. American policing is not exactly a shining beacon of civil achievement. It has a long history of being both problematic and largely ineffectual at establishing law & order within the confines of the US constitution. When violent crime started dropping precipitously in the 90s researchers scrambled to figure out the recipe so it could be repeated and amplified. Ultimately they came up empty handed. Interestingly, the Environmental Lead Hypothesis emerged as a likely cause (especially because the pattern can be seen across different countries, cultures, and criminal justice systems) but does have its own share of detractors. But regardless, we don’t actually have solid evidence our current approach to law & order is even effective. It’s largely a faith-based system. And it’s performance is abysmal... So we should be open to “radical” change as micro-optimizations aren’t going to help us here.

projectileboy 6y ago

But the high crime rate and low rate of actually solving and punishing crimes reinforces the argument. It’s worth comparing various police-related statistics between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Police across America do indeed have systemic problems, but Minneapolis does seem to belong to a handful of truly bad police departments.

karlakush 6y ago

The white flight from Minneapolis is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before if the city council goes through with this.

toomuchcabbage2 6y ago

I detect a trend.