Why High Crime Rate in Democrat-Run Cities? Thomas Sowell

Oakland California continues to suffer the high crime rate and especially the high murder rate which has long Afflicted that City judging by a recent speech by its current mayor longtime leftist Ron delum it can look forward to a future all too much like its past why is Oakland so crime ridden according to Mayor Dums we have closed our eyes to the injustice and inequities and now we are reaping the wild Winds of that disregard for a whole range of people this is the root causes of crime rhetoric of the 1960s still going strong on the left today despite mountains of evidence to the contrary that have accumulated in the decades since then that is what makes Oakland's problem more than just Oakland's problem or even America's problem the same kind of thinking prevails on the left in other countries producing the same same kinds of dire results as British writer Peter Hitchens put it England is rapidly becoming a place where the good are afraid of the bad and the bad are not afraid of anything he also said the sheer concrete headed stupidity of most political statements about crime defies belief both statements would apply as much in Oakland as they do in London and in many other places in between a newspaper account of Oakland mayor Ron Dam's speech said that he was clearly comfortable with what he was conveying and speaking without notes why should he be uncomfortable or need notes to be repeating the same politically correct Notions that the entire left here and overseas has been repeating like a mantra for nearly half a century would you need notes to recite the alphabet the idea that injustices and inequities explain crime goes back more than two centuries you can find it in William Godwin's 1793 book inquiry concerning political Justice in England and even earlier in a number of writers in France it is the Hallmark of the left around the world while such ideas have been around for centuries they did not become the dominant ideas among those making legal and political policy until the second half of the 20th century more specifically the 1960s in the United States what was crime like in 1960 before these ideas took over in our courts and in the legislative and executive branches of government as of 1960 the murder rate had been going down for decades among blacks and whites alike and was just under half of what it had been back in 1934 were there no injustices and inequities in 1960 and in the prior decades no one who was old enough to remember those times could believe that it was precisely the rise to power in the 19 1960s in the courts as well as in politics of those who believed that injustices and inequities were the causes of crime which marked a de-emphasis on law enforcement and imprisonment and marked one of the most dramatic increases in crime in our history having declined for decades on end the murder rate suddenly doubled between 1961 and 1974 the rate at which citizens became victims of violent crimes in general tripled Trends began at different times in different countries but the patterns remained very similar as the rates of imprisonment declined crime rates soared whether in England Australia New Zealand or the United States after a whole generation of Crime Victims were sacrificed on the altar to the theories of the left a political backlash produced higher rates of imprisonment and lower rates of crime in all these countries in the late 20th century we are still not back to where we were in 1960 as regards either the level of crime or the downward Trend in murder rates the Notions of the left are still going strong in the media in Academia and in politics the left is still comfortable talking about injustices and inequities even without notes and certainly without confronting the vast amount of evidence that they are wrong do higher rates of imprisonment reduce crime is crime a result of poverty unemployment and the like are alternatives to incarceration more effective in preventing criminals from repeating their crimes some people would hesitate to try to answer any of these questions before going through a lot of hard evidence and thinking it over very carefully but many on the left can answer immediately because they know what answers are already in Vogue on the left and that the only reason others don't accept those answers is because they are behind the times or just just hard-hearted people who want to punish it is one thing to believe that policy a is better than policy B it is something very different to believe that those who believe in policy a are wiser more compassionate and generally more worthy human beings than those who believe in policy B turning the empirical question of the results of policy a versus the results of policy B into the more personal question of a wonderful US versus a terrible them makes it harder to retreat if the facts do not bear out the belief if the choice between policy a and policy B is regarded as a badge of personal Merit either morally or intellectually then it is a devastating risk to one's sense of self to make empirical evidence the ultimate test not only in the United States but in other countries as well the political left has held steadfastly to its assumptions and beliefs about crime for at least at least two centuries not only in the absence of Hard Evidence but in defiance of two centuries accumulation of evidence to the contrary from countries around the world where the dominance of the left is greatest in the media and in Academia for example facts to the contrary are seldom heard the futility of imprisonment for example is a Dogma on the left it does no good to point out that crime rates in both Britain and the United States soared during the decade of the 1960s when poverty rates were going down and imprisonment rates were also going down it does no good to point out that soaring crime rates in the United States began to turn down only after the declining rate of imprisonment was halted and reversed leading to a rising prison population much deplored by liberals it does no good to point out that Singapore's imprisonment rate is more than double that of Canada and its crime rate less than 1/10th the Canadian crime rate many in the west were appalled to discover some years ago that an American first offender in Singapore was sentenced to corporal punishment few of the indignant critics bothered to consider the possibility that this might be a way to prevent the young man from becoming a second offender and perhaps saving him from a worse fate later on if he continued to disregard laws self-defense against criminals is anathema to the left in both Britain and the United States but in Britain the left has greater predominance Britain who have caught burglars in their homes and held them at gunpoint until the police arrived have found themselves charged with a crime even when it was only a toy gun given the prevailing view in the British criminal justice system that burglary is a minor offense and the fierce hostility to guns even toy guns the homeowner is far more likely to end up behind bars than the burglar is the left's Jihad against gun ownership by law-abiding citizens has produced a flood of distorted information International comparisons almost invariably compare the United States with some country with stronger gun control laws and lower murder rates but if facts really mattered you could just as easily compare the United States to countries with stronger gun control laws and higher murder rates Brazil and Russia for example you could compare the United States with countries with more widespread gun ownership Switzerland and Israel for example and lower murder rates but that's only if facts are regarded as more important than the dogmas of the left millions of Crime Victims pay the price of the left's Illusions about crime and about themselves