I largely agree with you but I take issue with a couple of points. We have not too many but too few people incarcerated. Virtually no one is locked up for smoking a joint on the street or jumping a subway turnstile. Most of those behind bars have been arrested numerous times and previously been offered plea bargains or alternatives to sentencing that have not put them on a law-abiding path. In other words, most are career criminals by the time they’re finally locked up.
It’s debatable whether the practice of stop, question and frisk was effective in curbing crime. But I don’t think there should be any debate about the efficacy of broken windows policing. I saw the effects in New York, and I’m seeing the effects of its abandonment now.
I'd suggest we consider that we have some of the wrong people incarcerated, rather than numbers. That's the point of the distinction between "crimes against others" and "crimes against the State."
The latter is what the State cares about more, because it can make money. Turnstile jumping is a "crimes against others," since it's theft-of-service.
I've written elsewhere about how they screwed up pot legalization. Pot should be treated like alcohol, but instead it's a giant virtue signal, as in "we are embracing pot smoking rather than accepting that it's a vice we shouldn't prohibit but should not encourage."
We need a major change in how we treat drug users, and how we treat addicts. What we've been doing for eight decades plus simply isn't working, and putting more people in jail isn't going to make things better.
My understanding is that the failure to maintain law and order is a localized issue in a small number of Deep Blue areas which elected DAs underwritten by hyper-leftwing benefactors. One of these has been recalled (San Francisco area); another has resigned (St Louis) in the face of prosecution by the MO state AG. I have no idea what your problem is in NYC - but apparently so long as Bragg "goes after Trump" he can get away with anything else. Regardless, when the problem gets bad enough, the businesses simply shut down and move - problem solved.
I largely agree with you but I take issue with a couple of points. We have not too many but too few people incarcerated. Virtually no one is locked up for smoking a joint on the street or jumping a subway turnstile. Most of those behind bars have been arrested numerous times and previously been offered plea bargains or alternatives to sentencing that have not put them on a law-abiding path. In other words, most are career criminals by the time they’re finally locked up.
It’s debatable whether the practice of stop, question and frisk was effective in curbing crime. But I don’t think there should be any debate about the efficacy of broken windows policing. I saw the effects in New York, and I’m seeing the effects of its abandonment now.
I'd suggest we consider that we have some of the wrong people incarcerated, rather than numbers. That's the point of the distinction between "crimes against others" and "crimes against the State."
The latter is what the State cares about more, because it can make money. Turnstile jumping is a "crimes against others," since it's theft-of-service.
I've written elsewhere about how they screwed up pot legalization. Pot should be treated like alcohol, but instead it's a giant virtue signal, as in "we are embracing pot smoking rather than accepting that it's a vice we shouldn't prohibit but should not encourage."
We need a major change in how we treat drug users, and how we treat addicts. What we've been doing for eight decades plus simply isn't working, and putting more people in jail isn't going to make things better.
My understanding is that the failure to maintain law and order is a localized issue in a small number of Deep Blue areas which elected DAs underwritten by hyper-leftwing benefactors. One of these has been recalled (San Francisco area); another has resigned (St Louis) in the face of prosecution by the MO state AG. I have no idea what your problem is in NYC - but apparently so long as Bragg "goes after Trump" he can get away with anything else. Regardless, when the problem gets bad enough, the businesses simply shut down and move - problem solved.
The NYC problem is born in Albany. Bail and sentencing guidelines have been altered to make low level crime and endless recidivism much more common.
Moving a business takes money.