Underpoliced

Crime rates are sometimes a fraught subject in the political sphere, for several reasons. Often, they're an easy avenue to fearmongering, and that's not what this article is meant to be. Even considering the pandemic-era resurgence, per-capita violent crime rates have collapsed from the 90s-era high.

But it's misleading to conclude that crime is no longer a problem, or even that it's a minor problem. It is, and it always will be, for that matter. But slightly more egregious is the amount of crimes that are merely allowed to happen, with no legal consequences for the perpetrator. In Chicago, it's reported that almost 80% of fatal shooting don't result in an arrest, and similar rates are recorded in Cleveland. The problem isn't at all limited to those two cities, though. The nationwide unsolved rate for violent crime is nearly two in three, and entire states have eclipsed the 60% mark.

So while crime may have diminished from its 90s heyday (haven't we all), the remaining problem is being exacerbated by the fact that the consequences for crime (even serious crimes like murder and rape) are often nonexistent. I shouldn't need to describe in detail the ways that punishments for crime... disincentivize crime. What use is a law, if it is not enforced? How are we a civilized nation if crime goes unpunished?

There are lots of reasons for this, of course. Stopping crime isn't necessarily easy. Lots of cities are critically understaffed. Relaxed and restitutionary policies allow repeat criminals back into society. Continuously burgeoning legal codes blur crime's very definition (and lessen its import). But the solution seems fairly clear: punish crime. If we need more police officers in order to effectively punish crime, then we need more police officers. Police departments need more funding, and training to properly and justly handle situations. Laws must be rewritten in order to clearly and easily delineate criminal activity. Multiple repeat offenders should face more severe consequences. These problems must be fixed. The status quo is unacceptable.

For laxity on crime pervades through the culture, contributing to other issues. Consider immigration (legal or not, especially in the UK, for example). A popular argument against immigration is that they are especially likely to commit violent crimes against the rightful citizens. But if that's the case, the problem is not the immigration, the problem is the crime. Criminals are not representative of their respective populations. The problem of unresolved crime contributes to this: we think of cities as dangerous. We think of immigrants as dangerous. But crime is the exception, not the norm (or it needs to be). The problem is not the immigration; it is not the city; it is not the gender, or the race, or the identity, or whatever marginalized group you prefer to discredit. The problem is the crime. Groups do not commit crimes; people do. Paint generalizations all you like, but criminals are such a broad brush too often, when the root problem is crime and the absence of consequences for it.