New data reveals that crime-solving rates are at record lows.
While headlines tend to focus on falling clearance rates in large liberal cities, the decline occurred nationwide in both red and blue cities, counties and states. The violent crime clearance rate, for example, fell considerably between 2019 to 2022 in big cities, which tend to be led by Democrats, as well as in small cities and suburban and rural counties, which tend to be led by Republicans.
At most they'll do the paperwork to get any video footage from private business, but for the most part unless that randomly happens to see you breaking the law you'll never get caught.
They tried a "slowdown strike" a couple years ago, and realized they really could just not do anything and still get paid. Even better, higher crime rates means more overtime. Not just from the force, but businesses afraid of being robbed.
Cops can get paid 100/hr to sit outside of a liquor store in a cop car and burn gas all night their department pays for.
Very few people are dumb enough to rob that store while the cop is there, so there's 0% risk. Cops just sit on their phones the whole time.
They have every incentive in the world for crime to bad as possible.
I once had a video of someone committing a felony and I wanted to press charges. He got arrested a couple days later on unrelated charges. I called the cops and told them that they have someone in jail who I have on video committing a felony and I want to press charges. Their answer was pretty much "tough shit". They're definitely no Columbo!
Your question makes very little sense. How do you think prosecutors work, exactly?
The order of operations for going to prison is:
Cop wants to arrest you. If the cop has no genuine excuse to do so, this arrest won't go anywhere (they can still lock you up for up to 24 hours at will). If you've just committed a crime in front of the cop, well, that's easy, the cop just puts you away; skip to step 3. If this is an investigation, the cop goes to step 2.
Cop gets permission from a judge to arrest you. This is called an arrest warrant.
Cop arrests you and puts you in jail. At this point you should lawyer up, but as that is not compulsory, it is not a distinct step in this list.
Cop gives evidence to prosecutor. Because there is a time delay between 3 and 4, the cop may do additional investigating before this step.
Prosecutor decides to prosecute (they may choose to dismiss instead).
You go to court. Judge asks you how you plead. You plead not guilty. The media pretends this is notable, even though no-one pleads guilty ar this step (it is called arraignment).
The evidence against you is shown to you. The judge again asks you how you plead. This time you have a genuine choice in your answer.
Optional: if you pled not guilty, go to trial. Jury convicts you.
Judge sentences you to prison.
That's the basic pipeline.
Note that cops don't have to do their jobs at all, which is most likely why, as the article discusses, they don't. Why get paid to work when you can get paid to not work?
It's not necessarily the case though that fewer crimes are being actually "solved," in the most precise sense of the term.
It could be that the current heightened interest in police oversight and focus on investigation of (and huge lawsuit payouts as a consequence of) wrongdoing by the police has made it less likely that people will be railroaded/framed for crimes they didn't actually commit, so the rate at which crimes are marked as solved has declined, even as the rate at which they actually are solved hasn't.
That's definitely a big chunk of the drop in case clearance rates since the 1960s. It's not as clear that there have been actual changes to police honesty recently though.
It struck me after I posted that that modern technology and investigative techniques would also contribute to such a decline.
It's undoubtedly more difficult to falsely convict someone (whether deliberately or not) in the era of GPS, cell phone records, video surveillance and DNA tests.
In my anecdotal case, the dipshit police here weren’t able to pull over people of color without dragging them out of the car and beating them (they lost a lawsuit) so they literally don’t pull anyone over for anything anymore, and people have figured it out.
A year later, and people just run stop signs, red lights, speed everywhere, etc. We just had a fatal crash yesterday from someone running a red light at 15 over the speed limit. So while it’s popular to hate police, they literally won’t even do the bare minimum anymore to keep people safe.
While this certainly sounds plausible, even rational and perfectly logical, it's also the exact sort of argument that could easily be spurious. Now, i'm not making that accusation (nor do mean to imply it), but do you happen to have any data backing up this assertion?
I dunno, it looks like it’s pretty much in line with the long-term trend for the past 60 years. It’s also interesting that crime has been generally declining over those same periods (both long-term and short-term), suggesting that catching and punishing offenders isn’t as big a factor in reducing crime as most people assume.
The solve rate for rape is 25%? That's horrifying. What the fuck? We have more tools available to solve crimes now than ever before in history. Get off your asses and give people some justice!
There are many issues with this, mostly that a large number of victims don’t immediately seek help and because of the delay (often months or years) cant have a rape kit done.
This reduces the evidence available for finding and prosecuting the offenders.
I mean no, that is the solve rate for rape that police are willing to investigate, which is basically "the victim is a pure innocent white woman and there is a lot of actual physical evidence unlike 99 percent of rapes"
The exact causes of the decline in arrests are difficult to pinpoint, but the timing is clearly tied to the summer of 2020, suggesting that changes in policing and America’s dwindling confidence in law enforcement since the killing of George Floyd played a role.
Low morale and extreme stresses in the departments have led to high levels of resignations among older and more experienced officers and significantly fewer recruits to replace them.
It also means significantly longer response times, leaving clues to grow stale and witnesses to disappear before officers arrive.
For a long time, conventional wisdom pointed to factors beyond the control of law enforcement — such as whether a witness was present or whether physical evidence was left behind — as the primary drivers of solving crimes.
But newer research from a criminologist, Anthony A. Braga, presents a clear connection between the amount of investigative resources dedicated to a crime and the likelihood of its being solved.
Civilians can respond to low-level incidents that don’t require an officer, take reports over the phone and aid investigators in solving cases.
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