August 1, 2025 • 50 mins
On this episode of The Middle, we ask if crime is an issue where you live and, if it is, what you want done about it. Jeremy is joined by former Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison and John Roman, senior fellow in the Economics, Justice & Society department at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus calls from around the country. #crime #criminaljustice #violentcrime #crimerates #publicsafety
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver.
Before we get to talking about protecting ourselves against crime,
I have to say, uh, my house was struck by
lightning last week after the show, and I realized that
a surge protector, which I've always thought of as a
thing that you can just use to plug six things
into one outlet, is actually very useful of protecting again
(00:30):
surges because everything that was plugged into the surge protectors
was protected, and the things that weren't, some of them
are not working anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Why don't you tell me?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Here? I am.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I like to save things for our little top of
show banter, so I want to I want to start
by asking you, Tolliver, because I know you take public
transit all the time, you walk everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Are you ever afraid of crime?
Speaker 4 (00:51):
A little bit?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But you know what, I'm six or five man, so
I think to be honest, like I'm a hipster, but
I think people are a little scared of me, right
guests trying it out?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So where Yes, I think that's fair. I think that's
very very tall.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So as it turns out, crime consistently ranks as one
of the highest priority issues for Americans, with a majority
of the country agreeing that is a serious problem. The
thing is, though, that crime has actually been coming down
since a spike during the pandemic. A new study from
the Council on Criminal Justice finds that every kind of
violent crime is down compared with pre pandemic levels. Homicide
(01:24):
down fourteen percent, sexual assault down twenty eight percent, robbery
down thirty percent. So this hour we're going to be
asking if crime is an issue where you live, and
if so, what you want to be done about it.
Our number is eight four four four Middle. That's eight
four four four six four three three five three where
you can reach out at listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
We'll get to your calls in just a moment. But first, last.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Week on the show, we talked about what can be
done to address the nation's thirty six trillion dollar debt.
We heard from a lot of people during the show
and afterwards on our voicemail.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
This is John is calling from South Dakota. You know,
once one understands the nature of money, it's frustrating. So
how can you balance in figure quotes, the equation when
cash is unlimited and equity is not accounted for. Is
this not an accounting problem rather than a deficit problem.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
My name is Diana Smith and I'm in Denver, Colorado.
The only way we'll really get out of the debt
is to grow out of the debt. We need to
invest in things that promote growth, like education, research, and infrastructure.
All the cuts will flow our growth and not enhance it.
Speaker 7 (02:35):
This is Austin, Mitchell and Salem, Missouri. One of the
things that can be done to help reduce the debt
and to secure social security is to eliminate the cap
on earned income that's subject to soicurity tax, and that
would not only help provide for the solid security, but
also help reduce federal debt.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that entire episode on our podcast in partnership with
iHeart podcast on the iheartapp or wherever you listen to podcasts.
So now to our question this hour, is crime an
issue where you live? And if it is, what do
you want to be done about it? Tolliver, how can
people reach us?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You can call us at eight four four four middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five
three or you can write to us at Listen to
the Middle dot com. You can also comment on our
live stream on YouTube. I will get your comments on
the air, so hit us up on one of those channels.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Joining me this hour, Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. Michael,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Thank you Jomen for having me at.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
John Roman is with US, senior fellow in the Economics, Justice,
and Society Department at the National Opinion Research Center at
the University of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
John, welcome to.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
The Middle, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All right, So before we get to the phones, John,
if you look at FBI statistics, violent crime fell forty
nine percent between nineteen ninety three and twenty twenty two,
and it has fallen since twenty twenty two. So how
would you say we are doing as a nation right
now on crime, John.
Speaker 8 (04:01):
I think we're doing We're obviously doing far better today
than we were doing in the nineteen seventies. As you've noted,
crime is down across the board. The challenge here is,
of course, that the crime levels of the United States
are far above pure nations in Europe and around the world.
So why you know, you look at a city like
New York City, which is probably the biggest, the safest
(04:22):
big city in America, and the rate of homicide there
is about.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Five times what it is in London.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
So if you're under fifty five, this is probably the
safest America you've ever lived in. But it's still really
unsafe compared to lots of the rest.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And why is that? Just? Is there one reason for that? John, Oh,
there's a whole host of reasons for it. You know.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
Obviously, firearms in civilian hands or legal in the United States,
and so things that are fistfights in other countries are
gunfights here. The amount of policing in the United States
is actually far lower than most of our European peers.
And then the way that we try and prevent crime
outside of law enforcement, what we do is with social
(05:07):
services and human services and health and education lags far
behind what's happening in the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Michael Harrison, you were, as we said, commissioner of the
Baltimore Police Department. You were also the head of the
New Orleans Police Department before that. What would you say
about how we're doing in terms of crime as a
nation right now?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Hello
to you, guests.
Speaker 9 (05:29):
I think we're doing far better than we were, not
just twenty years ago, thirty years ago, but even just
the last few years. When I was a young officer
in New Orleans, I remember New Orleans being the murder
capital of the world, with a city five hundred maybe
five hundred, six hundred thousand, had four hundred and sixty
murders that year. And when I was a young officer
in the nineties, and then when I was the superintendent
(05:52):
in my last year in twenty eighteen, we had had
a fifty year low slightly above one hundred, and so
it has gone back up and then it has come
back down. The same thing in Baltimore. That city was
deemed to be the murder capital of the world, and
in our highest years it was three hundred and fifty
plus murders, and now they're slightly breaking two hundred and
(06:14):
so it has come down in my time there and
then even the year and a half there, but it's
coming down everywhere. It has a lot to do with
the way police are policing, because police departments are shrinking,
getting smaller, having to prioritize when and how and what
they do. But it has to do with prosecutions, It
has to do with changes of laws, how cities now
(06:36):
deal with youth offenders in juveniles, and how we deal
with these things. And then you're right. The social service,
John said this, and human services and all the things
that we help to prevent crime and help to have
people have better lives and better communities. That's not always
invested in and prioritized, and it's left to the police
(06:58):
to deal with it and collect the blame for it
when we see it. And I want to be able
to talk about how people really use the word crime.
If you ask a person in one part of my
city and both cities New Orleans in Baltimore, crime means
people are being shot and killed in the streets a
couple of miles away. You ask somebody to talk about crime,
they say it's out of control.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
All of our cars.
Speaker 9 (07:20):
Are getting broken into. And then if you go to
another part of the city and say talk about crime,
they say it's out of control. The kids are walking
around with bottles of liquor in their hands in the
street and there's no permit for them to they're selling
liquor on the street. There's no permit and it's out
of control and they're assembling and nobody's collecting taxes. So
(07:43):
it means something different to different people. Where you sit,
where you live, and how you view it, it will
be different. And so if we get a chance, I'd
like to be able to break those differences down, because
while it is falling in violent crime, is falling in
property crime, but people really care about their quality of
life more than anything.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Absolutely, people want to be able to walk around their
neighborhoods safely at nighttime and do all the things that
they like to do without having to worry about it.
I want to focus in just for one second, John,
on what you talked about with the lack of police
officers compared to other countries. Here it turns out that
around the country there.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Are reports of shortages of police officers.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Is it hard to hire right now or is it
just because of a lack of money in municipalities.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
So we've seen a huge decline in a number of
people who want to be police officers. And this isn't
just a recent phenomenon. It isn't just a reaction to
officer involved shootings like the George Floyd shooting. This is
a trend that we've seen for fifteen years. Part of
that is a pay issue. It's like any other labor market.
If you don't pay people what they think they can
(08:50):
get somewhere else, they don't want to do it. Part
of is the danger, but part of it is that
there are a lot of jobs that people are really
interested in doing around law enforcement that are civilian in
jobs rather than sworn officer jobs. Data science jobs, crime
analyst jobs, evidence collection, criminalists. There's a lot of television
that makes these jobs seem really interesting. There's a lot
(09:11):
of people studying these topics in college and in high school,
and these are the jobs that they want to do.
And law enforcement has been pretty reluctant about increasing the
size of the civilian part of their departments and has
really focused on trying to fill those gaps that they
have on the sworn officer side, and the result has
been just this general decline in the number of officers,
(09:34):
and then COVID, of course led to a lot of disability.
A lot of officers got sick and weren't able to
be out on patrol, and so then even with the
number the decline in the number of officers, there's an
even there's sort of a dark number there, which is
how many officers can even go out and patrol, and
that number has been down a lot in the early
part of this decade at lease are less visible and
(09:57):
this leads to a lot of the things that we're
talking about here where people feel or less safe they
see if you are consoles.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, does Michael, does it matter in terms of the
perception of crime? Just if there are more officers out
on the street, even if they're not doing anything specifically
to stop a crime or to deal with a crime
that's happening just walking down the street, does that help?
Speaker 9 (10:17):
It helps some way and it hurts some way, because
if there are more officers who are in the right
places doing what they're supposed to be doing, it very
well could help with the perception of how people view
their police officers. However, if you have more officers and
the crime persists, then it begins to be the appearance
(10:38):
that they're not effective.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Either they don't.
Speaker 9 (10:40):
Know how to do what they're supposed to do or
they're choosing not to do what they're supposed to do.
Because we have more officers, they're being paid by our
tax dollars and they're not having a positive effect on
the complaints of crime that we're giving you. And so
it can cut both ways.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
And so.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
It's chief and sheriffs and executives should be very careful
about saying I need more officers, I need more money
to have more officers.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
But those officers have to be where they're supposed to be.
Speaker 9 (11:11):
They have to be doing what they're supposed to be doing,
and they have to be having a positive impact on crime.
Because if you have more and you don't get the
positive effect of having the more, it will turn on you.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, a reminder that you can reach us at eight
four four four middle That is eight four four four
six four three three five three.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I see the phone lines lighting up, Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
You know, if you look back in time, as we said,
we were at a peak for crime and murders back
in the early nineteen nineties, and that was very apparent
in the nation's largest city.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
New York.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah, this is pre Juliana in New York with David Dinkins.
He'd just been elected mayor and here he was talking
about cracking down on crime in his inauguration speech in
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 10 (11:50):
Most of all, we must reaffirm the rule of law
and fight back against the pushers and muggers and take
back our streets and subways and our bars. And we
must do this by night as well as by day.
Let me say what I said often during the campaign.
(12:12):
I intend to be the toughest mayor on crime this
city has ever seen.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And we should say tolliver that. In nineteen ninety three,
the pushers and muggers of New York rebranded as the
Criminals formerly known as pushers.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And Okay, so you're writing prince jokes now, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That was a prince joke? Did you like it? I
was very proud of it.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I would sing some prints, but we don't have the rights.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So no, we don't have the rights. Not on the podcast.
We'll be right back with more on the Middle. This
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning
in the Middle as a national call and show, we're
focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically and philosophically.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
This hour, we're asking if crime is an issue where
you live, and if it is what you want done
about it. Tolliver the number again please, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
and on pretty much all social media.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
All right, let's get to the phones. Jack is calling
from Salt Lake City, Utah. Jack, Welcome to the Middle.
What do you think about crime? Is it an issue
where you live?
Speaker 11 (13:16):
Hi, I don't necessarily believe that clime for my life
in my city necessarily mean a top button issue. In
the past couple of months, we have seen the Utah
legislator push our city officials into taking a much, much,
much more aggressive approach on crime, policing and homelessness. And
(13:40):
I've seen my park, my neighborhood Park, Liberty Park, it
be inundated with more and more police officers who just
seem to be sitting about, which is not necessarily I
think a use of taxpayer dollars that I find to
be great. I think that we should definitely see a
lot more funding go to police officers who want to
(14:02):
solve sexual assault murder cases and actually, do you know,
more investigative work than I would like to see police
officers you know, hitting about on our streets.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So, but you feel safe in your area, Yeah, and I.
Speaker 11 (14:19):
Will say that like my area. I live in Central City,
which is a neighborhood that is constantly inundated with rumors
of horrible crime spikes in the middle of Salt Lake City.
And I often tell people where I live, and I
am constantly met with the refrain that you know, I
must be so unsafe there, and I'm not. I walk
(14:41):
around my neighborhood, I shop in my neighborhood, I spend
money locally in my neighborhood all the time. I take
public transportation. Again, I want to, you know, highlight. I'm
a pretty tall guy. So it's a completely totally different story,
I would say, than for other people who are from
more vulnerable population. But for me in my life, you know,
(15:02):
I would love to see all this money go towards,
you know, clearing sexual assault investigations.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, Jack, thanks, thanks for that call. Michael, what do
you think about that as you hear that as somebody
who thinks, you know, not really a problem where I live?
And why are they spending all this money on these
police in this park?
Speaker 9 (15:19):
He touched on two things that I mentioned in the
previous segment one. There may be more officers, but all
the officers productive in preventing crime, reducing crime, and apprehending
people who commit crime. Then the question, you know, we
don't know the answer to the question what types of crime?
And so he lives in central city Salt Lake. But
is that an area that's prone to violent crime, shootings, robberies,
(15:43):
carl jackins, murders, or is it larcenies and thefts, car breakings, shopliftings,
other things, quality of life offenses, drug offenses, homelessness issues
which are not crimes. But what exactly are people defining
this crime that makes them feel unsafe? And it's different
from neighborhood to the neighborhood. But I like that he
(16:04):
he was honest to be able to say he doesn't
feel unsafe although he knows he lives in the area
that has rumors of receptions of crime and crime itself.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, let's go to Sean who's in Dallas, Texas. Sean,
what about where you live?
Speaker 12 (16:18):
It's crime and issue, Yeah, very much so. But there's
two worlds. And when I say that, I used to
live in an Applin area and there was hardly you know,
occasionally burgerly or something like that. But I'll tell you
what it ended up happening. If there was a homeless person,
somebody'd be on the phone, and boy, the police be
(16:39):
all over it. They'd run him out of there, they'd
sence off the area they were in, and then they
would push him into the area I live now, which
is a low income area, which is just absolutely completely
innundated with homeless people, you know, for all different kinds
of reasons. Could be drugs, could be mental, could be whatever.
And all the halfway houses are down there too. You
(17:02):
may see twenty different people walk in front of your house.
Speaker 13 (17:04):
You don't know who they are.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You know.
Speaker 13 (17:07):
And and then so you know the complete wisdom of
our city, they decided to hire eight hundred more cops.
Well now all they do is they drive around all
over our neighborhoods, you know, And it's fearful for us
because a lot of the people around me are brown
and black, you know, and they know who ends up
(17:28):
in jail, you know, and we just do not have
them there.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
You know.
Speaker 13 (17:33):
What we need is I bet you cost one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to put a police officer out
on the streets. You know, every year salary and all
the support. How about spending one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars times eight hundred and put people in some housing,
get them off the streets, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And I asked the question time, Yeah, go ahead, continue.
Speaker 13 (17:56):
I just I asked a couple in time. I said,
I know what's happening. You push them out of those
applent neighborhoods, You push them down here. And he goes, well,
once you rather have them in one place than another.
And I looked at.
Speaker 14 (18:07):
Him, I go, yeah, where do you live?
Speaker 13 (18:09):
You know, we'll put him in your neighborhood, you know, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's a it's a good point. I want to I
want to bring it to our guest, Sean. Thank you
so much for that call.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
John.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
He brings up the connection between homelessness and crime, and
for many people in many cities around this country, as
they've seen a rise in unhoused around America, they may
have seen they may have may have made them fearful
in certain parts of the city because again there is
drug use in many cases, or there's mental illness that's involved,
and people don't feel safe. What about the connection between
(18:38):
homelessness and crime.
Speaker 8 (18:41):
Yeah, so I think this is a really critical point.
I'm glad we got to it. So I think people
tend to conflate the idea of disorder with crime. So
you can see disorderly behavior, people who are on house,
people who have to live in public in ways that
can be messy. That's not criminal by itself, and treating
(19:02):
it as a criminal behavior is not the way to
solve the problem. This is a problem with social and
human services. This is a problem with prev bringing the
solutions to evidence based, data driven practices to these people,
rather than just increasing the number of police. We have
a tendency here when we see disorder on the rise,
(19:24):
to get more serious about crime and institute longer penalties,
more sanctions, And when crime goes up, we tend to
think we need to penalize disorder more. These are two
very different phenomenon and they need very different solutions. A
lot of places around the country are experimenting with things
like coresponder models, where mental health professionals go along with
(19:46):
the police to calls where they think that that's the issue,
or bringing other social services along to those calls. So
I think we're at the cusp of a change in
the way we think about these things, and we don't
just say, oh, there are a lot of on house people,
it's dangerous there. It probably isn't dangerous there, that their
presence doesn't make it dangerous. But it is a public
interest problem. It is a social welfare problem, and we
(20:07):
do need to address it. Police are part of that solution,
but they're only a part.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
John, I got a quick question if I can jump
in your dream. So, you know, my Chicago brethren, we're
talking about crime has dropped in Chicago, But everything I
hear about Chicago is that you know that crime is
up and that everybody's gett mugged every single day. What's
the difference in that perception, Like, what's causing that cognitive dissonance?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (20:29):
Yeah, So there's a long term story there that maybe
we can get too later. There's a short term story too, right. So,
So the media does a lot of what we call
episodic reporting. So there's an event one day, it's the
lead in the news, and then we never hear about
it again, and we just go on to the next event,
and we act as if each of these events is
unusual and therefore newsworthy, but they happen every day. They're
(20:50):
probably not specifically though. What has happened in Chicago, it
happened in La happened in a number of cities. Is
where you have these really high profile like smashing graph
so of high end retail outlets that grab a lot
of attention, and they happen along the Magnificent Mile or
in the Loop or in some part of Chicago that
is considered to be affluent and safe, and it creates
(21:13):
this perception that nowhere is safe, even though those are
really unusual events and they're actually not indicated.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
They weren't.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
They turn out not to be indicators of anything. Crime
continue to go down, both property and violent crime, but
they're in your face in places where people aren't used
to it, and that causes people to worry. And I
think that's that's a very reasonable and human reaction to it.
Policymakers just need to lean a little harder on the
data and the evidence and a little less on the
emotion when they think about what they're perfect response is.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Let's go to Tamra who's in Burlington, Vermont. Tamera, welcome
to the middle. Is crime and issue where you live?
Speaker 14 (21:50):
Absolutely you know, it's become an issue for us definitely
in the last few years, so much so that you know, myself,
my friends, my family, we've changed our behaviors. You know,
we've really seen the amount of property crime go up,
but we've also seen the amount of violent crime, robberies, assaults, shootings, stabbings,
(22:13):
you know, even murders. We're really fortunate in Burlington. For many,
many years we had a beautiful downtown that was extremely safe.
We have a great pedestrian walkway where people of all
ages from three to you know, one hundred and three
would gather whether it was eight in the morning or
ten out clock at night to kind of people watch
and enjoy restaurants and shops and you know, street vendors.
(22:36):
And that's changed so much so that you know, our merchants,
our restaurants are going to the city council on a
regular basis saying we need help. And a lot of
it's a result of the decriminalization of drug use, a
lot of open air drug use. We have a huge
homelessness problem in Vermont, and what we're finding is a
(23:00):
lot of crime is is coming, you know from those populations,
and you know, we've tried the some of the potential
UH solutions where we're bringing you know, housing first, and
there's a percentage of population that isn't interested in accepting
you know, some of those solutions. So it's really impacted
(23:25):
the whole uh sense of community in Burlington has changed,
and I'm afraid that it's you know, changed irreparably.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Do you have a solution for it?
Speaker 14 (23:38):
You know, I think it's I think it's both. You've
got to have services, certainly for those people who are
willing to accept it. But I think at the same time,
you know, we're struggling with you know, we've got a
county prosecutor who's you know, not do who's glommed onto
the bail reform, and you know, we literally have one
person who's infamous who has almost three thousand He's a
(24:01):
person who's homeless in Burlington who has almost three sat
thousand interactions with police, and every time he has an interaction,
whether it's violent or non violent, he'll often assault people.
He's literally back on the street within an hour of
being arrested. And obviously that's an example on the other side.
But I think what it shows is that uh, you know,
(24:22):
it's kind of. I guess it's the carrot and stick,
you know. You for those folks who are interested and
are willing to take advantage of programs, you certainly want
to have that, but there are folks who might not
have or don't want to take advantage a little bit
of both.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, I appreciate, appreciate the call, Michael H.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
This is something you brought up earlier as well, the
idea of a prosecutor that will actually prosecute crimes.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
Yeah, there have been a number of places where the
other progressive prosecutors were elected or came into office and
there was a a fundamental change in what they would charges,
they would accept in charges that they would actually prosecute.
Then there's the whole criminal justice reform, bail reform, jail depopulation.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Juvenile justice reform, all of.
Speaker 9 (25:14):
Those things taking place because of high profile incidents that
have occurred in different cities across the.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Country over years.
Speaker 9 (25:21):
So you have all these things going on, you have
the shrinkage of police and sheriff departments where they have
to then prioritize what they're going to enforce it, how
they're going to spend their time because they're working with
less but asked to do more progressive prosecutors choosing what
they will prosecute very differently than what would have been
done maybe by their predecessors. When you put all that
(25:44):
together with the lack of services, and then you have
cities that are not making the investment in the preventive issues,
dealing with the environmental designs of neighborhoods and having programmatic
solutions to help people not commit crime in the very
first place. When you put that together, you've seen a
surge in both violent and property crime and qualitaty of
(26:05):
life offenses. But I think the pendulum is swinging back,
and you're starting to see electorates and delegates at state
and local level create new law. You've seen prosecutors now
prosecuting more crimes. Now, you see people being tougher on
crime than maybe the past five or ten years.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
So it's coming back.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, and you know, I'm glad that you brought up
that issue and the politics of it, because we've, thankfully,
I think, been able to have a very good, reasonable
discussion this hour without really getting too political, but I
do it is an important piece of this And John,
I read a Fox News opinion piece that gives credit
to the ice immigration enforcement that's been going on for
(26:50):
the decrease in crime this year. There are many who
believe that that is making a difference. What do you
say to that is that? I mean, is that just
political or is that really making a difference.
Speaker 8 (27:02):
I mean, it really doesn't make much of a difference.
But let me let me qualify that.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 8 (27:07):
So, so, if the policy is that we wanted to
pour people who've been convicted of criminal acts, then that
of course is going to make a difference. The best
predicted somebody will commit a crime in the future is
how they committed one in the past, right, And but
that's that's not the immigration story, writ large. The immigration story,
writ large is the evidence is overwhelming that that immigrants
(27:29):
that places where there are concentrations of recent immigrants, whether
it's in the cities and the suburbs, have much lower
crime than you would predict based on the socioeconomic characteristics
of that place. So you have a very poor place
that has a lot of crime, a lot of recent
immigrants move into it, into one of those neighborhoods, crime
will go down, uh and it and it makes a
lot of sense. People who make that sort of herculean
(27:52):
effort to come here, have very productive qualities to them,
and they bring those with them that so don't want
to come to the attention of law enforcement and have
to leave. So so maybe a little bit, But this
the story, the story of this crime decline that we're
in the middle of, really doesn't have anything to do
with immigration.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tulliver, what is coming in online?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, Marius and Live Oak, Florida says, I'm in a
small town. Crime is picking up as more people move
in escaping expensive cities, so prices go up, worstening existing poverty, homelessness,
and drug abuse. The city focuses on law enforcement to
protect property and economic growth, of course. And then Karen
and Chicago Risky says, white collar crime, particularly tax evasion
and healthcare fraud, is an issue that affects me or
(28:36):
immediate family members. Is white collar crime part of this conversation, John, like,
is that something that you're here in the streets.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I don't think we're focusing so much in this hour,
like Craft. We could do an entire hour about that story.
But let me let me go to Aiden quickly in
Kansas City. Aiden, welcome to the middle. Is crime and
issue there where you live in Kansas City.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
Yeah, crime is definitely an issue in Kansas City. We've
seen a lot of property crime seen, like even like
homicides go up. And I think the biggest thing is
that we've had our police budget go up each year.
And Kansas City is actually unique in that we are
required by state law to give I think it's around
(29:18):
twenty five percent of our city budget, which no other
city in Missouri has to do besides Saint Louis. Like,
we are required to do that. Yet each year it
goes up and up and up. But our crime also
keeps going up and up. And while people are you know,
getting robbed, losing their cars, like actually being impacted by crime,
(29:40):
the solutions aren't there. And I think it's extremely frustrating,
and especially when like there's no good jobs in Kansas
City right now, because it's not like our rent continues
to go up. And yeah, like people are struggling all over,
both people who are not doing crime and who aren't
doing crime, or and who are doing crime. Yeah, you know,
(30:01):
so it's like everybody's suffering all over, yet there's no
real solution.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Well, thank you very much for that call, Aiden, you know,
Tolliver we've talked about Chicago. No city probably has been
singled out for crime by President Trump more than the
city of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, but like other cities, Chicago's crime, as we talked about,
has been dropping. Mayor Brennan Johnson says, it's happening faster
than it is in Chicago's peer cities.
Speaker 16 (30:25):
Our core work that I've been zeroed in on over
the course of my first two years in office is
to drive down violence in this city. When we look
at the numbers from July thus far, you can see
month to month the data points are still trending in
the right direction. Are you to date numbers continue to
show a stable decline, with violent crime down twenty percent
(30:46):
as a whole, But homicides are down, shootings are down
as well as shooting victims and robberies.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And by the way, Chicago had the most overall murders
of any US city in twenty twenty three. But when
you look at the murder rate where you compare it
to the actual population, it's actually not even in the
top ten US cities for that.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Hu and then makes you wonder who's the top you know?
Last next time?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, Saint Louis is up there at the top, and
I think Memphis is also like right up near at
the top as well. We will be back with more
of your calls on the Middle.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
In this hour, we're asking if crime is an issue
where you live, and if it is, what do you
want done about it. You can call us at eight
four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six
four three three five three. You can also reach out
at Listen to the Middle dot com. I'm joined by
John Roman, Senior Fellow in the Economics, Justice, and Society
Department at the National Opinion Research Center at the University
of Chicago, and former Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. Let's
(31:46):
go right back to the phones. Diamond is calling from Philadelphia. Diamond,
go ahead.
Speaker 17 (31:51):
Heh, Hi, this is a Diamond Philadelphia. As you just said,
I didn't want to speak to uh, crim being just ramping.
I'm hearing for it office specifically where I live. Uh,
there was just recently a mass shooting, actually a couple
within the city within the past couple of weeks, maybe
about three weeks ago. Uh, my dog woke up and uh,
(32:15):
you know, I just thought my dog was was shaking
her tail. My fiancee woke me up and it was like,
is everything okay? And I was like, I guess you know,
the noise was the dog. But the next name is
a mass shooting two blocks away from my house. I mean,
over forty gunshots went off. And I wrote for kenty
of families and parents and things like that, and I
(32:37):
think that what what what I'm seeing? And this is
very anecdope excuse me?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
Is that?
Speaker 18 (32:44):
Uh?
Speaker 17 (32:45):
A big thing that a lot of the cities don't
touch on is uh parenting in a sense, how how
can we come together as a community to ensure that
parents are present in their child's life from you know,
a young age into you know, young adulthood and raising
(33:07):
them well. And you know that also translates to translates
to how does that parent also parent it right? So
you know it could I haven't seen the numbers, right.
It might reflect back to homet right, like when there
might have been a time where Homeck was relieved out
of public schooling and things like that. But I feel
like a lot of issue is a lot of these kids,
(33:31):
like a lot of gun violence in the city is
from kids fourteen a nunder Yeah, right, like that with
with autoos and things like that.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, Diamond, Thank you
very much. Michael Harrison. What about that the responsibility that
I guess we all have in helping to reduce crime.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
Look, we all have a responsibility. It should not lie
squarely on the shoulders of police officers. And when you
find communities that have a total reliance on police to
prevent crime and to prevent it, to solve.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
It, to reduce it.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
When that doesn't happen, law enforcements get to blame. And
you're heard in the earlier segment, the police budgets are
getting larger, police departments are hiring more cops, but more
crime is happening and it's getting worse, and so people
challenge that. Here's the point I wanted to make about
that everybody has a responsibility. The cities have the responsibility
to improve the design the things that drive people toward crime,
(34:28):
that push people toward crime, all of the prevention that prevented,
things that could be done in prevention. There has to
be investments, and that it is very misleading sometimes and
I've had the pleasure working for five mayors across my
two cities in a ten year period. When we talk
about when leaders talk about reducing crime, reducing murder, reducing
(34:50):
all types of crime, that can be very misleading because
it doesn't account for the one or two or three
neighborhoods where it's actually going up. While it's a true
statement that it's reduced a city over a period of
a time like a year to date number, it may
not be true for one or two neighborhoods where the
people are vocal about it's going up, which is also true.
(35:10):
And so it's almost a catch twenty two. And we
have to be very very careful because statements like that
don't land very well on the ears of the person
who just got robbed or the person who had a
chooting a murder on their block. When you hear the
leaders say, well, crime is down twenty percent, Well it
might be across the city, but there's a lot of
context about what's causing that or what's driving that, and
(35:34):
why it's not true for some parts of a city.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Right, and when you're the victim of a crime, you're
going to remember that forever and that will change your perceptions.
Let's go to Doug who is in Carrollton, Texas. Doug,
go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 19 (35:48):
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Just to start off,
I kind of agree with Sean. I'd wrote to see
the money spent on helping homeless people find housing rather
than more cops, but that's kind of beside the point.
I'm also glad that you're differentiating between property crimes and
violent crimes. My understanding, the most violent crime victims are
(36:10):
actually acquainted with their attackers in some way, which which
doesn't lessen the severity of the crime or their victimists
or whatever. But you know, it's kind of a different problem.
It's more of a social problem than a law enforcement problem.
Speaker 20 (36:23):
The way I see that, I live in the Dallas
area most of my life, and I lived in Austin
for a while, but I really have not had that
much problem with crime. I've lived in middle class neighborhoods
not so great neighborhoods before, but you know, for example,
I've never felt a need to have a firearm to
(36:45):
protect myself or whatever. But you know, I apologize for
getting political, but I really think that politicians try to
gin up this issue to fire up their base and
demonize people, certain groups of people. A good example is
Trump with the whole immigration thing, trying to make it
act like there's this invasion of Ms thirteen gangs, you know,
(37:09):
coming in to you know, ruin our way of life
or whatever, just to get votes, and you know, I
don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
All right, Well, that's that's an interesting point, Doug John,
What do you think about that, the idea that politicians
just use this as an issue. And by the way,
local news also, there's the old phrase in journalism, if
it bleeds, it leads on local news, a lot of
people see the crime that's happening, even if it maybe
shouldn't be the top story every day in their neighborhood.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
Yeah, we're really stuck in this nineteen eighties and nineteen
nineties bifurcation where you're either tough on crime or you're
trying to solve the underlying problem, and you have to
somehow choose. The reality is is that sitting here in
twenty five, we know so much more about how to
solve all of these problems. We know more about how
(38:01):
to investigate crimes effectively. We have all these technologies at
our beck and call. Our police officers are more professional
and better changed, Our social services are better. We have
a whole class of medications that we all take for
granted now that didn't exist until the nineteen nineties, and
on and on and on and so all of the
solutions are to think about how do we do as
(38:23):
much of the best things on both sides. When you
have somebody who is a serial offender, the person who's
been arrested, who's a thousand times, that's the example. I've
seen rap sheets of people who arrested one hundred times
since is somebody law enforcement needs to take more seriously.
There's just no question about that. But those are a
small number of people. We have a whole set of
(38:44):
evidence that we can use for people who are just
engaging in crime because they have some other underlying problem
that is solvable. And so when you hear a politician
tell you it's one thing or the other, you don't
know what the right answer is, but you know they're
wrong because the real answer is that it's some combination
of both.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's not as simple as that. Nothing is really black
or white. So let's go to Gregory, who's in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Gregory, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 18 (39:12):
Go ahead, hey, Derek Jeremy, thank you so much for
your show. I appreciate it very much. You are a
various suite interviewer.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
If you will, thank you.
Speaker 11 (39:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 18 (39:24):
I have, as I's told the car, I d screener,
just recently out of jail, and I have a different
perspective of crime out of necessity. And what I was
around for fifty eight days was people that committed crimes,
(39:50):
basically who did themselves into jail because that's the only
option they had.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
They committed crimes that they can be in jail because
because why then they get a they get a place
to sleep, they get a meal.
Speaker 18 (40:03):
Is that what you're saying, they get three hots in
the in the cod Yes, sir mm. And it's it's unfortunate,
but it's reality. And I can only pay that told
me that that I'm a college graduate and interpersonal communications
(40:27):
is my my degree. So I just sat and I listened,
and I talked to older, I talked to younger. And
I don't know who the solution is by any means,
but it was intriguing to be and listen to never
mind the braggonicious things that happened between criminals. But when
(40:48):
I was able to break them off as a fifty
three year old man one on one and actually hear
their story. It was intriguing because they committed a crime
that they could go to jail because that's the only
security they had in their life.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Hmmm, well, I appreciate you calling in, uh Gregory, Yeah, no,
go ahead, Michael, did you want to ask him.
Speaker 9 (41:10):
A question institutionalization. They have been institutionalized, and there's a
they have a comfort level with the institution more than
they do out on their own.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Hmm yeah, absolutely, Oh I lost. I lost.
Speaker 9 (41:26):
Gregory's not very common, but it does happen to some people.
And look, I explained when I used to talk to
my officers about thinking about crime and how we think
about the crime and the behavior, not the person.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
And so we want to be tough on.
Speaker 9 (41:41):
The bad behavior, the unwanted behavior, not hard on the person.
And that's where some cops and some departments have lost
their way. And I would say, think about the person
who says, I still because I feed my starving addiction,
I still because I feed my starving family. Like both
of those are wrong, Both of those are beat But
(42:01):
you know, people are sometimes reduced to two bad choices.
But that's an issue that is beyond them that we
as people, we as governments and society have to do
a better job to not let people get in those predicaments.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Commissioner Harrison actually had a follow up on that one.
So a lot of our writers are asking about the
connection between crime and the economy, which you just kind
of touched on. Does that connection exist for you or
are there sort of circumstances where you can like anticipate
spikes and crime in your cities.
Speaker 9 (42:29):
Well, you know, as both a practitioner and an academic,
having learned it and taught it, I think there is
a correlation between crime and the economy. For example, things
like robbery. Carjackings are more violent robberies, but robbery is
a byproduct of poverty, and like carjackings and auto thefts,
(42:50):
that's a byproduct of poverty.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
You know.
Speaker 9 (42:53):
I was fortunate, Some of us are fortunate. I was
able to allow my son to drive my car. Later
bought him a car, but he had and we knew
other people who didn't have a car, their parents were
never going to be able to get them one. They
stole a car so that they could have the same
opportunity to drive and go places and do things. So
there are people who choose illegitimate means to accomplish a goal,
(43:16):
just like some of us choose a legitimate means to
accomplish a goal, even though that illegitimate.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Means is a crime.
Speaker 9 (43:21):
And so there are correlations between crime and poverty, which
means there's a correlation between crime and economics.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, Marie is calling from Hartford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Hi, Marie, go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
Hello.
Speaker 21 (43:36):
Hello. What I wanted to say is that I'm truly
in the middle, meaning I was brought up in blue
collar and affluent suburbs, and I've lived in the city
for a long time. I have an extensive history working
with people involved in homelessness, incarceration, addiction, things like that
(44:00):
and related to health. So my major pet peede is
that many many people who never step themselves inside the city.
They they get excited by talking about how dangerous places are.
They couldn't tell you one street from another, you know,
(44:21):
they don't realize that sometimes the street is really congested
because that's the commercial center of that neighborhood. And I
just really get annoyed by that, because is there crime
in our city? Yes? Is it better than the eighties
and nineties. I would say yes, but I just don't
(44:43):
like people passing ignorance when they have not experienced it.
They think there's no culture in the city. They think that,
you know, they have no idea about what people are
doing in their churches and in their schools and the
talents the children have. So my solution is, it's very
(45:05):
It's very easy if we we say in America that
we that children are our most most precious thing. Children,
if they were our most precious asset, we would make
sure that every one of them got an excellent education
and that families had stable housing. We don't really want that.
(45:30):
We're not We're not really And in the state, we
just saw that trying to push for more help in
housing for people because Connecticut has the highest highest amount
of wealth and gap between that and poverty. So a
lot of times these am I making it long?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No, no, no, I think we've we've got it, and
we made some really good points, and you gave us
a solution too, which is nice. You answered all the
parts of the question. Michael Harrison, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
Jeremy, I want to just see this.
Speaker 9 (46:01):
To go back to Taliver's point, really quickly, just because
I said there's a correlation between crime and economics, crime
and poverty. That is not saying that poor people are
prone and can make crime will make crime. That is
not the same thing. And I would just want it
to be very clear about that, because while there's a correlation,
it doesn't mean that all people who are poor will
(46:21):
be prone to come make crime, because that's not true.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, I'm going to sneak in one more call and
it's Tanya in Saint Louis. Tanya, go ahead quickly with
your thoughts.
Speaker 22 (46:32):
Absolutely. Hey, I think a great conversation, but I think
we'll really need to focus more on the statistics that
are actually showing that crime stats are decreasing after a.
Speaker 11 (46:41):
Spike during COVID.
Speaker 22 (46:43):
Saint Louis is often at the top list of cities
across the country for crime, property and violent, but statistics
actually show that our crime has been on the decrease.
And focusing on crime without talking about statistics, I fear
keeps the populace worried, nervous instead of actually recognizing that
a lot of good things are happening and that we're
(47:05):
actually improving.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
In this film, Yeah, thank you very much for that
call Tanya, and you know because she's calling it from
Saint Louis. I want to just ask each of you
one one last thing, which is Saint Louis is where
Michael Brown was killed, Michael Harrison, before you got to
the Baltimore Police department, Freddie Garrett Gray was killed, we
had the George Floyd killing.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Has the the idea.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Of trust in law enforcement? Has that been built up?
Do you think back up since those very high profile
police involved killings of people Michael I'll start with you briefly.
Speaker 9 (47:40):
In some places yes, In some places no. You know,
I am the consent to free monitor in Minneapolis and
the answer there's no from community and other places no.
But in many places.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yes, John, What about you? How important is that trust
and do you think it's been built back up?
Speaker 8 (47:57):
I think it's very important. We talk a lot of
about police legitimacy and legal cynicism and the effects that
that has on people's willingness to commit a crime. I
don't think it's I don't think it's changed at all,
and I think it's it's important to understand that it's not.
People's trust in law enforcement is not uniformly distributed. If
you look at people who live in places where there
(48:19):
is a long history of violence and there's a lot
of accumulated trauma there, trust in police is very low
and it's very stable at very low levels, and these
police involved shootings don't make it worse and then it
doesn't get better. Where it goes up and down a
lot is really in the middle right where we're reacting
to these stories, and that's you know, that's important that
(48:41):
people are engaged and they respond to these to these incidents,
and we try to affect policy, But the people who
we really should care about are the people who live
in poverty, who are experiencing this every day, have low
trust in police and making investments there where they were
really treating them in a human way and trying to
solve their problems of taking the violence seriously. That's the
only way to restore that trust. And that's because that's
(49:02):
where the crime is. That's really the most important part
of that indicator.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
A great note to end on that, I want to
thank my guests, John Roman, Senior, following the Economics, Justice,
and Society Department at the National Opinion Research Center at
the University of Chicago and former Baltimore and New Orleans
Police Chief Michael Harrison. Thank you so much to both
of you, Thank you for having me. Thanks thanks to
our amazing callers as well. Don't Forget the Middle is available
as a podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the
(49:28):
iHeart Apple wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Our next episode drops in a few days.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's an episode of our weekly podcast Extra one thing
Trump did about the cancelation of temporary protective status for
migrants from certain countries. And next week on the Middle,
we're going to be back here asking you whether the
reindustrialized America that President Trump seems to want is possible anymore.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
As always, you can call in at eight four four
four Middle. That's eight four four four sixty four.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Three three five three.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
You can also reach out at Listen to the Middle
dot com, where you can also sign up for our
free weekly newsletter and support us with a text DEDUCTIBLEK contribution.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Book Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmisdas, John Barthona Kadeshler,
and Brandon Condritz. Our technical director is Steve Mork. I'm
Jeremy Hobson. I'll talk to you next week.
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver.
Before we get to talking about protecting ourselves against crime,
I have to say, uh, my house was struck by
lightning last week after the show, and I realized that
a surge protector, which I've always thought of as a
thing that you can just use to plug six things
into one outlet, is actually very useful of protecting again
(00:30):
surges because everything that was plugged into the surge protectors
was protected, and the things that weren't, some of them
are not working anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Why don't you tell me?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Here? I am.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I like to save things for our little top of
show banter, so I want to I want to start
by asking you, Tolliver, because I know you take public
transit all the time, you walk everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Are you ever afraid of crime?
Speaker 4 (00:51):
A little bit?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But you know what, I'm six or five man, so
I think to be honest, like I'm a hipster, but
I think people are a little scared of me, right
guests trying it out?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So where Yes, I think that's fair. I think that's
very very tall.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So as it turns out, crime consistently ranks as one
of the highest priority issues for Americans, with a majority
of the country agreeing that is a serious problem. The
thing is, though, that crime has actually been coming down
since a spike during the pandemic. A new study from
the Council on Criminal Justice finds that every kind of
violent crime is down compared with pre pandemic levels. Homicide
(01:24):
down fourteen percent, sexual assault down twenty eight percent, robbery
down thirty percent. So this hour we're going to be
asking if crime is an issue where you live, and
if so, what you want to be done about it.
Our number is eight four four four Middle. That's eight
four four four six four three three five three where
you can reach out at listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
We'll get to your calls in just a moment. But first, last.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Week on the show, we talked about what can be
done to address the nation's thirty six trillion dollar debt.
We heard from a lot of people during the show
and afterwards on our voicemail.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
This is John is calling from South Dakota. You know,
once one understands the nature of money, it's frustrating. So
how can you balance in figure quotes, the equation when
cash is unlimited and equity is not accounted for. Is
this not an accounting problem rather than a deficit problem.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
My name is Diana Smith and I'm in Denver, Colorado.
The only way we'll really get out of the debt
is to grow out of the debt. We need to
invest in things that promote growth, like education, research, and infrastructure.
All the cuts will flow our growth and not enhance it.
Speaker 7 (02:35):
This is Austin, Mitchell and Salem, Missouri. One of the
things that can be done to help reduce the debt
and to secure social security is to eliminate the cap
on earned income that's subject to soicurity tax, and that
would not only help provide for the solid security, but
also help reduce federal debt.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that entire episode on our podcast in partnership with
iHeart podcast on the iheartapp or wherever you listen to podcasts.
So now to our question this hour, is crime an
issue where you live? And if it is, what do
you want to be done about it? Tolliver, how can
people reach us?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You can call us at eight four four four middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five
three or you can write to us at Listen to
the Middle dot com. You can also comment on our
live stream on YouTube. I will get your comments on
the air, so hit us up on one of those channels.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Joining me this hour, Former Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. Michael,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Thank you Jomen for having me at.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
John Roman is with US, senior fellow in the Economics, Justice,
and Society Department at the National Opinion Research Center at
the University of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
John, welcome to.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
The Middle, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All right, So before we get to the phones, John,
if you look at FBI statistics, violent crime fell forty
nine percent between nineteen ninety three and twenty twenty two,
and it has fallen since twenty twenty two. So how
would you say we are doing as a nation right
now on crime, John.
Speaker 8 (04:01):
I think we're doing We're obviously doing far better today
than we were doing in the nineteen seventies. As you've noted,
crime is down across the board. The challenge here is,
of course, that the crime levels of the United States
are far above pure nations in Europe and around the world.
So why you know, you look at a city like
New York City, which is probably the biggest, the safest
(04:22):
big city in America, and the rate of homicide there
is about.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Five times what it is in London.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
So if you're under fifty five, this is probably the
safest America you've ever lived in. But it's still really
unsafe compared to lots of the rest.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And why is that? Just? Is there one reason for that? John, Oh,
there's a whole host of reasons for it. You know.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
Obviously, firearms in civilian hands or legal in the United States,
and so things that are fistfights in other countries are
gunfights here. The amount of policing in the United States
is actually far lower than most of our European peers.
And then the way that we try and prevent crime
outside of law enforcement, what we do is with social
(05:07):
services and human services and health and education lags far
behind what's happening in the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Michael Harrison, you were, as we said, commissioner of the
Baltimore Police Department. You were also the head of the
New Orleans Police Department before that. What would you say
about how we're doing in terms of crime as a
nation right now?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Hello
to you, guests.
Speaker 9 (05:29):
I think we're doing far better than we were, not
just twenty years ago, thirty years ago, but even just
the last few years. When I was a young officer
in New Orleans, I remember New Orleans being the murder
capital of the world, with a city five hundred maybe
five hundred, six hundred thousand, had four hundred and sixty
murders that year. And when I was a young officer
in the nineties, and then when I was the superintendent
(05:52):
in my last year in twenty eighteen, we had had
a fifty year low slightly above one hundred, and so
it has gone back up and then it has come
back down. The same thing in Baltimore. That city was
deemed to be the murder capital of the world, and
in our highest years it was three hundred and fifty
plus murders, and now they're slightly breaking two hundred and
(06:14):
so it has come down in my time there and
then even the year and a half there, but it's
coming down everywhere. It has a lot to do with
the way police are policing, because police departments are shrinking,
getting smaller, having to prioritize when and how and what
they do. But it has to do with prosecutions, It
has to do with changes of laws, how cities now
(06:36):
deal with youth offenders in juveniles, and how we deal
with these things. And then you're right. The social service,
John said this, and human services and all the things
that we help to prevent crime and help to have
people have better lives and better communities. That's not always
invested in and prioritized, and it's left to the police
(06:58):
to deal with it and collect the blame for it
when we see it. And I want to be able
to talk about how people really use the word crime.
If you ask a person in one part of my
city and both cities New Orleans in Baltimore, crime means
people are being shot and killed in the streets a
couple of miles away. You ask somebody to talk about crime,
they say it's out of control.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
All of our cars.
Speaker 9 (07:20):
Are getting broken into. And then if you go to
another part of the city and say talk about crime,
they say it's out of control. The kids are walking
around with bottles of liquor in their hands in the
street and there's no permit for them to they're selling
liquor on the street. There's no permit and it's out
of control and they're assembling and nobody's collecting taxes. So
(07:43):
it means something different to different people. Where you sit,
where you live, and how you view it, it will
be different. And so if we get a chance, I'd
like to be able to break those differences down, because
while it is falling in violent crime, is falling in
property crime, but people really care about their quality of
life more than anything.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Absolutely, people want to be able to walk around their
neighborhoods safely at nighttime and do all the things that
they like to do without having to worry about it.
I want to focus in just for one second, John,
on what you talked about with the lack of police
officers compared to other countries. Here it turns out that
around the country there.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Are reports of shortages of police officers.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Is it hard to hire right now or is it
just because of a lack of money in municipalities.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
So we've seen a huge decline in a number of
people who want to be police officers. And this isn't
just a recent phenomenon. It isn't just a reaction to
officer involved shootings like the George Floyd shooting. This is
a trend that we've seen for fifteen years. Part of
that is a pay issue. It's like any other labor market.
If you don't pay people what they think they can
(08:50):
get somewhere else, they don't want to do it. Part
of is the danger, but part of it is that
there are a lot of jobs that people are really
interested in doing around law enforcement that are civilian in
jobs rather than sworn officer jobs. Data science jobs, crime
analyst jobs, evidence collection, criminalists. There's a lot of television
that makes these jobs seem really interesting. There's a lot
(09:11):
of people studying these topics in college and in high school,
and these are the jobs that they want to do.
And law enforcement has been pretty reluctant about increasing the
size of the civilian part of their departments and has
really focused on trying to fill those gaps that they
have on the sworn officer side, and the result has
been just this general decline in the number of officers,
(09:34):
and then COVID, of course led to a lot of disability.
A lot of officers got sick and weren't able to
be out on patrol, and so then even with the
number the decline in the number of officers, there's an
even there's sort of a dark number there, which is
how many officers can even go out and patrol, and
that number has been down a lot in the early
part of this decade at lease are less visible and
(09:57):
this leads to a lot of the things that we're
talking about here where people feel or less safe they
see if you are consoles.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, does Michael, does it matter in terms of the
perception of crime? Just if there are more officers out
on the street, even if they're not doing anything specifically
to stop a crime or to deal with a crime
that's happening just walking down the street, does that help?
Speaker 9 (10:17):
It helps some way and it hurts some way, because
if there are more officers who are in the right
places doing what they're supposed to be doing, it very
well could help with the perception of how people view
their police officers. However, if you have more officers and
the crime persists, then it begins to be the appearance
(10:38):
that they're not effective.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Either they don't.
Speaker 9 (10:40):
Know how to do what they're supposed to do or
they're choosing not to do what they're supposed to do.
Because we have more officers, they're being paid by our
tax dollars and they're not having a positive effect on
the complaints of crime that we're giving you. And so
it can cut both ways.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
And so.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
It's chief and sheriffs and executives should be very careful
about saying I need more officers, I need more money
to have more officers.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
But those officers have to be where they're supposed to be.
Speaker 9 (11:11):
They have to be doing what they're supposed to be doing,
and they have to be having a positive impact on crime.
Because if you have more and you don't get the
positive effect of having the more, it will turn on you.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, a reminder that you can reach us at eight
four four four middle That is eight four four four
six four three three five three.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I see the phone lines lighting up, Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
You know, if you look back in time, as we said,
we were at a peak for crime and murders back
in the early nineteen nineties, and that was very apparent
in the nation's largest city.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
New York.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah, this is pre Juliana in New York with David Dinkins.
He'd just been elected mayor and here he was talking
about cracking down on crime in his inauguration speech in
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 10 (11:50):
Most of all, we must reaffirm the rule of law
and fight back against the pushers and muggers and take
back our streets and subways and our bars. And we
must do this by night as well as by day.
Let me say what I said often during the campaign.
(12:12):
I intend to be the toughest mayor on crime this
city has ever seen.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And we should say tolliver that. In nineteen ninety three,
the pushers and muggers of New York rebranded as the
Criminals formerly known as pushers.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And Okay, so you're writing prince jokes now, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That was a prince joke? Did you like it? I
was very proud of it.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I would sing some prints, but we don't have the rights.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So no, we don't have the rights. Not on the podcast.
We'll be right back with more on the Middle. This
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning
in the Middle as a national call and show, we're
focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically and philosophically.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
This hour, we're asking if crime is an issue where
you live, and if it is what you want done
about it. Tolliver the number again please, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
and on pretty much all social media.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
All right, let's get to the phones. Jack is calling
from Salt Lake City, Utah. Jack, Welcome to the Middle.
What do you think about crime? Is it an issue
where you live?
Speaker 11 (13:16):
Hi, I don't necessarily believe that clime for my life
in my city necessarily mean a top button issue. In
the past couple of months, we have seen the Utah
legislator push our city officials into taking a much, much,
much more aggressive approach on crime, policing and homelessness. And
(13:40):
I've seen my park, my neighborhood Park, Liberty Park, it
be inundated with more and more police officers who just
seem to be sitting about, which is not necessarily I
think a use of taxpayer dollars that I find to
be great. I think that we should definitely see a
lot more funding go to police officers who want to
(14:02):
solve sexual assault murder cases and actually, do you know,
more investigative work than I would like to see police
officers you know, hitting about on our streets.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So, but you feel safe in your area, Yeah, and I.
Speaker 11 (14:19):
Will say that like my area. I live in Central City,
which is a neighborhood that is constantly inundated with rumors
of horrible crime spikes in the middle of Salt Lake City.
And I often tell people where I live, and I
am constantly met with the refrain that you know, I
must be so unsafe there, and I'm not. I walk
(14:41):
around my neighborhood, I shop in my neighborhood, I spend
money locally in my neighborhood all the time. I take
public transportation. Again, I want to, you know, highlight. I'm
a pretty tall guy. So it's a completely totally different story,
I would say, than for other people who are from
more vulnerable population. But for me in my life, you know,
(15:02):
I would love to see all this money go towards,
you know, clearing sexual assault investigations.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, Jack, thanks, thanks for that call. Michael, what do
you think about that as you hear that as somebody
who thinks, you know, not really a problem where I live?
And why are they spending all this money on these
police in this park?
Speaker 9 (15:19):
He touched on two things that I mentioned in the
previous segment one. There may be more officers, but all
the officers productive in preventing crime, reducing crime, and apprehending
people who commit crime. Then the question, you know, we
don't know the answer to the question what types of crime?
And so he lives in central city Salt Lake. But
is that an area that's prone to violent crime, shootings, robberies,
(15:43):
carl jackins, murders, or is it larcenies and thefts, car breakings, shopliftings,
other things, quality of life offenses, drug offenses, homelessness issues
which are not crimes. But what exactly are people defining
this crime that makes them feel unsafe? And it's different
from neighborhood to the neighborhood. But I like that he
(16:04):
he was honest to be able to say he doesn't
feel unsafe although he knows he lives in the area
that has rumors of receptions of crime and crime itself.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, let's go to Sean who's in Dallas, Texas. Sean,
what about where you live?
Speaker 12 (16:18):
It's crime and issue, Yeah, very much so. But there's
two worlds. And when I say that, I used to
live in an Applin area and there was hardly you know,
occasionally burgerly or something like that. But I'll tell you
what it ended up happening. If there was a homeless person,
somebody'd be on the phone, and boy, the police be
(16:39):
all over it. They'd run him out of there, they'd
sence off the area they were in, and then they
would push him into the area I live now, which
is a low income area, which is just absolutely completely
innundated with homeless people, you know, for all different kinds
of reasons. Could be drugs, could be mental, could be whatever.
And all the halfway houses are down there too. You
(17:02):
may see twenty different people walk in front of your house.
Speaker 13 (17:04):
You don't know who they are.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You know.
Speaker 13 (17:07):
And and then so you know the complete wisdom of
our city, they decided to hire eight hundred more cops.
Well now all they do is they drive around all
over our neighborhoods, you know, And it's fearful for us
because a lot of the people around me are brown
and black, you know, and they know who ends up
(17:28):
in jail, you know, and we just do not have
them there.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
You know.
Speaker 13 (17:33):
What we need is I bet you cost one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to put a police officer out
on the streets. You know, every year salary and all
the support. How about spending one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars times eight hundred and put people in some housing,
get them off the streets, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And I asked the question time, Yeah, go ahead, continue.
Speaker 13 (17:56):
I just I asked a couple in time. I said,
I know what's happening. You push them out of those
applent neighborhoods, You push them down here. And he goes, well,
once you rather have them in one place than another.
And I looked at.
Speaker 14 (18:07):
Him, I go, yeah, where do you live?
Speaker 13 (18:09):
You know, we'll put him in your neighborhood, you know, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's a it's a good point. I want to I
want to bring it to our guest, Sean. Thank you
so much for that call.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
John.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
He brings up the connection between homelessness and crime, and
for many people in many cities around this country, as
they've seen a rise in unhoused around America, they may
have seen they may have may have made them fearful
in certain parts of the city because again there is
drug use in many cases, or there's mental illness that's involved,
and people don't feel safe. What about the connection between
(18:38):
homelessness and crime.
Speaker 8 (18:41):
Yeah, so I think this is a really critical point.
I'm glad we got to it. So I think people
tend to conflate the idea of disorder with crime. So
you can see disorderly behavior, people who are on house,
people who have to live in public in ways that
can be messy. That's not criminal by itself, and treating
(19:02):
it as a criminal behavior is not the way to
solve the problem. This is a problem with social and
human services. This is a problem with prev bringing the
solutions to evidence based, data driven practices to these people,
rather than just increasing the number of police. We have
a tendency here when we see disorder on the rise,
(19:24):
to get more serious about crime and institute longer penalties,
more sanctions, And when crime goes up, we tend to
think we need to penalize disorder more. These are two
very different phenomenon and they need very different solutions. A
lot of places around the country are experimenting with things
like coresponder models, where mental health professionals go along with
(19:46):
the police to calls where they think that that's the issue,
or bringing other social services along to those calls. So
I think we're at the cusp of a change in
the way we think about these things, and we don't
just say, oh, there are a lot of on house people,
it's dangerous there. It probably isn't dangerous there, that their
presence doesn't make it dangerous. But it is a public
interest problem. It is a social welfare problem, and we
(20:07):
do need to address it. Police are part of that solution,
but they're only a part.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
John, I got a quick question if I can jump
in your dream. So, you know, my Chicago brethren, we're
talking about crime has dropped in Chicago, But everything I
hear about Chicago is that you know that crime is
up and that everybody's gett mugged every single day. What's
the difference in that perception, Like, what's causing that cognitive dissonance?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (20:29):
Yeah, So there's a long term story there that maybe
we can get too later. There's a short term story too, right. So,
So the media does a lot of what we call
episodic reporting. So there's an event one day, it's the
lead in the news, and then we never hear about
it again, and we just go on to the next event,
and we act as if each of these events is
unusual and therefore newsworthy, but they happen every day. They're
(20:50):
probably not specifically though. What has happened in Chicago, it
happened in La happened in a number of cities. Is
where you have these really high profile like smashing graph
so of high end retail outlets that grab a lot
of attention, and they happen along the Magnificent Mile or
in the Loop or in some part of Chicago that
is considered to be affluent and safe, and it creates
(21:13):
this perception that nowhere is safe, even though those are
really unusual events and they're actually not indicated.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
They weren't.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
They turn out not to be indicators of anything. Crime
continue to go down, both property and violent crime, but
they're in your face in places where people aren't used
to it, and that causes people to worry. And I
think that's that's a very reasonable and human reaction to it.
Policymakers just need to lean a little harder on the
data and the evidence and a little less on the
emotion when they think about what they're perfect response is.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Let's go to Tamra who's in Burlington, Vermont. Tamera, welcome
to the middle. Is crime and issue where you live?
Speaker 14 (21:50):
Absolutely you know, it's become an issue for us definitely
in the last few years, so much so that you know, myself,
my friends, my family, we've changed our behaviors. You know,
we've really seen the amount of property crime go up,
but we've also seen the amount of violent crime, robberies, assaults, shootings, stabbings,
(22:13):
you know, even murders. We're really fortunate in Burlington. For many,
many years we had a beautiful downtown that was extremely safe.
We have a great pedestrian walkway where people of all
ages from three to you know, one hundred and three
would gather whether it was eight in the morning or
ten out clock at night to kind of people watch
and enjoy restaurants and shops and you know, street vendors.
(22:36):
And that's changed so much so that you know, our merchants,
our restaurants are going to the city council on a
regular basis saying we need help. And a lot of
it's a result of the decriminalization of drug use, a
lot of open air drug use. We have a huge
homelessness problem in Vermont, and what we're finding is a
(23:00):
lot of crime is is coming, you know from those populations,
and you know, we've tried the some of the potential
UH solutions where we're bringing you know, housing first, and
there's a percentage of population that isn't interested in accepting
you know, some of those solutions. So it's really impacted
(23:25):
the whole uh sense of community in Burlington has changed,
and I'm afraid that it's you know, changed irreparably.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Do you have a solution for it?
Speaker 14 (23:38):
You know, I think it's I think it's both. You've
got to have services, certainly for those people who are
willing to accept it. But I think at the same time,
you know, we're struggling with you know, we've got a
county prosecutor who's you know, not do who's glommed onto
the bail reform, and you know, we literally have one
person who's infamous who has almost three thousand He's a
(24:01):
person who's homeless in Burlington who has almost three sat
thousand interactions with police, and every time he has an interaction,
whether it's violent or non violent, he'll often assault people.
He's literally back on the street within an hour of
being arrested. And obviously that's an example on the other side.
But I think what it shows is that uh, you know,
(24:22):
it's kind of. I guess it's the carrot and stick,
you know. You for those folks who are interested and
are willing to take advantage of programs, you certainly want
to have that, but there are folks who might not
have or don't want to take advantage a little bit
of both.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, I appreciate, appreciate the call, Michael H.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
This is something you brought up earlier as well, the
idea of a prosecutor that will actually prosecute crimes.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
Yeah, there have been a number of places where the
other progressive prosecutors were elected or came into office and
there was a a fundamental change in what they would charges,
they would accept in charges that they would actually prosecute.
Then there's the whole criminal justice reform, bail reform, jail depopulation.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Juvenile justice reform, all of.
Speaker 9 (25:14):
Those things taking place because of high profile incidents that
have occurred in different cities across the.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Country over years.
Speaker 9 (25:21):
So you have all these things going on, you have
the shrinkage of police and sheriff departments where they have
to then prioritize what they're going to enforce it, how
they're going to spend their time because they're working with
less but asked to do more progressive prosecutors choosing what
they will prosecute very differently than what would have been
done maybe by their predecessors. When you put all that
(25:44):
together with the lack of services, and then you have
cities that are not making the investment in the preventive issues,
dealing with the environmental designs of neighborhoods and having programmatic
solutions to help people not commit crime in the very
first place. When you put that together, you've seen a
surge in both violent and property crime and qualitaty of
(26:05):
life offenses. But I think the pendulum is swinging back,
and you're starting to see electorates and delegates at state
and local level create new law. You've seen prosecutors now
prosecuting more crimes. Now, you see people being tougher on
crime than maybe the past five or ten years.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
So it's coming back.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, and you know, I'm glad that you brought up
that issue and the politics of it, because we've, thankfully,
I think, been able to have a very good, reasonable
discussion this hour without really getting too political, but I
do it is an important piece of this And John,
I read a Fox News opinion piece that gives credit
to the ice immigration enforcement that's been going on for
(26:50):
the decrease in crime this year. There are many who
believe that that is making a difference. What do you
say to that is that? I mean, is that just
political or is that really making a difference.
Speaker 8 (27:02):
I mean, it really doesn't make much of a difference.
But let me let me qualify that.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Right.
Speaker 8 (27:07):
So, so, if the policy is that we wanted to
pour people who've been convicted of criminal acts, then that
of course is going to make a difference. The best
predicted somebody will commit a crime in the future is
how they committed one in the past, right, And but
that's that's not the immigration story, writ large. The immigration story,
writ large is the evidence is overwhelming that that immigrants
(27:29):
that places where there are concentrations of recent immigrants, whether
it's in the cities and the suburbs, have much lower
crime than you would predict based on the socioeconomic characteristics
of that place. So you have a very poor place
that has a lot of crime, a lot of recent
immigrants move into it, into one of those neighborhoods, crime
will go down, uh and it and it makes a
lot of sense. People who make that sort of herculean
(27:52):
effort to come here, have very productive qualities to them,
and they bring those with them that so don't want
to come to the attention of law enforcement and have
to leave. So so maybe a little bit, But this
the story, the story of this crime decline that we're
in the middle of, really doesn't have anything to do
with immigration.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tulliver, what is coming in online?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, Marius and Live Oak, Florida says, I'm in a
small town. Crime is picking up as more people move
in escaping expensive cities, so prices go up, worstening existing poverty, homelessness,
and drug abuse. The city focuses on law enforcement to
protect property and economic growth, of course. And then Karen
and Chicago Risky says, white collar crime, particularly tax evasion
and healthcare fraud, is an issue that affects me or
(28:36):
immediate family members. Is white collar crime part of this conversation, John, like,
is that something that you're here in the streets.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I don't think we're focusing so much in this hour,
like Craft. We could do an entire hour about that story.
But let me let me go to Aiden quickly in
Kansas City. Aiden, welcome to the middle. Is crime and
issue there where you live in Kansas City.
Speaker 15 (28:58):
Yeah, crime is definitely an issue in Kansas City. We've
seen a lot of property crime seen, like even like
homicides go up. And I think the biggest thing is
that we've had our police budget go up each year.
And Kansas City is actually unique in that we are
required by state law to give I think it's around
(29:18):
twenty five percent of our city budget, which no other
city in Missouri has to do besides Saint Louis. Like,
we are required to do that. Yet each year it
goes up and up and up. But our crime also
keeps going up and up. And while people are you know,
getting robbed, losing their cars, like actually being impacted by crime,
(29:40):
the solutions aren't there. And I think it's extremely frustrating,
and especially when like there's no good jobs in Kansas
City right now, because it's not like our rent continues
to go up. And yeah, like people are struggling all over,
both people who are not doing crime and who aren't
doing crime, or and who are doing crime. Yeah, you know,
(30:01):
so it's like everybody's suffering all over, yet there's no
real solution.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Well, thank you very much for that call, Aiden, you know,
Tolliver we've talked about Chicago. No city probably has been
singled out for crime by President Trump more than the
city of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, but like other cities, Chicago's crime, as we talked about,
has been dropping. Mayor Brennan Johnson says, it's happening faster
than it is in Chicago's peer cities.
Speaker 16 (30:25):
Our core work that I've been zeroed in on over
the course of my first two years in office is
to drive down violence in this city. When we look
at the numbers from July thus far, you can see
month to month the data points are still trending in
the right direction. Are you to date numbers continue to
show a stable decline, with violent crime down twenty percent
(30:46):
as a whole, But homicides are down, shootings are down
as well as shooting victims and robberies.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And by the way, Chicago had the most overall murders
of any US city in twenty twenty three. But when
you look at the murder rate where you compare it
to the actual population, it's actually not even in the
top ten US cities for that.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Hu and then makes you wonder who's the top you know?
Last next time?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, Saint Louis is up there at the top, and
I think Memphis is also like right up near at
the top as well. We will be back with more
of your calls on the Middle.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
In this hour, we're asking if crime is an issue
where you live, and if it is, what do you
want done about it. You can call us at eight
four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six
four three three five three. You can also reach out
at Listen to the Middle dot com. I'm joined by
John Roman, Senior Fellow in the Economics, Justice, and Society
Department at the National Opinion Research Center at the University
of Chicago, and former Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. Let's
(31:46):
go right back to the phones. Diamond is calling from Philadelphia. Diamond,
go ahead.
Speaker 17 (31:51):
Heh, Hi, this is a Diamond Philadelphia. As you just said,
I didn't want to speak to uh, crim being just ramping.
I'm hearing for it office specifically where I live. Uh,
there was just recently a mass shooting, actually a couple
within the city within the past couple of weeks, maybe
about three weeks ago. Uh, my dog woke up and uh,
(32:15):
you know, I just thought my dog was was shaking
her tail. My fiancee woke me up and it was like,
is everything okay? And I was like, I guess you know,
the noise was the dog. But the next name is
a mass shooting two blocks away from my house. I mean,
over forty gunshots went off. And I wrote for kenty
of families and parents and things like that, and I
(32:37):
think that what what what I'm seeing? And this is
very anecdope excuse me?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
Is that?
Speaker 18 (32:44):
Uh?
Speaker 17 (32:45):
A big thing that a lot of the cities don't
touch on is uh parenting in a sense, how how
can we come together as a community to ensure that
parents are present in their child's life from you know,
a young age into you know, young adulthood and raising
(33:07):
them well. And you know that also translates to translates
to how does that parent also parent it right? So
you know it could I haven't seen the numbers, right.
It might reflect back to homet right, like when there
might have been a time where Homeck was relieved out
of public schooling and things like that. But I feel
like a lot of issue is a lot of these kids,
(33:31):
like a lot of gun violence in the city is
from kids fourteen a nunder Yeah, right, like that with
with autoos and things like that.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, Diamond, Thank you
very much. Michael Harrison. What about that the responsibility that
I guess we all have in helping to reduce crime.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
Look, we all have a responsibility. It should not lie
squarely on the shoulders of police officers. And when you
find communities that have a total reliance on police to
prevent crime and to prevent it, to solve.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
It, to reduce it.
Speaker 9 (34:04):
When that doesn't happen, law enforcements get to blame. And
you're heard in the earlier segment, the police budgets are
getting larger, police departments are hiring more cops, but more
crime is happening and it's getting worse, and so people
challenge that. Here's the point I wanted to make about
that everybody has a responsibility. The cities have the responsibility
to improve the design the things that drive people toward crime,
(34:28):
that push people toward crime, all of the prevention that prevented,
things that could be done in prevention. There has to
be investments, and that it is very misleading sometimes and
I've had the pleasure working for five mayors across my
two cities in a ten year period. When we talk
about when leaders talk about reducing crime, reducing murder, reducing
(34:50):
all types of crime, that can be very misleading because
it doesn't account for the one or two or three
neighborhoods where it's actually going up. While it's a true
statement that it's reduced a city over a period of
a time like a year to date number, it may
not be true for one or two neighborhoods where the
people are vocal about it's going up, which is also true.
(35:10):
And so it's almost a catch twenty two. And we
have to be very very careful because statements like that
don't land very well on the ears of the person
who just got robbed or the person who had a
chooting a murder on their block. When you hear the
leaders say, well, crime is down twenty percent, Well it
might be across the city, but there's a lot of
context about what's causing that or what's driving that, and
(35:34):
why it's not true for some parts of a city.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Right, and when you're the victim of a crime, you're
going to remember that forever and that will change your perceptions.
Let's go to Doug who is in Carrollton, Texas. Doug,
go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 19 (35:48):
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Just to start off,
I kind of agree with Sean. I'd wrote to see
the money spent on helping homeless people find housing rather
than more cops, but that's kind of beside the point.
I'm also glad that you're differentiating between property crimes and
violent crimes. My understanding, the most violent crime victims are
(36:10):
actually acquainted with their attackers in some way, which which
doesn't lessen the severity of the crime or their victimists
or whatever. But you know, it's kind of a different problem.
It's more of a social problem than a law enforcement problem.
Speaker 20 (36:23):
The way I see that, I live in the Dallas
area most of my life, and I lived in Austin
for a while, but I really have not had that
much problem with crime. I've lived in middle class neighborhoods
not so great neighborhoods before, but you know, for example,
I've never felt a need to have a firearm to
(36:45):
protect myself or whatever. But you know, I apologize for
getting political, but I really think that politicians try to
gin up this issue to fire up their base and
demonize people, certain groups of people. A good example is
Trump with the whole immigration thing, trying to make it
act like there's this invasion of Ms thirteen gangs, you know,
(37:09):
coming in to you know, ruin our way of life
or whatever, just to get votes, and you know, I
don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
All right, Well, that's that's an interesting point, Doug John,
What do you think about that, the idea that politicians
just use this as an issue. And by the way,
local news also, there's the old phrase in journalism, if
it bleeds, it leads on local news, a lot of
people see the crime that's happening, even if it maybe
shouldn't be the top story every day in their neighborhood.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
Yeah, we're really stuck in this nineteen eighties and nineteen
nineties bifurcation where you're either tough on crime or you're
trying to solve the underlying problem, and you have to
somehow choose. The reality is is that sitting here in
twenty five, we know so much more about how to
solve all of these problems. We know more about how
(38:01):
to investigate crimes effectively. We have all these technologies at
our beck and call. Our police officers are more professional
and better changed, Our social services are better. We have
a whole class of medications that we all take for
granted now that didn't exist until the nineteen nineties, and
on and on and on and so all of the
solutions are to think about how do we do as
(38:23):
much of the best things on both sides. When you
have somebody who is a serial offender, the person who's
been arrested, who's a thousand times, that's the example. I've
seen rap sheets of people who arrested one hundred times
since is somebody law enforcement needs to take more seriously.
There's just no question about that. But those are a
small number of people. We have a whole set of
(38:44):
evidence that we can use for people who are just
engaging in crime because they have some other underlying problem
that is solvable. And so when you hear a politician
tell you it's one thing or the other, you don't
know what the right answer is, but you know they're
wrong because the real answer is that it's some combination
of both.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's not as simple as that. Nothing is really black
or white. So let's go to Gregory, who's in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Gregory, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 18 (39:12):
Go ahead, hey, Derek Jeremy, thank you so much for
your show. I appreciate it very much. You are a
various suite interviewer.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
If you will, thank you.
Speaker 11 (39:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 18 (39:24):
I have, as I's told the car, I d screener,
just recently out of jail, and I have a different
perspective of crime out of necessity. And what I was
around for fifty eight days was people that committed crimes,
(39:50):
basically who did themselves into jail because that's the only
option they had.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
They committed crimes that they can be in jail because
because why then they get a they get a place
to sleep, they get a meal.
Speaker 18 (40:03):
Is that what you're saying, they get three hots in
the in the cod Yes, sir mm. And it's it's unfortunate,
but it's reality. And I can only pay that told
me that that I'm a college graduate and interpersonal communications
(40:27):
is my my degree. So I just sat and I listened,
and I talked to older, I talked to younger. And
I don't know who the solution is by any means,
but it was intriguing to be and listen to never
mind the braggonicious things that happened between criminals. But when
(40:48):
I was able to break them off as a fifty
three year old man one on one and actually hear
their story. It was intriguing because they committed a crime
that they could go to jail because that's the only
security they had in their life.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Hmmm, well, I appreciate you calling in, uh Gregory, Yeah, no,
go ahead, Michael, did you want to ask him.
Speaker 9 (41:10):
A question institutionalization. They have been institutionalized, and there's a
they have a comfort level with the institution more than
they do out on their own.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Hmm yeah, absolutely, Oh I lost. I lost.
Speaker 9 (41:26):
Gregory's not very common, but it does happen to some people.
And look, I explained when I used to talk to
my officers about thinking about crime and how we think
about the crime and the behavior, not the person.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
And so we want to be tough on.
Speaker 9 (41:41):
The bad behavior, the unwanted behavior, not hard on the person.
And that's where some cops and some departments have lost
their way. And I would say, think about the person
who says, I still because I feed my starving addiction,
I still because I feed my starving family. Like both
of those are wrong, Both of those are beat But
(42:01):
you know, people are sometimes reduced to two bad choices.
But that's an issue that is beyond them that we
as people, we as governments and society have to do
a better job to not let people get in those predicaments.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Commissioner Harrison actually had a follow up on that one.
So a lot of our writers are asking about the
connection between crime and the economy, which you just kind
of touched on. Does that connection exist for you or
are there sort of circumstances where you can like anticipate
spikes and crime in your cities.
Speaker 9 (42:29):
Well, you know, as both a practitioner and an academic,
having learned it and taught it, I think there is
a correlation between crime and the economy. For example, things
like robbery. Carjackings are more violent robberies, but robbery is
a byproduct of poverty, and like carjackings and auto thefts,
(42:50):
that's a byproduct of poverty.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
You know.
Speaker 9 (42:53):
I was fortunate, Some of us are fortunate. I was
able to allow my son to drive my car. Later
bought him a car, but he had and we knew
other people who didn't have a car, their parents were
never going to be able to get them one. They
stole a car so that they could have the same
opportunity to drive and go places and do things. So
there are people who choose illegitimate means to accomplish a goal,
(43:16):
just like some of us choose a legitimate means to
accomplish a goal, even though that illegitimate.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
Means is a crime.
Speaker 9 (43:21):
And so there are correlations between crime and poverty, which
means there's a correlation between crime and economics.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, Marie is calling from Hartford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Hi, Marie, go ahead with your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
Hello.
Speaker 21 (43:36):
Hello. What I wanted to say is that I'm truly
in the middle, meaning I was brought up in blue
collar and affluent suburbs, and I've lived in the city
for a long time. I have an extensive history working
with people involved in homelessness, incarceration, addiction, things like that
(44:00):
and related to health. So my major pet peede is
that many many people who never step themselves inside the city.
They they get excited by talking about how dangerous places are.
They couldn't tell you one street from another, you know,
(44:21):
they don't realize that sometimes the street is really congested
because that's the commercial center of that neighborhood. And I
just really get annoyed by that, because is there crime
in our city? Yes? Is it better than the eighties
and nineties. I would say yes, but I just don't
(44:43):
like people passing ignorance when they have not experienced it.
They think there's no culture in the city. They think that,
you know, they have no idea about what people are
doing in their churches and in their schools and the
talents the children have. So my solution is, it's very
(45:05):
It's very easy if we we say in America that
we that children are our most most precious thing. Children,
if they were our most precious asset, we would make
sure that every one of them got an excellent education
and that families had stable housing. We don't really want that.
(45:30):
We're not We're not really And in the state, we
just saw that trying to push for more help in
housing for people because Connecticut has the highest highest amount
of wealth and gap between that and poverty. So a
lot of times these am I making it long?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No, no, no, I think we've we've got it, and
we made some really good points, and you gave us
a solution too, which is nice. You answered all the
parts of the question. Michael Harrison, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
Jeremy, I want to just see this.
Speaker 9 (46:01):
To go back to Taliver's point, really quickly, just because
I said there's a correlation between crime and economics, crime
and poverty. That is not saying that poor people are
prone and can make crime will make crime. That is
not the same thing. And I would just want it
to be very clear about that, because while there's a correlation,
it doesn't mean that all people who are poor will
(46:21):
be prone to come make crime, because that's not true.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, I'm going to sneak in one more call and
it's Tanya in Saint Louis. Tanya, go ahead quickly with
your thoughts.
Speaker 22 (46:32):
Absolutely. Hey, I think a great conversation, but I think
we'll really need to focus more on the statistics that
are actually showing that crime stats are decreasing after a.
Speaker 11 (46:41):
Spike during COVID.
Speaker 22 (46:43):
Saint Louis is often at the top list of cities
across the country for crime, property and violent, but statistics
actually show that our crime has been on the decrease.
And focusing on crime without talking about statistics, I fear
keeps the populace worried, nervous instead of actually recognizing that
a lot of good things are happening and that we're
(47:05):
actually improving.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
In this film, Yeah, thank you very much for that
call Tanya, and you know because she's calling it from
Saint Louis. I want to just ask each of you
one one last thing, which is Saint Louis is where
Michael Brown was killed, Michael Harrison, before you got to
the Baltimore Police department, Freddie Garrett Gray was killed, we
had the George Floyd killing.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Has the the idea.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Of trust in law enforcement? Has that been built up?
Do you think back up since those very high profile
police involved killings of people Michael I'll start with you briefly.
Speaker 9 (47:40):
In some places yes, In some places no. You know,
I am the consent to free monitor in Minneapolis and
the answer there's no from community and other places no.
But in many places.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yes, John, What about you? How important is that trust
and do you think it's been built back up?
Speaker 8 (47:57):
I think it's very important. We talk a lot of
about police legitimacy and legal cynicism and the effects that
that has on people's willingness to commit a crime. I
don't think it's I don't think it's changed at all,
and I think it's it's important to understand that it's not.
People's trust in law enforcement is not uniformly distributed. If
you look at people who live in places where there
(48:19):
is a long history of violence and there's a lot
of accumulated trauma there, trust in police is very low
and it's very stable at very low levels, and these
police involved shootings don't make it worse and then it
doesn't get better. Where it goes up and down a
lot is really in the middle right where we're reacting
to these stories, and that's you know, that's important that
(48:41):
people are engaged and they respond to these to these incidents,
and we try to affect policy, But the people who
we really should care about are the people who live
in poverty, who are experiencing this every day, have low
trust in police and making investments there where they were
really treating them in a human way and trying to
solve their problems of taking the violence seriously. That's the
only way to restore that trust. And that's because that's
(49:02):
where the crime is. That's really the most important part
of that indicator.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
A great note to end on that, I want to
thank my guests, John Roman, Senior, following the Economics, Justice,
and Society Department at the National Opinion Research Center at
the University of Chicago and former Baltimore and New Orleans
Police Chief Michael Harrison. Thank you so much to both
of you, Thank you for having me. Thanks thanks to
our amazing callers as well. Don't Forget the Middle is available
as a podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the
(49:28):
iHeart Apple wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Our next episode drops in a few days.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's an episode of our weekly podcast Extra one thing
Trump did about the cancelation of temporary protective status for
migrants from certain countries. And next week on the Middle,
we're going to be back here asking you whether the
reindustrialized America that President Trump seems to want is possible anymore.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
As always, you can call in at eight four four
four Middle. That's eight four four four sixty four.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
Three three five three.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
You can also reach out at Listen to the Middle
dot com, where you can also sign up for our
free weekly newsletter and support us with a text DEDUCTIBLEK contribution.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Book Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmisdas, John Barthona Kadeshler,
and Brandon Condritz. Our technical director is Steve Mork. I'm
Jeremy Hobson. I'll talk to you next week.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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