Rafael Mangual has this article in the City Journal regarding almost-candidate Michael Bloomberg following the lead of candidate Joe Biden and apologizing for past correct positions on criminal justice.
Bloomberg's apology (again, like Biden's) ignores the role that proactive policing played in driving down crime. By exercising their authority to initiate contacts with citizens--in some cases, by legally detaining, questioning, and, yes, frisking those whom they reasonably believed to be involved in crimes and armed--NYPD officers significantly deterred crime in the city's most troubled precincts (which had large minority populations). This was the finding of a 2014 study, which addressed an important limitation in the earlier assessments of stop-and-frisk. Those assessments focused on citywide crime numbers, though many of the NYPD's stops were concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods. With a more "microlevel" analysis, the 2014 study found that NYPD stops-and-frisks had significant, albeit "modest," effects on crime.
Presidential candidates routinely walk back or adjust certain policy positions they have taken in the past, but Bloomberg's apology for proactive policing sets a new (and dismal) standard, since his sterling record on crime-fighting is the hallmark of his three terms as mayor of New York. His renunciation of that record should remove any doubt about where the Democratic Party's base stands on issues of criminal justice.
Leave a comment