Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

When they blame spikes in crime on root causes that they can’t control.

In Oakland, we’ve had a wave of brazen, armed robberies of restaurants in areas that are the core of Oakland’s night and commercial life. They’ve been going on for about a month, and police seem helpless to stop them. Volunteer crime patrols from other parts of California have even moved into Oakland in an effort to prevent the robberies. So what does Ron Dellums say when confronted with yet another should-be-career-ending crisis? Blames the economy:

“The desperation of these crimes speaks to the broader issue of where we are in terms of this economy,” the Quiet Mayor said. “When people become this desperate, they take desperate acts and we have to do everything we can to get to the root causes of crime and violence.”

Conor Friesdorf, writing at Culture11’s editorial blog The Confabulator, passes along a similar anecdote from the District:

Former D.C. police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr. said that expectations for big-city police chiefs are unrealistic. Crime is rooted in poverty, inadequate schools and dysfunctional families, creating deep problems no police department can cure. “People think police are the ultimate answer to crime and violence. For me, it is building a crime-resistant neighborhood, to mobilize communities to take responsibility.”

The DC example may be even worse: it’s a former police chief talking! I understand if mayors don’t’ want to be seen as responsible for crime, but police chiefs? That’s just disgraceful. Conor points us to a City Journal article by Heather McDonald chronicling how former NYPD  have fanned out across the country to run other cities’ police departments. Shockingly, they don’t have the attitude that they’re helpless in the face of crime. Good police work can reduce crime, this is something that nearly all social scientists who study the issue accept as true. If only our mayors would listen to them.