We See Nothing
The Atlantic has an interesting article on how moving people out of crime ridden neighborhoods has moved the crime with them as well. In the whole piece, not one single commentator mentioned the rhinoceros in the room. Drug prohibition. The American price support system for criminals. Oh it gets mentioned in passing. The usual "drug addicts are bad" kind of stuff is in there. No policy prescriptions however.
The answer the policy people prescribe is more police. That is the ticket. Subsidies for the gangs on one hand. More police to fight them on the other.
I guess things have not gotten bad enough in the good neighborhoods for the policy elites to notice. Give it time.
H/T Instapundit
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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3 comments:
Maybe they should turn the police into drug dealers. They would not have to risk their lives trying to fight the laws of supply and demand yet they would get more money than just lobbying for more cops to fight crime and increase labour bargaining power.
Maybe I am not completely serious but prohibition creates a situation in some places (Mexico, certain large cities) where fighting corruption on the force is as complex as fighting the gangs.
The least they could do is decriminalize (rather than legalize) it and role the funds into addiction medical research (which is showing significant potential) and treatment.
Give it time.
Any solution will take time, and the longer we wait with failed policies, the longer that reversal will take.
Assuming the WOD provides price supports for the supply side, I'd really like to see a budget breakdown of income and expenditures for a typical "household" of drug users contrasting food, rent, and other essentials against their budget for drugs. Since it's fair to assume that any shortfalls are covered by crime, we'd begin to see what price level of decriminalized drug availability would begin to reduce the real crime rates.
I haven't read the linked article.
I doubt there's any insight to be gained over just examining the anecdotal evidence I've been watching for over twenty years.
Hmmmm.
This is almost the same dynamic that moved gangs from the inner cities to rural areas. Families living in the inner cities sent their kids to live in safer homes in rural America.
Of course these rotten gang bastards then brought gang membership and violence along with them.
This tells me that the inner city families intentionally blinded themselves to the reality that their little kid was a prime reason for the violence in the first place.
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