Black Lives Matter has been eerily quiet since Trump took office. That doesn’t mean their impact on the country has been null. The raucous they caused for more than two years and with the frustratingly staunch support of Obama left a mark on this country.
Social justice warriors will say they made us better. Statistics will contradict that belief. Let’s look at the example California has set and quantify the real damage done by this movement.
Rising Crime
Since 2014, California has seen unprecedented increases in violent crime rates. Los Angeles is leading the crime wave, but across the whole state homicides are up 24 percent, and violent crime as a whole is up 13.4 percent.
Before the turnaround, these crimes had been in decline for more than a decade. The final tallies for 2016 have not been released yet, but all tracking so far shows that the trend line held its increase for the year.
While the overall levels of crime are not back to their early 80s peak, this has been the most significant spike in overall and violent crime in more than 20 years. In terms of sheer numbers, it is a rather sudden and unexpected change, and it is severe enough to be a major point of concern for the state.
Arrests
The liberal trolls reading this are about to remind us that correlation does not imply causation, but even with that helpful warning, these numbers point to some obvious truths. Let’s start with arrest rates. In 2015, they fell by 25 percent. If that number looks alarmingly close to the rise in homicide (24 percent), it isn’t a mistake.
This drop in arrests is a total of 400,000 fewer than the previous year, and it is the lowest total number of arrests in roughly 50 years (for reference, the population of California 50 years ago was less than half of what it is now).
So, while we acknowledge that the statistical correlation alone can’t identify the cause for changing crime rates, common sense dictates that a sharp drop in arrests is easily linked to a crime epidemic.
Reasons for Change
Ok. Fewer arrests are being made and the result is more crime. That’s pretty straightforward, but how did it come to this? There are a few leading reasons for the arrest decline. The first is legal changes. More than a few crimes have been downgraded — most relating to drug possession.
While police officers can still make arrests, the inability to stick any significant charges makes the process less worthwhile. Let’s paint a little perspective on this note. Violent crime rose sharply in the 70s and peaked in the early 80s (this was true in California and across the U.S.).
Nationally, laws related to the war on drugs were passed and it empowered police to make arrests that led to significant prison time, even when the accused weren’t caught in the act of a violent crime. The result was a dramatic and historic drop in violent crime.
In modern times, as people have forgotten that history, those drug policies have been deemed racist and are largely being overturned. Criminals feel emboldened as a result and violent crime has returned.
Still, the legal changes are only part of the story. The other comes in the form of police reform, and it is the primary reason we’re having this discussion. California, in its progressive wisdom, has led the way in sweeping reform that attempts to appease the Black Lives Matter narrative.
They have made statewide policy changes that make it more difficult for police to make arrests, and they have doubled down by promoting an ideology of reduced aggressiveness. Despite the clear evidence of tactics being successful for more than 20 years, they are abandoning the notion of public safety for the sake of political correctness.
The final nail on the coffin for successful policing is motivation. Police are under greater scrutiny than ever, despite being handicapped in their procedures. Their job is increasingly difficult and they get ever more hate for going to work. At the end of the day, they are still people, and the human element is prone to the effects of demotivation. Despite their professionalism, it inevitably hurts their performance.
Why is crime suddenly rising in California? The people and government have attacked their police force, stripped them of their most reliable methods and worn down their spirits. How many will have to die before effective measures will be reinstated?
~ American Liberty Report
