I would like to point out two things. Quoting crime statistics of Austin from 2 decades ago is a moot point when, from last I read, aprox 100 people a day move to Austin. More people=more crime. Second, the issue with a lack of police in these "progressive" cities is that "progressives" (liberals, whatever you want to label them as) are most likely anti-gun and therefore are unequipped to deal with the lack of "police protection". If you want to live in a city free from police you have to be willing and able to protect yourself, family and property first and foremost.
Welcome to the party pal. I find your continued description as a "progressive" mystifying.. Given the train wreck that you describe, how in the hell can you continue to believe in progressive nonsense? Real people are dying as a result of progressive policies. Or are you one those people that believe in communism because "real communism" has never been tried? When will you wake up?
As police shootings continue to dominate the social narrative, Global Initiative for Boys & Men analyzed over 6-years of police-shooting-deaths and 5-years of crime data to help better understand the intersectionality of sex, race, and crime in police-shooting-deaths. One of our primary sources, the Washington Post (WAPO database), focuses solely on police-shooting-deaths. These deaths remain a predominately male occurrence ,as males account for 96% of deaths and females account for 4% of deaths. What often goes unmentioned is those killed were armed and/or attacking an officer at least 94% of the time and actually more. https://www.gibm.us/news/police-shootings-and-violent-crime
Obviously the headline is out there, but the article actually makes good points. It’s not about math though, it’s about the society in which math exists.
Well said. My husband and I (20-something techies) left Oakland after ANTIFA/BLM repeatedly marched through our neighborhood in the middle of the night yelling things like, "Liar Liar gentrifiers, black people used to live here" (even though our neighborhood was very diverse) and then throwing trash cans, metal bars and fireworks at our apartment building and others on the block until about 100 Oakland PD officers in swat gear forced them out. WAY TOO SCARY! And there's many other instances we experienced in Oakland that were jarring, like seeing someone get murdered in a freeway shooting and seeing the daily rampant "open drug scenes" as Schellenberger described in San Fransicko. This is not a healthy well-functioning society when people live in constant fear of being harassed, mugged, raped or murdered. And that's why we both moved to Texas and I have no intention of ever living in or near a progressive city - their policies are just plain terrible and dangerous. I prefer safety and order over chaos and anarchy and I now lean center-right politically because of what I saw after living in Oakland. I truly believe this "defund the police", no bail, allowing homeless and drug scenes on every city street will come to an end - people are scared and over this failed experiment.
I'm sure Texas will welcome you with open arms so long as you don't try to repeat the policy failures that led you to flee Oakland, and it sounds like you won't. Enjoy freedom, and please, please, maintain it.
The picture of the millennials in the store front says it all to me - amidst the chaos and destruction there exists an apathy to it all, a desire to be a part of a “movement,” and to have something of perceived value to post on social media. The actual outcomes of their actions are afterthoughts - the burned buildings, looted stores, and gutted public safety systems are secondary to some sort of weird fixation on tearing down that which they feel is toxic, western, racist, imperialist, etc. without coming to the table with any real solutions on how to actually elevate the communities they claim to care about. What’s to blame? Lack of religion? Social media? Income inequality? Cynical political expediency? Maybe some cocktail of them all…thanks for the article!
I read this article and wanted to care. Unfortunately I have lived in California for 30 years and have watched my city and community have more crime and less civility every year. My compassion is worn thin and my inside voice quietly says you get what you vote for good and hard. After my business was broken into for the fourth time, this year am moving to RED state and not looking back, nor debating my liberal friends.
Tearing everything down NOW! without a plan or the will to transition incrementally to a better way is an infantile way of behaving. When I speak out I find myself at the bottom of a pile of cult-like zombies telling me to shut up.
The point at which the author Leighton Woodhouse, proclaimed, "progressives - I count myself as one of them....", I stopped reading the article. Progressives are the crazies who are making life miserable for so many in the name of Marx & socialism. These people have nothing to offer - absolutely nothing to offer modern society. His article is a joke, a lie.
Here's why you should keep reading - the nanny anecdote is part of a larger point about how everyone living in Oakland now has either been personally affected, or knows people within their personal network/circle who has been impacted by the skyrocketing crime rate:
"The push to defund the police has typically been more popular in higher income areas of progressive cities like Oakland—areas where crime and violence are more of an abstraction than a daily reality. Not surprisingly, the two Oakland city council members who last summer voted against reducing the mayor’s proposed budget for the police represent the poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. But now, in Oakland and San Francisco, the crime wave is hitting the affluent neighborhoods, too, as well as the spaces that everyone shares—like the freeways and the Bay Bridge toll plaza.
As the surge in violence has become less theoretical to white, middle class residents, Oakland’s mayor has been afforded the political space to push to restore the funds that were cut from the police budget. Suddenly, the nihilistic ideology of the progressive activist class has lost the cachet it was imbued with during the hot summer of 2020."
And I need Biff to come to that realization years too late? And only when the nanny is affected? And then cry Izod tears over what he and his ilk have done in a city and state that has squandered an unimaginable advantage?
Yeah, no. Spare me, Leighton, and take some responsibility for what you have created, but just lost control of. Getting a little too close to home.
I will say that this article isn't meant for you. It's meant for progressives who still haven't pulled their head out of the sand when it comes to less policing = more crime. It's intended as a wakeup call for the "so woke they're asleep" crowd.
Lol glad you clarified. Here I thought you were a progressive telling him to quit his bitching about a little crime spree forcing him to look for a new babysitter.
Orwellianism (which calls itself "progressivism") is a sickness of the mind. There are no outcomes from it that are not bad. Adding more police to fight the toxicity it generates is treating the symptoms. A dystopia where strict law enforcement polices awful people is hardly a win.
Way to be the stereotypical progressive who doesn't actually give a shit about poor people. I see you copied/pasted this comment about a dozen times, so I'll take the high road and only post it once.
Serious question: what, exactly, is so "progressive" about giving criminals the upper hand?
My family moved to this country when I was 10 years old, and we lived in Queens NYC during the 70's/80's. I got jumped on the street more times than I can remember, and walked around with a can of mace in one pocket, and a sharp object in the other. My high school friend was murdered in cold blood on a street corner in our neighborhood. I will never forget seeing him in the casket when I was 16 years old.
Now that NYC seems to be in a race to get back to those crime levels, I see "progressives" virtue signaling to death about how "it's not so bad as it was back then, cos they were there" (or some other bullshit defense of the current crime surge). Why are they defending crime? No one wants to live like that now, even if you survived the 70's/80's. It was shit then, and it's shit now. Defending it doesn't make anyone look tough or "progressive" the way they think it does. It just makes them look like the idiots they really are.
There's nothing cute about getting shot, stabbed, slashed, sucker punched, or shoved in front of a moving train. If the "progressives" lived in my old neighborhood, they might have a better appreciation of what people really deal with in poorer communities 🤔
and during the same period the prison population went from 500,000 to 1,750,000.
Criminals in jail..crime goes down.
The “Butterfield effect” (sometimes called the ‘Butterfield fallacy” or the “Butterfield paradoz") is named after former New York (NY) Times journalist Fox Butterfield. Butterfield wrote the Times article on November 8. 2004 that was titled “Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates.” The article argued that, because of low crime rates, the high inmate population should have been reduced. However, the paradox or fallacy not recognized by Butterfield is that those crime rates might have been low precisely because violent criminals were locked up.
Because the (legitimate) problem of police brutality has been blown way, way out of proportion, removing the police presence, even if it has the side effect of "giving criminals the upper hand", is still seen as contributing a net improvement for these communities. Needless to say, progressives didn't bother to consult anyone actually living in those communities before going full steam ahead with this Defund experiment.
I stayed the night in Oakland in 2019. I’m English and was living in LA at the time and I had NO idea what it was or what it was like, hadn’t read a thing about it. I just booked a flight and an AirBnB and went. I was terrified. Cannot believe it’s actually got worse subsequently. Truly a scary place.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
I would like to point out two things. Quoting crime statistics of Austin from 2 decades ago is a moot point when, from last I read, aprox 100 people a day move to Austin. More people=more crime. Second, the issue with a lack of police in these "progressive" cities is that "progressives" (liberals, whatever you want to label them as) are most likely anti-gun and therefore are unequipped to deal with the lack of "police protection". If you want to live in a city free from police you have to be willing and able to protect yourself, family and property first and foremost.
Welcome to the party pal. I find your continued description as a "progressive" mystifying.. Given the train wreck that you describe, how in the hell can you continue to believe in progressive nonsense? Real people are dying as a result of progressive policies. Or are you one those people that believe in communism because "real communism" has never been tried? When will you wake up?
As police shootings continue to dominate the social narrative, Global Initiative for Boys & Men analyzed over 6-years of police-shooting-deaths and 5-years of crime data to help better understand the intersectionality of sex, race, and crime in police-shooting-deaths. One of our primary sources, the Washington Post (WAPO database), focuses solely on police-shooting-deaths. These deaths remain a predominately male occurrence ,as males account for 96% of deaths and females account for 4% of deaths. What often goes unmentioned is those killed were armed and/or attacking an officer at least 94% of the time and actually more. https://www.gibm.us/news/police-shootings-and-violent-crime
You have too many numbers in your comment. You must know.... math is racist. https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Math+Is+Racist&qpvt=math+is+racist&FORM=EWRE
Obviously the headline is out there, but the article actually makes good points. It’s not about math though, it’s about the society in which math exists.
Well said. My husband and I (20-something techies) left Oakland after ANTIFA/BLM repeatedly marched through our neighborhood in the middle of the night yelling things like, "Liar Liar gentrifiers, black people used to live here" (even though our neighborhood was very diverse) and then throwing trash cans, metal bars and fireworks at our apartment building and others on the block until about 100 Oakland PD officers in swat gear forced them out. WAY TOO SCARY! And there's many other instances we experienced in Oakland that were jarring, like seeing someone get murdered in a freeway shooting and seeing the daily rampant "open drug scenes" as Schellenberger described in San Fransicko. This is not a healthy well-functioning society when people live in constant fear of being harassed, mugged, raped or murdered. And that's why we both moved to Texas and I have no intention of ever living in or near a progressive city - their policies are just plain terrible and dangerous. I prefer safety and order over chaos and anarchy and I now lean center-right politically because of what I saw after living in Oakland. I truly believe this "defund the police", no bail, allowing homeless and drug scenes on every city street will come to an end - people are scared and over this failed experiment.
I'm sure Texas will welcome you with open arms so long as you don't try to repeat the policy failures that led you to flee Oakland, and it sounds like you won't. Enjoy freedom, and please, please, maintain it.
Absolutely! Freedom isn't free.
The picture of the millennials in the store front says it all to me - amidst the chaos and destruction there exists an apathy to it all, a desire to be a part of a “movement,” and to have something of perceived value to post on social media. The actual outcomes of their actions are afterthoughts - the burned buildings, looted stores, and gutted public safety systems are secondary to some sort of weird fixation on tearing down that which they feel is toxic, western, racist, imperialist, etc. without coming to the table with any real solutions on how to actually elevate the communities they claim to care about. What’s to blame? Lack of religion? Social media? Income inequality? Cynical political expediency? Maybe some cocktail of them all…thanks for the article!
I read this article and wanted to care. Unfortunately I have lived in California for 30 years and have watched my city and community have more crime and less civility every year. My compassion is worn thin and my inside voice quietly says you get what you vote for good and hard. After my business was broken into for the fourth time, this year am moving to RED state and not looking back, nor debating my liberal friends.
Tearing everything down NOW! without a plan or the will to transition incrementally to a better way is an infantile way of behaving. When I speak out I find myself at the bottom of a pile of cult-like zombies telling me to shut up.
The point at which the author Leighton Woodhouse, proclaimed, "progressives - I count myself as one of them....", I stopped reading the article. Progressives are the crazies who are making life miserable for so many in the name of Marx & socialism. These people have nothing to offer - absolutely nothing to offer modern society. His article is a joke, a lie.
When you think of progressives just substitute the term "Eloi." Pretty much tells you all you need to know.
"Our Nanny's living room was sprayed with bullets" Leighton Woodhouse, freelance journalist and Documentary Filmmaker!!!
Of course. You know, the nanny.
Horrors! Leighton Woodhouse is living dangerously, for crying out loud. The Nanny!!! Perilous!
Really, why in the world would I read past the headline and author bio?
When the IDW jumps the shark. You can't make this stuff up.
Here's why you should keep reading - the nanny anecdote is part of a larger point about how everyone living in Oakland now has either been personally affected, or knows people within their personal network/circle who has been impacted by the skyrocketing crime rate:
"The push to defund the police has typically been more popular in higher income areas of progressive cities like Oakland—areas where crime and violence are more of an abstraction than a daily reality. Not surprisingly, the two Oakland city council members who last summer voted against reducing the mayor’s proposed budget for the police represent the poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. But now, in Oakland and San Francisco, the crime wave is hitting the affluent neighborhoods, too, as well as the spaces that everyone shares—like the freeways and the Bay Bridge toll plaza.
As the surge in violence has become less theoretical to white, middle class residents, Oakland’s mayor has been afforded the political space to push to restore the funds that were cut from the police budget. Suddenly, the nihilistic ideology of the progressive activist class has lost the cachet it was imbued with during the hot summer of 2020."
And I need Biff to come to that realization years too late? And only when the nanny is affected? And then cry Izod tears over what he and his ilk have done in a city and state that has squandered an unimaginable advantage?
Yeah, no. Spare me, Leighton, and take some responsibility for what you have created, but just lost control of. Getting a little too close to home.
I will say that this article isn't meant for you. It's meant for progressives who still haven't pulled their head out of the sand when it comes to less policing = more crime. It's intended as a wakeup call for the "so woke they're asleep" crowd.
Lol glad you clarified. Here I thought you were a progressive telling him to quit his bitching about a little crime spree forcing him to look for a new babysitter.
Orwellianism (which calls itself "progressivism") is a sickness of the mind. There are no outcomes from it that are not bad. Adding more police to fight the toxicity it generates is treating the symptoms. A dystopia where strict law enforcement polices awful people is hardly a win.
The toxicity itself must be addressed.
Oh dear me, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, what are we to do?
From 1980 to 2020, property crime dropped 3395.1 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, larceny-theft dropped 1769 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, violent crime dropped 198.1 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, burglary dropped 1369.9 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, aggravated assault dropped 18.8 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, motor vehicle theft dropped 256.200 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, robbery dropped 177.25 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, murders dropped 3.7 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, rapes increased by 1.6 per hundred thousand.
..and the total jail/prison population went from approx 500,000 to 1,750,000. Can you see the correlation or is it just me?
Way to be the stereotypical progressive who doesn't actually give a shit about poor people. I see you copied/pasted this comment about a dozen times, so I'll take the high road and only post it once.
Nationwide statistics hide local trends.
Politicizing law enforcement is never a good idea, regardless of whether the stated goal is tough on crime or soft on those accused of crime.
Serious question: what, exactly, is so "progressive" about giving criminals the upper hand?
My family moved to this country when I was 10 years old, and we lived in Queens NYC during the 70's/80's. I got jumped on the street more times than I can remember, and walked around with a can of mace in one pocket, and a sharp object in the other. My high school friend was murdered in cold blood on a street corner in our neighborhood. I will never forget seeing him in the casket when I was 16 years old.
Now that NYC seems to be in a race to get back to those crime levels, I see "progressives" virtue signaling to death about how "it's not so bad as it was back then, cos they were there" (or some other bullshit defense of the current crime surge). Why are they defending crime? No one wants to live like that now, even if you survived the 70's/80's. It was shit then, and it's shit now. Defending it doesn't make anyone look tough or "progressive" the way they think it does. It just makes them look like the idiots they really are.
There's nothing cute about getting shot, stabbed, slashed, sucker punched, or shoved in front of a moving train. If the "progressives" lived in my old neighborhood, they might have a better appreciation of what people really deal with in poorer communities 🤔
Oh dear me, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, what are we to do?
From 1980 to 2020, property crime dropped 3395.1 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, larceny-theft dropped 1769 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, violent crime dropped 198.1 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, burglary dropped 1369.9 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, aggravated assault dropped 18.8 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, motor vehicle theft dropped 256.200 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, robbery dropped 177.25 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, murders dropped 3.7 per hundred thousand.
From 1980 to 2020, rapes increased by 1.6 per hundred thousand.
and during the same period the prison population went from 500,000 to 1,750,000.
Criminals in jail..crime goes down.
The “Butterfield effect” (sometimes called the ‘Butterfield fallacy” or the “Butterfield paradoz") is named after former New York (NY) Times journalist Fox Butterfield. Butterfield wrote the Times article on November 8. 2004 that was titled “Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates.” The article argued that, because of low crime rates, the high inmate population should have been reduced. However, the paradox or fallacy not recognized by Butterfield is that those crime rates might have been low precisely because violent criminals were locked up.
The assumption is that police brutality dwarfs crime as a problem in these communities - check out this hot take https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/26/us-police-killings-black-americans-crimes-against-humanity
Because the (legitimate) problem of police brutality has been blown way, way out of proportion, removing the police presence, even if it has the side effect of "giving criminals the upper hand", is still seen as contributing a net improvement for these communities. Needless to say, progressives didn't bother to consult anyone actually living in those communities before going full steam ahead with this Defund experiment.
I stayed the night in Oakland in 2019. I’m English and was living in LA at the time and I had NO idea what it was or what it was like, hadn’t read a thing about it. I just booked a flight and an AirBnB and went. I was terrified. Cannot believe it’s actually got worse subsequently. Truly a scary place.
Wouldn’t recommend it for a ‘romantic night away’