A leading scholar is presenting quantifiable evidence of a nationwide "Minneapolis Effect" in the wake of the anti-police protests in response to the death of George Floyd.
The rise in crime correlating with a reduction of proactive policing was dubbed the "Ferguson Effect" by the Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in the Missouri city.
Now, Paul G. Cassell, a professor of law at the University of Utah, is describing the recent phenomenon following the May 25 death of Floyd in Minneapolis in a Wall Street Journal column titled "Homicide Stats Show 'Minneapolis Effect,'" noted Powerline blogger Scott Johnson.
Cassell points out that before the anti-police protests began, Chicago had almost the same number of homicides as in 2019.
On May 31, 18 people were murdered in Chicago, the city’s most violent day in six decades. July was the city's most violent month in 28 years. As of Sept. 1, murder is up 52% for the year, according to Chicago Police Department data.
The spike is seen in many other cities across the country.
Researchers have identified a "structural break" in homicide numbers that began last week of May, Cassell noted. Significantly, trends for most other major crime categories have remained generally stable or moved slightly downward.
Cassell estimates, if his thesis is corrrect, that reduced proactive policing resulted in about 710 more homicides and 2,800 more shootings in June and July alone.
"The victims of these crimes are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic, often living in disadvantaged and low-income neighborhoods," he pointed out.
His 68-page paper can be read here.
Cassell wrote that law enforcement agencies "have been forced to divert resources from normal policing to patrolling demonstrations."
"And even as the anti-police protests have abated, police officers have scaled back on proactive or officer-initiated law enforcement, such as street stops and other forms of policing designed to prevent firearms crimes," he said.
Ferguson Effect 2.0
The Manhattan Institute's Mac Donald wrote about the "Minneapolis Effect" on July 1.
She cited a Minneapolis Star Tribune analysis showing shootings in Minneapolis had more than doubled this year compared to last. Nearly half of all those shootings had occurred since May 25.
"Today’s violent-crime increase – call it Ferguson Effect 2.0 or the Minneapolis Effect – has come on with a speed and magnitude that make Ferguson 1.0 seem tranquil," she wrote.
She said the death of Floyd "has now spurred an outpouring of contempt against the pillars of law and order that has no precedent in American history."
"Every day, another mainstream institution – from McDonald’s to Harvard – denounces the police, claiming without evidence that law enforcement is a threat to black lives."
She explained that Michael Brown's death in August 2014 -- which was found by a jury and by Barack Obama and Eric Holder's Justice Department to be the fault of the black teen -- triggered local riots and "a national narrative about lethally racist police."
"Officers backed off proactive policing in minority neighborhoods, having been told that such discretionary enforcement was racially oppressive," she said.
"By early 2015, the resulting spike in shootings and homicides had become patent and would lead to an additional 2,000 black homicide victims in 2015 and 2016, compared with 2014 numbers."
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