It seems like just a year ago that the editors of the WaPo were telling us that homicide rate was not really rising and that it wasn’t a problem. Now, apparently, it’s a problem:
THE NATION’S homicide rate has risen sharply in the past two years after a decades-long decline, and a record share of the murders, nearly three-quarters, are now committed with firearms. That has prompted some officials to endorse get-tough policies that, although politically popular, are ill-conceived and as likely to do harm as good.
Virginia is a focal point in the emerging debate over responses to the homicide spike, because candidates in the recent statewide political campaigns talked about it and because of a program implemented in Richmond in the midst of a previous surge in murders 20 years ago. That program, known as Project Exile, targeted gun criminals by diverting them from state to federal courts, where they received mandatory-minimum sentences in out-of-state prisons and were usually ineligible for bail.
but there is no quick fix:
Mandatory-minimum sentencing regimes are despised by many judges as a one-size-fits-all approach to crime-fighting; the late chief justice William Rehnquist was among those who denounced them. Politicians looking for quick fixes in the face of rising crime rates should examine the evidence first.
Comparing Richmond’s homicide rate with New York’s is specious. Sad as it is to point out, urban homicide rates are correlated with percentage black population. Richmond’s black population is over 50%; New York’s is 25%. Their respective black populations are different in other ways. New York has many more Africans and Caribbeans, for example.
I agree that there is no quick fix and I doubt that mandatory minimum sentences will do much to curb the problem. The problems in the black communities of Richmond, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Chicago have been 80 years or more in the making. They won’t be solved over night. IMO there will need to be more opportunity and much better law enforcement in the neighborhoods where the problem is most severe.
There must be social changes as well. More must be asked of young black men and they must be able to come through.
Oh, well. They say that the first step on the road to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. They’ve now acknowledged that there is a homicide problem. Maybe in a year or so they’ll summon up the courage to admit the nature of the problem.
