Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Thursday, March 09, 2023

DC's crime bill overturned by Congress

 -- "Senate votes to block controversial DC crime bill," CNN

I haven't written a blog entry on this, just comments, and comments on Washington Post article.  While the revision of DC's criminal code, in some quarters the changes were perceived to be more lenient, in the face of a significant rise in the city's murder rate, crime involving guns, car jackings, and continued escalation of youth-involved crime.

I write that for the most part, DC's legislators have it pretty good.  They are a city-state, with control over the tax revenues generated within the city, and for the most part, not having the kind of oversight that is typically performed by State Legislatures, which may be quick to preempt local control in favor of corporate and cultural warfare goals.

But the fact is that Congress does have the final authority on approving local legislation, even though the DC Home Rule Act of 1973 pretty much created local control of local governance.

The city's legislators, many of whom lack substantive experience of cities in the period of the 1970s through the 1990s when many were in serious decline, and had problematic public safety, didn't realize that at times they need to manage the narrative and "manage up.'  In this case, how the law would be perceived in the world of public opinion, and the competition between Republicans and Democrats.

This letter to the editor ("The D.C. Council’s crime bill put statehood further out of reach") expresses it pretty well:

I have supported home rule since moving to D.C. in 1974. I proudly wear my “51” hat. But after a 2020 election when perceptions of being soft on crime hurt many Democratic candidates, the D.C. Council’s tone-deaf response was to enact a law that forces its allies to make a choice between supporting home rule or increasing their own electoral vulnerability. Not surprisingly, they are opting for their own survival.

So, rather than attacking President Biden and Congress for likely blocking the D.C. criminal code reform, the D.C. Council should own this fiasco. It might well happen again with the bill allowing illegal immigrants and other noncitizens to vote in local elections. It’s doubtful the council could have come up with any other bill that is more likely to provoke GOP reaction.

Democrats, who lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 election because of crime demonization being particularly effective in Greater New York City, didn't want to be on the wrong side of this issue.  Although there is criticism in some quarters about doing the wrong thing because of politics ("Biden puts reelection over principles with D.C. decision," Washington Post).

When President Biden announced last week that he wouldn't veto a disapproval resolution, the new DC crime bill was toast.

====

FWIW, I find it hard to believe that anyone who lived in DC during the period of great disorder, would ever want a return to those times.  It was terrible, and for me, personally very costly.

My lesson is that the forces of disorder are always pushing, and you cannot yield.

Few people seem to fully grasp that urban revival in the 2000s was sparked by significant public safety improvements.

At the same time, I recognize the problems of police brutality, the carceral state and overpolicing of people of color, warrior policing, etc.

Sadly, the "defund the police" messaging was another lost opportunity to control and shape the narrative, which should have been redefining what public safety means, looks like, and how it is delivered, because criminalization of social problems and having police officers be first responders when they are often not the right choice is not serving American society very well.

-- "The fine line between urban/center city chaos and order," 2020
-- "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented," 2021
-- "Is it too late to change the messaging on "Defund the Police"? How about "Reconstruct Policing"?," 2020
-- "Towards a public safety model that is broader than policing," 2020

Note that my writings on equity and social urbanism come out of a desire to try to break the cycle of urban poverty. Sadly, DC has definitely failed on this dimension.

-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021

Which came out of my experience on grand jury duty in 2013:

In 2013 I was on grand jury duty.  Each jury had a specialization--ours was drugs and guns mostly, but we still dealt with murders, assaults, and other violent crimes.  

The lesson after three months was that DC spends billions of dollars each year--police, emergency services, health and social services, criminal justice, education, etc., in the communities where crime is persistent--just to keep the neighborhoods and people within them at equilibrium/the same--not to improve.

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39 Comments:

At 9:54 AM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11mt0x8/dc_chief_of_police_says_average_homicide_suspect/

 
At 3:07 PM, Anonymous charlie said...

1) You've got two council members who are serious -- Mendleson and Gray. Gray is out with a stroke. Mendleson is terrified of another primary.

The rest are jokes. McDuffie? White? Allen? Nadeau?

Christina Henderson may be serious.

But yeah millennial level stupid with zero ability to understand the world before 1995.


2) It's not a framing issue. It's a substantive one. The DC court system cannot take jury trails on misdemeanor charges.

3) And the reason is we don't have a normal justice system; an intelligent disunion would be that this is a hybrid system where the DC voters don't get a vote on their court system, and that dumping that level on a federal funded Superior court would break it.

And yeah, just bad luck that a sitting D congresswoman was attaceked in her condo elevator on H street by a homeless guy.

Your reddit link is correct DC has operated a catch and release system for years. Don't go to jail until you kill someone.

If you remember, the Mayor office trialed some AI system to identity the top 200 people at risk. We all know their demographics. Of course it was controversial and a joke -- a nice chat with a high level official is going to stop a murder. I think by the end of the experiment one year later something like 50 of people were dead or suspects in murder.


 
At 5:13 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

I never got picked for a petit jury, but yep wrt 2, insane.

Wrt the last paragraph, similar ussues with the youth "justice" system. Although the same problems have existed for decades.

Wrt identifying the most at risk, as you say the issue isn't identification, but doing something. Each probably needs a dedicated team of caseworkers.

 
At 6:45 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/more-seattle-cops-are-needed-to-improve-public-safety-poll-finds/

"More Seattle cops are needed to improve public safety, poll finds"
3/9/2023

With seven of nine positions on the Seattle City Council up for election in November, a new poll gauging the sentiments of likely voters shows homelessness and crime remain top concerns and that nearly 80% of respondents lack confidence in the current council’s approach to improving public safety.

A majority of respondents think Seattle needs more police officers and that the city’s Police Department needs more money to adequately address public safety, according to poll results released Wednesday. Respondents also overwhelmingly support signing bonuses and other incentives to attract new cops, as well as the creation of a public-safety force staffed with unarmed officers to respond to nonviolent incidents and lower-priority 911 calls.

The poll confirmed likely voters think public safety is critical to revitalizing downtown and neighborhood business districts — and that safety needs to be a top priority for elected officials, said Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association.

“For those who are running for local office — or thinking of running — it’s pretty clear that voters are calling for a focused approach and urgent action on public safety,” Scholes said in a statement. ...

Poll respondents were split 51% to 45% over whether SPD has made significant progress on police reform. Asked whether they feel more or less safe in their neighborhoods compared with two years ago, 8% of participants reported feeling more safe, 33% felt about the same and 57% said they felt less safe.

Only 20% of respondents said they felt confident or somewhat confident in the City Council’s approach to public safety, while 79% said they lacked confidence. Thirty-seven percent said they weren’t at all confident in the council’s approach.

Slightly more than half of respondents cited the effects of homelessness as their top safety concern, with crime a primary issue for 23% of respondents and drugs also a concern for 19%. Seventy percent of respondents think Seattle needs more police officers, the poll found.

Poll results show likely voters support police reform, alternatives to traditional policing and hiring more officers, said Rachel Smith, president of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

To read the poll results, visit st.news/safetypoll

 
At 8:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's a blessing that no one on Council can ever be elected to higher office.

 
At 12:53 PM, Anonymous charlie said...

I'm not sure DC would poll the same way.

A lot more poor people in DC, and the peak crazy liberal is the 30-35 year white people.

For what DC is doing:

https://dcist.com/story/23/03/07/dc-gun-violence-roundtables-solutions/

Again big picture is matches your various call for a "marshall plan" but if you look at the granular responses it's all about shoveling more government money into your pocket.

We could go back an look at a developmental rather than re disstrubtion model -- but that is not going to end up well for the population in question.

Any given year, 85% of DC crime can be attributed to probably less than 2000 people.

RE: papering charges. Very related to court structure. AUSAs don't want to risk they career (both from a blowback and also a lost trial) on a weaker case. So they plead them out.

That's why criminals in DC are not afraid of jail -- they know they are not going.

 
At 1:36 PM, Anonymous Richard Layman said...

In the early 90s I was with a womann in Ann Arbor, and thought about moving to Chicago, so I subscribed to Chicago Magazine. Around then they did a story on some of the most crime ridden precincts in the city, and yes, how a handful of people committed a majority of the crimes.

Good point about the survey. Again, a lot of people in DC today don't have experience with the pre-2003 period of disorder. People in Seattle and San Francisco and Portland are experiencing it now, hence the backlash.

 
At 2:07 PM, Anonymous charlie said...

https://twitter.com/sabelward1/status/1536203522609491968


You have to watch the video to get it.

 
At 2:12 PM, Anonymous charlie said...

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/sentence-for-15-year-old-charged-with-shooting-brian-robinson-jr-sparks-outrage?taid=640af518e84f3b0001d9dd66&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter

 
At 11:05 AM, Anonymous Charlie said...

Two separate points:

1) https://slate.com/business/2023/03/rising-crime-broken-windows-policing-revisited.html

It's called Law and Order for reason. also crime and punishment. Again what people like Sabel (who ran against Brianne in Ward 1 and is now an ANC chair) can't step out. Also she ran against Brianne because she thought the BN was too old and didn't have diversity.

2) The previous discussion on small community banks about to get very politicized. And yes the standard, technocratic, democratic answer is roll it into a bigger bank.


Just to give you an idea of the hyperconcetration, SVB was the 14th largest bank in the USA, would have been the 40th largest bank in the EU. Break up the top 5 and you've got a lot of spares.

 
At 12:58 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Sorry about the delay in response. (I do find I am definitely more tired post covid.)

The Sabel Harris item is ironic. That people's sympathy are with the forces of disorder. I wondered why she was running for Council as she seemed but a carbon copy of her opponent.

Again, I call this a type of nullification. That because some cops do really bad things, it negates that there should be a sense of punishment for committing crimes.

2. wrt the youth crime, that's the "problem" with dealing with the youth crime question in a nutshell. The laws were created a long time ago (everywhere, not just DC), and were probably more oriented to kids where mischief got out of hand, sometimes with serious consequences.

Not murders, assaults, car jackings, robbery with assault and violence, gun use.

So the system isn't set up to deal with that. And people's sympathies are still based in the older foundations of the rehabilitative orientation of the youth justice system.

DK if you watched that Krasner series I mentioned (8 episodes). One was on the youth justice system. They brought in a guy to lead who is a leader in the field, focused on rehabilitation. And the people who had been there were more focused on the acts, that there victims, etc.

I mean, I understand and have respect for the Krasner approach.

But again, there is the issue of punishment, recognition of the violence of the act etc. versus misconduct by the police or prosecutors in the past (there was a horrible article in the Inquirer a couple weeks ago about a police detective who routinely sexually assaulted males--witnesses and alleged criminals).

A five year-ish maximum sentence for the dude who robbed the football player AND KILLED A PERSON is wrong.

How we balance the idea of "re-education" and the extreme violence that many of the perpetrating youth engage in is a conundrum.

I know it's not a good look to talk these days about "super predators" but that's what's going on. Eg Contee saying that the average person arrested for murder has 10 previous arrests.

 
At 1:19 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

wrt https://slate.com/business/2023/03/rising-crime-broken-windows-policing-revisited.html

Michelle McArdle is mostly a waste of time, but on this topic a couple years ago she quoted an academician who had been a police officer:

“At some point,” says Peter Moskos of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, “society needs to accept that there is an element of repression — social control — in policing. At some point there are people who need to be policed.”

But yes, disorder freaks people out. Serious disorder, like homeless encampments, property crimes, and hearing about crime. But also lower grade stuff like the maintenance of public spaces and the presence of graffiti.

It's important to distinguish between the two. In any case, like the Council not realizing they have to manage perception and manage up at times, cities need to focus on this a lot.

THIS IS ACTUALLY a big issue in Salt Lake now. I guess there's always been a lot of low level property crime. But there is a lot of homeless encampments because of how the "state" addressed "homelessness." It closed a big shelter, created 3 smaller ones, with fewer total beds than the big shelter, figuring they'd be "solving" the crisis, so that they didn't need as many beds, not even thinking about a future rise in demand.

The result, lots of homeless encampments in the city. And the takeover of parts of at least two signature parks. (I was really hard core when we had an incursion in the park I am on the board of. "Compassion" was the general sentiment. I was if we don't respond it will only get worse.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCity/comments/11fpmh5/what_happened_to_liberty_park

2. So the article is right in a way, managing disorder versus managing crime, and wrong for exactly the same reason.

The Giuliani era wasn't focused on disorder conditions as much as criminals. The thing is to focus on both.

this is why the rearticulation of what public safety means and how to do it is so important. As well as initiatives like Compstat and figuring out how to better use police time.

And investing in public participation, social urbanism, the whole shebang.

Obviously, I've written tons about this but my big thing is if you know there are going to be nuisances, address them and mitigate them, don't just impose them on communities as a trickle down negative impact.

http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2020/08/creating-community-safety-partnership.html

And we have to invest more in public space safety, maintenance, and "surveillance". Tricky in our libertarian, "I have rights" world.

At a meeting last night reviewing citizen capital project requests, I was talking to another applicant who was focused on security and other issues emanating from the proximity of the foothills hiking area. I mentioned that a US forest outside of Atlanta put in cameras and license plate readers at trailheads to address crime problems. He scoffed about Utah State Legislature ever agreeing to authorize the use of LPRs. And I recounted my grand jury experience and how often LPRs installed around the city ended up in apprehension of criminals.


 
At 1:25 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

The banks. Again you know I am no expert in macroeconomics.

But this as you say is partly the juxtaposition of bigness alongside with the Fed's failure to recognize that constant interest rate hikes were gonna have fallout on some banks with particular conditions susceptible to exogenous shocks of a particular sort. Obviously crypto is a kind of scam and the FTX crash really oscillated the sector. The decline in the tech sector plus the interest rate hikes effect on their bond portfolio, plus poor risk management and inadequate regulation and "bigness" as you point out, was going to lead to the crash of SVB.

Will it have long term effect on other banks, outside of declining profitability because of increased regulation, given the Fed's provision of credit against par value of the bond holdings? Probably not.

If I had lots of money, I'd be buying bank stocks now, figuring they will rise again, just as they did a couple years after the onset of the GFC.

But wrt big versus small. Canada. But Canada has such a small population that it's not so relevant I think.

 
At 1:31 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

I don't think the crash of SVB was inevitable. They needed to get out in front of risk management and sell some stock months ago.

But the Fed's interest rates hikes accelerated their exposure.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahbarsky/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-proxy-shows-boards-secret-yearlong-risk-panic/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/betsyatkins/2023/03/14/learnings-from-the-collapse-of-svb/?sh=403c6c7b7c8c

 
At 1:43 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

I forgot to mention Toronto. There was a lot of discussion in advance of the October mayoral election that the city was in decline. How the refusal by the mayor to raise taxes in any substantive way led to disinvestment by the city in public spaces because of declining budgets to the point where decline became seriously visible.

He was reelected, but almost immediately brought down because of an affair with a much younger staff person. And there will be an election for a new mayor, who will have 3.5 years or so of a term.

Anyway, Ed Keenan is their star local politics opinion writer and he has a piece on this.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2023/03/11/there-are-many-mayoral-wannabes-but-theres-just-one-question-they-need-to-answer.html

"Having defined a question for each candidate to ask themselves, I have one more, for all of them to ask: How am I going to make this city work? Toronto used to be known internationally as “the city that works.” Great neighbourhoods, clean streets, safe, with a world-leading transit system, well-maintained roads, smart growth strategies, an admirable governance structure, and a famous hockey team that could go beyond the first round of the playoffs. That seems like a long time ago and a civic galaxy far far away. To sum up a thousand large and small issues that could together define the campaign: how are we going to make Toronto work again?

For all the political arm-twisting and teasing and jockeying right now, that’s what most of us care about at the moment. In this land of 10,000 candidates “considering” the job, we just need one with a credible plan to fix a city that feels more and more broken."

======


It's analogous to the discussion by Grabar about disorder and managing it, perception of it being managed etc.

And how people feel in cities like SF, Seattle, Portland especially.

Of course, my position is really manage it, don't fake it, and address the other issues.

Seattle is interesting. In the last election cycle a bunch of more traditionally focused candidates won, including for Mayor and prosecutor.

And in the next election cycle, most all of the councilmembers not recently elected are bailing.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/it-s-an-election-year-what-are-seattle-city-council-members-up-to-today-so-far

 
At 12:06 AM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Last Call for New York’s First ‘Bar Czar’

As Ariel Palitz leaves her role, she reflects on what she discovered about the city, and about herself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/nyregion/ariel-palitz-nyc-nightlife.html

6 lessons

- Nightlife is more than just drinking and dancing [economic development, community-building and cultural innovation]
- Not even a deadly virus can stop New Yorkers from partying
- There’s a worldwide shift toward understanding the importance of nightlife
- The future smells like marijuana
- Staten Island deserves more love [interesting point, not just about SI but all boroughs]
- She may be leaving the job of nightlife czar behind, but not the nightlife

 
At 9:26 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Crime and Consequences in Seattle

https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-attorney-ann-davison-crime-arrests-283cabb2

The sad thing is that this isn't rocket science. Instead of looking at frequent perpetration as an indicator of social failure, look at it as an indicator of a problem.



Ms. Davison took office in January 2022 after voters elected her on a law-and-order mandate. She has focused on the 168 troublemakers responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime—nearly 3,500 misdemeanors in Seattle over a five-year period, by her office’s estimates.

These miscreants had an average of 6.3 misdemeanor criminal incidents referred for prosecution in Seattle in a year. Their most common crimes were theft to buy fentanyl or meth, which often led to more serious charges, such as assaults and “robbery if someone attempts to stop them,” the Seattle City Attorney’s office says in a new report.

But new numbers show that on Ms. Davison’s watch the number of annual misdemeanor referrals by this group has dropped to 2.7. What changed?

Well, start with arrests and punishment. In the past year 142 of Seattle’s 168 top recidivists were behind bars at some point. King County jails had limited bookings for most misdemeanors. But last spring Ms. Davison brokered an agreement to make an exception for Seattle’s most prolific misdemeanor criminals.

She also pushed through a reform that excludes from Seattle’s notoriously lenient Community Court anyone who had 12 or more charges referred to the city attorney for prosecution over the past five years, including one in the past eight months. Their cases are now handled by the Municipal Court, where they can face bail requirements and jail time.

 
At 5:47 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

D.C. U.S. attorney declined to prosecute 67% of those arrested. Here’s why.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/29/us-attorneys-office-charges-declined-dc-police/

 
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