WEBVTT - Pt.2 - How Trump Can ACTUALLY Solve Crime & Policing + Why Murders In America Go UNSOLVED 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:07.960 All right, I hope you enjoyed part one of that 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.440 conversation that was very much focused on the military, we 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.920 delved into some larger issues. My second interview Herman Lopez. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.400 He's actually a New York Times reporter that is now 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.480 part of the editorial board and actually at the end 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.000 of our conversation about policing in America, and he's been 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.680 on the criminal justice beat for decade in various news organizations. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:33.320 So I think you'll really appreciate the expertise that he provides, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:41.840 and frankly, a very sober and dispassionate explanation of you know, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:48.240 what are the explanations as to why, as to why 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.360 we have so many unsolved murders. But I do want 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.640 to make one quick point about DC. There's an interesting 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.400 little various generational divides and the question is DC safer 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.000 today than ever. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:00:59.560 Before or not? 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.880 Well, some of this, by the way, depends on how 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.840 old you are. So for instance, I moved here. I 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:07.800 moved to d C in nineteen ninety. That's when I 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.319 went to school. GW moved here in the June of 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:16.319 nineteen ninety, and in fact, my first week was when 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.240 there was the whole Marion Barry, you know, the the 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.800 at the crack cocaine bust, and that was just consumed 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.119 the city's politics and was consuming and it was sort 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.440 of in the nineties in general, it was a low 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.080 point for d C as a community as a and 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:36.640 it was sort of really So, I look at d 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.520 C today and while if you compare d c's you know, 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.040 the security of d C today to say, ten years ago, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.000 you feel as if things are not as good as 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.000 they were. If you're someone like me and you compared 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.480 to where d C was and to the nineties, you think, 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.000 what do you, guys, this is you don't understand more 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.960 parts of DC today are are are great places to 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.320 hang out and all of those things than ever before. 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.320 So if you're wondering in some ways why you're hearing 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.840 different descriptions of d C, do take note of how 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.000 old the person is that's telling you this. I think 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.079 if you're somebody who's who's been in DC for the 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.600 last fifteen or twenty years, you have won. You know, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.680 It's all depends on where you where your baseline was, right, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.160 and if that was your baseline, it feels as if 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.000 DC's a little less secure than it was fifteen or 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.880 twenty years ago. If you're someone like me and remembered 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.400 when the waterfront was not the best place to be 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.640 that where the Nationals Park is, and when you had 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.000 to go get your car inspected, you were you literally, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.560 you know, you did so as in as sunny of 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.560 a day as possible. There wasn't It wasn't just that neighborhood. 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.360 There were lots of neighborhoods that felt that way. 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:50.919 And so. 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.720 The trajectory of DC in my lifetime has been safer 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:03.120 and better and more of the city more open to everybody, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:07.480 more more, you know, just feels like a better place 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.480 to live. But so I think if you're wondering why 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.200 there's sometimes a disconnect, do take note, you know, are 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.720 those people like me who've been in d C since 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.400 the late eighties, early nineties, or is it people that 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.600 came to d C, say right after nine to eleven. Anyway, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.440 just thought i'd make that little notation there. So with that, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:31.920 I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Herman Lopez. And 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.800 joining me now from The New York Times is Herman Lopez. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.800 When I booked him, he was a reporter on the 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:42.480 reporter side and now he has joined the opinion section, 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:44.640 and we'll get to in a minute, but he was 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.480 the author of an article a few about a month 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.240 ago on some new data that was released about how 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:57.440 nearly half of all murders in America go unsolved. The 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.240 point is that essentially, if you murder someone in America, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:01.880 you got a fifty to fifty chance to get away 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.800 with it. And that is not quite fifty to fifty. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.120 But we're going to get into the reasons for this. 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:12.880 But I can't think of a more timely conversation given 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:17.800 suddenly the President is currently interested in crime that he 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.720 in the visuals that he can see, when if this 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.880 were the focus, that the real issue of criminal justice, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.280 of the issue of crime in America arguably. 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:31.320 Might be this. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.480 This is a nationwide problem that isn't something that can 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.440 be solved one jurisdiction at a time, and yet it's 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.040 something I thought this was one of those headlines and boy, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.520 this should get people's attention, and it seemed to land 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.760 with crickets. So what happens when that happens, You do 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:51.760 your best to try to surface it. So I've invited 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.039 Herman onto the podcast because I really want to explore 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.760 this issue more, and because if we really want to 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:04.200 solve feel safe in America, perhaps, you know, we might 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.400 want to start with solving the most egregious crimes to 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:12.760 take place against humanity, like murder. Herman, Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.400 thanks for having me. So let's start with the piece. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.760 You've been covering criminal justice issues for over a decade, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.360 so this is obviously on your beat. I just found 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.159 this framing to be really clarifying and I real because 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.600 here's this one story that once you start to peel 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.960 the onion, you realize, oh, we don't have enough cops. Oh, 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:36.720 we don't have enough these resources. Oh we don't have 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.640 enough these resources. And so when you think about people's 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.320 complaints about law and order in general, that if you 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:48.359 actually began with this focus, perhaps everything else sort of 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.040 falls into place if you can crack this part of 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.200 the code. But it is, but you're the expert. This 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.920 is your beat, So tell me how you went about 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.760 this and what kind of why you framed it the 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:04.920 way you decided to frame it. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.600 Yeah. So I've been fascinated by clearance rates. That's what 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.000 the statistic is called. Essentially, how many murders are cleared 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.000 means how many resultant in arrest. I've been fascinated by 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.920 this for years because the US has historically been very 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.120 behind rich countries like where we're talking about, like Japan 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.800 or Germany or Australia, those kinds of examples, like they 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.920 have clearance rates in the nineties like ninety plus percent. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.880 Japan famously solves almost all of its murders. They have 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.120 fewer of them, so it's easier for them to do that, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.600 but they have fewer of them. So the US historically 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.719 is usually around fifty to sixty percent, especially after COVID. 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.719 The most recent data suggests it's bumped up a little too, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.240 around sixty percent. But I should say that even that's 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.839 a little misleading because that includes murders that happened in 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.880 previous years that were solved in the year where the 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:01.000 data was reported. So if you actually subtract those pre murders, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.240 the clearance rate is more around forty percent depending on 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.279 the city, which is even obviously even more than half 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.560 of people who kill someone in that year will get 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.880 away with it, at least for that year. And for me, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.280 this is just this is just arming that there's a 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.000 thing in criminal justices somewhere. There are three ways to 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.840 deter someone. One is the severity of the punishment. So 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:25.320 you know, if somebody thinks they're going to face long 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.720 prison punishment, they might decide, I'm not going to do 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.120 that crime. If they think they're going to get away 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.480 with it, then that's the other thing is a certainty 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.560 of punishment is important. So if somebody thinks they're going 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:40.760 to get away with it, then you know they might think, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.080 I'm going to do this crime anyway. I mean, a 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.720 long prison punishment penalty isn't going to matter if you 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:46.920 think you can get away with the crime. And the 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.880 third thing is the speed of punishment, because people not 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.960 only have to be certain, but it has to come fast. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.480 Like I murdered someone and a few days later I 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.480 was arrested. That sends the signals to the rest of 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.480 the community that like, look, the police are taking this 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:04.760 very sore and you're gonna get caught exactly, and yeah, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.360 how does this compare to thirty years ago? 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.560 Has this always been the case? Is this historically a 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:15.640 consistent pattern here of essentially unresolved murder cases. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.080 Now it's clearance rates in general have gone down over 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.200 the past few decades. I should say that there's some 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.680 discussion among criminal justice experts about how much of this 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.800 was like, you know, police were just locking up anyone 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.120 they could pick up, Like you think about the level 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.920 of evidence that they gather now you know, DNA evidence, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.000 the forensic stuff, like they and also generally they had 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.679 to clear a higher bar because like, courts no longer 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.480 accept just police picking up anyone off the street and 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.600 claiming that they're a murderer, and so prosecutors will send 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.120 back those cases and police know that, so they'll be 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.320 more careful with their arrest. So in general we've seen 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.520 a decline in clearance rates, but it's not clear how 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.880 much of that is that, Like you know, to some 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:01.640 it might be that police have gotten better at their 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.120 jobs because they're not being as abusive with criminal slice. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.080 But to some degree, it probably is that police aren't 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.520 taking this as seriously as they once used to. It 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.440 used to be a big part of policing in the 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.680 US that they focused on clearance rates, and over time 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.600 we've transitioned to this model of more proactive policing, so 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.720 we try to stop crime before it happens. And as 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.960 we've done that, we've put less emphasis on actually solving 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.360 crimes once they do happen, and yet we have more 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.800 data than ever right DNA. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:39.360 It's you know, between I look at two things, you know, I. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:40.880 Mean, let me frame it another way. 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.160 The perception of safety in America I think has gotten 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.400 better in my lifetime, not worse. And I think the 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:53.480 number one reason is this surveillance, meaning every you know, 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.680 the likelihood that you're going to be on camera doing 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.720 the crime, whether it's violent crime or petty crime, but 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.440 the idea that the likelihood the will be evidence that 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.280 you did it is never been higher. The ability to 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:14.320 use DNA evidence to find a particle that will connect 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.320 a suspect to the crime and make it possible to 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:19.040 get a conviction. 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.439 We've never had more tools at our disposal. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.480 And yet the counter point is here, we have all 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.120 of this, all of these extra tools that the police 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:31.600 didn't have. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:33.160 So obviously it does. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.360 Mean, oh my god, how many people got convicted for 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.560 crimes that they probably didn't commit. So that's one thing 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.559 you worry about when you look at the twentieth century 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.480 versus of twenty first. But why is it that these 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.360 new tools haven't been able to actually increase the likelihood 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.240 that police can solve these crimes. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.800 Well, I think there's a few things going on. In 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.199 some cases, police just haven't really caught up with a 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.280 modern era and are not using cares as much as 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.719 they could be. There's also like civil libertarians really take 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.640 issue with the idea of surveillance, and they have tried 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.440 to legally restrain police, and like, look, they have some 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.079 legitimate complaints. I'm not saying that like the police should 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.200 have access to like every new technology and abuse it accordingly, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.160 but like there is some pushback there, and police have 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.960 to deal with that. They ultimately answer to you know, 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:29.520 city councils and mayors and governors and all that. But 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.080 another issue is frankly just just funding police. That there 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.600 are actually if you walk around a modern city. I 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.120 live in Cincinnati, So when I walk around, there are 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:43.880 these like polls of that old cameras and actually audio 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.400 devices at the top, and they can hear gunshots, they 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.200 record people on the street. People can actually see these 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.840 probably never modern city, and they become more popular recently, 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.600 but police haven't adopted them as widely as you would think. 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:04.480 So you know, when you think about like how people 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.120 are getting away with murder in this modern surveillance state. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.080 That's part of it is that they can't necessarily access 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.079 all the cameras, and they really might not have cameras 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.120 around to begin with, depending on what you're talking about. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.559 All right, but what about on the DNA side of things? Right? 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:24.640 In some ways, there's never been more ways to find 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:29.120 evidence that. Frankly, it was evidence that existed before, but 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.560 we didn't have the technology to. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:32.880 Identify it. 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.319 Right now we have the technology to identify DNA evidence. 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.120 Is this another case of lack of adoption or is 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.320 this it's just not as easy as it as TV 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:46.000 makes it look. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.080 I would say that it's not as easy as TV 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.600 makes it look. And the biggest thing you have to 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:57.560 consider is the proliferation of guns in the US. You 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.800 are just much less likely to leave behind the evidence 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.240 if you're if you're shooting someone, then if you're stabbing them. 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.240 So you think about, you know, if you think about 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.560 like a CSI episode, it's often like a husband killing 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.959 his wife or something along those lines, like people who 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.679 intimately know each other, and the episode's about uncovering that. 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.720 Those are usually crimes where you know they're they're up close. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.520 There's physical evidence everywhere in a lot of these shootings, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.480 I mean, people are just driving by a house and 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.000 gunning people down, and nobody even sees the face of 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.600 the shooter. Like they might still know who the shooter 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.960 was or have their suspicions, but they might not have 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:37.760 actually seen them. So so if you think about it 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.120 in that situation, that that makes it much much harder 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.920 to salt these crimes. Is it easy to classify the 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:44.920 unsolved cases? Is there a pattern here? 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.360 It's it's more of it's it's the murders that are 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.280 harder to are for our murders that take place where 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.000 the where it is a gunman and where the gunman 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.480 is you know, ten feet away or more like, is 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.400 there is it that can you can you divvy it 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.040 up that concrete? 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.040 Yeah, so there are, Like I would say, there are layers. One, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.760 if it's a shooter, then distance obviously matters as well, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.520 and then gang related because if the crime gang related 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.040 crimes are more likely to be not necessarily anonymous, but 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.360 the victim and shooter might not know each other, at 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.400 least the victim's family might not know the shooter. That's 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.520 more likely to happen also gangs are just better at 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:26.920 covering up crimes since they have more experience with it, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.000 so they might know how to avoid getting caught to 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.920 begin with. And so those I think those three factors 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.160 really play a big role. And the US does generally 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.280 have more shootings and more gang crime than other countries, 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.200 so that would explain some of the discrepancy when you 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.080 look at Japan, which has very few guns, very little 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:48.640 gang activity that results in murder, so that I think 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.760 that's one of the biggest things driving it is just 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:52.680 you know, the US has a lot of guns and 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:57.120 gangs are using them. So okay, that's another part of this. 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.800 If how many of these unst murders are likely gang related, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:04.040 it's hard to. 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:05.840 Say because it depends on the city by city, and 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:10.560 the statistics frankly aren't that great. But in some cities 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.240 it's the vast majority of shootings are are gang related. 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.800 Well maybe not some cities, but at least in some neighborhoods, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.200 the vast majority of shootings, I should say, our game related. 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.600 So when you're looking at that level of things, there 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.000 can be like, you know, your entire community might be 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.080 riddled by crime that's unsolved, And that's another thing that's 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.960 striking I should say about these clearance rate statistics is like, 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.640 you know, we're talking about national statistics, right, but when 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.440 you start looking at the city and neighborhood level, there 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.880 are some places where clearance rates can drop to like 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.560 single digits like nine percent and lower because there's so 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.640 few attention going to the issue. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.760 Well, part it's that or is there fear like eyewitnesses 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:53.760 don't want to cooperate. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.960 There's that aspect as well. That's absolutely part of it. 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.520 I mean, it's also just a vicious cycle. Right, If 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.280 you know that people are getting away with murder, you 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.640 are less likely to testify as a witness because you 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.240 have no confidence that the police can actually protect you 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.840 if you come forward, speak up, testifying court. Right, Like, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.640 the criminal justice system fundamentally relies on our belief that 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.960 it is protecting us our trust, and if you don't 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.760 have that then pretty it starts fraying. And I think 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:24.640 that's what we see when we look at these clearance 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:29.240 rate numbers, especially in minority and poor neighborhoods. They have 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.080 lots of reasons, not just the clear low clearance rates 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.400 to not trust beliefs, and that leads to all sorts 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.440 of problems and solving murders. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.520 You know, I think about I grew up in Miami 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:40.960 in the eighties, seventies and eighties, and in the eighties 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.040 we were the murder capital of the world. And I 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.920 will tell you I never fell unsafe, right because it 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.960 was there was a belief and I think over time 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.160 we learned this is that ninety percent of these murders 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.720 were both the victim and the shooter. 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.760 It was all part of the same world. Right. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.400 It felt like as if, yes, this was happening in Miami, 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.040 but this was disputes between cartels. These days, we you know, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.720 the difference between gang and a cartel is just the name, right, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.160 Arguably it's the same thing. And you know, and there 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.399 was this feeling that, well, if you're not involved in 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.320 the various activities, you're going to be safe. 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:23.639 Is that still the case? 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.119 Is that how you would tell people that you know 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.800 they because you know it's you know, because. 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.280 I've always felt I felt that way when I was 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:32.240 here in d C. Too. 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.280 Is that I lived in DC when it was the 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.440 murder capital of the world in the early nineties, and 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.960 yet I never felt all right, I know, right, Well, 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.960 I remember I had had my grandfather's wife when I 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.520 went and decided to go to school in DC. This 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.000 is in nineteen eighty nine. She goes like, it's so 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.080 unsafe there, and I went and Ella, we live in Miami, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.000 like we just like they made an entire television there's 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:56.880 a huge television show called Miami. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.800 Vice that that is, you know. And yet I said, 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:01.000 do you feel unsafe? You know? 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.520 And it was sort of like having this conversation and 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.480 so and that's this sort of you know, and how concentrated. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.200 I guess it goes back to it's always felt as 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.359 if these things are concentrated in these communities. Is that 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:16.160 still the case? 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.959 Yes, that is definitely the case that crime is just 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:25.199 super concentrated in general. I mean, some cities had programs 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.240 where they literally focus on like just dozens or even 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.920 hundreds of people within the city and demonstrably brought crime 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.919 down that There's a famous example in Boston called the 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:39.600 Boston Miracle, where they famously focus on just like these 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.800 slivers of offenders, like people they knew were doing certain crimes, 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.520 and crime just plummeted by fifty percent in the city 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.120 throughout the course of this program and it's that can 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.880 hide it from other people. But I think the reverse 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.920 of that is in those communities where there are all 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:01.040 these people committing crimes, it feels much much worse than 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:03.160 even the crime statistics might suggest. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.640 So why, I mean, this seems like the obvious thing, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:13.240 which is you surge law enforcement resources to your most 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.879 vulnerable neighborhoods. Why if it worked in Boston, why isn't 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.480 this replicated around the country. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.320 There's a lot of you know, political interests that go 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.600 into policing. I would say, so, you know, one thing 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.560 is actually solving crimes or deterring crimes, right, Like, we 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.080 have good evidence that if police are just in a block, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.080 people are less likely to commit crime. Who's going to 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:41.840 be stupid enough to shoot someone else in front of 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.880 a police officer, right, It's called a scarecrow effect in criminology. 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:51.240 And so yes, you can just you can surge resources there. 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.800 But the other thing is a perception of crime, and 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.160 I think this is just as important. There are plenty 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.800 of neighborhoods. I see this in cincinn where there are 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.679 like police patrolling all these nice businesses because the business 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.560 owners in the area want to feel safe. And of 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.119 course they're entitled to feel safe, but the reality is 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.800 crime is probably not happening in those places where there 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.760 are lots of wealthier businesses, right like just in nature, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.719 that's not how crime works. So I think police have 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.760 to deal with that conflict, and that limits their resources. 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:29.400 And you know, you often see this with like surges 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.639 of police in cities where they just start targeting what 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.919 are frankly the wrong neighborhoods. They're like the idea of 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.800 surging police officers in a block or neighborhood or whatever 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.639 that does a strong empirical evidence and it does have 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.920 some effect no matter where you are, but it could 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.480 have a bigger impact in the neighborhoods that frankly just 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.120 have less political capitals, so they can't really ask for 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.680 police help as easily as you know, wealthier businesses could. 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.560 So are we in a situation where we know what 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.720 would work, We just don't we don't have the political will, 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.720 or we're still trying to figure out best practices. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:16.320 I mean, I would say it's a little bit of 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.280 both in the end, but I would mostly lean on 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:20.000 the first thing, which is we know what to do 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.359 and we just have not really used the resources for it. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.480 You see this kind of thing all the time in politics. 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.840 So in his first term, for example, President Trump actually 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:39.240 his budgets repeatedly suggested cutting police funding. And I think 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.720 one thing that's interesting about that is not necessarily that 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.080 it led to police cuts, because Congress by and farded 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.320 but for the most are did not pass those budgets. 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.840 But there was no conversation about whether they should increase 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.840 funding in certain neighborhoods, right, Like, the conversation was like, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.960 should we do Trump's budget or not? And the answer 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.400 was not okay, so like should we? There was never 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:01.800 really a conversation about this. And obviously you have the 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.320 defund the police movement, which which had a big effect 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.439 as well, And so I think in the end, the 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.280 conversation has been really focused on, like, you know, how 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.600