Heather Mac Donald on Chicago Crime

The following two paragraphs sums it up pretty well:

Sometimes support for the cops comes from unexpected places. In May 2016, a 38-year-old drug trafficker named Toby Jones received a 40-year federal prison sentence for repeatedly trying to gun down a federal informant, in the process shooting three people. He told the judge: “Even with all the latest police shootings on minorities in Chicago, I don’t blame these cops one bit for most of their decisions in the field. And the black community has to first come to grips with why these cops are so afraid,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Stories of heroic cops go untold, Jones said, “but as soon as a black kid gets shot, everyone is in an uproar.”

Activists and politicians are proposing the usual “root causes” solution to the current crime wave—more government programs—as well as less usual ones, such as abolishing the police department. The mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force wants the mayor and Cook County to “implement programs that address socioeconomic justice and equality, housing segregation, systemic racism, poverty, education, health and safety.” Such top-down spending ignores the normative breakdown that renders government social services largely futile. The bakery where Fisher works has been hiring for the last five years; he tells the “young brothers” about the jobs. “Half of them don’t show up; the others have drugs in their system. Half want to hang out and make the fast money that can get you in jail,” Fisher observes. [my underlines]