In the past few years, police response times have begun to take longer and longer in many cities.
Data analyst Jeff Asher found that response times went up in 15 major metropolitan areas.
The standard response to defund is: “Psh. If someone is attacking you do you want a social worker to come?” Yes! Because they might actually show up.
Asher suggest it’s the result of staff shortages, which critics of reform argue means we should shovel more money at police and also stop hurting their feelings by protesting!
But I have another (or additional) theory: priorities and allocation of resources. They are geared towards preemptive stops and “quality-of-life” crimes (I know this is obvious but I haven’t seen it linked to slow response time—everyone assumes it’s overstretched staffs).
New York City is perhaps the worst offender, with San Francisco close behind. The city is strapped for cash, we’re told. So much so that libraries will no longer operate on Sundays. It’s because of the migrants, Eric Adams tells us. “There’s no more room!” he’s taken to saying, in keeping with his strong Christian faith.
Recently the city even ominously declared that the costs of the migrant “crisis” would cut into NYPD resources. In November, the New York Post reported that the city plans to reduce the next police academy class. “This is going to turn the NYPD staffing crisis into a public safety disaster,” Police Benevolent Association president, Patrick Hendry. “Our police officers are being worked to exhaustion, and 911 response times are already rising. What is going to happen when no reinforcements arrive for months on end? Cutting cops puts New Yorkers at risk, period.”
Indeed. It puts them at risk of poor people riding the subway for free. Gothamist reports that after the administration flooded the subway system with cops, overtime pay for the extra train officers shot up from 4 million in 2022 to $155 million.
There was a slight decrease in some serious crime and a slight increase in other serious time—that tracks pretty much with general crime trends in the city.
What did they do with their time on the train, besides stare at their phones, which is pretty much all I’ve ever see them do? They made 1,900 more arrests and handed out 34,000 summonses, from 160% to 250%, for fare evasion.
$151 million to collar kids for $3 for arguably the least violent or serious “crime” imaginable—at a time when budget cuts have led to closed libraries. Why is this not the biggest scandal of Adams’ tenure? Besides, the majority of “fare evasion” happens on MTA buses. This is because, like everyone who’s not a “law-and-order” fascist freak, bus drivers do not give a fuck about a tiny, tiny minority of people riding for free and just wave people in or ignore them.
Adams also just kind of quietly revived racist stop-and-frisk. His “Neighborhood Safety Teams’ (or, plainclothes units) have been illegally stopping people, primarily people of color.
The signature policing policies of Eric Adams were reviving the plainclothes unit, which was disbanded because records of egregious abuse, including some of the city’s most high-profile fatalities. His other signature move was the drastically up the number of transit cops. So, spending tax dollars in support of public safety for a non-crime and a virtual non-crime. Defund the NYPD.