Highlights
Do federal court-ordered police consent decrees increase crime? For some cities, the answer is yes.
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This article is a result of an earlier submission titled, “Has Police Reform Resulted In Thousands Of Crime And Accident Victims?”
That article suggests the probability that thousands of crime and accident victims were impacted by greatly reduced police proactivity because of immense negative publicity. National Public Radio quoted the CEO of the Governors Highway Safety Association stating that, “There’s not enforcement out there, they’re hesitant to write tickets. And we’re seeing the results of that.”
The article also cited an Axios report stating that crime increased in several cities with federal consent decrees (see below).
A reader requested more on the topic, specifically addressing the impact of crime and federal court-ordered police consent decrees.
Immense Scrutiny
The larger issue is whether law enforcement agencies have stopped being proactive in the face of harsh public negativity of everyone in law enforcement and the use of federal consent decrees. Does immense scrutiny of law enforcement make police officers skittish or reluctant to make traffic and street stops that were routine years ago? Has that reluctance contributed to a rise in urban lawlessness and record fear of crime?
From the responses of hundreds in law enforcement to my articles, it does.
The US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has found that there are jurisdictions in the United States that violate the constitutional rights of citizens usually after findings of discriminatory practices or allegations of improper use of force.
Some jurisdictions welcome consent decrees with the US Department of Justice because it forces them to increase funding for training, technology, and equipment that cities are reluctant to make. For the jurisdictions involved, content decrees can cost an enormous amount of money.
Many if not all of the cities involved in content decrees have significant crime problems.
Background-Urban Crime Increases-Fear Of Crime Is At Record Levels
Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Centers For Disease Control, Gallup, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and multiple additional sources, violence is increasing dramatically in urban areas. Fear of crime is at an all-time high. Compared to 2019 midyear figures, the same cities in total have experienced a 50% increase in homicides and a roughly 36% increase in aggravated assaults per the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
Source
Background-Proactive Policing-Rising Violence-Record Fear-Highest Number Of Traffic Fatalities In 16 Years
Proactive policing is the only modality proven to reduce crime based on a review of hundreds of studies funded by the US Department of Justice. As we progress through rising urban crime, different strategies are being tried from violence interrupters to social programs. Unfortunately, none of these efforts have a strong (methodologically correct-replicated) research base as to lowering crime with the exception of nurses-social workers dealing with young at-risk children.
But many of the incidents involving police use of force stem from proactive activities resulting in immense criticism, not just of the officers involved, but all in law enforcement. Getting out of a patrol vehicle and confronting suspicious suspects (when you have the legal right to do so) can be dangerous to both officers and suspects. The data is clear that many suspects contacted have mental health issues or are under the influence of drugs or alcohol which makes confrontations perilous for everyone.
There are data and media reports showing that police proactivity has significantly declined to the point where the modality has almost disappeared in some areas. Most proactive contacts are traffic stops.
If we have discarded the most effective form of crime control and fatal accident reduction, and if tens of thousands of police officers have left their jobs, the impact would show up in national statistics. Beyond record fear of crime and rising violence, nearly 43,000 people died in U.S. traffic crashes in 2021, the highest number in 16 years.
Background-Federal Court-Ordered Police Consent Decrees-Background
For an overview of federal court-ordered police consent decrees, see Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice.
For a list of cities with USDOJ investigations or consent decrees, see Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice.
Louisville, KY was added to the list along with Minneapolis.
Background-Associated Press-Consent Decrees
The 1994 crime bill gave the Department of Justice the ability to investigate police agencies for patterns or practices of unconstitutional policing, and to require agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight can be removed. Typically, a federal judge oversees the consent decree and appoints a monitor to shepherd it.
Some agreements set a five-year timetable, but most last at least twice as long, said Danny Murphy, who oversaw consent decrees in New Orleans and Baltimore, and now consults with police departments that are under or potentially face them.
Nearly two dozen consent decrees are ongoing, even as the Justice Department pushes to make the process more efficient and less expensive. Attorney General Merrick Garland in September introduced budget caps and hearings after five years to determine if the agreements should end.
Though expensive and time-consuming, no city or agency has ever simply stopped cooperating. If that happened, the Justice Department would likely ask the federal judge to issue a compliance order, said Alex del Carmen, a criminology professor at Tarleton State University in Fort Worth, Texas, who has served as a monitor. The city or agency could be fined until it is back in good standing, del Carmen said.
University of Nebraska-Omaha Professor Emeritus Sam Walker, another expert in police accountability, said consent decrees have largely succeeded in reducing use of force and unnecessary traffic stops, and increasing de-escalation practices. He cited New Orleans as an example.
Source
Does Crime Increase After Federal Consent Decrees?
The article below from Axios suggests that consent decrees result in rising crime, at least at first.
Most police agencies in recent federally court-ordered reform agreements saw violent crime rates skyrocket immediately, according to an Axios examination of departments under consent decrees since 2012.
The increases in violent crime rates — in one case by 61% — suggest that there can be unintended consequences, at least in the short term, to the policing changes many Americans have demanded in the year since George Floyd’s death.
They’ve also given police unions another argument in their campaign against reforms.
An Axios review of FBI and Justice Department data on all 12 agencies under consent decrees since 2012 found that seven of them experienced jumps in violent crime rates in two years compared to the two years before they entered into the consent decrees.
- Seattle saw a 27% surge in its violent crime during that period following its consent decree in 2012.
- Albuquerque, N.M., a city that saw violent protests in 2014 following the shooting of a white homeless man, later experienced a 36% increase in its violent crime rate. Before its consent decree, the city had seen a 30-year low in crime.
- Los Angeles County, a region of 10 million people, saw a colossal rise of 61% in its violent crime rate following a consent decree with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — an agency with a troubled history among Latinos and Black residents.
Yes, but: Municipalities with less than 50,000 people that entered into consent decrees saw violent crime rates decline.
- Ferguson, Mo., a city of 21,000 outside of St. Louis that saw heated demonstrations after the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, saw its violent crime rate drop by 7% during the same two-year comparison.
- Warren, Ohio, and East Haven, Conn., also experience noticeable declines during the same period following their consent decrees.
- Data for two larger cities under consent decrees — Portland and Newark, N.J. — couldn’t be compared since they are missing key crime numbers.
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A Criminologist Disagrees
Some have claimed that these agreements lead to reductions in police morale, reduce the proclivity of police officers to act proactively, and over time cause crime rates to rise (see https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-delivers-remarks-chicago-crime-commission).
Others have argued that consent decrees offer one of the only effective remedies to addressing police compliance with civil rights (https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/what-is-a-consent-decree/).
Both sides offer big claims, but what do we know?
Unfortunately, there is limited research on the effect of consent decrees on police morale, officer behavior, or crime. Studies of consent decrees in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh suggest that when police leadership embraced the decrees, there is some increase in public satisfaction with police services with no evidence of harmful effects on police morale.
The evidence also shows that there is no increase in crime or reductions in arrests after these decrees were put into place.
In Cincinnati, the results from an evaluation of a collaborative agreement, a less restrictive agreement than a consent decree, found that improvements in community satisfaction after the formation of the collaborative agreement and several reforms started by the police department.
Crime rates did not drastically change after the collaborative agreement was established. This evidence, however, is largely descriptive – meaning that we can only observe crime, arrests, and reports of satisfaction with the police before and after consent decrees are put into place.
We do not have an adequate comparison group of agencies that could have been placed under a decree but were not. The unknown reasons why certain police agencies ultimately get placed under consent decrees means it is very difficult to draw strong conclusions about their impact on the police and communities they serve.
Source
Conclusions
First, we have to recognize that there are no conclusive criminological conclusions as to why crime goes up or down in cities, counties, and states. There is a world of difference between opinion and hard facts.
Second, there is no firm consensus as to crime increasing in cities under federal content decrees “over time.” One source (via Axios) said his study into 31 cities that operated under federal oversight between 1994 and 2016 showed temporary increases in crime, followed by a steady drop. Editor’s note: this finding coincided with national decreases in crime. Violence (and serious violence) started rising significantly in 2015 per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But if one believes that proactive policing is the ONLY modality with a research base of methodologically proven, well-researched findings, and if proactive policing depends on cops taking risks beyond routine patrol and responding to calls, then it makes perfect sense that massive criticism of all within the profession (beyond focusing on the reprehensible actions of a few) probably affects the willingness of officers to take chances through proactive stops.
The existence of federal consent decrees compounds that pressure by placing all officers under intense scrutiny.
Law enforcement agencies under scrutiny can tell their officers to exercise restraint and to allow a cooling-off period after major incidents.
Arrests are massively down. There were over 4.53 million arrests for all offenses in the United States in 2021. This figure is a decrease from 1990 levels when the number of arrests was over 14.1 million.
There is research from Pew and others stating that cops are now wary of proactive policing. “About as many (72%) say officers in their department are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons. Overall, more than eight-in-ten (86%) say police work is harder today as a result of high-profile, negative incidents.”
Edited quotes from an FBI report: “Nearly every police official interviewed agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders publically stood against them, but also that the politicians’ words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable…
The above-referenced factors have had the effect of “de-policing” in law enforcement agencies across the country…
Departments – and individual officers – have increasingly made the conscious decision to stop engaging in proactive policing.
The intense scrutiny and criticism law enforcement has received has caused several officers to (1) “become scared and demoralized” and (2) avoid interacting with the community.”
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics and endless media articles, tens of thousands of police officers have left the profession because they believe that the public has lost faith in them. Media articles document the multitude of calls that law enforcement will no longer send uniformed officers to because of a lack of staff. Wait times for officers have increased tremendously affecting reported crime.
So federal consent decrees may have their justifications based on the egregious actions of some police officers. But there seems to be little doubt that many (most?) in law enforcement believe that society has taken their concerns several steps too far by focusing on all cops, not just the miscreants.
The data on proactive stops, increasing fatal accidents, plummeting arrests, cops leaving, exploding urban crime and fear, skyrocketing firearm and security sales plus other factors seems to suggest that they are correct. Federal consent decrees may (and probably do) play a part in officer reluctance to be proactive
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