It’s easy to look at these and assume “well, high crime cities need more police,” but i think that’s putting the cart before the horse.
Police make crime worse.
Police take fiscal oxygen out of the room, away from actual social support programs. The money spent on policing could go to housing, nutritional services, healthcare, civil rights, building inspections, labor rights enforcement, street maintenance, public transportation. But it goes to paying guys to sit around idling Ford Explorers all day and hitting poor people with sticks.
Crime follows poverty in absolutely every single case. Every single “high crime city” is because of the fucking poverty.
