This morning I read a NYT article suggesting that one reason murder rates have risen during the pandemic, even as overall crime rates have plummeted, is that social institutions are less able to provide services to communities during the crisis than they usually are. One line stuck out to me: "The pandemic has frayed all kinds of institutions and infrastructure that hold communities together, that watch over streets, that mediate conflicts, that simply give young people something to do."
However true this explanation might be (a more uncouth observer than I might settle for pointing out that a massive movement to delegitimize the existence of a police force could cause the spike shootings, a theory suggested by the charts above) the line that hit me was about the need to "simply give young people something to do." Is it really true that murder is wracking poor communities out of boredom?
Murder-preventing diversions, according to this article, are programs like "libraries, parks, rec centers, pools, free internet," etc. It makes sense to me that these community resources help divert some of the young, aggressive energies of kids to the point that they reduce violent crime rates. (They also happen to be macro-scale programs visible to the bird's eye view of government and non-profits. I'm sure they're joined by lots of informal community efforts.) But violence filling in the cracks left by these programs' absence also makes me ask the inverse question: does anyone care that the default use of time in these communities is apparently engaging in violent crime?
Before this gets boilerplate racist, I should pivot to expressing a belief I hold about that whitest of violence problems: school shootings. While gun control / background checks would definitely make a difference in who is able to get guns, I really honestly think the problem needs to be viewed in psychic terms. (This is where I go Marianne Williamson.) Guns have existed freely in this society for centuries, but it's only recently that assassinating children has become a tensional release. To me, the era of school shootings represents something much more like a social sickness than a problem for the administrative state.
I think liberals see everything as a grounds for a public / legal / administrative / regulatory solution because they generally come from a class that feels it has control of that lever of power. These are the descendants of the Prohibition wagoners, the moral scolds, the Million Moms, who live lives comfortable enough to donate spare energy to the problems they see in society. Passing laws titled with the names of victimized kids is a real skill they have. Moreover, they know the world and its problems not necessarily through direct experience, but through data and reporting. They are the upper management of society and they want splashy C-suite solutions. Moreover, problems that exist outside the impact of that lever of power are really uncomfortable to liberals because they feel like it's an affront to their status. Imagine telling a manager that they're unequipped to solve a problem in their department.
But honestly, they are. Both the problem of modern teenagers shooting up their peers and the problem of young black kids growing up in eternal war have huge psychic, social dimensions outside the brusque touch of the law. In my opinion, it's important to admit this limitation of the administrative state and start farming answers in a more organic way.
I have no idea what would solve either problem. All I know -- well, what I believe -- is that it's a dereliction of the social responsibility liberals feel to act like the polizeiwissenschaft is capable of the cultural shift necessary to really address these problems. In the case of curbing black violent crime, it has the capacity to provide economic opportunity and has never done so. But that's a long-term solution.
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