Baltimore Tipped

Last year I wrote, In Baltimore Arrests are Down and Crime is Way Up. I worried that a crime wave occasioned in part by a work stoppage could tip into a much higher level of crime:

With luck, the crime wave will subside quickly, but the longer-term fear is that the increase in crime could push arrest and clearance rates down so far that the increase in crime becomes self-fulfilling. The higher crime rate itself generates the lower punishment that supports the higher crime rate…

In the presence of multiple equilibria, it’s possible that a temporary shift could push Baltimore into a permanently higher high-crime equilibrium. Once the high-crime equilibrium is entered, it may be very difficult to exit without a lot of resources that Baltimore doesn’t have.

Writing at FEE, Daniel Bier takes a long look at crime in Baltimore and the history of problems which got us to this point. He notes that the sharp drop in arrests which I discussed was indeed temporary.

But unfortunately:

Tabarrok’s fear that “a temporary shift could push Baltimore into a permanently higher high-crime equilibrium” looks to be borne out. Crime shot up due to temporary factors, but once those factors receded, the police [have] been unable to cope with the new status quo. Baltimore’s vicious crime cycle remains stuck in high gear.

…With 178 killings already in 2016, Baltimore is on track for 294 murders this year — shy of last year’s total of 344 homicides, but well above 2014’s total of 211.

To quote HBO’s The Wire, if Baltimore had New York’s population, it would be clocking nearly four thousand murders a year.

Daniel argues that Baltimore does have the resources to get back on track but at this stage in the game it may not have the will.

In one important respect, Baltimore is worse off than Ferguson, MO. Ferguson had poor policing but an average crime rate. Baltimore has poor policing and a sky high crime rate. Baltimore desperately needs more policing but the police have lost the trust of a vital part of the community and as the Department of Justice’s report on Baltimore brutally illustrates, in some cases rightly so. The DOJ report might provide the impetus for a surge–a large but temporary influx of federal funds for new hiring under a new police administration–that could reestablish a decent equilibrium and reform the department at the same time. Many, however, will decry a federal “takeover” of policing. Ironically, the law and order candidate might be more likely to impose Federal control, albeit it would be less likely to work.

Baltimore is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.