INCONVENIENT FACTS: Race, Crime and Data. Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute discusses his new book, Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts the Most.
I wrote this book largely because I was tired of reading stories about heinous crimes carried out by offenders who had no business being out on the street—stories the data make clear are not outliers—and I wanted to do something about it.
That desire only grew as I watched 2020 unfold. In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the unrest and political grandstanding that followed, politicians and activists pushed policies aimed at systematically lowering the transaction costs of crime (by making prosecutions and substantial punishments less likely) and raising the transaction costs of law enforcement (by placing new restrictions on police discretion and limiting the resources at their disposal). . . .
I was unsurprised when, in 2020, homicides spiked 30 percent across the U.S. (the largest one-year increase in generations). And I remained unsurprised by the fact that between 2020 and 2021, more than a dozen cities set all-time records for homicides, and more than a dozen more flirted with their 1990s peaks.