Too Much Policing in Black Neighborhoods

[Trausti]

Something that struck me on the bus this morning... Living in North Minneapolis, many neighborhood properties are rentals, probably a majority just a block or two south of where I live.

Rentals generally charge more rent than the mortgage payment would constitute until the property is paid for, and my experience seems to support the idea that rent is generally between 700 for a two bedroom duplex unit to 1500 for a house. My own mortgage is around 1000/month.

What this means is that the population of the region of the city in which I live have been paying for their properties for years, without being given any ownership of their homes; renting yeilds no equity. This means that while people in most other areas of the city are building equity, this vital nestegg is being denied across generations of North Minneapolis families. Loans can't be taken against that equity for education or property improvement, people living in the homes are barred from directly resolving issues with those properties, and damage to the property yeilds a loss of deposit, rather than deeper consequences of loss of home value, leading to a pattern which fails to teach people to respect the place where they live as a 'nice thing'.

People in the thread seem to be complaining that the housing crash happened when slack was placed on lending standards, however there is a valid question that should be asked: these people have already been paying for their homes, for years, generations even, and given NO equity for it. Why should we be talking about loans when in all reality, there have already been generations worth of equity that ought be afforded to these people?

If you want to get equity, buy property. But with property ownership comes property taxes and other levies on top of your mortgage payment. You may build up equity but you pay more; may just cancel out.

 

[Mumbles]

Maybe black neighborhoods are under policed?

http://eml.berkeley.edu/~jmccrary/chalfin_mccrary2015.pdf

Again, when it comes to proper policing - solving violent crime - they absolutely are. When it comes to harrassing people at random, the police wildly overdo it (as in, they shouldn't do it at all). Whether it's the shakedown force that Ferguson operated, or the people who just run around hassling whoever they see like in Baltimore, the police in many of these areas have *never* established themselves as a force for justice, law, or order. Instead, they've operated as a street gang with the court system behind them, and thus are afforded the appropriate level of respect - or rather, the appropriate level of contempt.

And since the police are nearly useless in solving violent crimes, it means both that a person who attacks you will likely go free, and also that you'll likely go free if you retaliate. And that's why minor beefs over someone stealing someone's girl or whatever regularly devolve into gang wars.

 

[RavenSky]

If you want to get equity, buy property. But with property ownership comes property taxes and other levies on top of your mortgage payment. You may build up equity but you pay more; may just cancel out.

No landlord is going to pay out more than they are taking in for rent unless the market has radically changed on them (and they can't sell, either) or they are complete idiots. Overall, Jarhyn's comments are on point.

 

[Jarhyn]

If you want to get equity, buy property. But with property ownership comes property taxes and other levies on top of your mortgage payment. You may build up equity but you pay more; may just cancel out.

No landlord is going to pay out more than they are taking in for rent unless the market has radically changed on them (and they can't sell, either) or they are complete idiots. Overall, Jarhyn's comments are on point.

I really think that the world needs to move towards a concept of common-law ownership. But ideas of ownership are very traditionally oriented towards the flawed perspective that ownership is in some way 'real' rather than an obfuscation of mere social agreement, much like people confuse their desire for revenge and the fulfilment of that desire by torturing people with 'justice', and that the reason there are so many problems in economics is that the whole system is built on a deeply flawed premise: that ownership doesn't 'leak'

 

[Trausti]

Again, when it comes to proper policing - solving violent crime - they absolutely are. When it comes to harrassing people at random, the police wildly overdo it (as in, they shouldn't do it at all). Whether it's the shakedown force that Ferguson operated, or the people who just run around hassling whoever they see like in Baltimore, the police in many of these areas have *never* established themselves as a force for justice, law, or order. Instead, they've operated as a street gang with the court system behind them, and thus are afforded the appropriate level of respect - or rather, the appropriate level of contempt.

And since the police are nearly useless in solving violent crimes, it means both that a person who attacks you will likely go free, and also that you'll likely go free if you retaliate. And that's why minor beefs over someone stealing someone's girl or whatever regularly devolve into gang wars.

What I don't see following from this is the reason for the high crime/homicide rate. If if it was shown without dispute that police harassed or treated people in a particular neighborhood poorly, why is that an excuse for high crime/homicide? The commission of crime is an intentional act of the perpetrator; it is not the fault of others.

 

[Derec]

Rentals generally charge more rent than the mortgage payment would constitute until the property is paid for, and my experience seems to support the idea that rent is generally between 700 for a two bedroom duplex unit to 1500 for a house. My own mortgage is around 1000/month.

Of course it is going to be higher. When you own you are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the property, taxes and insuring the structure itself. When you rent, all those things are your landlord's responsibility and are rolled into the rent. The landlord also wants to be able to make a profit on the rental. If you are just breaking even, or are making as much as you could putting your money in a CD, they why would anybody bother dealing with tenants, contractors, and all the other aggravation?
Owning is not for everyone. Some people can't qualify, others do not plan to live at the same address for ownership to make sense.

I've been considering for years some fairly reasonable (reasonable in the manner that it is eminently ethical, albeit radically different from the status quo) methods of resolving the problem, mostly centered around elimination of a system of rental-without-equity; people paying for a thing, particularly a residence, should be afforded a share in its ownership according to what they pay, as much as people adding real value in a business ought be afforded ownership of the business according to the loss of net profit to shareholders.

Do you think all landlords, from individuals renting a house to apartment complexes should be forced into a rent-to-own model? Do you think all renters should be forced to pay higher rents necessary to include the equity portion?

 

[Jarhyn]

Again, when it comes to proper policing - solving violent crime - they absolutely are. When it comes to harrassing people at random, the police wildly overdo it (as in, they shouldn't do it at all). Whether it's the shakedown force that Ferguson operated, or the people who just run around hassling whoever they see like in Baltimore, the police in many of these areas have *never* established themselves as a force for justice, law, or order. Instead, they've operated as a street gang with the court system behind them, and thus are afforded the appropriate level of respect - or rather, the appropriate level of contempt.

And since the police are nearly useless in solving violent crimes, it means both that a person who attacks you will likely go free, and also that you'll likely go free if you retaliate. And that's why minor beefs over someone stealing someone's girl or whatever regularly devolve into gang wars.

What I don't see following from this is the reason for the high crime/homicide rate. If if it was shown without dispute that police harassed or treated people in a particular neighborhood poorly, why is that an excuse for high crime/homicide? The commission of crime is an intentional act of the perpetrator; it is not the fault of others.

The crime happens, as previously mentioned, because of a lack of opportunity which feeds the necessity to make riskier gambles to attain what they see as an acceptable standard of living. This is fueled by such communities being deprived of mechanisms which are taken for granted by communities that are not poor.

We are a social species, and whether you like it or not, we seek to have our standard of living match the standards of living of those we see. We want what we see every day. Everyone has the intent to be as well off as the others they interact with. If the only means to fulfill that intent is crime, then crime will happen.

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says hey, being a criminal may be fun, let's go out and do some crime. It doesn't work like that. They don't do it for the thrills (at least at first), they don't do it because it's faster or easier, they do it because it's there and they're passingly good at it, when other options simply ARENT there.

 

[Trausti]

What I don't see following from this is the reason for the high crime/homicide rate. If if it was shown without dispute that police harassed or treated people in a particular neighborhood poorly, why is that an excuse for high crime/homicide? The commission of crime is an intentional act of the perpetrator; it is not the fault of others.

The crime happens, as previously mentioned, because of a lack of opportunity which feeds the necessity to make riskier gambles to attain what they see as an acceptable standard of living. This is fueled by such communities being deprived of mechanisms which are taken for granted by communities that are not poor.

So not the fault of the cops. Don't blame then.

 

[Jarhyn]

Of course it is going to be higher. When you own you are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the property, taxes and insuring the structure itself. When you rent, all those things are your landlord's responsibility and are rolled into the rent. The landlord also wants to be able to make a profit on the rental. If you are just breaking even, or are making as much as you could putting your money in a CD, they why would anybody bother dealing with tenants, contractors, and all the other aggravation?
Owning is not for everyone. Some people can't qualify, others do not plan to live at the same address for ownership to make sense.

I've been considering for years some fairly reasonable (reasonable in the manner that it is eminently ethical, albeit radically different from the status quo) methods of resolving the problem, mostly centered around elimination of a system of rental-without-equity; people paying for a thing, particularly a residence, should be afforded a share in its ownership according to what they pay, as much as people adding real value in a business ought be afforded ownership of the business according to the loss of net profit to shareholders.

Do you think all landlords, from individuals renting a house to apartment complexes should be forced into a rent-to-own model? Do you think all renters should be forced to pay higher rents necessary to include the equity portion?

Yes, all rent seekers should be forced into a rent-for-equity model. The rents should stay the same, and the rent seekers should just be fucked out of the perpetuity of equity. If this leads to a correction in the value of land and the loss of economic activity surrounding housing, particularly among traditional 'rental markets', that's a good thing; no value is being added by the rent seekers, and values are being inflated artificially by rent seekers in all markets.

There are plenty of mechanisms and devices which could exist in an economic model which allowed for leaky ownership, everything from equity consolidation services to contractors which could fulfill the traditional 'landlord' responsibilities for a margin.

I work every day with a world where disgusting complexity and innumerable calculation is fronted with easy-to-use interfaces. Your gripes about whether ownership is right for everyone are spurious. The means and mechanisms of our current banking a d rental infrastructure are just as complex, moreso, even, than any system which allows leaky ownership, but the complexity is hidden by its mundanity. It all seems to make sense but only because you've been taught to think it does for your whole life.

We have an entire industry built on extracting resources from people because they can't pass a barrier to entry created by the very people extracting the resources, while adding no real value.

Of course the model needs a lot more work, and the discussions over the minutia are long and complex, and this isn't rightly the place to talk about them.

The point is that discussion about whether people in impoverished areas ought be afforded loans is spurious, insofar as they are already paying AT LEAST the cost of hired upkeep, taxes, and mortgage, in addition to being denied equity.

 

[Mumbles]

What I don't see following from this is the reason for the high crime/homicide rate. If if it was shown without dispute that police harassed or treated people in a particular neighborhood poorly, why is that an excuse for high crime/homicide? The commission of crime is an intentional act of the perpetrator; it is not the fault of others.

For exactly the reason I said. Someone robbed you? Stole your girl? Beat your ass in the middle of the street? The only way to make sure it doesn't keep happening is to retaliate, make sure people know that you won't simply take it.

 

[Trausti]

What I don't see following from this is the reason for the high crime/homicide rate. If if it was shown without dispute that police harassed or treated people in a particular neighborhood poorly, why is that an excuse for high crime/homicide? The commission of crime is an intentional act of the perpetrator; it is not the fault of others.

For exactly the reason I said. Someone robbed you? Stole your girl? Beat your ass in the middle of the street? The only way to make sure it doesn't keep happening is to retaliate, make sure people know that you won't simply take it.

So, not the fault of the cops.

- - - Updated - - -

This paper studies how the election of an African-American mayor can affect the crime rates in the US Cities. A dataset of U.S. mayor elections from 1985 to 2010 was used and a regression discontinuity design was implemented to deal with the endogeneity of black candidates to city characteristics. In contrast to the criminological literature suggesting a negative and significant relation, I find no effects on violent crimes and property crime, with the exception of motor vehicle theft: the election of a black mayor has a positive and significant effect on the number of motor vehicles stolen. These results hold when different specifications are adopted

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303738643_Politics_and_crime_in_black_white_evidence_from_US_big_cities

Cops somehow responsible.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We understand what redlining means. We also understand that what is being called redlining was simply being prudent about lending.

So clearly you don't understand what redlining means. Got it.

The point is nothing has been proven about evil intent. The only thing the bank did "wrong" was to look at data the government didn't look at.

- - - Updated - - -

This is a lie and you can't produce one bit of evidence to support it.

The banks gave loans without checking information because they came up with an illegal scheme involving the ratings agency to sell the bad loans fraudulently.

Massive crimes that nobody has ever been prosecuted for.

At one point, they were actually forging loan applications - changing people's income to much higher than it was in reality in order to get them the largest possible loan. Government certainly never told them to do that. And yeah, it was done for money, not for any sort of regulation - same as Wells Fargo's recent shenanigans.

Yeah, when the controls were removed of course some scumbags exploited it. Duh!

 

[ZiprHead]

Maybe black neighborhoods are under policed?

I would call it "improperly policed."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something that struck me on the bus this morning... Living in North Minneapolis, many neighborhood properties are rentals, probably a majority just a block or two south of where I live.

Rentals generally charge more rent than the mortgage payment would constitute until the property is paid for, and my experience seems to support the idea that rent is generally between 700 for a two bedroom duplex unit to 1500 for a house. My own mortgage is around 1000/month.

What this means is that the population of the region of the city in which I live have been paying for their properties for years, without being given any ownership of their homes; renting yeilds no equity. This means that while people in most other areas of the city are building equity, this vital nestegg is being denied across generations of North Minneapolis families. Loans can't be taken against that equity for education or property improvement, people living in the homes are barred from directly resolving issues with those properties, and damage to the property yeilds a loss of deposit, rather than deeper consequences of loss of home value, leading to a pattern which fails to teach people to respect the place where they live as a 'nice thing'.

People in the thread seem to be complaining that the housing crash happened when slack was placed on lending standards, however there is a valid question that should be asked: these people have already been paying for their homes, for years, generations even, and given NO equity for it. Why should we be talking about loans when in all reality, there have already been generations worth of equity that ought be afforded to these people?

I've been considering for years some fairly reasonable (reasonable in the manner that it is eminently ethical, albeit radically different from the status quo) methods of resolving the problem, mostly centered around elimination of a system of rental-without-equity; people paying for a thing, particularly a residence, should be afforded a share in its ownership according to what they pay, as much as people adding real value in a business ought be afforded ownership of the business according to the loss of net profit to shareholders.

Of course rent is higher than a mortgage. The thing is rent covers mortgage + repairs + taxes + some risk premium. We have been homeowners for about 20 years now--and have had multiple 4-figure repair bills in that time despite having bought a new house and I'm enough of a DIYer that I've reduced other 4-figure bills to 3-figure bills.

 

[Trausti]

I would call it "improperly policed."

Let's be honest. It's not the cops. If people want their neighborhood to be safe, it's up to the people in the neighborhood to make it safe. Scapegoating the cops for over-, under-, or improperly policing just perpetuates the problem.

 

[Mumbles]

I would call it "improperly policed."

Let's be honest. It's not the cops. If people want their neighborhood to be safe, it's up to the people in the neighborhood to make it safe. Scapegoating the cops for over-, under-, or improperly policing just perpetuates the problem.

No, we know that people who know they'll get caught tend to avoid criminal behavior. We also know that, even for crimes like murder, the perpetrators likely won't get caught. And a large part of this is due to the fact that police set themselves up as "on a war footing" against the community, and because they do not provide protection for witnesses (something that many street gangs manage to do for their own allies). The neighborhood is working on these issues - churches, summer camps, babysitters, neighbors, school (when not shut down), and the like all do their best to curb violence. It's the law enforcement end that's failing in many of these communities, and it's a structural problem with the police department rather than any one cop or other.

 

[Trausti]

Let's be honest. It's not the cops. If people want their neighborhood to be safe, it's up to the people in the neighborhood to make it safe. Scapegoating the cops for over-, under-, or improperly policing just perpetuates the problem.

No, we know that people who know they'll get caught tend to avoid criminal behavior. We also know that, even for crimes like murder, the perpetrators likely won't get caught. And a large part of this is due to the fact that police set themselves up as "on a war footing" against the community, and because they do not provide protection for witnesses (something that many street gangs manage to do for their own allies). The neighborhood is working on these issues - churches, summer camps, babysitters, neighbors, school (when not shut down), and the like all do their best to curb violence. It's the law enforcement end that's failing in many of these communities, and it's a structural problem with the police department rather than any one cop or other.

Oh, come on. Why are they engaging in criminal behavior in the first place? Mom? Dad? Where are you? If the dad is dumb enough to commit crime and spend time in prison, that's on him, not the cops. What makes a neighborhood "safe," "good," "bad," "prosperous," whatever, is the people who live there. Constantly attempting to foist responsibility for your problems on someone else isn't going to fix them. You have to fix them. But if you don't care about where you live, no one else will either.

 

[Jarhyn]

No, we know that people who know they'll get caught tend to avoid criminal behavior. We also know that, even for crimes like murder, the perpetrators likely won't get caught. And a large part of this is due to the fact that police set themselves up as "on a war footing" against the community, and because they do not provide protection for witnesses (something that many street gangs manage to do for their own allies). The neighborhood is working on these issues - churches, summer camps, babysitters, neighbors, school (when not shut down), and the like all do their best to curb violence. It's the law enforcement end that's failing in many of these communities, and it's a structural problem with the police department rather than any one cop or other.

Oh, come on. Why are they engaging in criminal behavior in the first place? Mom? Dad? Where are you? If the dad is dumb enough to commit crime and spend time in prison, that's on him, not the cops. What makes a neighborhood "safe," "good," "bad," "prosperous," whatever, is the people who live there. Constantly attempting to foist responsibility for your problems on someone else isn't going to fix them. You have to fix them. But if you don't care about where you live, no one else will either.

It's not a matter of caring about where you live. It takes a supreme idiot to think that some large population of humans is in any way radically different from themselves. I have a hard time describing how naïve and stupid a person would have to be to think their lives would be different in any significant way from the lives of the poor, if they themselves were poor.

Normal human beings for whom I don't feel an intense hate akin to my dislike for rotting trash generally have a sense of empathy, and attempt to understand and investigate the motives and contexts of the decisions of others, and have the humility to question whether they would make similar decisions, or they at least participate in the constant exercise of asking what contexts would provide the decision or make plans on which decision they would make given the circumstances.

I know the situations in which I would kill another human being, or when I would merely maim them. I know the heuristics that would drive me to rob someone, and what manner of person I would rob. I know the general set of circumstances in which I would sell drugs. I also know when I would merely lay down in a gutter to die of exposure or take more expedient actions.

It's easy to sit in a warm home with food on the table and clothes in your closet and a functioning shower and think that criminals are all deranged psychopaths who do it because they like it, but such people are also dead wrong, and IMO dangerously deranged.

 

[Axulus]

Maybe black neighborhoods are under policed?

http://eml.berkeley.edu/~jmccrary/chalfin_mccrary2015.pdf

Again, when it comes to proper policing - solving violent crime - they absolutely are. When it comes to harrassing people at random, the police wildly overdo it (as in, they shouldn't do it at all). Whether it's the shakedown force that Ferguson operated, or the people who just run around hassling whoever they see like in Baltimore, the police in many of these areas have *never* established themselves as a force for justice, law, or order. Instead, they've operated as a street gang with the court system behind them, and thus are afforded the appropriate level of respect - or rather, the appropriate level of contempt.

And since the police are nearly useless in solving violent crimes, it means both that a person who attacks you will likely go free, and also that you'll likely go free if you retaliate. And that's why minor beefs over someone stealing someone's girl or whatever regularly devolve into gang wars.

Who is "they"? Every police department is different. Why do you lump them all into a single category, painting a broad brush?

 

[Mumbles]

No, we know that people who know they'll get caught tend to avoid criminal behavior. We also know that, even for crimes like murder, the perpetrators likely won't get caught. And a large part of this is due to the fact that police set themselves up as "on a war footing" against the community, and because they do not provide protection for witnesses (something that many street gangs manage to do for their own allies). The neighborhood is working on these issues - churches, summer camps, babysitters, neighbors, school (when not shut down), and the like all do their best to curb violence. It's the law enforcement end that's failing in many of these communities, and it's a structural problem with the police department rather than any one cop or other.

Oh, come on. Why are they engaging in criminal behavior in the first place? Mom? Dad? Where are you? If the dad is dumb enough to commit crime and spend time in prison, that's on him, not the cops. What makes a neighborhood "safe," "good," "bad," "prosperous," whatever, is the people who live there. Constantly attempting to foist responsibility for your problems on someone else isn't going to fix them. You have to fix them. But if you don't care about where you live, no one else will either.

Want to know the secret?

The majority of people who live in these neighborhoods are the people who care by far the most about these issues. And they're the ones who lecture their kids, who organize groups, who preach from the pulpits, and so forth. They, after all, are the ones who have to live in the thick of it, and the ones who lose friends and family members to it. They're also the ones who loudly demand jobs, education, and so forth. and they'll gladly work cook, make sure their kids get to school with their homework done, and so forth.

But when it comes to someone willing to pull a gun in a basketball game, or who want to go to war over a girl, they aren't equipped to stop them. They don't have the weapons, and they don't have the authority. Whether it's the local sociopath who just attacks people because he's out of control, or the idiot teenagers who don't know how to think things through, it's the police who need to join in and tell them that the neighborhood and the law are united against those few people, and if necessary to haul someone off to prison. And this, again, is where we're falling down. Law enforcement fails so consistently that many people don't even bother trying to work with them. And that's what needs to be fixed.