Wikipedia says that critical reading is “is a form of language analysis that does not take the given text at face value, but involves a deeper examination of the claims put forth as well as the supporting points and possible counterarguments.”1 What I’ll be doing in this series is taking a closer look at everything from social media posts to books. The point here isn’t to vilify, take sides, or debate. The point is to practice digging deeper and increasing your interaction with the written word.
The article we’re looking at today is “Will Crime Keep Rising? Not Necessarily” by Jason L. Riley.
Premise: “But Mr. Latzer did express concern that policy makers seem to be going out of their way to turn back the clock on crime rates. ‘We’re turning loose people who commit repeat offenses,’ he said, in reference to the popularity of so-called bail-reform measures that make it harder to keep defendants locked up until trial. We’re ‘demoralizing’ law-enforcement by treating criminals like victims and police officers like criminals. ‘We’re creating a perfect storm,’ he said.”
The first thing that I would do here to see if we can blame bail reform and “demoralizing” police is to see what’s going on with the crime rate in places that aren’t very liberal, haven’t passed bail reform, and are pro-police.
Counterpoint #1:
Counterpoint #2:
We should stop to ask whether there’s enough data to come to any conclusions right now. It’s very tempting to take data from a year or two, or even five and make conclusions about what is causing increases in crime, but experts say that it takes time and a lot of data to come to any reliable conclusions2.
Premise: “California passed a ballot measure in 2014 that made stealing items valued at less than $950 a misdemeanor rather than a felony, and unlikely to result in any punishment.”
On the surface, what’s being said here is pretty straightforward. Let’s dig a little deeper:
- Missing fact: Misdemeanors are crimes and, in California, retail theft is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1000 fine.
- Missing fact: California, like many other states, has a civil provision allowing retailers to send a demand letter to accused shoplifters requesting up to $500. And it doesn’t matter if the items were recovered.
- Missing fact: Some experts estimate that 85% of shoplifting incidents are attributable to organized crime. And that type of retail theft is still a felony in California.
- Missing fact: Arrest rates for retail theft are down. Police groups have acknowledged that they have stopped pursuing as many retail theft cases because they are misdemeanors and aren’t as serious.
- Missing fact: Retailers have decided not to pursue shoplifters who exit the store.
ABC7 news has a video of someone loading up a trash bag with stuff from a San Francisco-area Walgreens. A reporter, the camera crew, and the security guard are recording him. As the thief exits store, the security guard tries and fails to grab the bag as the thief literally rolls out of the store on a bicycle. No one ran after him. No one appeared to call the police.
- Missing fact: Studies show that the certainty of getting caught is more of a deterrent to crime than a harsh punishment.
- Missing fact: Walgreens has been closing hundreds of stores throughout the United States and the United Kingdom over the last six years.
Things to think about:
- California is a pretty big state. Why aren’t we seeing data on how many locations in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, etc.? They all have the same retail theft law, so seeing what Walgreens is doing those other areas would be enlightening.
- Retailers in Oakland have started hiring off-duty police officers for security. This makes me think that retailers have been shifting a cost of doing business (i.e. stopping shoplifters) to the state by having the police deal with shoplifting.
- One of the arguments that criminal justice reform activists make is that the police need to be freed up to deal with more serious crimes instead of handling things that other agencies or resources should be doing instead. Think about it: One of the retailers said that they have been losing $1,000 a day to shoplifters. Is the salary for a security guard really going to be $365,000 a year? And here seems like a pretty good place to mention that retailers can write off the cost of stolen goods come tax time.
- I know, I know: Wikipedia isn’t considered to be a source that you can rely on without checking other resources. Their definition holds up: “What is Critical Reading?” https://www.esc.edu/online-writing-center/resources/critical-reading-writing/general-reading/critical-reading/ ↩
- “Explaining Recent Crime Trends: Introduction to the Special Issue” Richard Rosenfeld and David Weisburd, published August 11, 2016 ↩
