I was very interested to read Nathan Robinson’s reflections on Astra Taylor’s 2023 book, The Age of Insecurity. He offers an explanation for why Americans who have objectively benefited a lot from Biden’s economic policies are still very discontented, namely that people are feeling a lack of
Appreciate naming of the dissonance between material impact and felt sense of security. Research from Kalla (Yale) and Brockman (Berkeley) on the persuasive effect of “deep canvassing” confirms that fact / logic doesn’t move the needle.
Any examples of effectively addressing the feelings around security in the Criminal Justice space?
Good piece. I think the perception of safety is indeed incredibly important, and it absolutely needs to be top of mind for anyone working to reform the criminal justice system. People will never support criminal justice reforms that they believe undermines their security.
Meanwhile, as someone who lives in the Bay Area now and who has lived there, New York, and Boston, over the last 30 years, it was interesting to see those three cities at the bottom of the murders per capita table while at the same time having very different perceptions of safety among residents.
One possible explanation, of course, is that the crime rate as a whole rather than just the murder rate has more impact on feelings of security and San Francisco and New York have significantly higher crime rates overall than Boston. I don’t know if that is the case, but I suspect that even if Boston’s overall crime rate IS significantly lower, that it’s only part of the story.
Having visited both Boston and New York recently (while going into SF regularly), I think there are a couple of other explanations that are as or more important than the crime rate for why people in SF and New York feel less secure:
- First, and most importantly, I think the visibility of street homelessness, addiction, and mental illness on the streets of SF and in the streets and subways of New York creates a sense of chaos and disorder that dramatically undermines people’s sense of security. I can tell you for certain that when I go into SF with my kids, who unlike me have never lived or worked in a place with lots of visible homelessness, they find the streets of San Francisco quite shocking. Boston, at least based on my most recent visits, has far less of this phenomenon, at lease in areas where visitors tend to go.
- Second, though I don’t know for certain whether this is different in Boston than in SF or New York, I think the prevalence of stores locking goods in cabinets to prevent shoplifting is also a very visible signal to residents that their city isn’t safe and reduces a sense of security.
It’s why I find it so frustrating that folks on the left often are opposed to measures (such as giving cities the ability to clear encampments and to force people off the streets) that would reduce the visibility of street homelessness and to taking aggressive steps to ensure that the police and the justice systems catch and prosecute “minor crimes” like shoplifting . If you’re someone who wants to see criminal justice reforms that reduce the harms of incarceration, the only way to successfully do so is to make sure that streets feel safe and that measures are in place to ensure that anyone who commits a crime is highly likely to be caught (which is the best way to reduce crime) and to go through a process that is satisfactory for the victims of crime.
That can certainly mean a restorative justice approach to convicted criminals rather than one that is simply punitive. I strongly support investing in our justice system to make such a pivot possible. But I guarantee that such an approach is only possible in a world where citizens feel their communities are getting safer, which is why those who believe in criminal justice reform have to be sure that they are making their communities become and feel safer, as they work to make the justice system less punitive.
Not sure this take has thought itself through--the way to decrease mass incarceration and enact CJ reform can't be to create a permanent increase in the amount of people being locked up for petty offenses and non-crimes. That's either skipping all the important steps or throwing baby with bathwater. It also seems naive to think that clearing some encampments (a practice that currently happens in every city in the US) and arresting people for petty things will remove unhoused people, drug addiction, and property crime from a city. The idea that there's a simple switch back to 'normal policing' that would make cities feel fully secure and thriving seems like a fantasy (albeit a common one thanks to various opportunists) that deals with anxiety by pretending the things that are producing it don't exist or could easily disappear. It seems to me that the challenge this article is presenting is how to make people feel safe in ways that deal with and acknowledge the reality of our cities now-- cities which have struggling retail cores and business anchors, still have the same significant working class and deep-poverty populations they've long had, have weakened social contracts, decreasing amounts of genuinely shared/equitable third spaces, etc. It's hard for me to think of a first step towards that that doesn't start with making the realities of people who are struggling better, and creating a sense of the common good that actually benefits everyone.
- The number one way to reduce crime is to increase the likelihood of people getting caught and the combination of effective police work and leveraging technology can do so:
- In the short term, this will lead to more arrests, but it can absolutely reduce incarceration in the medium to long term because fewer people will commit crimes.
- And even in the short term, more arrests don't have to lead to increases in incarceration if we lean into alternatives such as restorative justice or things like work service camps as an alternative to prisons.
San Francisco is still an amazing city, and there is simply no reason its downtown can't be amazing again as well. But it needs to be a place where people feel safe and enjoy spending time and that won't happen if it's a place where you are frequently confronted with people sleeping on the sidewalks, urinating in alleys and streets, and shooting up.
Meanwhile, I'd fully acknowledge that not allowing people to do these behaviors helps everyone else (which is why it's worth doing) but doesn't actually help the homeless. And I'd agree we should be doing a bunch of things to help them as well including making it easier to build housing and investing in transitional housing and shelters and a variety of services from services for the mentally ill and addicts to job training. But let's spend our resources that way, while at the same aggressively enforcing laws that keep public spaces welcoming for the public in general. Allowing the homeless, the drug addicted, and the mentally ill to create a sense of chaos and disorder in these spaces does nothing to help them, while making cities worse places for everyone and undermining people's willingness to invest in more constructive alternatives to our criminal justice system.
And to be clear, doing the right thing about both crime and homelessness will require significant public investment. There is no free lunch here. But that investment will never happen if people think the money is going to go to people who care more about protecting the rights and futures of criminals and the homeless than of everyone else. Sustainable constructive criminal justice reform will only happen if it's leader clearly demonstrate that they are as committed to preventing crime and the rights of its victims, as they are of changing the experience of people who commit the crimes.
Appreciate naming of the dissonance between material impact and felt sense of security. Research from Kalla (Yale) and Brockman (Berkeley) on the persuasive effect of “deep canvassing” confirms that fact / logic doesn’t move the needle.
Any examples of effectively addressing the feelings around security in the Criminal Justice space?
Good piece. I think the perception of safety is indeed incredibly important, and it absolutely needs to be top of mind for anyone working to reform the criminal justice system. People will never support criminal justice reforms that they believe undermines their security.
Meanwhile, as someone who lives in the Bay Area now and who has lived there, New York, and Boston, over the last 30 years, it was interesting to see those three cities at the bottom of the murders per capita table while at the same time having very different perceptions of safety among residents.
One possible explanation, of course, is that the crime rate as a whole rather than just the murder rate has more impact on feelings of security and San Francisco and New York have significantly higher crime rates overall than Boston. I don’t know if that is the case, but I suspect that even if Boston’s overall crime rate IS significantly lower, that it’s only part of the story.
Having visited both Boston and New York recently (while going into SF regularly), I think there are a couple of other explanations that are as or more important than the crime rate for why people in SF and New York feel less secure:
- First, and most importantly, I think the visibility of street homelessness, addiction, and mental illness on the streets of SF and in the streets and subways of New York creates a sense of chaos and disorder that dramatically undermines people’s sense of security. I can tell you for certain that when I go into SF with my kids, who unlike me have never lived or worked in a place with lots of visible homelessness, they find the streets of San Francisco quite shocking. Boston, at least based on my most recent visits, has far less of this phenomenon, at lease in areas where visitors tend to go.
- Second, though I don’t know for certain whether this is different in Boston than in SF or New York, I think the prevalence of stores locking goods in cabinets to prevent shoplifting is also a very visible signal to residents that their city isn’t safe and reduces a sense of security.
It’s why I find it so frustrating that folks on the left often are opposed to measures (such as giving cities the ability to clear encampments and to force people off the streets) that would reduce the visibility of street homelessness and to taking aggressive steps to ensure that the police and the justice systems catch and prosecute “minor crimes” like shoplifting . If you’re someone who wants to see criminal justice reforms that reduce the harms of incarceration, the only way to successfully do so is to make sure that streets feel safe and that measures are in place to ensure that anyone who commits a crime is highly likely to be caught (which is the best way to reduce crime) and to go through a process that is satisfactory for the victims of crime.
That can certainly mean a restorative justice approach to convicted criminals rather than one that is simply punitive. I strongly support investing in our justice system to make such a pivot possible. But I guarantee that such an approach is only possible in a world where citizens feel their communities are getting safer, which is why those who believe in criminal justice reform have to be sure that they are making their communities become and feel safer, as they work to make the justice system less punitive.
Not sure this take has thought itself through--the way to decrease mass incarceration and enact CJ reform can't be to create a permanent increase in the amount of people being locked up for petty offenses and non-crimes. That's either skipping all the important steps or throwing baby with bathwater. It also seems naive to think that clearing some encampments (a practice that currently happens in every city in the US) and arresting people for petty things will remove unhoused people, drug addiction, and property crime from a city. The idea that there's a simple switch back to 'normal policing' that would make cities feel fully secure and thriving seems like a fantasy (albeit a common one thanks to various opportunists) that deals with anxiety by pretending the things that are producing it don't exist or could easily disappear. It seems to me that the challenge this article is presenting is how to make people feel safe in ways that deal with and acknowledge the reality of our cities now-- cities which have struggling retail cores and business anchors, still have the same significant working class and deep-poverty populations they've long had, have weakened social contracts, decreasing amounts of genuinely shared/equitable third spaces, etc. It's hard for me to think of a first step towards that that doesn't start with making the realities of people who are struggling better, and creating a sense of the common good that actually benefits everyone.
Thanks for responding John. A few points:
With regard to crime:
- The number one way to reduce crime is to increase the likelihood of people getting caught and the combination of effective police work and leveraging technology can do so:
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-best-way-to-end-mass-incarceration
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/car-break-ins-san-francisco-2/3667342/
- In the short term, this will lead to more arrests, but it can absolutely reduce incarceration in the medium to long term because fewer people will commit crimes.
- And even in the short term, more arrests don't have to lead to increases in incarceration if we lean into alternatives such as restorative justice or things like work service camps as an alternative to prisons.
As for homeless encampments, at least in California, the clearing of them is a very recent phenomenon (really in the two months since the Grants Pass decision). And while it will take some time to know for sure, my belief is that WILL turn out to be a turning point for cities (https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-homeless-encampments-c5dad968b8fafaab83b51433a204c9ea).
San Francisco is still an amazing city, and there is simply no reason its downtown can't be amazing again as well. But it needs to be a place where people feel safe and enjoy spending time and that won't happen if it's a place where you are frequently confronted with people sleeping on the sidewalks, urinating in alleys and streets, and shooting up.
Meanwhile, I'd fully acknowledge that not allowing people to do these behaviors helps everyone else (which is why it's worth doing) but doesn't actually help the homeless. And I'd agree we should be doing a bunch of things to help them as well including making it easier to build housing and investing in transitional housing and shelters and a variety of services from services for the mentally ill and addicts to job training. But let's spend our resources that way, while at the same aggressively enforcing laws that keep public spaces welcoming for the public in general. Allowing the homeless, the drug addicted, and the mentally ill to create a sense of chaos and disorder in these spaces does nothing to help them, while making cities worse places for everyone and undermining people's willingness to invest in more constructive alternatives to our criminal justice system.
And to be clear, doing the right thing about both crime and homelessness will require significant public investment. There is no free lunch here. But that investment will never happen if people think the money is going to go to people who care more about protecting the rights and futures of criminals and the homeless than of everyone else. Sustainable constructive criminal justice reform will only happen if it's leader clearly demonstrate that they are as committed to preventing crime and the rights of its victims, as they are of changing the experience of people who commit the crimes.