Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
David Kennedy is a criminologist who has spent decades working with
police in some of the most dangerous cities in America. In his book
"Don't Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America" he details how he and others developed a way to
dramatically reduce violence and general criminality in mostly black
neighborhoods.
This book challenges many of the fundamental assumptions of both the
left, the right, and libertarians. Some of his conclusions are:
- The police are not racist
- Guns are not the problem (people kill people, heh)
- Very little gang-related violence is over control of drug market "turf"
- Inner city blacks really believe the system is out to get them
- Aggressive, stop-and-search policing does not work
- Young killers are not psychopaths, and hate their violent world
As a very libertarian-leaning conservative, I had hoped Kennedy would
come out squarely in favor of drug legalization. He doesn't, but he
makes a strong case that the current War on Drugs is making things
worse, not better.
Inner-city black men don't actually believe that anyone in
authority--their churches, elders, or the police--actually cares that
they are killing each other in large numbers. Few murders are solved,
and the community, resenting the police, never testifies.
To break the pattern, Kennedy will get the police, prosecutors, parole
officers, church leaders, community activists (ugh, I know) together
with members of the worst drug crew and lay out a simple message:
don't kill anyone. Then they focus their attention not on
stop-and-search but on cracking down on the gang when a murder does
happen. All the crews get the message, and huge decreases in murders
occur within months.
Kennedy's goal is to stop the killing and get the drug trade off the
streets so that communities become liveable again. Once this happens,
the law-abiding citizens once again report crime to the police.
In one of Kennedy's grad classes he asks his students who among them
could buy illegal drugs in that building today if they wanted
to. After a few moments of silence, most of the class members raise
their hand. That's the state of the War on Drugs for white
America--illegal drugs are readily available, there is little violence
associated with the trade, and few ever go to prison. If we could get
black America to that state, wouldn't it be real progress, even if
eradication were unobtainable?
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Comments:
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Raw Prawn
No. You have the cause and effect exactly backward. Read Ann Coulter's Guilty. The level of feigned outrage it provoked proves she is right and that the left knows it. · 13 hours ago
I think we could argue endlessly about cause and effect. And I certainly would agree that many of the issues conservatives identify (breaking the social norm that sex should be associated with marriage, paying welfare to single mothers rather than two-parent families, stigmatization of women remaining in the homes to raise children, encouragement sexual behavior among teens etc) as causing family breakdown are legitimate concerns. That being said, if you add on top of that sending most young men in particular neighborhoods to jail, you could very likely make things worse.
And personally, my favorite "root cause" of the violence, and thus family disruption, is drug prohibition.
But it's all beside the point to some extent. Kennedy presents empirical evidence that a particular technique can reduce the number of people killed and imprisoned in particular communities. It seems to me like it's worth investigating that approach, perhaps in parallel with our other "root cause" battles.
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 4:03pmSep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Samwise Gamgee: Drug legalization:
A good friend of mine has a great argument against drug legalization: every time he hears someone talking about how awesome communism would be by pointing to Cuba as a viable example, that person isalwayssmoking a joint.
You either get that argument, or you don't. · 14 hours ago
When I was younger I experimented with certain substances and found that on one occasion I suddenly "got" the entire left-wing world view. Then it wore off, and I was as conservative as ever (heartless at nineteen, I know.) But I had gained the insight that Liberalism was in some ways a delusion state of mind.
Reading Marx can also put you in a delusion state of mind.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
George Savage
Nevertheless, I agree that the war on drugs is a failure and should be ended.
As Milton Friedman once observed, the US has two problems: one is drug-addiction, the second is drug-related crime. Drug-related crime can be ended at the stroke of a pen, freeing resources to devote to the first problem. · 12 hours ago
Hear, hear.
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 4:10pmMay '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
So what the author is saying is that we need an Anbar Awakening in Detroit?
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Well, the whole point of my post is that there seems to be evidence that the violence can be stopped. After reading the book, I'm convinced that Kennedy is on to something.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
There's something to that, but I'm not sure it's strictly true. Of course you'd have to apply the standard equally to all countries. For example, if you take out Native American murder in Canada, you get a very low residual murder rate. In Canada though it's illegal to keep statistics on the racial breakdown of those charged with crimes. We do know that the 3% of Natives in the general population contribute 40% of prison inmates. Canadians have the sheer gall to call Americans racists because the 13% of the population that's black provides 50% of the prison population. If you accept that as the standard for racism (which I don't, but let's pretend), then, if I've done my ratios correctly, Canadians are about 3 times as racist as Americans.
Anyway, are whites in the US less violent than whites in Holland? Someone probably knows, but I don't. What I'm getting at though is that there seems to be a way to get beyond these root cause arguments.
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 4:32pmSep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
In a way I guess: a lot of people have to shift their world view. And the sudden change in violence can be equally dramatic. No one really plays the role of Al-Qaeda in Iraq though.
Nov '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
I think Thomas Sowell has it right. He says the culture of any population group trumps everything, and it’s difficult if not impossible to change. It’s as true of White Scot-Irish crackers (me) as it is of what Sowell calls Black Rednecks.
On a more hopeful note, we White Scot-Irish cracker Snuffy Smith types used to have a pretty high murder rate, but not so much anymore. I think it’s because so many of us attained a degree of property and wealth that we want to save and protect, and we understand that anti-social behavior is a quick route to poverty.
The answer for the Black murder class is to eschew drugs and get a legal job, work and save to increase their accumulation of wealth. Many already have and they quickly move away from the violence to a place where the can live peaceful lives.
Note that this strategy is independent of whether drugs are legalized.
May '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Samwise Gamgee: Drug legalization:
A good friend of mine has a great argument against drug legalization: every time he hears someone talking about how awesome communism would be by pointing to Cuba as a viable example, that person isalwayssmoking a joint.
You either get that argument, or you don't. · 16 hours ago
Ok, dope causes stupidity. So do the liberal arts departments of colleges. Ban them both, or ban neither, but be consistent.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Ducatista: I think Thomas Sowell has it right. He says the culture of any population group trumps everything, and it’s difficult if not impossible to change. It’s as true of White Scot-Irish crackers (me) as it is of what Sowell calls Black Rednecks.
On a more hopeful note, we White Scot-Irish cracker Snuffy Smith types used to have a pretty high murder rate, but not so much anymore. I think it’s because so many of us attained a degree of property and wealth that we want to save and protect, and we understand that anti-social behavior is a quick route to poverty.
I've just started reading "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice" by William J. Stuntz. He notes that southern blacks, many of whom moved north in the earlier part of the 20th century, were not particularly violent. So something changed once they got to the big north-east and mid-west cities; hopefully that something can change back.
Jul '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
I've always found this idea, that ending drug enforcement could free up resources to end drug addiction, problematic. A huge percentage of addicts who seek treatment do so because of court orders, in an attempt to avoid criminal penalty.
Take away the criminal penalty, and you take away the leverage. Legalization would mean fewer people going to rehab, not more.
Jun '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
I think it's a promising idea, though I agree with Mendel and I'm a bit skeptical (though perhaps for slightly different reasons). If the goal is to reduce violence, and the community less intimidated by the gangs, and more likely to turn to the police to turn in criminals, wouldn't the criminals (whether they consciously reason it through or not) have a vested interest in preventing this and maintaining the status quo -- i.e., an intimidated citizenry that wouldn't dare turn to the police for help out of their personal safety? Even if you managed to reduce the amount of intergang violence, mightn't that just focus the gangs' intimidations more on the citizen, rather than on each other, in order to keep them from turning to the police?
That said, it seems like something worth trying, at least.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
The kind of crimes that get reported are serious ones like murder. Most of the current inner-city killing is non-drug-trade related--more personal "beefs" over girls and the like.
Imagine your typical college campus. Drugs are ubiquitous. Anyone who wants them will get them. Many people pay, or help pay for, for their educations dealing drugs--a few get caught, but not many. Very few authority figures will go out of their way to ferret out drug dealing as long as it's out of sight and everything is peaceful. Even if they did, it's unlikely that a particular student dealer would intimidate, say, a professor who's reporting drug dealing. If he did, he wouldn't get away with it. Neither drug eradicators nor those who prefer legalization would consider this ideal in inner-city neighborhoods, but it would be a big improvement over the situation today.
Edited on March 5, 2012 at 12:33amDec '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Tenther
There's something to that, but I'm not sure it's strictly true. Of course you'd have to apply the standard equally to all countries. For example, if you take out Native American murder in Canada, you get a very low residual murder rate. In Canada though it's illegal to keep statistics on the racial breakdown of those charged with crimes. We do know that the 3% of Natives in the general population contribute 40% of prison inmates. Canadians have the sheer gall to call Americans racists because the 13% of the population that's black provides 50% of the prison population. If you accept that as the standard for racism (which I don't, but let's pretend),.
· 15 hours ago
Edited 15 hours ago
Consider this. There are ~10x the number men in prison as women even though there is approximately the same number of men as woman. Does this mean that we live in a matriarchy where the women oppress the men?
May '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
The War on Drugs would be more aptly named the War on Marijuana. It's ludicrous to equate marijuana with heroine, or even with LSD. A delusional, adrenalin-flooded heroine addict is not a danger only to himself.
I've always thought inter-gang violence boils down to feuds. "One of theirs killed one of ours. It's payback time." Feuds end when an outside force demands cooperation or when mercy is accepted in lieu of justice for the sake of peace. That's a tall order.
Jul '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Tenther
Imagine your typical college campus. Drugs are ubiquitous. Anyone who wants them will get them. Many people pay, or help pay for, for their educations dealing drugs--a few get caught, but not many. Very few authority figures will go out of their way to ferret out drug dealing as long as it's out of sight and everything is peaceful. Even if they did, it's unlikely that a particular student dealer would intimidate, say, a professor who's reporting drug dealing. If he did, he wouldn't get away with it. Neither drug eradicators nor those who prefer legalization would consider this ideal in inner-city neighborhoods, but it would be a big improvement over the situation today.
The two contexts, the peaceful college campus and the drug-plagued inner-city neighborhood, are so completely different in so many ways that it seems fruitless to compare them. The nature of the setting, the demographics involved, the inherent power structures, everything.
Dec '10
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Aaron Miller: A delusional, adrenalin-flooded heroine addict is not a danger only to himself.
. · 52 minutes ago
Heroin addicts do awful things to support their habit. While high they do not do much damage. They do very little at all, except maybe drool.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Wylee Coyote
The two contexts, the peaceful college campus and the drug-plagued inner-city neighborhood, are so completely different in so many ways that it seems fruitless to compare them. The nature of the setting, the demographics involved, the inherent power structures, everything. · 3 hours ago
The point was that there is no inherent reason that drug-dealing would necessarily involve violent witness intimidation.
I suppose that cities will always have more crime that college campuses (unless you include illegal drinking, perhaps.) But places like High Point NC have gone from being typical urban hell-holes to being much more like peaceful college campuses in a pretty short time. No witness intimidation by drug dealers necessary.
Sep '11
Re: Book Recommendation: David Kennedy's "Don't Shoot"
Aaron Miller: The War on Drugs would be more aptly named the War on Marijuana. It's ludicrous to equate marijuana with heroine, or even with LSD. A delusional, adrenalin-flooded heroine addict is not a danger only to himself.
I've always thought inter-gang violence boils down to feuds. "One of theirs killed one of ours. It's payback time." Feuds end when an outside force demands cooperation or when mercy is accepted in lieu of justice for the sake of peace. That's a tall order. · 3 hours ago
No one is more dangerous than a violent drunk.