The first and second have already been tried to no effect, elsewhere. The US has dramatically higher incarceration rates than the rest of the world and it hasn't dented crime. There's precious little evidence that stop 'n frisk does any good in exchange for further worsening relations between police and the poor.jsbru wrote:But what are our metro leaders supposed to do, aside from hire more police?
Ultimately, you can't stop homicide, because you can't babysit each potential murderer and magically swoop down and intervene when they don't go out and kill.
There's three solutions: 1) simply keep violent people off the streets, 2) beef up policing to the point where criminals think it's not worth it and move somewhere else, and 3) try to attack the social/economic causes of crime/drug/gang activity.
The first solution is difficult, because ultimately, that decision rests in the hands of our judicial system. The mayor/aldermen aren't elected judges. But they can pass laws themselves and/or pressure the state to make it easier to hand out longer sentences for violent people. The gun court proposal probably isn't a bad idea.
The second seems to have worked in NYC, but especially in the wake of Ferguson, implementing more police and "stop n' frisk" strategies is going to be a near political impossibility. And I have to admit that it is on the border of what is constitutional and what is not.
The third is systemic to our nation, and there's very little local leaders can do about it. How is St. Louis city supposed to change the nation's laws that make it economically desirable to ship low-skilled labor overseas, that make it difficult for poor people to ever own equity in even a small house, and save for a retirement? You have a bunch of people sitting around with no way to get a job, nothing to lose, and even if they do get a job, the pay is so terrible and the benefits so miniscule that you're better off living a life of crime (at least in the short-term).
So the third solution is kind of beyond the scope of what local leaders can do. And the first two will be insanely difficult due to city politics. But at least the first two are possible. The problem is that this area seems to be an easy place to live and get by if you're a violent criminal. Too many parts are just like the wild, wild west. No enforcement, no neighborhood infrastructure, no consequences, no incentives. Just do what you want, and disappear into some vacant urban wasteland like those guys did after shooting that kid downtown and fleeing to East St. Louis, and running into the empty warehouse area. Each municipality here takes the attitude of "screw the other guy, we're just going to batten down our hatches and watch the North/East/South side collapse. But you can't really batten down your hatches, and the lack of cooperation basically creates a bunch of nice bases of operation for criminals to plague the entire area.
Unfortunately, you're right that there's precious little local leaders can do about item 3. It's what really needs to be done, but we can't pull the city out of recession all by ourselves. And it's a problem for much of the country, which makes it hard to just move away from danger (and to the extent that people can, it makes problems even worse for everyone left behind).
