WALL STREET JOURNAL
by Heather MacDonald
June 1, 2015

The consequences of the ‘Ferguson effect’ are already appearing. The main victims of growing violence will be the inner-city poor.

The nation’s two-decades-long crime decline may be over. Gun violence in particular is spiraling upward in cities across America…This incessant drumbeat against the police has resulted in what St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson last November called the “Ferguson effect.” Cops are disengaging from discretionary enforcement activity and the “criminal element is feeling empowered,” Mr. Dotson reported. Arrests in St. Louis city and county by that point had dropped a third since the shooting of Michael Brown in August. Not surprisingly, homicides in the city surged 47% by early November and robberies in the county were up 82%. Similar “Ferguson effects” are happening across the country as officers scale back on proactive policing under the onslaught of anti-cop rhetoric. READ MORE