Violent Crime: A Conversation [themarshallproject.org]

Alicia Doktor 11/17/1712:00 PM

Over the last two years, there has been a great deal of arguing about the prevalence of violent crime in America and how the national crime rate is changing. The president and attorney general say it’s soaring. Criminal justice reformers aren’t so certain. A Who’s Who of crime researchers and experts gathered to tackle the question at the Smart on Crime Innovations conference at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City last month.

The panelists were Thomas Abt of Harvard’s Center for International Development, Adam Gelb of Pew’s public safety performance project, the Brennan Center for Justice’s Ames Grawert, The Vera Institute’s Jim Parsons and John Jay professor David Kennedy. The Marshall Project’s Tom Meagher moderated the discussion.

These excerpts have been edited for length and clarity. You can watch the conversation in its entirety here.

[For more on this story, go to https://www.themarshallproject...crime-a-conversation]

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Karen ClemmerMember

The link took me to an interesting article - thank you for posting! This quote really resonated for me -

"There are particular communities that have people who are living in unconscionable conditions of persistent violence, trauma, and fear. We as a nation have taken that as normal and so when things change, we focus on the change. The scandal is what's normal." David Kennedy

So we have to elevate this issue in a way, but in a way that avoids this fear mongering, because I do think we need to have countervailing messages when people say, "Oh this is American carnage." It isn't. "This is a nationwide crime wave." It isn't. It's also not about immigration. It's also, as far as we can tell, not about opioids or drugs. We need to get under the hood as to what this is, and as David said, use some of the strategies that have already been demonstrated to work.

11/20/1712:10 PM

Robert OlcottMember

Is spilling 100,000 gallons of crude oil in South Dakota a 'violent act' ? ? ?

11/17/171:34 PM

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