Report: Reduce crime with more cops on the streets

In the wake of a recent wave of crime in North Carolina, most notably the murder of Iryna Zarutska, the John Locke Foundation has published a research report advocating for intensive community policing as the answer to violence in the state.

 “Compared to other developed countries, America is and always has been under policed,” Jon Guze, author of the report and senior fellow of legal studies for the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal. “Most countries employ more police officers per capita than we do, and most countries devote a higher proportion of their GDP to policing.”

The communities that need community policing the most are often the ones that are least able to afford it, requiring supplemental funding from the state, Guze said. Charlotte, the state’s largest city, has recently come into the national spotlight in the wake of Iryna Zarutska’s murder. It is also among the top cities in the nation for property crime. Winston-Salem is also ranked among the top cities in the US for crime. 

“For the residents of high-crime neighborhoods, crime is a perennial problem that requires a long-term solution,” continued Guze. “The recent spike in crime, followed by Iryna Zarutska’s murder, raised awareness of North Carolina’s crime problem and elicited a quick legislative response. It remains to be seen whether the public’s awareness can be sustained long enough to get the kind of sustained legislative response we need, but I am hopeful.”

More Cops, Less Crime: Using Community Policing to Address North Carolina’s Crime Problem, a recent report from the John Locke Foundation, outlines the four elements of this intensive community policing policy:

• hiring more police officers
• increasing salaries 
• providing state-of-the-art training and support 
• deploying officers as peacekeepers in high-crime, high-disorder neighborhoods

Between 2013 and 2023, the murder rate in North Carolina varied from 5.0 to 9.6 per 100,000 people. In 2023, the murder rate varied more than three and a half times that much among the state’s largest cities, according to the report. 

“Regardless of what happens in the state as a whole, the residents of high-crime communities will always need to worry about crime,” said Guze in the report. 

According to the report, black and low-income residents are more likely to live in high-crime neighborhoods than are other demographics. Black people are six times more likely to be murdered in North Carolina than are whites. 

“…it’s important to remember that crime victims and their families are not the only ones harmed by high levels of crime and disorder,” according to the report. “Everyone who lives in high-crime, high-disorder neighborhoods suffers, too.” 

Beyond protecting the lives and property of potential victims, intensive community policing enhances the quality of life and economic prospects for everyone living in what might otherwise be a high-crime community. 

Intensive community policing has proven to be highly cost-effective.

“One comprehensive analysis found that a $5 billion investment in additional police presence yielded $25 billion dollars worth of long- term benefits,” according to the report. 

Police staffing in North Carolina fell between 2018 and 2022, while crime and murder rates simultaneously rose. The number of police officers increased slightly in 2023, but it remains significantly lower than it was in 2018. 

Increased police presence reduces crime, according to Guze and the report, but by deterring crime, not necessarily by making more arrests. 

Across North Carolina, crime tends to be highest in communities with the lowest income levels and property values, according to the report. Communities that cannot afford intensive community policing should be eligible for supplemental funding from the state, Guze said. While funding state and local services can be a complicated endeavor, a blueprint exists in the pattern by which the state has been funding public schools for years.  

“Even though public school funding shows that state funding for local public services is feasible, it also provides a warning about it,” Guze wrote in the report. “Public schools have witnessed enormous growth in spending levels, with much of that growth going not to teacher pay, but to administrative bloat. State policymakers seeking to provide supplemental police funding must take steps to ensure that the money is used not to fund more administrators, but to put more police officers on the streets.” 

In the report, Guze urges legislators to apply lessons from decades of funding public schools when addressing supplemental funding for high-crime communities. Funding must actually be allocated for putting officers on the street and not diverted to administrative costs, as is often the case with funding public schools. Legislators must also consider how to prevent the creation of perverse incentives. Supplemental funding must be directed to high-crime communities, he said. However, if lower crime rates mean that supplemental funding will be withdrawn, law enforcement will have an incentive to maintain high levels, according to the report. 

One big question is where the state will draw this supplemental funding from. While the report outlines a few options, it highlights the tax revenue generated from online sports gambling. Some of this revenue is earmarked explicitly for specific purposes, but the first year alone generated about $50 million in unallocated revenue. Allocating just a fraction of that funding to supplemental police funding could make a big difference in putting uniforms on the streets, Guze said.

“Report: Reduce crime with more cops on the streets” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.