by Robert M. Traxler

More Americans died last weekend in Chicago than died in Afghanistan in the last 18 months.

The good folks in the woke media and the leaders of the mostly Democrat controlled cities will tell us crime is going down under the defund the police programs; true? Yes and no.

As I said before, I spent decades in the Military Police and with the Army Criminal Investigations Command, also taught law enforcement courses at the college level and have a passable working knowledge of the law enforcement/legal process. The socialist movement will tell us crime is going down, not up, as stated by dirty rotten Republicans and the few in the right-wing media.

Well, it is a simple process to cut reported crime: just do not take the complaint, or define a reportable crime as a non-reportable crime. Also, when there are fewer police, fewer reports get processed. It is not rocket science; unethical as hell and dangerous for the mostly minority communities that lose police protection, but politically correct.

Police patrolling neighborhoods find crime; no patrolling, no police presence, less reported crime, reported (not actual) crime. If you decriminalize drugs, you cut crime; if you do not report property crimes under $900, the largest reported crime category, you cut reported crime. If you classify assault, destruction of property, looting and arson as a peaceful demonstration, you cut crime.

According to the New York Times, a source of woke news if one exists, the homicide rate for large American cities is up an average of 30% last year and 24% so far this year. Neil MacFarland, the reporter who wrote the story, is a brave man to report this fact; let’s hope the cancel culture has not descended upon him hammer and sickle.

The “broken windows” theory of crime prevention is a proven strategy; enforce the law against lower-level crimes, and the number of major crimes goes down. The broken windows theory and increasing preventive patrolling work, but of course it is called, racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, and the rest of the basic issue of names.  As the police move into high crime neighborhoods, criminals are arrested and taken off the streets; crime, real crime, goes down and the anti-law enforcement people go nuts. When the police depart and crime goes back up, the left is happy.

Ever since the founding of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England, by the then Home Secretary and former Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel in 1829, records have been kept. History teaches us that preventive patrolling and security lighting work; place “Bobby’s Men” (later shortened to Bobbies) in a neighborhood, and crime goes down; remove them, and crime goes up.

Defunding the police or “reimagining policing” (a term that sounds good but means nothing) causes crime to increase. So, the mostly Democratic controlled cities have seen an increase in crime, what to do? Crimes of violence exploded; the body count in cities like Chicago exceeds Afghanistan.

The voters see what’s going on and do not approve, so the solution is to reimagine policing: legalize drugs, make property theft of under $900 a non-reportable crime, remove the police from high crime (mostly minority) neighborhoods, and problem solved. Reported crime goes down; actual crime increases, but the goal is to make defunding the police a success, so it is deemed a success at the expense of the very people the left maintains they are helping.

The advances in emergency medical care, many developed and perfected by the Department of Defense in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ‘Stop the Bleed’ program and others have thankfully saved the lives of thousands of people, disproportionally minorities, shot in the out-of-control violence in the major cities. Even with vastly improved procedures by first responders resulting in thousands of lives saved, murder rates are increasing, and crimes of violence are out of control.

Defunding the police is a stupid action; cooking the crime books only hurts the people the left maintains they are championing. Defunding the police is a politically correct but truly ignorant idea. We will see the doctored crime statistics along with doctored inflation statistics more and more as the mid-terms get closer. Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.

My opinion.