Wow. We had a television series that for five years laid out in great detail and simplicity how to solve every problem this article describes - and absolutely none of those ideas has been adopted.
They are set out in the comments - alongside the fascist fantasies.
End the prohibition on recreational drugs and 90% of the reasons why all this bad stuff happens just evaporates. But that option won't even be considered. It is literally insane - doing the same thing year after year and expecting a different result.
We need to be really clear about why recreational drugs are illegal. It is because they make people happy. There is no other reason.
No heroin user has ever committed a crime while they were actually under the effect of heroin - the effort involved in committing any kind of crime is the last thing that a heroin users is likely to be interested in.
The crime comes from being addicted and having to pay for the stuff. Make it legal and the price will plummet, crime will drop away, there won't be any big money in dealing - which is what fuels most of the gun violence - the whole issue will just evaporate.
But the people who are scared of happiness won't let that happen. They want people to be miserable and desperate and killing each other as a result.
It's just that simple - reality usually is. And "The Wire" made all this clear a decade ago.
Still, weed is legal in California now, so it will be everywhere soon and that will help - a lot! It really is so simple.
1
Another tragic story that should not be happening in the richest country in the world. We have the resources, but have decided that the people who need them are disposable. Not just children of color, all children. PTSD disabled veterans, the mentally ill, the homeless, the addicted are left to flounder and suffer under the Ayn Rand Policies of our elected officials.
9
Kinda sad.
Any possibility that guns are being made available so that Black people would kill each other?
I know, I know. A crazy question I know. But am still asking.
10
Apparently, nothing has changed since "The Wire". Clay Davis is still running the show.
6
I find it really shameful that NYT readers respond to this article by saying things like, where is Black Lives Matter? Or, look at this picture - no father, that's the problem. First of all, how about some empathy for the teenagers who are facing this world every day? Especially those trying to rise above their circumstances at Excel? Second, how petty, to ask about BLM. We have no idea what BLM's role is here. Stop being white and accusatory and divisive. And third, the lack of a father is the problem? What is this, 1950? Also, the lack of a father did not directly cause this poor young man (boy, really) to get shot 6 times. I really think these problems could be more effectively addressed with more empathy, less divisiveness, and a focus on the real issues. I hate reading comments that I can bet are coming from a nice comfortable home where you never hear gunshots and where you probably had a fair amount of help (even so far as knowing the right people) to you get where you are, that do nothing more than point fingers at all the others who are at fault.
41
I read your response and i’m puzzled. All this violence is because of a lack of a father figure in the home? Really. It is the responsibility of the community as a whole to help prevent the killings within. Every day politicians and the media are obsessing over illegal immigrants while Americans die. How about directing some of that passion to fix some of the problems in Baltimore. Take a look at Corey Bookers performance yesterday? Very sad that no one cares about these young black men it’s all about was politically popular for scoring points and self image. Also what role the leaders of the City of Baltimore play in these tragedies after the death of Freddy Gray and the false charges that were brought against the police there. Baltimore has been a trouble city for a long time and will continue to be. Everyone there knows how to fix the problems it’s just no one is willing to make the hard choices.
5
Well said. People who live safe, comfortable lives and have had many advantages have no idea what life is like for these kids. At the very least, realize that.
14
The evidence, as much as many here don't like to see, indicates that the police in Baltimore, no matter how much over-use of force incurred in Freddy Gray's case, are actually working effectively in lowering the crime rate significantly. Let's put the political correctness (a major mistake made by the extreme left that got Trump elected) aside and let the police in Baltimore do their work.
15
HOW do you conduct policing in a community that has no trust of police? THIS is the bottom pit of any society where the very protector is mistrusted -- not realizing that the societal fabric is no longer functional if it lacks such basic element of a progressive society. And it shows with "six out of seven" murders being unaddressed.
Perhaps the hopeful news is that the city government is constantly talking with the local groups how to improve the situation. This may be vital as people have to be ready for the change before there could be hope for improvement. Protecting criminals by othering the informants is bad news for any society.
But even the few pictures of the locals show they somehow fall for assuaging their sense of worth with tattoos. A healthy sense of body does not have to rely on adornment -- unless the spirit is wounded too.
4
Oh please. Affluent young millennials also have many tattoos. What gives you the idea that you know what gives anyone a sense of self worth?
1
Politics aside, it is sad what our neighbors in Baltimore are going through. The death of any young man is a great tragedy and my heart goes out to Markel's mother and siblings.
12
OK, I'm gonna say it.... once again we see an article with mentions of moms (but no dads)...of kids with fake 'back to Africa' names, and kids in the foster care system. What this all points right back to, not surprisingly, is girls/women who take reproduction far too nonchalantly, as if having a baby is 'no big deal' and in some ways, actually 'exciting'...and maybe it'll bring that man of hers back around.
Why is it so difficult to see what is right in front of us? We see time and again that when girls/women act this way, often the resulting kids are the ones who suffer, who 'act out', all because of their mothers' poor decision-making. The cycle just keeps repeating itself. We must get to the root of the problem so that girls and women are making Better Decisions. And I don't want to hear that there's no other 'good men' for them to pick from (and so they have to pick from the available 'losers' in their vicinity). I also don't want to hear about unaffordable birth control. If you can afford to get your hair or nails done, you can afford a box of condoms. The problem is cultural, inter-generational, lack of role models, no hope for the future and a resulting self-defeating/self-destructing attitude.
43
I agree completely. When are we going to stop blaming the systems that were put in place to deal with social problems--police, courts, social services--and focus on a new generation of parents who might raise children to avoid those very systems? It has to start somewhere and it has to start with the women and the mothers and the girls. Parenting classes, community involvement-which many low income people feel they are not welcome to participate in--PTA meetings. Change is not going to come from social workers, teachers or police who come into the neighborhoods and then go home when the shift is over.
14
I feel for the parents, but the only organization that is really doing anything to help save Black lives has been hamstrung. The Police are on the front lines and degrading and prosecuting them has not benefited the people. The police are not as pro-active as they were and the Black community is paying the price. Where is Black Lives Matter now?
16
My heart breaks reading about Mr. Scott, the burden his mother and family bear and the other young teens getting shot. In Baltimore, in any city, any time. The article describes the kind of uncertainty, lack of safety, and shooting one would expect in a war zone. What Ms. Williams says, about a fellow student--that there's such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is understandable but should shake us to our core. What's really is the wrong being done to our young people, who are exposed to violence as the "norm". Instead of America putting boots on the ground in 179 countries and running a grossly swollen military budget of $700 billion--we need to address the war zones at home and start saving young lives and ensuring they grow up to experience a bright future. Enough.
19
There is a phenomenon where an extremely jealous parent will not want their child to excel past what they have achieved in life. To fulfill this goal the parent will undermine and destroy the child’s self-esteem. In extreme cases the parent will kill the child, especially when the child’s success will take them away from the orbit of the parent.
In the case of this school, and other neighborhoods in the United States, you will see the straight A students or the college bound students murdered. The peer pressure not to succeed in the main stream of society and leave the neighborhood is palatable and as a result young people who are perceived as overachievers are targeted and murdered.
14
@Angela: How does your comment relate to this story? The students at Excel School are likely not college bound, as they are struggling to complete high school. Nothing in this story talks about the murdered students being stars at school.
3
Here in Holland, it does not get as far as outright murder, but I recognize the phenomenon of extreme negative peer pressure by some individuals of a lower-class background. I would say that a kind of one-to-20 rule applies.
There is a similar attitude in some downward mobile middle-class adolescents. Curiously, some of the perpetrators give a lot of lip service to liberal ideas and repeat "we do not discriminate" as a mantra, but when they meet someone of a poorer background they freeze and ignore him or her.
All one can do is to recognize the phenomenon, downplay any personal success--whatever small, avoid bragging of any kind, recognize the faces of people distorted by envy--which is easy enough, mark such people to oneself, and avoid them where possible. Lie low. People of this type are often involved in fights among themselves about futile issues as well.
3
I agree. I saw this as a social worker.
5
My heart aches for these young people who are being killed so young, even if they have records as reported in this story. They are products of where they live, unfortunately. Yes, it is the fault of government and private industry for not developing these areas into liveable communities. The whole situation is just pitiful.
7
You forgot to mention the parents or lack thereof.
11
Baltimore is one of the most corrupt and mismanaged cities in the U.S., hence I'm not surprised.
22
I have an idea: Support your local police.
35
It is not guns or a lack of money, a ka-zillion dollars has been spent, squandered, on the inner-cities since Johnson signed the Great Society bill. The major problem is they near total breakdown of family and values in the black community( where is BLM?). Fatherless children are the norm, because teenage girls are paid to have them, give them double the yearly amount until 21 if they don't have a child. Pay students a per diem to stay in school, with a graduation bonus. Stop preaching a college degree as the badge of a worthwhile citizen, teach the trades and services that robots won't be doing in ten years. Teach that money and self respect is earned, not just handed out by government and do gooders. It is amazing what people can do for themselves if you stop holding their hands.
47
Has anyone read "The Corner"? An in-depth study of Baltimore's problems. Very sad and concerning.
2
Do you even realize that you are also describing young white women and girls all over this country?
4
Gee, time to end the war on drug users?
Time to stop the illegalization of victimless crimes?
Am I talking above your head?
Think for yourself?
4
I doubt that the Baltimore PD is spending much time on low level drug possession and use when they are seeing a murder every day or so. And this is hardly an article in which "victimless crimes" seems like a relevant phrase.
7
Marilyn Mosby and the African-American politicians who run Baltimore are to blame.
The city is lawless.
38
I worked in South Los Angeles for decades, down the street from the latest Murder Alley, and many of the people there are like New Guinea headhunters--too often in tribal cultures of violence, retribution, warrior mentality, like Vikings, like Pashtuns. They speak English but exist in another world than most of US. I have no idea how to stop all the killing except to give them new parents or get them out of the hood so they can learn new approaches to conflict resolution.
26
Why do you say they don't know what the cause is and then say, "nearly three-quarters [come from] drug charges" ?
14
I have to laugh at all the comments trying to blame Trump, the NRA, etc - anything but the people who live in Baltimore.
Most NRA members would happily support a law along the lines of, "Use an unregistered handgun in the commission of a crime, go to jail for ten years with no possibility of parole," but Democrats would never vote for it. The problem? The people who commit those crimes are inner city youths, and they're the Democrats' constituency. Within five years the Democrats would be wailing that the racist American judicial system had locked up a generation of young black men.
38
Dems have been wailing about mass incarceration for years, and the bodies just keep piling up.
Black Lives Matter??
2
It doesn't matter what most NRA members would support, as the NRA itself has made clear. It has opposed NYC's mandatory sentence (for having a loaded, unlicensed hand gun) gun laws since the very beginning. I don't see NRA members doing much at all, frankly, because Republicans would never vote for it.
7
Stop spewing nonsense! Democrats are pro-guncontrol and in California use of a gun in a number of crimes adds 10_years to the underlying crime: carjacking, residential burglary, domestic violence. This in a blue state.
Legalize every activity that brings gangs/mafia money. Drugs, gambling prostitution. Give the morals police (the ones that are busy writing new laws that abortion clinics need wider hallways) something new to focus their legislative micromanagement on. Bankrupt the gangs. Use the tax money from drugs etc to improve schools, lower the cost of trade schools/college and buy back guns.
10
I read the article and was thinking, this is like El Salvador, or Honduras or other place absence of the rule of law.
Where is Black Lives Matter in this case? It seems we only hear from them when it involves
White and black exchanges that result in a black person dying and often under
Questionable circumstances.
We need the clergy, the Oprah’s, the Shaquille O’niels, Carmelo Anthony’s Michael Jordan’s
And other leaders of the African American community to roll up thief sleeves
And get to work. It cannot happen from Washington politicians and the whites.
32
Did you read the article? Community groups and leaders are involved, these are not easy problems to solve for a host of reasons. Even police tactics thta have worked elsewhere do not work there as even the Balt police dept. is heavily corrupt.
1
Re: The Police. Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.
3
Where are all those black lives matter protestors. Or do they only matter when a white person in impugned?
34
@Andrew: What are you asking us to do? I'd be happy to help, but I'm neither a social worker, a teacher, or a parent? Vague aspersions about BLM don't get problems solved.
2
A single mother, 4 kids and no father in sight. What more evidence do you need to why Baltimore and every inner city is a mess.
39
Baloney. Every city is not a mess. And do you have any idea of the number of fatherless white children all over rural America, on welfare?
2
Stop selling guns to Americans, duh.
6
May I endorse Hillary's comments. Blaming the current national leaders is fallacious. What about the Democrats who have run Baltimore. my birth city, for many years?
13
Baltimore "has been a center of heroin use and distribution since at least the 1970s"
"And no one is sure what to do about it"? How about legalizing drugs?
"The neighborhoods she is talking about have been starved of investment in schools, businesses — even sidewalk repair. The city has 16,000 abandoned homes. Its rate among children of lead poisoning, which often comes from peeling paint and has been linked to lack of impulse control and learning disabilities, is nearly three times higher than the national rate."
"And no one knows what to do about it"? How about a Marshall Plan for cities and rural areas in poverty? You know, in lieu of cities spending public money to attract monopolies or giving tax cuts to our feudal lords.
There are easy answers to all of our problems-they're just so rarely discussed in our public discourse.
20
It's interesting that they don't mention the change in police tactics that happened just as this trend began, the move away from more pro-active policing. It's possible that the police need to establish a monopoly of violence, as had happened in New York, before a pull back can be productive. In places like Chicago and Baltimore, the move away from pro-active policing has been accompanied by skyrocketing murder rates.
Certainly there are countervailing trends, cities where that type of change has not been met with renewed violence. But something has been different in Chicago and Baltimore.
10
Communities are falling apart because school systems are falling apart.
School systems are falling apart because all of the unsupervised money attracts greedy, endless layers of "reformers" like TFA, Gates, Broad, etc and flotillas of bureaucrats.
Show me any urban district and I will show you a district led by incompetent race-based hires doling out positions/money to friends, family, and supporters. The savvy reformers are right there at the trough, too. The middle class of every race flees the incompetence and the corruption.
Charters and the so-called choice schools are the second wave of rent-seeking "reformers". The kids, families, and social fabric suffer.
Notice how none of the elite privates invite Broad, TFA, or Gates anywhere near their schools.
11
Nobody from Texas should be pointing the finger at school systems any where else. If you google Student Achievement by State, you will see blue states at the top and red at the bottom.
2
I think it was The Wire creator David Simon who said that on this side of the Freddy Gray case, Baltimore police officers simply stay in their less they risk getting into an incident that labels them as fascists and racists. And who can blame them? The Democratic party, though they are not full of racists as the GOP, only cares about the optics and often runs after activists who are only interested in furthering their own brand (online and offline).
There's a middle way between letting the police do whatever they want and treating them as no better than the criminals behind these grim statistics. I don't expect the wholly Democratic city council to find that way.
10
That is what happens when a black District Attorney decides to prosecute police officers with baseless/unwinnable cases, instead of criminals.
Why would police officers put themselves in legal jeopardy in addition to already putting their lives in jeopardy trying to arrest criminals, when the police, the mayor, the governor were all on the side of the criminals?
22
The interpretation of the 2nd amendment, and its true intent has become a joke these days.
There are NO controls on gun ownership (even assault rifles that are built for military use), the gun industry is doing a booming business, the NRA exerts its power over elected officials through their lobby and THREATs to defeat them during election, if they won't support the NRA, the US will remain the most violent country, among all civilized nations.
9
Ms. Rhodes has given birth to five children, one now deceased. If you are of limited income, it's going to be particularly hard to find a good, safe place to live. If you have so many kids, you are dooming all of them to grow up in a place like the worst parts of Baltimore.
Too many kids growing up under poor conditions is an exponentially-growing problem. Task forces won't cure it. Aggressive policing won't cure it.
Good parenting doesn't produce dropouts and killers. The family is the basic building block. If it's faulty everything crumbles.
37
Hear. Hear.
1
So I go to Google and look up bad neighborhoods in Baltimore. Fairfield is described as having a median income of $26,275 and an average home value of $28,267. I use Google maps and zoom into the area.
It's a sad urban island. The people are effectively hemmed in by a major freeway on one side and industrial work zones (warehouses, port terminals, etc.) on the other. The first place I come across that isn't a house or an industry is a little shop selling "Beer Wine Liquors Grocery".
To get to any shops, restaurants, clubs, universities, etc., it looks like you must either have a car or endure a long transit ride.
On a salary of only $25,000 a year, it's hard to afford a reliable car, so people are essentially stuck within a community that is not a functional community. It's like being on a concrete desert island where someone built some homes and apartments and forgot to build anything else.
How do these urban islands get reconnected to the larger community? It seems to be not only a social problem, but an architectural problem.
Work creates a certain community and culture that grow out of the nature of that work. When the only work is dealing drugs and pimping, then a certain community and culture emerge from that.
Racism helped to build these urban islands. Migration of work helped to make those islands become jobless.
Maybe each community needs to become a self-sustaining village? Local gardens? Local shops? These neighborhoods need LIFE!
23
Not that this comes close to solving all the problems, but a major rethink of infrastructure (such as those freeways and - often defunct - industrial areas) would help. Baltimore pioneered it with the harbor district, but none of that is funneled into similarly radical infrastructure re-thinks in the worst districts. Part of the Great Society and War on Poverty was a renewed focus on urban planning. All of that is long forgotten in Baltimore and other post-industrial cities with similar nightmares.
3
Fairfield? Fairfield is one of the remotest corners of the geographical city, and it is barely populated any more.
Something is going on in the children`s families at an early age that causes such violent behavior. I would not be surprised to learn that many at an early age suffered neglect and abuse.
17
And lead paint ingestion, grinding poverty, insufficient nutrition, all sorts of factors.
7
And lead poisoning, poor schools food deserts, and much more.
3
Obviously Baltimore has LOTS of problems and factors contributing to very stressful living conditions for its poor. So we can make this issue as complicated as we want.
On the other hand, it might be worthwhile to take a step back and ask these questions.
Who is doing the killing and why? What is the direct motivation behind the people pulling the triggers?
Yes, poverty, lack of opportunity, upbringing... all matter. But set all that aside for a moment and look at the murders themselves, each one. What are the direct causes behind them? Who are the murderers? Who are they murdering and why? What is their relationships to their victims?
This is something I never see discussed in articles like this.
14
These articles are meant to inform. The police and community you can be sure ask those questions.
2
You never see progressive sources discussing the epidemiology of murder because the data do not support their orthodoxy which blames all dysfunction on racism.
17
That's just insane. Seven killings? I remember way back when I was in high school, a popular student was killed in a drunk driving accident. The grief was palpable for weeks. Even months after, his death cast a shadow on everything. That was the only student death that whole year...I can't imagine what it must be like when it happens 7 times.
7
It is essentially a disciplinary high school for students that have aged out or have otherwise been unable to complete traditional high school. There was one here in Cincinnati that was closed because of the casualty rate.
5
The short-term solution is using the Guiliani approach to cleaning the city up. This involves more police cracking down on quality of life (e.g. "broken windows"), harassing the criminal elements and ensuring the rule of law. In the "liberal" cities, there is not much appetite for this, but it certainly worked in NY.
The longer term solution is more cultural. Something like 72% of black families are headed by a single parent, almost always the mother. Lack of the family structure a 2-parent household can provide leads a lot of kids down the wrong path. Similarly, lack of commitment to education. Parental involvement with their kids education, including an insistence that the kids prioritize the education above all else, would go a long way to keeping the kids on a successful track.
The people in Baltimore or Chicago or St. Louis or wherever are victims of their own life choices. Stable families and commitment to education will go a long way to eliminating the violent crime problems seen in these inner city neighborhoods.
68
Hillary,
Do you think Markel Scott, the teenager profiled here, chose to be raised by a single mother in a dangerous neighborhood, or attend an under-funded public school? The solutions your propose sound simple enough, but unfortunately they reflect deep, and very common misunderstandings about the nature of choice generally, and the history of Baltimore specifically. Start by imagining the pressures and enticements this young man would have encountered, and the choices forever denied him by his killing.
4
I am convinced there are systemic, not just individual, reasons for these troubles. Helping poor people through education and job training and then having decent paying jobs they can actually get will go much farther than any Guiliani method.
7
While broken windows worked in NYC in the 90's, other police tactics that didn't involve increasing arrests for order maintenance crimes also worked throughout the U.S.. Baltimore needs a solution that works best for the community that lives there. Customized police work plus collaboration between multiple entities and the community is the place to begin and end rather than suggesting and implementing solutions that worked almost 30 years ago.
3
This is only going to get worse under the current republican administration and the alienation of minorities and poorer communities they represent, not only through brainless tax-reforms and racial slurs disguised as alternative facts, but also through their way of always brushing off arguments against soft gun-laws. I'll have to be a realist here, however, and admit that banning guns might not be effective in the short-term considering the difficulties authorities would have seizing all firearms that are currently circulating. However, in the long run, restricting access to firearms would likely mean a reduction in the number of weapons in circulation and supply as well as an increase in price as the demand is unlikely to decrease + the added fees of handling weapons illegaly. As Chris Rock famously said it, "if one bullet cost 5000 dollars ...".
Many things need to be done, and I personally think, from the perspective of a Dane in a socialist society, that an increase in social mobility is also a somewhat effective vaccine against alienation and crime.
11
Right, Baltimore was a peaceful Shangri La until last November when Trump won.
17
Sebastin: Baltimore is a Democratic city in a Democratic state. The people who commit crimes are the people responsible for their crimes. In the case of obviously feral kids, the parents are also responsible, but NOT the rest of us, who are likely to be victims, unless we are smart to avoid cities like this.
12
You're being obtuse Sebastian. Chicago Illinois has the strictest gun laws in this country, and under the Democratic leadership of Obama/Emanuel over the past 8 years, murders have increased by almost 50%. If anything, the democrats allowed this to persist and grow by alienating the law enforcement community and widening the gap between the inner cities/minorities and the LEO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago#Annual_murder_totals_in_C...
10
How about instead of proposing, let alone spending, $18 billion USD to build a wall we replace lead pipes and rebuild communities? How about Instead of wringing our hands over the people doing everything they can to come to this country to seek a better life we start reaching out our hands to support people in this country - you know, fellow citizens - that have been stepped on and over and forgotten?
54
I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore; just watch The Wire - a lot of those characters are based on real people; one of the writers worked for the local newspaper and another the Police. The best season was the 4th, it focused on the public schools. Most of the answers to "how to fix" Baltimore are in the public schools. Read Ta-Nehisi's book describing trying to get to school without being robbed. Let's say most of the young African Americans in Baltimore graduated high school and then college with a degree - where are they going to work??? There's a reason I moved.
32
"Joining The Army & That’s My Way Out"
I found this to be the saddest, most sorrowful sentence in a very sad story. Imagine concluding that your only "way out" of life in one of America's most violent cities was to join the army and likely end up killed or injured in Afghanistan.
Mandatory conscription for everybody from 18 to 40--starting with Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany. Throw in George W. Bush's twin daughters and the sons of Mitt Romney who are still in that age range (and yes, Malia Obama as well--this is a bipartisan matter and no child of privilege should be excluded) while we're at it. If not, the U.S. should just demilitarize if it's going to become the Brazil of North America. Brazil's problems are appalling (more than 60,000 murders in 2016--greater than the number of American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War), but at least Brazilian politicians have the good sense to know how wrong it would be to send children of the favelas in Rio and Sao Paulo to go fight and die in pointless, futile, useless overseas wars.
17
One can join the military and enter into jobs not related to pulling a trigger in Afghanistan Iraq, or any other conflict zone. The military has hundreds of "Military Occupation Specialties(MOS) that have nothing to do with "combat arms" MOS's. There are fields in medicine, mechanics, information technology, administration, law, and a host of other specialties that educate and prepare military personnel for careers in the civilian world. Additionally, there are also benefits such as free healthcare, the GI Bill for college, housing allowances that provide a secure and stable life. If a young black person wants to escape the violent ghettos depicted in this and other stories, the military may turn into the best option.
6
The Police Department in Baltimore was utterly decimated by the political response to the Freddy Gray riots and the bogus show trials of the 6 officers who arrested him - all due to a total lack of evidence. Now the police are hamstrung by the federal consent decree.
The net result is that the suckers of Baltimore are paying top dollar for a police force that does little except punch a clock and avoid trouble. Who can blame them?
Everyone who lives and works in Baltimore is paying the price - most especially young black men, who constitute nearly 100% of the victims, and 100% of the perpetrators.
To turn the tide, Baltimore and the feds need to put aside political correctness and re-empower the police to prevent and stop crime without being second-guessed and micromanaged.
The most successful gun control program ever created is Stop-and-Frisk. We desperately need it in Baltimore.
94
Are you paying attention? People don't trust the police because the police have killed, lied and stolen from the people. Yes, the police need to be able to police, but you can't call trying to avoid getting killed by the cops or trying to avoid being falsely implicated in a crime by the cops "political correctness." Who can blame the police? Well, the police should be blaming their corrupt colleagues who brought to everybody's attention that they do need to be second-guessed and micro-managed at times and if they can't monitor themselves they need outside support. But blaming isn't really the point. Going back to pre-Freddy Gray strategies isn't going to help the community to move forward, and simple solutions like yours to complex problems don't work. Baltimore should be declared a national emergency and the neighborhoods need to be overwhelmed with attention.
20
Agreed, but as soon as you implement 'stop and frisk' the ACLU, BLM and the Washington Post get their dander up. They consider it stereotyping and racist.
5
Stop and frisk? You mean stop people with no cause whatsoever and frisk them in violation of the Fourth Amendment to that annoying Constitution? A good police department does not have to break the law to enforce the law. If a police department is more in tune with the community then they can count on help. But if most people in a community fear and do not trust the police, then cooperation will be at a minimum. The US Constitution is the LAW not some PC bother to the police.
6
So many issues to this problem. First I think we should legalize drugs. Do like Portugal in the 70's. It will be hard, but I think worthwhile. As to guns, illegal guns are the ones mostly used in crimes, it's unlikely to be able to get them off the streets. Even if we banned them, the borders of our country are a sieve, it would not make a dent in the supply, might even make them cheaper, as heroin has become due to our 'war-on-drugs'. I live in an area awash in guns (legal ones however), yet gun violence is very low, indeed crime in general. The biggest issue is poverty I think. The things we are doing now are not working, but I'm not sure what we can do to change things.
16
Just to clarify, Portugal hasn't legalized drugs. They have simply decriminalized them, meaning that you cannot get incarcerated on charges of drug possession. A judge, however, can send you to rehab if he considers it necessary, but your criminal record will remain clean.
9
We have. It's called Oxy... Walk me through the treatment infrastructure you forsee the US implementing when drugs such as Cocaine, Meth, and Heroin are legalized. So far the US track record with prescription drugs is abysmal especially concerning drug treatment which is key to any legalization program. Remember this a country which still has at it's core a Puritan mentality when it comes to personal responsibility.
There are leading health experts advocating for pot legalization consulting with the various states on the practical issues involving legalization. These health policy experts are honest regarding the deep challenges ahead for a relatively innocuous drug such as pot.
I have lived in European countries (Portugal, Switzerland, England, Denmark) with each legalizing certain hard drugs and overall it is not a pretty picture. Think you mean Portugal in the late nineties. I lived in Portugal in the late seventies and smoked a lot of hashish and pot with the Angolan Rastas. The opium epidemic was just getting started and the PoPo were enthusiastically locking up drug dealers and users...
Current day Portugal seems to have a strong understanding of the treatment issues and have a fairly well thought out infrastructure in place to deal with the very real issues of drug dependency. It also helps to have a relatively united populace with progressive sensibilities. Legalizing recreational drug use is often a matter of switching from one problem to another.
3
In a large study on ‘The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010’ that was referenced by the NYT the Gini coefficient for inequality was as large of a predictor as gun ownership for increasing the homicide rate and the percentage of blacks was six times as large as either. The study has some problems as the predicted average gun ownership rate was 52% in 2010, significantly higher than almost all surveys, and the results were not statistically significant when survey data for gun ownership was used instead of firearm suicides.
This confirms what the Justice Dept. has noted for decades; it is people and places and not guns that drives the national homicide rate. County level data suggests the same as 24 of the top 25 counties for the number of firearm homicides are Democratic, even though some are in Red states, and in 24 of 25 the firearm homicide rate is higher than the national average. Even though Democrats, people in urban areas, and minorities all own firearms at a lower rate that is where the firearm homicides are most numerous.
What to do? Wealthy people who contribute to gun control programs could offer bounties, significant bounties, for illegal trafficking and use of firearms. This could break thru the ‘code of silence’ that police departments face.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/
18
How about the the NRA and it's gun-industry backers also provide matching funds to achieve this law and order. Century Arms can deduct the donations derived from the profits from illegal re-distribution of their semis on Baltimore Streets. So noble.
1
We have to be honest with ourselves: these events cannot be addressed successfully from those outside of the affected communities in the near term. Longer term, perhaps (though we have generations of trying), but most NYT readers will again be left scratching our heads with no answers to the "what can be done?" question.
11
`... the hallmarks of a city awash in guns ...'
Just another NRA success story.
23
Absurd statement. What percentage of inner city residents belong to the NRA? Probably most NRA members live in places like Kansas or Nebraska, where the crime rate is much, much lower than it is in inner cities.
6
Not even a good lie.
4
It appears that most of the guns in use are illegally possessed, stolen, etc. Finf me a few NRA members involved in this crime wave.
4
The obvious answer is legalized, controlled heroin. As bad as the drug trade is in Baltimore and other US cities, it is far worse in Mexico. If Mexico were not the source, some other country would suffer. The US government learned nothing from the failure of alcohol prohibition. It won't even legalize pot, in spite of its general acceptance. This is just another illustration of how badly governed the US is.
12
The last paragraph says it all: Mr. Scott says, “Graduate in three months. Joining the Army & that’s my way out.” Wow, when joining the Army with the prospect of being sent to the Middle East is a better option than your hometown, you know things are bad.
Instead of spending all that money on street lights, cameras etc, what if they gave every teenage graduate a real job instead? There are programs out there that have had amazing results—check out Homeboy Industries in south central LA—started by Fr Gregory Boyle, author of “Tatoos in the Heart.” He has rival gang members working side by side. Perhaps an option is to to teach these kids construction skills and have them rehab all those abandoned homes in their neighborhood. Seems like the only answer is to solve
The root of the problem—poverty. The pride, self-respect, etc would pay enormous returns.
76
I spent seven years on active duty in 90’s and early 00’s and I would estimate that half of the soldiers I knew joined to get out of a bad situation (no opportunities, violence at home, gangs, etc...).
40
“The root of the problem—poverty.”
No, the root of the problem is teenage moms and fatherless homes.
13
Young Smith obviously was looking to improve his life and declared this to anyone that would listen.
If this was Salinas California I would suggest the killing of the innocent is a gang initiation ritual.
The predominant cultural gangs of Salinas have recruits encounter a young male and ask what gang he runs with. There is only one right answer. Failure to deliver and murder ensues .
Recruit passes the test and is jumped in.
No idea if the gangs of Baltimore operate similarly but if so there is very little that can be done until the city makes a commitment to take down the gangs.
17
if the police crack down the media and its friends go crazy accusing the cops of racism and profiling. this problem will be solved when people acknowledge that these cities and these school districts exist in deeply democratic areas with liberal and diverse local governments who do virtually nothing but point to the Republicans as the guilty party, secure in the knowledge that they cannot be removed from office by the clueless voters.
56
Correct. Somehow when predatory teens and young people in Baltimore or Chicago or Philly commit endless murders, media and liberals want to make it the fault of some middle aged or elderly person in Utah or Kansas who has never even been to one of these god awful cities.
12
The ease of obtaining firearms is a scourge on this country, cheapening life and emboldening those with personal grudges or just homicidal death wishes. The gun industry’s political lobby holds hostage political leaders who might otherwise make common-sense moves to limit access to firearms, turning us all into guinea pigs for a warped view of the 2nd Amendment and the callous pursuit of profit at all costs.
133
Maybe. But you can't ignore the story's reference to last year's 343 victims averaging eleven arrests each, half for violent crimes and three-quarters for drugs. Guns or no guns, Baltimore's violent society is fundamentally fueled by drugs, and no one's really articulating a path to get rid of either.
8
'Ease of obtaining firearms' as a cause of the problem needs to be weighed with the observation that about half of the counties in the US had no firearm homicides, in spite of higher rates of firearm ownership among whites, people in rural areas, and in Red counties. 24 of 25 and 46 of the top 50 counties in the US for firearm homicides were in Blue counties, typically urban areas. Does the gun industry 'make' Democrats buy guns? Does the gun industry 'make' Democrats shoot people? Obviously it is a multi-faceted problem which require work on both sides of the aisle.
5
I'm afraid you need to have a look in the mirror and democratic policies to source this problem. Blaming Texas and the NRA may feel good, but it contributes nothing to a solution to illegal guns and narcotics in Baltimore.
3
Baltimore seems to be going downhill fast, turning into another Detroit, and there are a lot of causes. It was an industrial town for which the industry has moved away, just like Detroit. Many of the high paying jobs vanished, so the upper middle class moved out, followed shortly by much of the middle class. But the poor can't move, don't have money to relocate, so they're stuck there, with little hope for a better life. The hopelessness brings in the heroin, the heroin brings guns with it. The lead paint is an added dampener, once a kid ingests enough lead, they turn trumplike, they'll never get a good job, and they'll likely wind up convicted of a violent crime.
As for what would fix Baltimore, it would have to be a massive investment in a variety of areas. More police, better trained, to try to staunch the flow of drugs and guns. New public housing, giving the poor a safe place to live, without lead paint. Incentives to corporations to build factories and offices there, to have more jobs available. Pouring money into the school system to get it up to an acceptable level.
Unfortunately Baltimore itself doesn't have the money, Maryland seems to have given up on the city, and it certainly won't come from Trump, because there are a lot of black people in Baltimore and Trump is racist. So for now, it's a bit comforting that the murder victims are generally violent criminals themselves, and I hope the civilians can fend for themselves until the city can be saved.
8
How about jettisoning the Democrats who have run Baltimore into the ground over the past fourty years? Detroit would be well served doing the same.
52
Dear LarryGr,
Granted Baltimore politics has been frequently corrupt and/or incompetent. But I think handing over governance to the party that, apparently, hates non-white people, hates poor people, hates small business, hates states' rights, and wants nothing more than to enrich large corporations and extremely wealthy people, would be a horrible idea. There is no way that the Republican party of today would do anything for anyone living in Baltimore.
46
Baltimore's population decline is nothing like Detroits, and most of the people moved just over city line. The jobs have moved around, but greater Baltimore isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination with two of the richer counties in the country adjacent to the city (Anne Arundel and Howard).
Heroin has been around longer than the hopelessness.
Baltimore spends more per capita (it might not be #1 but it is close...) in schooling than any school district its size or larger.
If anything public housing is part of the problem as it creates pockets of problems. Safe public housing? How would one create that? Baltimore isn't short on housing at all as it has again 16,000 vacants and they are generally stable structures unlike Detroit's detached housing stock. Baltimore gives incentives and has a decent amount of investment, just it is for the highly educated not the blue collar. The cities liberal order drove away all the manufacturing jobs long ago.
The dramatic rise in crime started with the riots. The police simply stopped doing their jobs. Also the police here aren't poorly paid either, and there have been several corruption scandals involving planted evidence and or straight robbery by the police.
I don't know how to solve the problem, but Baltimore has always been a place for technocrats to try their solutions. They haven't worked.
5
Why not try a gun buy back program with a $5,000. reward per gun?
6
Because people will go out and buy gun for $500 and then turn them in for $5000. This would be a great way to burn a whole bunch of money and accomplish nothing.
6
You could take the money, buy a very good gun as a replacement and still have a lot of cash left over to do good -- or bad...
4
Shouldn’t this be the place where BLM should be active and make a real difference
105
Exactly. Is BLM active there? Don't see in the article. And Trump can easily make a political win by taking up the issue. In the end, it isn't what anyone says. It is what one does.
6
There are many people active in Baltimore fighting this violence epidemic including 300 Men March and Baltimore Ceasefire 365. These people don't get the national media attention they deserve.
5
of course not. The officials in charge are African-American.
13
Until the solve rate gets to 75% the murders will continue.
9
Camden, New Jersey dissolved its corrupt police department, and cut the homicide rate in half.
24
Why is no one protesting that the president used violence in Chicago as a campaign issue and does nothing...nothing...except make racist remarks.
25
Plenty of people protest against Trump all the time for his constant lies, racism, and idiocy. His supporters never protest anything he does because they're brainwashed.
7
The crime in Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore occurred during Democratic Mayors and DemocrAtic Presidents- it has nothing to do with government and everything to do with the criminals who appear to have no parents, no schooling, no morals, no shame, and no fear of the police who have become handcuffed because of a movement to indict them.
11
Blaming Trump for the problems in Baltimore? That’s rich.
5
While regrettably no expert in this area, I wonder whether a program to get these young people out of Baltimore might help. The students are ending up at the school due to their troubled pasts. Even some of those who try to make changes are unable to survive, due to the deadly environment they are living in. Some are already in foster care. Relocating some of these students while continuing to provide them good support might be a step.
9
Efforts under Section 8 housing to move families to suburban areas with lower crime rates and better schools have consistently been met with resistance by largely white neighborhoods.
12
Gee, I wonder why.....
8
Gun raids.
The police track gangs and drug dealers for months and even years to try and make big busts that will stand up in court, but people are dying in the meantime. The police need to be told to stop waiting and search gang members and suspected dealers and confiscate every gun they find. They will think these arrests are too small - because they are not taking down drug kingpins - but owning illegal weapons is a direct precursor to murder in this neighborhood - get the guns and the murder rate will drop.
19
And as soon as they start those searches the PC crowd roars “racism!”, “profiling!” and all of the rest of the usual blather.
10
Your only chance at significantly reducing the murder rate involves several things: getting cops on foot and involved DAILY in all the marginal communities/neighborhoods building relationships and changing attitudes along with somehow bringing more economic opportunities to all these blighted areas.
There is no way to seriously dent the number of guns on the streets in Baltimore due to our overly broad interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. We've opened Pandora's box and there is no way to close it. Therefore, until you remove the anger & hopelessness and give all the young marginalized men in Baltimore a better and more purposeful, meaningful reason to wake up every morning this trend will continue.
18
Having been a High School Principal, schools have very fragile cultures. I had several students pass away during my tenure---none due to violence---and observed first-hand how disruptive such deaths are---even in a large school---to the educational environment. I can't imagine how this school does any educating at all.
55