National Guard deployments can only do so much.
P resident Trump intuitively understands that no matter how much crime has gone down overall in cities, it is of little solace to those living in fear in high-crime neighborhoods. That’s one reason (political gamesmanship aside) that he sent the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and is promising to send them to Memphis, Tenn., and other cities as well.
But while it helps to have the Guard on the streets, there are more effective, cost-efficient, and lawful ways to reduce crime.
Certainly, the presence of troops can serve as a visible deterrent. In the four weeks after the deployment of additional manpower, reported crime in Washington declined 17 percent, and violent gun crimes dropped 35 percent. That’s not surprising. A 2005 study showed significant reductions in crime when terrorism alert levels in D.C. were at their highest and police activity rose in response.
In addition to deterring crime on the streets where they’re deployed, troops can free up police officers by taking care of traffic re-routing, preserving crime scenes, transporting prisoners, or guarding detained suspects who are hospitalized.
But there are limits to what soldiers can do.
First, troops do not have police powers and cannot enforce laws or arrest lawbreakers. They are not trained in the chain-of-custody protocols needed for evidence preservation. Nor can they do the detective work needed to track down suspects.
Second, national guardsmen cannot prepare a case for the prosecutor. This is a vital job for which the police have training. Cops are taught how to interview victims and other witnesses, gather physical evidence, and preserve the chain of custody, and then testify in court to help obtain a conviction. Soldiers can’t do this, and without convictions, offenders cannot be sentenced and incarcerated for their crimes.
Third, police officers know their communities; guardsmen are usually out-of-towners who do not. Police know the young guys who have guns and engage in gang fights. They develop sources of information that enable them to prepare for trouble. So why don’t they just arrest the bad guys? Because “knowing” the troublemakers and putting them behind bars for a specific act are two different things.
Fourth, we need police to respond to calls for service. These include emergencies such as fires, sudden illness, and crimes in progress, but also quality-of-life issues that require not an arrest but good old-fashioned policing. Police know the community, and the community knows the police. Police know where to respond and how to respond. Guardsmen can’t and won’t. Only the police can do the service function effectively.
Finally, ordering hundreds of guardsmen into a city is extremely expensive. The cost of deploying the D.C. National Guard, not including troops from other states, is more than $1.8 million a day. This is greater than the entire daily budget of the D.C. Metropolitan police. We are not against spending more money on policing, but let’s put it into policing!
A smart way to do this is for the federal government to pay for the cities to recruit and hire more police officers and civilian police employees. President Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill — among many other things – paid for 100,000 police officers when there were around 600,000 sworn police officers nationwide. The plan wasn’t perfect. The money was distributed around the country, not concentrated in neighborhoods where police were most needed, and it took six years to hire the 100,000th police officer. Still, thousands of cops were hired after 1994, and crime went down.
To fight crime more effectively, the administration should propose — and Congress should pass — a bill to provide grants for thousands more police officers for cities with high crime rates and a national police training center to generate greater use of evidence-based best practices. National data collection could be improved, too, releasing near-real-time data that the police can act upon, including data on shooting victims (which is still not tallied by the FBI).
President Trump’s order brought needed attention to a crime problem that local leaders have too often downplayed, as if they would be airing dirty laundry by talking about crime victims. But to achieve long-lasting crime reduction, Mr. Trump should demonstrate strategic leadership and bolster police departments, rather than generate headlines and animosity with troop deployments. If we want less crime, we need more police and a comprehensive plan, not more soldiers.
Barry Latzer is an emeritus professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Peter Moskos is a professor of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His latest book is Back From the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City’s Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop.