RALEIGH – The crime rate in North Carolina reportedly continued its long-term decline by posting a 3 percent drop in 2004 over 2003. Attorney General Roy Cooper, under whose auspices the State Bureau of Investigation prepares the crime-report data each year for federal use, said that “our work to help make North Carolina safe is making a positive difference.”
Well, yes. The state and many local governments have implemented policy changes in recent years that have contributed to the decline in reported crime. During the 1980s and early 1990s, North Carolina conducted a massive prison-building campaign to increase the capacity of the system – and thus the deterrence effect of threatening serious prison time for violent offenses. This process continued in the mid-1990s with the passage of structured sentencing, a system that essentially lengthened prison sentences for violent crimes, shortened them for nonviolent ones, and made both categories of sentences more predictable.
Many cities and counties responded to a spike in crime more than a decade ago with their own locally tailored programs, including various versions of what was called “community policing.” They created police substations in crime-filled, usually poverty-stricken neighborhoods. They worked to build relationships of trust with leaders and activists in these communities so as to facilitate better crime investigations and reduce conflict with law enforcement.
So public policy did make a difference here. That’s worth contrasting with the host of other areas, from public assistance to regulatory schemes, in which increased government spending and rule-making have played a surprisingly small role in whatever progress, if any, has been achieved over the past few decades. For example, while politicians use the goal of “economic development” to rationalize all sorts of questionable expenditures – be they in education, transportation, incentives, or something else – there is strong evidence for the proposition that fighting crime is perhaps the most effective way to promote economic growth. A 1996 paper by Dr. Mike Walden, written for the John Locke Foundation, found that investing tax dollars in public safety generated far stronger economic returns than spending money even on public education or highways (all other state expenditures hurt rather than helped the growth rate). It is impossible to create new businesses and economic opportunities in neighborhoods where insurance costs are exorbitant and people are afraid to shop, work, and live.
But one shouldn’t oversell the point. If you look at a graph of North Carolina’s crime rate over the past 20 years, you can clearly see that the rate began to fall before many of the (good) public policy interventions had time to be effective. There were other positive societal trends occurring, many of them the result of hard work by families, community groups, and houses of worship.
By no means do I begrudge Cooper, Gov. Mike Easley, former Govs. Jim Hunt and Jim Martin, or any other politicians involved in these issues over the years if they claim some of the credit for an improving picture on crime. But there were many factors in play – and crime remains far higher than it was a generation ago.
It’s also worth noting that statewide averages can mask local dynamics. While crime in most major cities fell last year, the rate rose five percent in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, a community that seems headed in the wrong direction on multiple fronts.
Beware the ancient vice of hubris, all.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.