Malcolm Gladwell has a new book out, The American Way of Killing. He was on Smerconish this past weekend. I've ordered the audio book but haven't come close to starting it.
He suggests we get it all wrong. He compares Berlin to LA. Berlin has more than double the police that LA has. But it invests far less in prisons. They use community policing, trying to intervene before the crime. Even if a crime is committed, the prisons are far different. Watch the video as he explains it.
I think at least part of the US problem is that we don't see police as "peace officers", the old Sheriff Andy Taylor model. They are more seen as wolves that we need to fear and avoid. It may be worse in Black communities, but even in poor White communities in the 70s, I sure knew a lot of people who hated police and saw them as the enemy. And yes, we have done community policing, but not at this scale. Think about the difference in LA between 8500 police and 22,000 in Berlin and what they can do out in the community.
This is me, not Gladwell. Part of the problem might be that there is a lot of money in prisons. We privatize prisons; people can/do lobby for more prisons. Since we don't privatize police, no one is really able to effectively lobby for more. And we can't afford 22,000 LA police and all those prisons. A former boss was from a small town in Georgia, and his dad had been mayor. A private prison wanted to come in, so the town worked hard to get it approved, along with their representatives and senators. If that town wanted to double its police force, how much help do you think they would have received?
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/03/us/video/are-we-thinking-about-crime-and-punishment-all-wrong
@arthur-dent Rudy adopted much of this in cleaning up nyc. Community policing. But everyone has to buy in. With woke Dems they hate cops. So there’s a disconnect. The woke idiot mayor here. The woke socialist president of the board of alderman marched with a defund shirt. Cops need support. They have a terrible job. But Dems per usual are on the wrong side of everything. No one is on the same page.
stl is always top 5 in crime bc we have a large black population and Dems in charge. The other problem is that like many other cities that are dying you have so many abandoned neighborhoods where crime occurs community policing becomes impossible. NYC sure. Walk a beat. Be at the neighborhood school. Get businesses on board. In high crime cities like Stl Detroit where people left you might have a 150,000 abandoned properties. Every tenth house occupied. It makes policing and community policing exceptionally difficult. There really isn’t a one size fits all approach
Berlin and LA might not be comparable in this way. Just like Germany and US. Does Gladwell consider that?Malcolm Gladwell has a new book out, The American Way of Killing. He was on Smerconish this past weekend. I've ordered the audio book but haven't come close to starting it.
He suggests we get it all wrong. He compares Berlin to LA. Berlin has more than double the police that LA has. But it invests far less in prisons. They use community policing, trying to intervene before the crime. Even if a crime is committed, the prisons are far different. Watch the video as he explains it.
I think at least part of the US problem is that we don't see police as "peace officers", the old Sheriff Andy Taylor model. They are more seen as wolves that we need to fear and avoid. It may be worse in Black communities, but even in poor White communities in the 70s, I sure knew a lot of people who hated police and saw them as the enemy. And yes, we have done community policing, but not at this scale. Think about the difference in LA between 8500 police and 22,000 in Berlin and what they can do out in the community.
This is me, not Gladwell. Part of the problem might be that there is a lot of money in prisons. We privatize prisons; people can/do lobby for more prisons. Since we don't privatize police, no one is really able to effectively lobby for more. And we can't afford 22,000 LA police and all those prisons. A former boss was from a small town in Georgia, and his dad had been mayor. A private prison wanted to come in, so the town worked hard to get it approved, along with their representatives and senators. If that town wanted to double its police force, how much help do you think they would have received?
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/03/us/video/are-we-thinking-about-crime-and-punishment-all-wrong
Gladwell is a clean writer and good storyteller. I find him to be a bad and shallow thinker, though.
He compares Berlin to LA.
That's a terrible starting point for a comparison. The two are not remotely alike.
@jdb and @bradstevens what differences between LA and Berlin lead you to believe LA needs half the police of Berlin? Are you saying Berlin is twice as dangerous and needs more police
Oh, I forgot to mention. He says that while the US murder rate has gone down, it is a terrible metric. Hospitals in the US have gotten damn good at treating gunshot wounds.
Oh, I forgot to mention. He says that while the US murder rate has gone down, it is a terrible metric. Hospitals in the US have gotten damn good at treating gunshot wounds.
THAT IS SPOT ON! It should be replaced with shootings. buddy is an er doc at our main hospital. cops htere every night. docs fixing gunshot holes. rarely do these people die anymore
@arthur-dent Rudy adopted much of this in cleaning up nyc. Community policing. But everyone has to buy in. With woke Dems they hate cops. So there’s a disconnect. The woke idiot mayor here. The woke socialist president of the board of alderman marched with a defund shirt. Cops need support. They have a terrible job. But Dems per usual are on the wrong side of everything. No one is on the same page.
stl is always top 5 in crime bc we have a large black population and Dems in charge. The other problem is that like many other cities that are dying you have so many abandoned neighborhoods where crime occurs community policing becomes impossible. NYC sure. Walk a beat. Be at the neighborhood school. Get businesses on board. In high crime cities like Stl Detroit where people left you might have a 150,000 abandoned properties. Every tenth house occupied. It makes policing and community policing exceptionally difficult. There really isn’t a one size fits all approach
dems don't hate police. mcbozo should work on getting his facts straight. That's like saying the right hates police because Trump wanted to defund the FBI.
You make shit posts like this and claim to not be partisan LMAO
@hurryinghoosiers who led defund the police stupid ass? do you want to compare numbers of fbi and local cops. with your ignorant post on bail i don't even know why you continue to post. you literally don't know how anything works. jsut a pos shill unpersuasive to anyone. hell if you're a dem it should make people think hard about the party.
That's a terrible starting point for a comparison. The two are not remotely alike.
I know - I'm not even sure how many luftballoons LA has.
@jdb and @bradstevens what differences between LA and Berlin lead you to believe LA needs half the police of Berlin? Are you saying Berlin is twice as dangerous and needs more police
You and Gladwell seem to be arguing about a lack of police, as if that is the problem. I fundamentally disagree with that premise, as there are places with far fewer police or law enforcement per capita that don't have these problems. Culture is the biggest difference. That's the problem with police acceptance and trust. There are valid reasons for that, going back to the last century and earlier. But rapping about "F the police" or "187 on the mf'in cops" (btw, lots of that comes from L.A. itself) is just as much of a problem.
Is Gladwell just using a "comp" because of population relativity? Berlin is way more densely populated than L.A., which is more spread out (36% more land area than Berlin) and even partially suburban. Berlin is a very walkable, public-transportation-oriented city. L.A. relies on cars. Berlin is a central hub itself and isn't the base of a much larger surrounding metro area.
L.A. is far more diverse, has more POC. We all know that isn't always a positive thing when it comes to safety and crime because the FBI and other criminal data explicitly says so. Berlin also has less families per capita (seems to be a lot of single people there) than L.A. according to the data and 53% (mind-blowing) are single-child households.
Instead of arguing over whether or not more police would deter crime, let's punish the criminals with much more severe penalties and sentences that deny parole, early reinstatement back into society. That's the softness that has enabled increased criminality.
Oh, I forgot to mention. He says that while the US murder rate has gone down, it is a terrible metric. Hospitals in the US have gotten damn good at treating gunshot wounds.
It seems like you cannot compare violent crime, generally, though. The definitions of reporting in Berlin are different and broader than those used in L.A.
Culture is the biggest difference.
let's punish the criminals with much more severe penalties and sentences that deny parole, early reinstatement back into society.
blacks are the biggest problem generally. if we wanted to we could fix crime.
1. reparations. means tested. give the worst in the hood a boost and see if it deters the drug trade and petty criminal shit
2. more cops. budget for it.
3. strict bail schedule based on charges thereby eliminating woke judges and restrictions on bail projects/surety/bondsman etc
4. mandatory sentencing for certain violent crimes. guns etc.
5. buybacks semi annually.
6. raze vacant properties that arent' salvageable
we choose to live with crime and we elect politicians who don't even want to acknowledge crime much less fix it
@jdb I am certain at least poor White communities call police pigs, I know they did in the 70s. I don't think it has changed. Though that word may have been replaced. There was a sense that the police were just out to get you, not that they wanted to help. That is the problem, if the police are seen as an enemy. I think that is still true. And anyone who helped the police was a snitch. Just like the old prison movies, the lowest of the low.
So LA has half the police of Berlin and covers a MUCH larger area and that is good?