I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this paragraph from an article on police reform that Perry Bacon published back in late January, because while I don’t agree with it, I think it does an excellent job of getting to the crux of the issue:

That these problems are so widespread is why activists in 2020 started loudly calling for defunding or even abolishing the police. It’s not that they hate police officers or don’t care about crime. It’s that the safest neighborhoods in the United States usually aren’t packed with cops but with well-off people who aren’t committing crimes, because, say, they have an untreated mental illness or can’t afford food.

Bacon’s point about safer neighborhoods seems true to me as stated. Comparing my neighborhood to Wesley Heights or Spring Valley in the far western part of D.C., the reason we have more crime in Logan Circle isn’t that they have more cops in Upper Northwest, it’s that they have fewer social problems.

But it would be wrong to infer from…