The Ferguson Effect Lives

A good scientist goes where the data takes him (or her), regardless of the political correctness (or lack thereof) of their findings. Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, was widely quoted when he opined that the "Ferguson effect" did not explain the jump in homicides in St. Louis.

Now, The Guardian (U.K.) reports Rosenfeld, having delved deeper into the data for many large U.S. cities, has changed his mind. He now says of the national increase in murders:

That led me to conclude, preliminarily, that something like a Ferguson effect was responsible for the increase.

Where his original conclusion was reported by NBC News and Huffington Post, among others, we have to find his retraction in a British paper. In case you haven't made the connection, the nonexistence of a Ferguson effect is politically correct, it's existence is not.

Our MSM knows which answer they liked, his first one. Don't expect them to publicize his retraction.