The Ferguson Effect Defended

The Wall Street Journal's Heather Mac Donald takes on the critics of the "Ferguson effect" and shows how they willfully ignore the crime rise following attacks on police by the #BlackLivesMatter crowd. Actually, she reports murders are up somewhere between 11 and 16% in one year. It's a good column, see her conclusion:

To acknowledge the Ferguson effect would be tantamount to acknowledging that police matter, especially when the family and other informal social controls break down. Trillions of dollars of welfare spending over the past 50 years failed to protect inner-city residents from rising predation. Only the policing revolution of the 1990s succeeded in curbing urban violence, saving thousands of lives. As the data show, that achievement is now in jeopardy.