Many sites, like this one, are reporting that cities which experimented with "defund the police" in the wake of the George Floyd death are having buyer's remorse. Their police have been less active and in the newly permissive environment their criminals have been much more active.
Violent crime and especially homicide is up substantially, year over year, in many of our largest cities. This is exactly what would be expected when the police have tighter budgets and a very real fear that, should they be involved in a violent confrontation, their leadership will throw them under the bus and side with the criminals.
We know what will turn the situation around. Mayor Giuliani did it in New York City, it goes by various names including "broken windows policing" or proactive policing. It concentrates police in high crime areas and energetically enforces laws concerning property damage and carrying unlicensed weapons.
Such policing is unpopular with the people living in high crime areas as it results in many of their young men, and a fair few of their young women getting a criminal record. Proactive policing feels like harassment and, to some degree, it is exactly that. It does, however, reduce violent crime and homicide and ironically the same people who resent the police are the ones mostly victimized by violent criminals who are their neighbors.
Big city mayors face an insoluble dilemma. They are damned if they suppress crime, and damned if they don't, often by exactly the same vocal minority community critics.
