When local authorities fail to maintain public safety, Washington can and should fill the gap.
Is federal intervention necessary to restore law and order in American cities? In some ways, yes; in others, no. I don’t mean to get all “lawyery” about it, but the question is somewhat loaded. After all, what do we mean by “necessary”? Do I think cities could maintain adequate levels of public safety without a muscular federal law enforcement presence? Yes. Have many cities failed to live up to their potential in significant ways? Also yes. Will those cities cease to exist, or devolve into completely lawless Thunderdomes, without federal help? Almost certainly not.
So, for the purposes of this exchange, I’m going to take the word “necessary” to mean that the more aggressive posture recently taken in some jurisdictions—like Washington, D.C.—by the federal arm of the law can add real value on the public safety front. The reasons for this are simple: Many cities have abdicated their enforcement responsibilities and/or actively undermined federal law enforcement priorities. This has created a vacuum into which federal authorities can (and should) step.
The most helpful federal interventions can take multiple forms.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Dispatch (paywall)
______________________
Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.
Photo by Jack Berman/Getty Images