I’m writing this crime update on November 9, the day after the election, and that seems as good a place to start as any. Tim Walz was reelected governor by a healthy margin, and the DFL has kept its slim majority in the state House of Representatives. Just a couple hours ago, Republican Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller conceded that control of the state Senate will shift to the DFL by a margin of one, meaning the DFL will have control of both the executive and legislative branches for the first time in years.
What does this mean for public safety in our neighborhood? It almost certainly means that a public safety bill, in some form, will pass in the legislature in the coming session; the DFL will own it if it doesn’t. Using the extremely low bar of “something is better than nothing,” that’s probably a good thing regardless of your political bent, since the last legislature accomplished precisely nothing in that regard.
But the specifics will matter, and as I reported last month, officer recruitment and retention is critical. In the last session, the two parties were far apart on funding for this important priority. The DFL had proposed numbers between $6 million and $16 million, while Republicans were advocating $65 million for recruitment and retention. Whatever number the new legislature arrives at, I personally hope it leans more towards the $65 million proposed by Republicans, and I hope it places a high priority on the recruitment of new officers.
With respect to an overall number earmarked for recruitment and retention, my concern is that the lower numbers – whether $6 million or $16 million – will be diluted into relative insignificance once those funds are allocated among Minnesota’s 87 counties. As for prioritization, the problem is that we have a statewide shortage of officers. While I’m entirely in favor of creating strong financial incentives for our existing officers to remain in their jobs, we simply need more cops. The primary way to address this problem is to convince a fairly large number of promising young people to enter the profession. Although there are multiple barriers to entry for a career in law enforcement, providing strong financial inducements for young people to enter the field seems like something we could do with relative ease in a time of an historic budget surplus; it’s at least one barrier removed.
In other news, in mid-October some friends of mine and I hosted an informal neighborhood gathering to discuss public safety in Kenwood and were joined by prosecutors and law enforcement officers. It was a constructive and wide-ranging discussion, and while I’ve mentioned many of the prevention tips we shared in prior articles, there’s another point worth highlighting.
Did you know that there’s a specific federal law targeting carjacking? I didn’t, but there is, and it has teeth. This is important. For those of you who aren’t lawyers, local violent crime is usually prosecuted exclusively by local prosecutors, not by the federal government. While the federal law applies only to adults who use violence in committing the crime (and, truly, find me a carjacking that doesn’t involve violence), defendants who run afoul of the law run straight into the full weight and power of the United States government. This includes a presumption of no bail (meaning defendants are off the street immediately), stiff prison sentences (up to 15 years), and no time off for good behavior. And, in a possible first, our current United States Attorney, Andy Luger, is requiring that every prosecutor in his office take local violent crime cases in addition to the cases the office is more traditionally known for, such as drug, terrorism, racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations (RICO), and tax matters.
This creates a powerful disincentive for adults to engage in carjacking which may account for why so many offenders are juveniles. While juvenile offenders probably deserve a separate article, it’s important to know there’s a weighty, existing legal framework for dealing with adults.
Marty Carlson lives in Kenwood.
