Residents are strongly encouraged to express their concerns and condolences for the brave men and women of the Columbus Police Department by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.
COLUMBUS, Ga. — While many factors contribute to violent crime, they have been proven through a science known as systems dynamics to all be controlled by a single factor: the ability of law enforcement to keep up.
In a study of fifty years worth of crime data from New York City, a type of science known as systems dynamics was used to run computer simulations on the causes of violent crime in order to see if their effects could be replicated. By entering data sets into a computer system and specifying how those data all relate to each other, a simulation can then tell the user what the output of that system is over a designated period of time. By refining the inputs and iteratively adjusting their hypothesis, the output of the system can sometimes ultimately produce what actually historically happened in real life — and when that happens, the model of the system tends to be fairly spot-on.
Systems dynamics is a field of science that uses such systems to learn about the inputs and outputs of the world around us. It uses visual diagrams and computer simulations to help us visualize extremely complicated calculus that would have previously been expressed in a purely mathematical syntax (dx, anyone?)
One such study was conducted and published in 2014 on the dynamics of violent crime. Dynamics, as you may have guessed, is a term used to describe the relationships between many factors that are all linked together through cause and effect. The totality of those dynamics —within a specified boundary — are called a system.
What that 2014 study found was that the system they had modeled revealed an extremely accurate representation of the causes, effects, and relationships between the many factors surrounding violent crime.
If you stick with us and read along, we promise that we’ll explain what all the symbols, arrows, loops, and stocks mean along the way. It’s actually far simpler to understand than it might seem.
We’ve also hosted the diagram as a PDF on Scribd so you can view the full-size document, make it full screen, print it, or do whatever else so you can use it as a reference as you read along.
Here’s the big picture, followed by our detailed break-down below.
CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAM
DEMOGRAPHICS
Statistically, the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are males between the ages of 18-35. This, however, plays the smallest role in driving violent crime by itself — though its effects can be large when population sizes change. As the number of males in a population between the ages of 18-35 increases, so does its crime rate.
Working from the far-right of the diagram, we can see that the total size of the “young male population” has a positive correlation with the “risk age male population becoming potential violent criminals” (that’s what the plus sign toward the head of that red arrow means; when the input increases, the output increases, and vice versa). When the size of the young male population increases, so does the number of young males who are at-risk for becoming potential violent criminals. This is not surprising, and becomes more and more apparent the more you think about it.
DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION
Looking at the center-right of the diagram in loop R1 (the “R” stands for reinforcing), we can also see that the same at-risk young male population comes into contact with violent criminals throughout their daily lives. When that cultural influence becomes the norm through constant interaction, social pressures begin to seed and reinforce a criminal mindset in those same at-risk young males.
This is known as the “diffusion effect,” which is the driving factor of the “differential association loop.”
When there are more violent criminals available on the streets, the number of interactions with at-risk young males increases. As those interactions increase, so does the number of at-risk young males who fall victim to the diffusion effect. As the number who diffuse increases, so does the number of potential violent criminals.
This positive feedback loop creates a scenario wherein the more violent criminals that remain on the street, the more new criminals that spring into existence. In short: the more crime you have, the more crime you create.
There is, however, only one single mechanical interrupter capable of decreasing the number of violent criminals on our streets: the number of arrests. This appears time and time again throughout this entire dynamical system.
CRIMINAL CAREER
The total number, or stock, of potential violent criminals can then flow one of two ways: they either commit crime and move to the “becoming violent criminals” stock, or they keep their noses clean until they age out of the 18-35 age bracket. Don’t be fooled, however: being over 35 doesn’t mean they’ll never commit a crime; it merely means they are far less statistically likely to. Loop B1 (the “B” stands for balancing) continues to balance this out and add them back into the mix should their behavior change.
As some of those with the potential to commit violent crime actually begin to seek committing it, the number of those “becoming violent criminals” increases (B2). Until they actually commit the act, they can always move back to the potential status, thus decreasing the stock of the former and increasing the stock of the latter.
Of those who continue to seek committing violent crime in the “becoming violent criminals” stock, those who actually do move to the stock of “violent criminals” once they have actually committed the act.
This is the central point of the entire causal flow diagram: the number of violent criminals within the population.
As the number of violent criminals increases, so should the number of arrests (though the police force must be sizable enough to keep up; more on this as we digress). As those arrests occur, the population of violent criminals should decrease (B7). The more arrests that are made, the fewer violent criminals there are on our streets. In turn, the number of prisoners should also naturally increase.
As a secondary effect of the number of arrests increasing, the probability of others to commit a violent crime also decreases (B3). The consistent acts of arrest, prosecution, and sentencing serve as a warning to others in the population to not commit crime; it deters them from doing it themselves. As that probability decreases, so does the number of those who are “becoming violent criminals.” As they think twice about committing violent crime, the number of actual violent criminals also decreases, and so does the number of arrests.
RECIDIVISTS
There are two categories of outflow from the stock of prisoners: those with a high chance of recidivism (B4), and those with a low chance of recidivism (B5).
Of those prior offenders with a low chance of recidivism who are released from the stock of prisoners, they continue through loop R3 and return to the stock of “potential violent criminals” in loop B2.
Of those with high chances of recidivism, they move through loop R2 and return directly to the stock of violent criminals; they never stopped being one in the first place.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
As shown in the very top-left of the diagram, our local law enforcement annually assesses our city’s reported rates of violent crime. In turn, it is supposed to be determining its desired change in that crime rate. If the violent crime rate has gone up by “x” percent, it should be seeking to lower it by “y” percent.
This is shown in loop B6 which wraps along the left-most edge of the diagram in black.
To accomplish this, law enforcement should be determining its target size for its police force to face that increase in violent crime. If the rate of violent crime has increased, the department should be increasing its number of officers to meet that threat. Once those recruitment goals are met, the size of the police force has thus increased.
With a larger police force, law enforcement’s presence is greater and thus increases the number of arrests made. With a greater number of arrests made, the number of violent criminals on the street decreases (B7), which decreases the number of interactions violent criminals have with at-risk youth (R1), which decreases the number of young males in the population who are at-risk for becoming violent criminals themselves (B2;B3).
DRUGS
Statistically, the rates of drug sales and consumption within a population also has a significant effect on the probability of those at-risk for actually becoming violent criminals themselves. This is accounted for in loop B8 shown in green on the bottom-left of the diagram.
As the size of a police force increases, so does its capacity to make drug busts. Those drug busts not only increase the number of arrests and decrease the population of criminals on our streets, but it also physically removes the drugs from our population as well. With a smaller stock of drugs available, the rate of drug consumption decreases, which in turn decreases the probability of committing violent crime (B3).
WHAT CAN WE CONTROL
This is the single greatest takeaway from this entire causal flow diagram:
Of all factors that have been proven to be the contributing factors of a dynamical system of violent crime, the only single factor that we as a governed population have absolute direct control over is the number of arrests, which is a derivative of the size of our police force and its effectiveness in relation to the number of violent criminals within our population.
Let’s say that again for clarity: The only thing we can actively control to reduce already-existing crime is to increase the size of our police force so that we can in-turn make more arrests. Period. That’s it.
Every long-term effect of crime prevention and deterrence is dependent upon this single factor; they are utterly useless without the removal of existing criminals from our streets.
How do we know? How can we be so sure? It’s literally what we have already covered:
Every loop within the entire diagram ultimately requires a law enforcement officer to physically make an arrest and remove a violent offender from the street. That is the only mechanical interrupter that exists. Literally every single causal loop requires it once the violent crime is committed — which should be a fairly obvious concept to understand.
WHAT WE HAVE DONE INSTEAD
Instead of increasing our police force’s size to meet our increase in violent crime — in accordance with both loop B6 and common sense — we have instead continued to allow it to decrease in size over the course of years.
As would be expected through both the entirety of this causal flow diagram and common sense, our rates of violent crime have continued to increase.
Specifically:
All of these factors were left to continuously feed back on themselves for a period of years into the downward spiral of violent crime that we are now experiencing today.
WHAT SHRUNK OUR POLICE FORCE?
As shown in loop B6 on the far-left side of the diagram, a police force must be large enough to make the required number of arrests dictated by the current rate of violent crime.
The Columbus Police Department has continued to decrease its staffing for years at rates far exceeding that of the rest of the nation. CPD experienced a 112% increase in officer resignations in 2021, while the national increase that same year was just 18%.
Knowing that those officers specifically cited Blackmon’s poor leadership as the reason for their resignations, this highly significant piece of data shows — by itself — the extreme effects of the department’s current leadership malignancy; officers are quitting the Columbus Police department at a rate 6.22 times higher than the rest of the nation.
Additionally, four formal professional studies have shown for years that the single largest factor in CPD’s lack of officer retention was the abhorrent leadership ineptitude of police chief Freddie Blackmon.
THE CRUX OF LEADERSHIP
Without proper leadership in our police department, we cannot increase officer retention.
Without an increase in officer retention, we cannot increase the size of our police force.
Without an increase in the size of our police force, we cannot increase the number of arrests (B6).
Without an increase in the number of arrests, we cannot reduce the number of active violent criminals on our streets (B7).
Without a decrease in the number of active violent criminals, we cannot decrease our crime rate (B6) nor can we reduce the number of interactions and influence from violent criminals on our at-risk youth population (R1).
Without a decrease of the influence of violent criminals on our at-risk youth, we cannot decrease the number of new violent criminals created (R1->B2;B3).
As shown by the entirety of the causal flow diagram, our city will inevitably continue to decay into higher and higher rates of violent crime until CPD’s leadership is replaced.
YES, IT IS OUR CITY LEADERS’ FAULT
This really is not very complicated, though some of our city’s officials have other motives — and the safety of our public isn’t one of them.
Instead of accepting these very basic tenets of criminology that have been published for years, our city officials — namely city manager Isaiah Hugley — chose to call everyone racist instead.
Let us be absolutely clear:
Go Muck Yourself, Hugley: You Race-Baiting, Immature, Irresponsible, Unfit, Dim-Witted, Selfish, Racist Idiot.
People died because of you — and the rest of our city’s leaders sat by and let it happen for years.
Residents are strongly encouraged to express their concerns and condolences for the brave men and women of the Columbus Police Department by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.
Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.
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