The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe

by Heather Mac Donald

Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Crime, Sociology, History, Cultural, Law

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 21, 2016

About the author

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize. Mac Donald’s work at City Journal has covered a range of topics, including higher education, immigration, policing, homelessness and homeless advocacy, criminal-justice reform, and race relations. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion. Mac Donald's newest book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (2018), argues that toxic ideas first spread by higher education have undermined humanistic values, fueled intolerance, and widened divisions in our larger culture.

Mac Donald’s The War on Cops (2016), a New York Times bestseller, warns that raced-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. Other previous works include The Burden of Bad Ideas (2001), a collection of Mac Donald’s City Journal essays, details the effects of the 1960s counterculture’s destructive march through America’s institutions. In The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga, she chronicles the effects of broken immigration laws and proposes a practical solution to securing the country’s porous borders. In Are Cops Racist? (2010), another City Journal anthology, Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over so-called racial profiling, and the anti-profiling lobby’s harmful effects on black Americans.

A nonpracticing lawyer, Mac Donald clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and was an attorney-advisor in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a volunteer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She has frequently testified before U.S. House and Senate Committees. In 1998, Mac Donald was appointed to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s task force on the City University of New York.

A frequent guest on Fox News and other TV and radio programs, Mac Donald holds a B.A. in English from Yale University, graduating with a Mellon Fellowship to Cambridge University, where she earned an M.A. in English and studied in Italy through a Clare College study grant. She holds a J.D. from Stanford University Law School.

At the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation's 2018 annual meeting in downtown Los Angeles, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called Mac Donald, “the greatest thinker on criminal justice in America today.”

Reviews

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's brave for her to state what she does without pages and pages of source material. A good index is given, but truthfully it would take a phone book to begin to list stats in the methods that would suffice for those who would still reject any basis for the common sense and observable reality of urban crime and policing styles. BOTH. It's closer to 3 stars because it is also redundant in a way that skips from one incident to another too quickly. She truly should have given the details of more cops shot before the window could even roll down- so you could cherish the true reality of that scenario's numbers in comparison to the purposely shot black detainee. It would equate the reality much more than this skipping of state to incident encompasses.

My review is prejudiced, you might say. Being an assault victim (complete stranger every time)at least 3 times in my life when a hospitalization should have been required (only once did it happen). And also having many family members (birth family every single one except my youngest sibling) over the years shot at or punctured or hit over the head and mugged- all of those, I can attest that the police and consequence of dire hurt toward a criminal perpetrator has decreased over the decades, if anything. And the victim end tragedy and suffering increased. HUGELY, in Chicago, which I know, two or three neighborhoods I have lived in or at least visited routinely- now I would only do so under an armed guard. And that is no exaggeration, as my brother is CPD retired and many years a homicide detective. In fact, the Yummy case noted in this book, was HIS case. One time at 26th & Sawyer my Mother was knocked over the head when she was using a walker, just before she went into a wheelchair. Purse stolen and literally walked upon (broken rib) during the 100 steps from the bus stop to her grade school office. She was a school clerk who RAN that school because no principal could put up with it for more than 2 years. And she also interpreted the languages continually, as her Italian enabled understanding all the forms of Spanish. These are the people who are used as fodder, while the criminals are expounded as "innocents". And my poor father as a garbage man - his assaults too numerous to list. Mostly bricks thrown or dead rats or opossum carcasses rigged up to fall on him or dropped on him. And once when he was 93 perps broke in, hit him (waving a revolver in his face) and took all the money in the house and most of the electronics- WITH HIM THERE. So do not think I am owning equal "understanding" of criminal behavior as being cases of a few "good boys just feeling their oats" kind of interpretation.

The Ferguson Effect is real. Also observable (as she notes about that conversation about "getting out of the car"). And being a part of the copper education world for so many years, getting their MS degrees, those especially- helping do their research; these police are real faces to me. Even the ones who are no longer alive, or shot in the back of the head while sitting at an el station on security detail. I remember his face today and I will tomorrow.

And I also have heard police conversations upon the repercussions of that Obama speech when the grand jury decision went down for Ferguson and after Baltimore. All the police, and most of them black, as are my block neighbors who mentioned it to me once when I was giving them garden tomatoes, THEY FELT absolutely punctured and defiled in their cores for the President violating his oath to support and secure the laws of the USA and declaring so as he did in those words. And then telling them (the police on active duty) to do their job by not doing their job.

Mac Donald is so outspoken that I hope she has 2 or 3 carry people around her at all times. Because the reality is that the worst racism in our USA is that the situation in urban areas of feral children and non-family identity has been left to fester for 5 to 8 generations while the children and the men who are mental and moral infants continue to kill each other by the dozens or more a month. In Chicago there were 45 shot over Easter weekend. None by the police.

People want links? Do you want the ones that list and map the over 154 current gangs in Chicago? I put that one on another book review months ago. Or do you want the ones that use the street language in describing shot placements or demographic detail? I don't think I can link such foul words although they state hospital and morgue outcomes here. Chicago official ones are there to google. They are UNDERSTATED. For instance in the category, because the fooling around oops "selfie" shots are often wrongly categorized. St. Louis and Detroit are worse. Places that you would think are pretty clear, like Milwaukee or Minneapolis- think again. Anywhere where Section 8 or Public Housing has over 70 to 95% of the children with no fathers and no marriage as core for children considered in the culture as necessary or even preferable- and where the black population has self segregated (SNAP, LINK, many other programs all connected to "free stuff" down to the phone and the WF) in large community numbers. And yet the people in those neighborhoods DO want proactive policing when asked- to a more than 60% approval, just as she notes in this book. In Englewood/ Chicago it is even higher than that at times. But when the brave vocalize this in public forums, they are terrorized (and that's understated) by people in their own neighborhood. They may have given that opinion on a local T.V. news program, WGN or NBC usually, just as she states here, as well. Some of those have ended up in the hospital for it. Just like the lady who barricaded her door with a couch as Mac Donald details in the book- many witnesses then "hide" rather than tell what they saw. In great majority of gang or drive by, at least a handful of neighbors know who initiated and who pulled the trigger. But the emphasis is on the 2 or 3% of the cop shot?? Huh?

Too much and too sad to read. If I didn't have my youth and middle age experiences I would probably not have read it, myself. SO SAD. And so ACTUAL and VISCERAL racist that this situation of supporting criminals over police and allowing riots and horrific property and personal damage to occur as a kind of tantrum to aftermath is allowed to continue by those who "know better" because they are so wonderfully self declared empathetic. While in huge majority they live in cozy and non-violent world habitats. Not having to chain down each valuable or wear armor to walk to a park.

Little boys and girls, don't grow up to be fire or police in Chicago.

As soon as the litter and junk masses at the curbs and there is a broken window in sight, it has started. So her "Broken Window" NYC policy is right on for its name placement. Mayor G. knew the solutions. When you see groups hanging on corners and exchanging "fare" you know you are well in. When you see a 2 year old in diapers sitting inside a curb puddle at 1 am in the morning playing with sewer water (coming from a Sox game and our car broke down on the Dan Ryan) while there are at least 4 dozen adults at the end of that same block coming out of a club, congregating within loud voices, and ignoring same child that they could obviously see clearly- if they cared to look and some of them truly DID look at us, you know you are well "in"- the violence at any moment territory of divisions. And when you have to go pick up that same child out of the puddle (and wrap her in a blanket from the back seat- it was a girl /her diaper soaked fell off completely) to take her to the nearest police station in a smoking car yet (THANK GOD FOR GPS)-you know that the children are OFTEN SOL in this system. Less policing = more deaths. Fewer fathers in their lives and the most drug/ rap idolization of "cool" fixation of the gang as a family instead= most deaths under 30 for black men. Regardless of all this being harsh to hear, it's the truth.

She just skimmed this issue of further changes coming- but watch out, folks. The MOTHERS are leaving the picture now too. And the village has NOT helped raise the child. Despite that it has spent millions and millions, bankrupted the state for education and early start courses, but Blackstone Rangers took over the Head Start building from day one. They use them as their "headquarters" and have for decades.

[Marleene · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave it a one star as despite the many reviews extolling the solid research the author put in, there is not one citation backing up her statistics or claims. This is deplorable in a book that tackles a controversial subject.

[Negin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There are only two races: the decent and the indecent.” – Viktor Frankl

"A society that makes war against its police had better learn to make friends with its criminals."

This book was an eye-opening read. It gives a perspective that many are either unaware of or choose to ignore. Heather MacDonald was in Ferguson, Missouri, shortly after the Michael Brown shooting. She saw the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and how it affected law enforcement, not just in Ferguson, but throughout the nation.

BROKEN WINDOWS POLICING/PROACTIVE POLICING
Heather Mac Donald talks about "Broken Windows" policing, also known as proactive policing, which has been found to be very effective in reducing crime. She writes:

“Broken windows policing holds that allowing a neighborhood to become overrun by graffiti, litter, public drunkenness, and other forms of disorder breeds more crime by signaling that social control in the area has collapsed.”

Mayor Guiliani, the best mayor that New York has had in my lifetime, in my humble opinion, used this approach. By the way, I am so grateful that he was Mayor during the few years that I lived there, but I digress.

Sadly, in recent times, as a result of what she describes as the Ferguson Effect, police have been vilified by the media as well as by the Obama administration, what she refers to as “the most anti-law enforcement administration in memory.” Police in at-risk communities are practically crippled and are far less willing to go after lesser offenders because they are fearful of the consequences. They sometimes stop responding to calls in neighborhoods where they may be attacked for doing their job. When Broken Windows policing is no longer carried out, and this is usually as a result of political pressure, statistics show a rise in crime rates. Who is most affected? The good, law-abiding people that live in the inner cities and crime-ridden areas. She writes:

“Go to any police-and-community meeting in Brooklyn, the Bronx, or Harlem, and you will hear pleas such as the following: Teens are congregating on my stoop; can you please arrest them? SUVs are driving down the street at night with their stereos blaring; can’t you do something? People have been barbecuing on the pedestrian islands of Broadway; that’s illegal! The targets of these complaints may be black and Hispanic, but the people making the complaints, themselves black and Hispanic, don’t care. They just want orderly streets.”

RACISM
So many cities in the U.S. have a shortage of law enforcement officers. Police feel marginalized. They’re not all bad and racist. Mac Donald presents facts and evidence rather than emotions to show that the criminal justice system is not racist. The police do not in fact target black criminals and they are not a danger to black men. Black criminals commit a large amount of the crime. She demonstrates that black men are a danger to themselves, most especially when they violently resist arrest.

The media doesn’t care about black bodies unless if they’re shot by a cop. The media cares about white bodies. If there’s a school shooting and white kids are killed, they care. The media and the left use certain tragedies for their own purposes and ignore other tragedies.



SOLUTION
The solution that she provides is one that I have been agreeing with for years: strengthen families and have fewer fatherless homes. Most people know that children who grow up without a father are more likely to drop out of school, live in poverty, and end up in prison. This is one of the most basic and fundamental principles of life: strong families make for a strong society. She writes that the real cause of black violence is the breakdown of the family.



I found the first half of the book repetitive. The book takes off with the second half, filled with anecdotes and statistics. My only criticism is that I wish that there were sources and citations, or at least a bibliography. I would recommend this to anyone who is concerned about the turn that society and the criminal justice system in the U.S. have taken in recent times.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 die from shootings at more than six times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined, thanks to a ten times higher rate of homicide committed by black teens. Until the black family is reconstituted, the best protection that the law-abiding residents of urban neighborhoods have is the police. They are the government agency most committed to the proposition that ‘black lives matter.’ The relentless effort to demonize the police for enforcing the law can only leave poor communities more vulnerable to anarchy.”

“Until society is willing to address the family breakdown that generates such violence, it will continue to fall to the police to provide social control where fathers no longer do so.”

“Magnitudes more black men are killed by other black men in Baltimore and other American cities than by the police, yet those killings are ignored because they don’t fit into the favored narrative of a white, racist America lethally oppressing blacks. Police misconduct is deplorable and must be eradicated wherever it exists. But until the black crime rates come down, police presence is going to be higher in black neighborhoods, increasing the chances that when police tactics go awry, they will have a black victim.”

“The irony is that the historic reduction of crime in the United States since the 1990s was predicated on police singling out African-Americans for their protection. Using victims’ crime reports, cops focused on violent hot spots; since black Americans are disproportionately the victims of crime, just as blacks are disproportionately its perpetrators, effective policing was heaviest in minority neighborhoods. The cops were there because they do believe that black lives matter.”

“A straight line can be drawn between family breakdown and youth violence. In Chicago’s poor black neighborhoods, criminal activity among the young has reached epidemic proportions. It’s a problem that no one, including the Chicago Police Department, seems able to solve. About 80 percent of black children in Chicago are born to single mothers. They grow up in a world where marriage is virtually unheard of and where no one expects a man to stick around and help raise a child.”

“Since late summer 2014, a protest movement known as Black Lives Matter has convulsed the nation. Triggered by a series of highly publicized deaths of black males at the hands of the police, the Black Lives Matter movement holds that police officers are the greatest threat facing young black men today. That belief has spawned riots, ‘die-ins’, and the assassination of police officers. The movement’s targets include Broken Windows policing and the practice of stopping and questioning suspicious individuals, both of which are said to harass blacks.”

“For the last 20 years, America’s elites have talked feverishly about police racism in order to avoid talking about black crime.
On March 11, 2015 – only hours before two police officers were shot at protests in Ferguson, either targeted directly or the unintended casualties of a gang dispute – a six-year-old boy named Marcus Johnson was killed by a stray bullet in a St. Louis park. There have been no protests against his killer; Al Sharpton has not shown up to demand a federal investigation. Marcus is just one of the 6000 black homicide victims a year (more than all white and Hispanic homicide victims combined) who receive virtually no attention because their killers are other black civilians.”

“No government policy in the past quarter-century has done more for urban reclamation than proactive policing. Data-driven enforcement, in conjunction with stricter penalties for criminals and Broken Windows policing, has saved thousands of black lives, brought lawful commerce and jobs to once-drug-infested neighborhoods, and allowed millions to go about their daily lives without fear.”

“New York City is typical: blacks are only 23 percent of the population but commit over 75 percent of all shootings in the city, as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those shootings; whites commit under 2 percent of all shootings, according to victims and witnesses, though they are 33 percent of the city’s population. Blacks commit 70 percent of all robberies; whites, 4 percent. The black-white crime disparity in New York would be even greater without New York’s large Hispanic population. Black and Hispanic shootings together account for 98 percent of all illegal gunfire.”

“The Times serves up a good example of anti-cop propaganda when it confidently states that ‘many police officers see black men as expendable figures on the urban landscape, not quite human beings.’ That would be news to the thousands of police officers who are the only people willing to put their lives on the line to protect innocent blacks from predation. Until editors and reporters from the Times start patrolling dark stairwells in housing projects and running toward gang gunfire, their superior concern for black men will lack credibility.”

“The public could perhaps be forgiven for believing that ‘the killing of young black men by police is a common feature of African-American life,’ given the media frenzy that follows every such police killing, rare as they are, compared with the silence that greets the daily homicides committed by blacks against other blacks.’”

“This kind of misinformation about the criminal-justice system and the police can only increase hatred of the police. That hatred, in turn, will heighten the chances of more Michael Browns attacking officers and getting shot themselves. Police officers in the tensest areas may hold off from assertive policing. Such de-policing will leave thousands of law-abiding minority residents who fervently support the police ever more vulnerable to thugs. Obama couldn’t have stopped the violence in Ferguson with his address to the nation. But in casting his lot with those who speciously impugn our criminal-justice system, he increased the likelihood of more such violence in the future.”

“The Washington Post found press documentation of 258 black victims of fatal police shootings in 2015, most of whom were seriously attacking the officer. In 2014, the most recent year for which such data are available, there were 6,095 black homicide victims in the United States, which means that the police could eliminate all of their own fatal shootings without having a significant impact on the black homicide death rate. The killers of those black homicide victims are overwhelmingly other blacks—who are responsible for a death risk ten times that of whites in urban areas.”

“In Los Angeles, for example, blacks commit 42 percent of all robberies and 34 percent of all felonies, though they are 10 percent of the city’s population. Whites commit 5 percent of all robberies and 13 percent of all felonies, though they are 29.4 percent of the city’s population.”

“The demonization of the police and the criminal justice system must end. As the Black Lives Matter movement marches forward with no apparent diminution of strength, there are signs that the very legitimacy of law and order is breaking down in urban areas. Resistance to lawful police action is becoming routine. Officers are reluctant to engage, given the nonstop campaign against them. Homicides in the 50 largest U.S. cities were up by nearly 17 percent in 2015 over the previous year. Liberal elites have successfully kept attention focused exclusively on phantom police and criminal-justice racism while squelching even the most tentative discussion of the crime-breeding chaos of inner-city underclass culture. We are playing with fire.”

[Raquel Bennett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not one primary source, real citation or fact in the book! This is an opinion piece that will satisfy all who blindly support the police and/or who lack critical reading and comprehensive skills. However, it is a good read for a snapshot into how people of power manipulate the uneducated and how they are supported by mainstream publishers (media).

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The observation which left the greatest impression on me was this: We accept that men perpetrate violent crime at an astronomically higher rate than women, and we do not consider the criminal justice system's reflection of this fact as sexism. The data shows that black American men perpetrate violent crime at a much greater rate than men of other races, but the racial parity between rates of violent crime and rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration is commonly interpreted as racism.

THE GOOD.

The author argues for the efficacy of proactive policing, and argues against the notion that the American criminal justice system is afflicted by institutional racism. She does not endeavor to absolve law enforcement of its problematic aspects, or to justify every incident, but describes what are likelier causes than racism and why. She conveys via data that anti-police sentiment and activism has run contrary to its intentions; that it has directly resulted in an elevated rate of violent death for black Americans because of how it inhibits officers' ability to act in communities most affected by violent crime.

For all of this, the author makes a convincing case.

THE BAD.

This book badly needs footnotes listing specific sources for its data and its claims.

The book is repetitive; a significant amount of this book's volume comes from a needless restating of information already presented in prior chapters.

The author conflates being liberal with hating cops.

On page 142, the author unironically uses the term "manly virtues".

The data-focused and well-reasoned arguments are interspersed with opinionated asides. They are beside the point, and often ludicrous. The author variously derides people as "professional talking heads" or "liberal elite" where such derision is wholly unproductive. The ad hominem detracts from the book's more rational aspects. During her criticisms of President Obama, she pointlessly fixates on his phrasing when he was espousing the responsibility of a community to educate its youth.

The author repeatedly asserts, without substantiation, that black Americans being disproportionately the victims and perpetrators of violent crime must be primarily a consequence of the breakdown of the heterosexual nuclear family in black communities. There is no data to support this assertion. I believe it is an example of correlation mistaken for causation; it appears far more likely to me that the same environment which produces violent criminals also produces dysfunctional families.

IN SUMMARY.

After reading this book, I feel that I have a broader understanding of the issues it discusses, which are not solely limited to the relationship between race and policing. It has proven educational in important ways, and I think everyone can benefit from the facts, statistics, and interviews that the author assembled.

That said, it is deeply unfortunate how frequently the book diverges from the concrete so that the author can express her personal opinions and bias. Had it been grounded solely in fact, not in opinion, this book would have had immense value. As it is, I'm not sure how I could recommend it to anyone.

[Twobchelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly don’t know who would have the passion to want a career in law enforcement these days. While continuing to lower the bar for criminals and handcuffing the police more and more as the crime rate continues to increase. The author has done extensive research and presented statistics that are alarming. The breakdown of the family unit plays a big part in preventing the youth turning to a life of crime. It’s a disturbing book and the solutions come down to swift and reasonable punishment for the crime committed . They have a lot of push back from the NCAA and related organizations.

[Gail Welborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

****...a work of fact vs. fiction everyone must read!****
Heather Mac Donald, award-winning journalist, non-practicing attorney and political commentator, uses statistics, fascinating personal stories and in-depth investigations to prove police involved shootings of blacks are not racially motivated in The War on Cops.

Instead, she lays out a case that such violence is caused by the breakdown of the black family where children are raised in single parent households with absentee fathers. "Until society is willing to address the family breakdown that generates such violence, the police provide the social control" a father would otherwise give, she writes. She uses the city of Chicago as an example, where "about 80% of black children are born to single mothers."

She identifies another facet of the problem as the media who add "legitimacy and notoriety" to race-based allegations with reality show-style reporting before facts are known. She questions if protests and rioting would even occur without news cameras and media attention.

Part one of her four-part book features the shooting of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson that resulted in two commonly accepted myths and what Mac Donald would later call the "Ferguson effect." Extensive investigations would prove Brown was not shot with his hands raised in the surrender position and the American criminal-justice system is not rigged against blacks as reported.

However the lack of trust between citizens and law enforcement may be a lasting residual effect Mac Donald describes as the "Ferguson effect." Where officers use less enforcement in situations with potential for racism charges. Whether the "Ferguson effect" is real or not crime and murder are on the rise and it could be due to the microscopic scrutiny and "data-driven accountability" police officers endure.

All concerned citizens should read Mac Donald's well-researched, fact based book that makes no excuses for officers who don't follow their training. However, research does not support charges of police racism or deadly force used in excess against blacks. Instead, she writes, "race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system" and the police, erodes the "authority of law and puts lives at risk."

'The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe,' by Heather Mac Donald, Encounter Books, 2016, 248 Pages, 978-1594038754, $23.99

Midwest Book Reviews: "Gail's Bookshelf" July 2016
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[Nicole Lane · Rating 1 out of 5]

I agreed to read this book in exchange for a friend's dad to read Between the World and me by Ta-Nehesi Coates. The books are polar opposite and the first paragraph of this book forced me to use my anger management exercises. So far I haven't seen a single citation of source for the statistics provided, which we all learned in 8th grade is an academic no-no. It's interesting to see just how people can be swayed by rhetoric that they believe to be factual without seeing any proof. This book is a gross manipulation of statistics to prove a predisposition held by the author.

[Spicy T AKA Mr. Tea · Rating 1 out of 5]

To begin with, this book has several troubling technical aspects, not to even get into the content. 1) No bibliography to tell me what she read or where she got her information from. 2) No end notes. None. Not. A. One. You're writing a NONFICTION book. You need to back up your claims. Otherwise, it's hyperbole and opinion. 3) She had 8 footnotes, which I didn't find particularly useful. 4) Really short chapters. I think she had two chapters that were over five pages. I burned through this book. 5) (And I admit this is getting into content a bit) She uses "black suspect," "thug," and "savage" somewhat interchangeably. Lastly, 6), She cherry picks her data and anecdotes. For instance, she focuses on the years 2014 - 2016 to look at the rise of a so-called attack on law enforcement. She makes claims like "From 2005 - 2014, 40 percent of cop-killers were black," yet she cites no data or source to show where and how she got that claim from. She does not acknowledge that over a 10 year period, according to the FBI (https://www.boston.com/news/local-new...), the trends in felonious murders of police officers were either flat or down. There are many anecdotes sprinkled through this book, such as the homeless, convicted felon in California who said, and I'm paraphrasing, theft should be taken seriously and if I get a ticket rather than go to jail for theft, us thieves won't take the law seriously. Mac Donald used this tiny anecdote to bolster her argument that thieves need to be incarcerated. She doesn't address the overcrowding of California prisons which caused several constitutional violations and led to prisoner releases. When you're writing a polemic, however, apparently facts don't matter and any individual story that supports your distorted narrative will do.

Going into some of the underlying assumptions that Mac Donald builds on is the presumption that the cause of crime in Black communities is some kind of inherent flaw in Black people and won't be resolved until "the black family is reconstituted." (p. 30)

This line of reasoning comes straight out of the Moynihan report. For those not familiar, you can read it here: http://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moy.... For a wonderful scholarly and historical treatment of the Moynihan report, check out Daniel Geary's "Beyond Civil Rights."

On page 44, Mac Donald writes, "Perhaps if the media had not shrunk from reporting on the flash-mob phenomenon and the related 'knockout game'–in which black teenagers try to knock out unsuspecting bystanders with a single sucker punch–we might have made a modicum of progress in addressing, or at least acknowledging, the real cause of black violence: the breakdown of the family. A widely circulated video from the mayhem shows a furious mother whacking her hoodie-encased son to prevent him from joining the mob. This tiger mom may well have the capacity to rein in her would-be vandal son. But the odds are against her. Try as they might, single mothers are generally overmatched in raising males. Boys need their fathers. But over 72 percent of black children are born to single-mother households today, three times the black illegitimacy rate when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his prescient analysis of the black family breakdown in 1965."

A few corrections. First, the so-called knockout game is a myth. Many news outlets have reported on the myth. Here's a good place to start: http://www.thedailybeast.com/guess-wh.... Second, the author states that the "real cause of black violence" is the breakdown of the black family. We're expected to accept this assumption without question. Third, she talks about the birthrate of black children to single-mother households and compares that to Moynihan's report from 1965. Not only does she not cite where she gets the 72 percent number, but Moynihan's data was flawed, among many other flawed aspects of his report He acknowledged, on page 4 of his report, that he did not have data pertaining explicitly to "Negroes" but only nonwhite people. Moynihan then used Negro and Nonwhite interchangeably throughout his report. It's bad sociology.

Mac Donald's contention, much like Moynihan's (who began his arch toward the neoconservative right in the late 1960s) was that the problem was Black folks and the break down of their families, not poverty, structural and institutional racism, patriarchy, or police violence. Whereas in the early 1960s up to the publishing of his report, Moynihan advocated full employment (not opportunity) through government programs, by the end of the decade he was dismissive of those programs and seemed to indicate that the problem could only be solved through racial self-help. This played well with the right and the neoconservatives of time who started putting out reports and research, citing Moynihan, claiming racial inferiority. The scientific racism of the 19th century was alive and well in the 1970s, thanks to Moynihan. This is all to say, that when you read Mac Donald–I hope you never do–the foundational assumption of this terrible book she wrote is based on an old, outdated, problematic report that both the right and the left initially found value in. The left, for its seeming suggestion of full employment, and the right, for Moynihan's nod that the only way for there to be Black uplift was through racial self-help–which means any government program is bound to fail because of the inherent problems with Black people themselves.

I think if you are going to read this book, read Daniel Geary's book first, Beyond Civil Rights, and then read the Moynihan report. Or vice versa. Then read the Mac Donald book. I propose this progression only because then you will have the historical background to review Mac Donald's book and you will have also read the source material that continually pops up in her book as a foundational assumption: the Moynihan report.

The rest of the book is just hyperbole.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny how the view of officer-involved issues is always at the officer... nobody asks why the officer was there or what did the person did, the finger swings to the officer immediately. I was 5'2" and 105 pounds... just put your hands behind your back and get in the car. When do we teach our children to be respectful?

I paid my dues... I have been spit on, called names, was stabbed, shot at twice, hit once by a bullet split, I have had my nose broken from being hit in the face by a pipe and my collar bone was broken from being dragged over an alignment machine in a garage, and had a concussion from being picked up and shaken hard... I was hit in the head with a telephone receiver on a payphone, all I wanted to do was finish my shift and go home. Yeah, I know I signed up for it...

True enough there are problems and there are idiots on both sides.. but even we recognize the idiots on our side.... I hope ghostbusters makes a big come back because the number of people wanting to be the police gets smaller and smaller. It isn't the job, it is the bullshit that goes with it...

5 stars

Happy Reading.

[Jon Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding methodology and well-researched.

[Dav · Rating 5 out of 5]

.

The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe

By Heather Mac Donald,
published 2016, about 250 pages.

Synopsis:
Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993.
The reason is...the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened.

This book...deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement: that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate.

The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department.

Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the [Obama] White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.

.

A well done analysis exposing the liberal left, the Democratic party and their propaganda media's ongoing propagation of lies about the criminal justice system, the police and black criminals.

Especially salient today (2020) as the left continues its attack on cops and unbelievably, demanding Police departments be defunded and is using the death of another black criminal to justify riots, burning, pillaging and killing--mostly in their own Democrat-run cities.

THE BOOK is presented in four parts.

1 Burning Cities and the Ferguson Effect.
And Black Lives Matter (BLM) founded on a big fat lie.


2 Handcuffing the Cops.
Endangering police and incentivizing criminals by forcing the NYPD to end Stop, Question & Frisk.


3 The Truth About Crime.
Liberals excuse crime, falsely claiming it's a result of poverty, racism, inequality or police brutality.


4 Incarceration and Its Critics.
There are more blacks in prison because of their crimes, not because of racism. "In the final analysis, America does not have an incarceration problem; it has a crime problem. ...the only answer to that crime problem is to rebuild the family--above all, the black family."
(70% of black kids are born to single mothers)

In the 22 chapters the author presents statistics and facts from the FBI, DOJ and other fact-gatherers. For those on the right side of law and order much of this information is familiar, a refresher. For the cop-haters, the lunatic left, the devotees of CNN and fake news, I suspect they won't appreciate Heather Mac Donald's prodigious fact-gathering.

Some highlights include:
the "hands up, don't shoot" lie;
the effectiveness of stop-and-frisk and Broken Window policing;
Blacks are not more likely to be shot by cops and there is no systemic racism by cops;
the lies of the malcontents are incentivizing criminals, excusing crimes and ruining lives.

"...the greatest danger in today's war on cops...[is] the delegitimation of law & order itself."
"Riots are returning...Police officers are regularly pelted with bricks & water bottles... Black criminals who have been told that the police are racist...resist arrest, requiring the arresting officer to use force and risk an even more violent encounter. If the...lies about law enforcement continue, civilized urban life may once again breakdown."

Not surprisingly the author is exactly right (even prophetic). The lies continue; BLM, Antifa and other such anarchists are still destroying liberal cities. Lawlessness and chaos seems to be their goal.

From 2016 to 2020 it's only gotten worse, more widespread and longer lasting.





...




..



.

[Jim Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

The timing of me reading this book is uncanny. Jefferson Parish (County) is a suburb of New Orleans and just yesterday, the day I started reading the book, a Deputy was shot in the back and murdered by a perp who said he did not want to go to jail for violating his probation for carrying a weapon. Sad, very sad!

EVERY American should read this book! I should end my review with just those words because what I am about to say may be misinterpreted. The book by Ms. Macdonald may be the most depressing book I have ever read, ever! But...it truly needs to be read by everyone. It is far more than just a book about the War on Cops, it is more a book about the internal destruction of our American society by criminals and more importantly the courts who seem to be siding more and more with the criminals and their malicious if not totally untrue claims about mistreatment by cops than the police who want to put them behind bars and preserve our way of life. Be honest, do you feel safe in walking some of the streets in America? I certainly do not. Violent crime after violent crime riddles our evening news. It seems like we are not only under attack by ISIS from outside or even inside our borders, we are also under attack by a very much alive violent criminal element within our major cities. Just look at the murder rates in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore and others. It is undeniable. The War on Cops identifies what must be considered the root cause of most of these crimes and you and I both know the author is right about what she writes about (tongue twister for sure). What is the solution? I don't think anyone knows for certain. Read it and make up your own mind.

I am a "right-brain" type person and while I found the book extremely important, I did have a hard time following all the statistics that were included within the sentences throughout the book. I personally would have found them easier to follow and understand if those same statistics were included in pie charts or simple box-type presentations showing one statistic as compared to the others. That is the problem with being right brain thinking. But the numbers show you exactly how people in authority simply ignore the facts and the numbers that would rip to shreds their failed positions on several topics that in effect have destroyed the moral of police officers all across the country but especially in California What has happened in California is a perfect example of people interfering in matters that they know so very little about but give the pretense that they do know. You are not going to like what you read but it needs to be read.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, as I've said about many, many, many MANY other books, maybe just read it and see what it says before you hate it.

I won't go into it here, I suspect you are already forming ideas about it.

Look, it was strongly suggested that I readWhite Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. I chose not to rate or comment there it's up to each. Now if you can I simply, humbly suggest you give this a read...you know, as I said, before you hate it.

Oh by the way (this is an add on) I don't by any means agree with all she says here. I only suggest we all read things on all sides of given arguments and keep an open mind. We need to listen as well as speak.

[Jonathan Blanks · Rating 1 out of 5]

A polemic that focuses almost exclusively on the jaded, anti-black politics around policing rather than tackling the legitimate grievances of police reformers. An argument could be made that there are productive means of bridging police community relationships that are underutilized, and there are legitimate defenses of certain police practices, but this fails to give either any significant attention.

Frankly, police officers should be insulted that something so inflammatory has been written and is promoted in their defense.

[Charles Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening experience...

I wanted to learn more about the Ferguson Effect and this book allowed me to do so. Author Mac Donald does an outstanding job of reporting and backing up pronouncements with facts and figures.
This book is well worth the money!

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Title should be "Terrible Hot Takes From a Racist"

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Challenges the narrative pushed by Black Lives Matter which claims that police are out to get blacks.

“The demonization of the police and the criminal-justice system must end.”

“When a boy is raised without any social expectation that he will support his children and marry his children’s mother, he fails to learn the most fundamental lesson of personal responsibility. The high black crime rate was one result of a culture that fails to civilize men through marriage.”

“The Times serves up a good example of anti-cop propaganda when it confidently states that “many police officers see black men as expendable figures on the urban landscape, not quite human beings.” That would be news to the thousands of police officers who are the only people willing to put their lives on the line to protect innocent blacks from predation. Until editors and reporters from the Times start patrolling dark stairwells in housing projects and running toward gang gunfire, their superior concern for black men will lack credibility.”

“The evidence is clear: black prison rates result from crime, not racism.”

“Since black Americans are disproportionately the victims of crime, just as blacks are disproportionately its perpetrators, effective policing was heaviest in minority neighborhoods. The cops were there because they do believe that black lives matter.”

“In reality, however, police killings of blacks are an extremely rare feature of black life and a minute fraction of black homicide deaths. Blacks are killed by police at a lower rate than their threat to officers would predict… in 2013, blacks made up 42 percent of all cop-killers whose race was known, even though blacks are only about 13 percent of the nation’s population.”

“For the last 20 years, America’s elites have talked feverishly about police racism in order to avoid talking about black crime.” When black children are killed by stray bullets, there are no protests and no celebrities showing up to demand a federal investigation.

“No government policy in the past quarter-century has done more for urban reclamation than proactive policing. Data-driven enforcement, in conjunction with stricter penalties for criminals and Broken Windows policing, has saved thousands of black lives, brought lawful commerce and jobs to once-drug-infested neighborhoods, and allowed millions to go about their daily lives without fear.”

“Lowered crime is a precondition to economic revival, not its consequence. New York’s economic renaissance began only when crime started plummeting in 1994, thanks to a policing revolution there.”

“Until society is willing to address the family breakdown that generates such violence, it will continue to fall to the police to provide social control where fathers no longer do so.”

“Traffickers without a serious criminal history can avoid application of a mandatory sentence by cooperating with investigators. It is their choice not to do so.”

Even Obama acknowledged the importance of fathers in the home, in a 2008 speech: “We know the statistics-- that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”

Do cops “over-arrest blacks and ignore white criminals”? “In fact, the statistics on the race of criminals as reported by crime victims match the arrest data. As long ago as 1978, a study of robbery and aggravated assault in eight cities found parity between the race of assailants in victim reports and in arrests- a finding replicated many times, across a range of crimes. No one has ever come up with a plausible argument as to why crime victims would be biased in their reports.”

“In the final analysis, America does not have an incarceration problem; it has a crime problem. And the only answer to that crime problem is to rebuild the family-- above all the black family.”

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

And to think, she wrote this back in 2016. I would like to see an updated edition that considers the 2020 riots and surges in crime.

Overall it’s more anecdotal than I would like. Perhaps she gives more extensive analysis and citation in footnotes (which are not in the audiobook). But doubtful.

She spends some sections explaining studies and statistics on crime and law enforcement, which is helpful context. In some places she recites what other people have said about crime in other books or speeches. In various places she lists anecdotal examples of people expressing their opinions, seemingly from interviews she's done. While hearing dialogue from others makes for more engaging writing, it undermines her point in the end. She relies too heavily on single cases or examples to illustrate her arguments.

While I agree with much of what she says, it's too easy to poke holes in her claims.

I have also read Mac Donald's The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.

[Alejandro Heracles al-Mu'minin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Battle Against Criminality

Exposed is the seldom documented actions of unelected officials working to forgive persecutors at the expense of victims.

This book tracks the effects of data assisted community protection; its developments, how it functions, and the affects (with and then without it.) We are invited to make up our own determinations yet authors analysis seems undeniable under such evidence.

Rarely mentioned is the indepth look into prison given.

Topics continue well beyond stage one attempting to bring in wide perspective.

Policy recommendations and examples of alternatives are supplied.

I appreciate how complete the outlook provided in this book was. It leaves the question up to public debate- one that should include these policy considerations- one that is not allowed to take place in the msm and dnc.

[Eliot Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a book! You will never look at the brave men and women of law enforcement the same after reading this book. What they have to put up with from politicians is unbelievable!

[Deb Franckowiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! So rewarding to get facts so that one can derive own opinion! Thank you for writing this book!!!

[Layton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for a terrible Criminal Justice Seminar course. Mac Donald makes a lot of assertions but rarely backs up her claims, and often doesn’t see the failings in her own logic.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a topic that is very important to me. However this book was horrible. MacDonald kept repeating the same rhetoric and even started talking about the absence of fathers in black communities which has nothing to do with the war on law enforcement.

[Jon Moeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read and reread this book several times and it deserves a review. Due to the events with the NFL, President Trump among others, the review is overdue.
In an age where news is no longer true, media is over-hyped, over-biased and facts and absolutes are only absolute and true when it fits the current narrative, it is refreshing to read facts. This book has it. Yes, there is opinion and direction, but these facts are just that, facts. If we are to comment on NFL vs. the National Anthem, some should actually know facts. This is the book for you.
The title can be a bit misleading, but the realities of law and order, society and the sinful nature of man are wrapped up in this book as well. A link to a wonderful summary is listed below (I know, it is the National Review. Look past that and open your eyes to actual facts.)
This book should be required reading for any liberal arts college student and quite frankly, anyone who votes.
A book that will always remain at the front of my bookshelf.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article...

[Gator · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”


The book was written in 2016, so after reading it, if you’re curious about what the authors opinions are in 2020 the link below is a fantastic interview between Candace and Heather, A must watch for everyone seeking some truth in this time of universal deceit.


https://www.prageru.com/video/the-can...

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book regarding the demonization of police in the United States, the de-policing that came as a result of the Ferguson effect and the crime increase which followed. The book also looks at the false narrative stated over and over in the media that police are biased against African-Americans and unfairly target them.

[Mike Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written response to the mass media hype around police violence. She does not whitewash that there are problems that need to be addressed, but debunks the idea of a racially motivated targeting of black men. Independent research on my part brought me to the same conclusion.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A society that makes war against its police had better learn to make friends with its criminals."

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A hysterical text from someone who knows war from the patriotic junk on TV. Someone who treats abstractions like superheroes.