Federal intervention in cities with notable homicide problems

[JAD]

An interesting aspect that's wrapped up in this is the question of sovereignty. There is a general misunderstanding in the US, because of a longstanding attack on the 10th amendment, that the Federal government is sovereign. That's the bad place Trump is coming from. There is a more specific and mendacious tendency on the left, whose power base is in cities, to portray cities as sovereign. These people create large city governments, because the power base feeds itself, that are often catastrophically incompetent. This creates a vacuum into which the proponents of Federal power swoop, because somebody's got to do something. State government, the weak sister, gets pushed around and ultimately does nothing.

The answer is a strong state government. I think that doesn't come about without a substantial investment in real democracy, which means it's fundamentally unlikely, but maybe the aftermath of the Trumps of the world tilting at the Emanuels will wake people up a little. Probably not, though.

[11B10]

Sending in the Feds worked rather well for Bill Clinton. Aggressive federal prosecutions worked well 20 years ago.

The same media pundits that will decry Trump "sending in the Feds" didn't have much to say about Obama sending the DOJ to investigate departments, hampering police work, and leading to upward trends in violent crime.

Well stated.

[blues]

With the caveat that it has been several years and either/both program may no longer exist, at one time DEA was the only one of the Fed agencies that had resources to do this.

DEA had both Mobile Enforcement Teams (a handful around the country) and Regional Enforcement Teams (in some, but not all field divisions). While staffed & funded differently, the intent was the same - flood a town, community, large neighborhood for a short duration (several months, not multi year) investigation into violent, drug trafficking groups.

Agan, it has been years since I worked dope so this could very well be a long gone program.

When I was a member of the Florida Joint Task Group and later the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Group, we had agents from DEA, USCS as well as various other federal, state and local agencies available to combat criminal activity from a number of different directions.

I've always been a strong proponent of the task force concept and spent much of my career working in them when the opportunity arose. (Including working cases, investigations and enforcement alongside Bahamian, Canadian and other L.E. in North America, South America and Europe.)

[TGS]

When I was a member of the Florida Joint Task Group and later the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Group, we had agents from DEA, USCS as well as various other federal, state and local agencies available to combat criminal activity from a number of different directions.

I've always been a strong proponent of the task force concept and spent much of my career working in them when the opportunity arose. (Including working cases, investigations and enforcement alongside Bahamian, Canadian and other L.E. in North America, South America and Europe.)

HIDTA is pretty effective. At least in this area, they're the omniscient big brother everyone thinks the FBI or CIA is.

There's also the Safe Streets Task Force.

Problem is on the back end, where there isn't enough docket space and so prosecutors are forced to take the easy cases, plea deals resulting in a revolving door justice system, etc.

I'm still under the impression that we wouldn't be able to surge any effort for an extended period of time without compromising another mission/locale, meaning it'll just be a big oogie-cookie political show.

[Wayne Dobbs]

I think I may have stated this before, but Chicago can be at least improved with a few steps:

1. Get the DOJ consent decree lifted off CPD.
2. Start a CPD no tolerance policing initiative ala NYC/Giuliani.
3. Set up a Project Exile in Chicago and start Federally prosecuting and imprisoning gun and violent crime offenders.
4. Send those assholes convicted to Federal Correctional Institutes thousands of miles from their scumbag families and friends.
5. Repeat step four as needed.

[BehindBlueI's]

Easy -no, but one of the issues in Chicago is a small core of repeat offenders committing multiple violent crimes. Many of these core offenders are enabled because they get slaps on the wrist or probation over and over again from the state system.

Which is the problem everywhere, and why we use Hobbs whenever we can. However, everyone is a conservative when it comes time to sentence and everyone is a liberal when it comes time to pay for the sentence. There's also an upsurge in violence when you successfully take down one of the "cores" because then there is a power vacuum. You can keep locking up each new generation of "cores", but that's only part of the solution. It's an important part...but it's only a part.

[NickA]

Easy -no, but one of the issues in Chicago is a small core of repeat offenders committing multiple violent crimes. Many of these core offenders are enabled because they get slaps on the wrist or probation over and over again from the state system. It doesn't matter how good Chicago PD is if the IL courts keep turning those core offenders loose to commit new crimes.

If you can pick off some of those core offenders on federal charges like felon in possession, armed trafficking, Hobbs act etc. you can at least make a dent in he violence.

Which is the problem everywhere, and why we use Hobbs whenever we can. However, everyone is a conservative when it comes time to sentence and everyone is a liberal when it comes time to pay for the sentence. There's also an upsurge in violence when you successfully take down one of the "cores" because then there is a power vacuum. You can keep locking up each new generation of "cores", but that's only part of the solution. It's an important part...but it's only a part.

Haven't there been some fairly successful programs targeting those "core" repeat offenders? I can't remember the details, but a few places (Boston?) figured out there were maybe 40-50 dudes causing most of the crime. IIRC they worked to either get them in some kind of program or just watched them like a hawk until they could put them away. They achieved pretty solid crime reduction, but also IIRC the programs may have been scrapped due to cost and/ or civil liberties concerns.

ETA: looks like it was called Operation Ceasefire in Boston, back in 1996.

[peterb]

One of the theories I've seen for the rise in gang-related violence in Chicago is that the large gangs were successfully broken up. The result was that there are now many more smaller gangs with much less organizational stability. This leads to more conflict and more people getting caught in the crossfire.

[TAZ]

The tweet is retarded, but then tweeting in general is retarded. Twitter isn't designed to communicate complex ideas, it's a meet at the bar, shitty movie type thing.

Why we in general and Trump in particular thinks it's a good idea to use it as a means of communicating political agendas is beyond me. Tweet out a YouTube link if you must tweet something.

He could very well have a good idea on how the Feds can help Shitcago out of the mess they've created, but he sounds like he will send in the Army and bulldoze the city.

[Mitchell, Esq.]

If Trump wants to "Send in the Feds" he can simply order the FBI & the US Attorney in Chicago to start making cases for felons in possession of firearms, dam the long term gang investigation.

Tag them. Bag them. Process them. Move on.

He can do that with say, 200 felons in a flurry of arrests over several weeks, then let it all die down and return the feds to other duties.

Thus he has "send in the feds" to "Clean Up Chicago" because they mayor couldn't do it.

Political theater, but effective.