The Los Angeles Police Department has made cuts in its budget equivalent to the loss of roughly 500 officers, yet homicide rates are at their lowest in the city since 1967. For the first time in 40 years, L.A. is on track to report fewer than 300 killings for the year. In 1992, the year of the Los Angeles riots, when tensions between police and low income parts of the city were at their height, there were 1,092 killings. In 2010 there have been 291 so far. Experts on crime usually associate crime with poverty, yet in the very depths of this recession, with law enforcement numbers dwindling, Los Angeles is posting record low murder numbers; including in areas like Watts and South Central, which are usually problematic. What’s behind the impressive drop? Will it continue?
Guests:
Kirk Albanese, Deputy Chief of operations in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Police Department
Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy at UCLA, editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, and writer of "When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment."