Crime
On September 26, 2023, Luis Leyba-Gonzalez was joyriding down the streets of Indianapolis in his Dodge Challenger, weaving in and out of traffic. This prompted calls to the police by concerned motorists. When officers attempted a traffic stop, Leyba-Gonzalez fled. Police briefly pursued, but Leyba-Gonzalez reached speeds of up to 140 mph. Officers ceased pursuit per protocol. Leyba-Gonzalez continued to speed through the city anyway. Three minutes after the pursuit ended, Leyba-Gonzalez blew a red light at 121 mph and annihilated a Toyota Camry in an intersection. The crash killed three people, including the driver of the Camry, plus the passengers in Leyba-Gonzalez’s car.
Leyba-Gonzalez was arrested and charged with three counts of Resisting Law Enforcement Resulting in Death, as level 3 felonies. The standard bond in Marion County, Indiana for a level 3 felony is $20,000. The local rules allow the bond to be increased for aggravating factors such as multiple victims. In this case, a Marion County Judge mitigated from the standard bond, setting a bond of $1,000 cash, plus $50,000 surety.
On the Saturday after his Tuesday arrest, Leyba-Gonzalez posted the combined $6,000 bond and walked out of the Marion County Jail. This prompted the Superintendent of the Indiana State Police, Doug Carter, to call for an “immediate review of the Marion County bail system.” In addition to crimes like Leyba-Gonzalez’s, so far this year, Indianapolis has had 772 shootings, 163 stabbings, and 178 murders. The city is on pace to continue its streak of record level violent crime. On the heals of the bail reform movement, cities across the nation are experiencing record violent crime. Perhaps Superintendent Carter is on to something.
More crime
Not too long ago a think tank called The Third Way published a study that said violent crime is higher in “red” states than it is in “blue” states. Criminal justice reformers seized on the study as proof that their reform policies are working. That study is dumb, though. A new report by The Heritage Foundation, which you can read here, points out why. Heritage analyzed crime data by locality, rather than by state like the Third Way study. This is the proper level of analysis since crime is prosecuted at the local rather than the state level. Local-level data reveals that crime is 60% higher in “blue” counties than it is in “red” counties. A perfect example of this is Indiana. Indiana is a “red” state. Indianapolis is in a “blue” county. The crime rate is vastly higher in Indianapolis than it is in the rest of the state. America’s cities obviously have a crime problem that is being driven by criminal justice reform.
Still more crime (sort of)
Kids who grow up in rural areas are more upwardly mobile than their urban counterparts. This conclusion comes from the work of Economist Raj Chetty who recently led an effort to measure economic mobility. Chetty’s team released a data set showing income trends across the country correlated with county census track data. A research team led by Dylan Connor used the Chetty data to compare economic mobility between urban and rural areas. Connor’s team found that the more rural an area is, the more upwardly mobile the children from that area are. The researchers tested many variables to determine why this is the case. They found only one factor that mattered: intact families. Rural children are more likely to grow up in two-parent intact households. Such an environment makes those children more likely to get married themselves, less likely to have children out of wedlock, and less likely to be involved in criminality. All factors that are generally important for economic success. You can read about the Connor study here.