James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, said in a speech that he believes that enhanced scrutiny of police tactics is causing them to police less proactively, resulting in an increase in crime. He dubbed it “The Ferguson Effect,” in which officers are reluctant to try and stop violence from happening, choosing to wait for calls after a crime has been committed.
“The Ferguson Effect,” he explained, is the tendency for footage of police arrests and other interactions with the public to go viral when their tactics are questioned.
Crime rates have been on the rise and Comey has not been the first to sinking morale among blame officers and their fear of becoming the next star of an embarrassing viral video.
“We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told US Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a meeting earlier this month, according to The Washington Post. “They have pulled back from the ability to interdict … they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact.”
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton called it the “YouTube effect,” and stated that ever since the death of Eric Garner at police hands caused global outrage, the NYPD’s morale has been at an extreme low.
In the speech, Comey acknowledged a lack of data to support his assertion, noting that it could be one factor among others including cheaper drugs and an increase in prison releases.
"I don't know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year," Comey said. "And that wind is surely changing behavior.”
Comey, argued that much of the behavioral change among the police has been for the good "as we continue to have important discussions about police conduct and de-escalation and the use of deadly force.”
A day before Comey’s speech, President Obama weighed in, telling a law enforcement officials at a White House panel Thursday that the Black Lives Matter movement brought an important issue to light.
"The African-American community is not just making this up. It's not something that's just being politicized. It's real," Obama said. "We as a society, particularly given our history, have to take this seriously."
Obama added, however, we “can't put the entire onus of the problem on law enforcement,” saying the discussion needs to be broader than just the focus on police.
"I think there's been a healthy debate about police-community relations, and some of the episodes we've seen across the country,” Obama said. “But we as a society, if we're not investing in opportunities for poorer kids, and then we expect police and and prosecutors to keep them out of sight and out of mind, that's a failed strategy."
