The significant drop in murder rates in India's Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath is attributed to a policy of 'zero tolerance' for crime. This involves a notable increase in 'encounter killings,' where police shoot suspects, often fatally, under questionable circumstances, signaling a disregard for due process.
The chance of getting away with murder is now a coin flip. This isn't due to a single issue but a confluence of factors: witnesses won't cooperate, crime has shifted from domestic to random, digital evidence overwhelms investigators, and the most experienced detectives have retired, creating a massive skills gap.
The surge in US executions is heavily concentrated in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be using capital punishment for political gain. He significantly ramped up the rate of executions while running for president and then halted them after ending his campaign, suggesting the act is treated as a political strategy rather than a matter of justice.
When cities stop prosecuting crimes like shoplifting under the assumption it's driven by poverty, they inadvertently create a lucrative market for organized crime. Sophisticated gangs exploit this leniency to run large-scale theft operations, harming the community more than the original policy intended to help.
By labeling a problem with a single, highly emotional term (e.g., 'insurgents,' 'fentanyl'), leaders can create a public mandate to act decisively, often ignoring accountability, due process, and congressional oversight.
When communities object to surveillance technology, the stated concern is often privacy. However, the root cause is usually a fundamental lack of trust in the local police department. The technology simply highlights this pre-existing trust deficit, making it a social issue, not a technical one.
Despite public support for the death penalty being at a 50-year low, executions in America have surged. This is primarily because the conservative-leaning Supreme Court has ceased its former practice of issuing last-minute stays, effectively giving states a green light to proceed with executions without federal oversight or intervention.
The debate over deploying federal vs. state troops to fight crime is less about the tactic's effectiveness and more about political credit. Democratic governors like Wes Moore are now using their own state troops to achieve the same results, co-opting the policy to frame it as a state-level success.
The movement to defund the police doesn't eliminate the need for security; it just shifts the burden. Wealthy individuals and communities hire private security, while poorer communities, who are the primary victims of crime, are left with diminished public protection.
Uttar Pradesh's leader, Yogi Adityanath, presents himself as an economic pragmatist to investors and foreign media, focusing on infrastructure and GDP. Simultaneously, for his domestic base, he amplifies Hindu nationalist rhetoric and stokes religious tensions, demonstrating a calculated political duality.
When police departments face severe staffing shortages due to cultural vilification, they may lower hiring standards. This can lead to hiring individuals with criminal backgrounds, who then commit heinous acts as officers, further damaging public trust and exacerbating the original problem.