Anti-Police Activism Cuts Homicides
False Assumption: Reducing police presence through anti-police activism will lower violence and homicide rates in Black communities.
Written by FARAgent on February 09, 2026
In the wake of Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, anti-police activism gained momentum. Activists and some policymakers argued that reducing police presence in Black communities would curb violence and homicide rates, viewing law enforcement as a source of alienation rather than protection. This view drew on ideas like Elijah Anderson's "code of the streets," which linked bravado and crime to a lack of faith in police. Figures like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had earlier criticized related issues, but post-Ferguson, America's elite pushed reforms that dialed back policing, expecting safer neighborhoods.
Events unfolded differently. Homicide rates surged in cities like Baltimore, a phenomenon dubbed the "Ferguson Effect" by analysts like Steve Sailer, who tracked spikes in murders and even traffic fatalities among Black drivers amid reduced enforcement. The 2020 George Floyd protests amplified this trend, leading to police pullbacks and a decade of elevated violence, with CDC data showing weekly homicide increases from 2018 onward. Clearance rates for murders in African-American communities plummeted, perpetuating cycles of unrest.
Growing evidence now suggests this assumption was flawed. Critics, including Sailer, point to recent homicide declines as policing stabilized, challenging the idea that less intervention equals less violence. The debate continues, with some experts increasingly recognizing the risks of under-enforcement, though mainstream views evolve slowly.
People Involved
- In the mid-20th century, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist preacher and civil rights leader, spoke out against laziness, promiscuity, criminality, drunkenness, slovenliness, ignorance, violence, and poor habits in African-American communities during his 1957 sermons. [1] He warned of these issues long before anti-police activism gained traction.
- Elijah Anderson, an urban anthropologist, highlighted how street bravado culture emerged from a lack of faith in police protection, leaving communities open to self-help violence. [1] America's ruling class pushed the idea after Ferguson that African Americans needed less rule of law. [2]
- Steve Sailer, a journalist and analyst, reported on Baltimore's murder spike in 2019, pointing early to the harms of police pullback. [3] He also noted how blacks became worse drivers per capita after Ferguson, underscoring the lethal effects of the Black Lives Matter era. [5] An unnamed chief of detectives in a larger southern city dismissed Black-on-Black homicides as inconsequential, justifying minimal policing. [6]
- James Baldwin, an African-American writer, indicted society for fostering criminal incentives through under-policing and humiliations. [6]
- Raymond B. Fosdick documented policing failures in his 1920 pamphlet, exposing elite indifference to order in Black communities. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (8)
“In the summer of 1957, a Baptist preacher in the segregated South issued a series of fiery sermons denouncing the laziness, promiscuity, criminality, drunkenness, slovenliness, and ignorance of Negroes. He shouted from the pulpit about the difference between doing a “real job” and doing “a Negro job”. Instead of practicing the intelligent saving habits of white men, “Negroes too often buy what they want and beg for what they need.” He suggested that blacks were “thinking about sex” every time they walked down the street. They were too violent. They didn’t bathe properly. And their music, which was invading homes all over America, ‘plunges men’s minds into degrading and immoral depths’.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“The code of the streets is actually a cultural adaptation to a profound lack of faith in the police and the judicial system. The police are most often seen as representing the dominant white society and not caring to protect inner-city residents.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“America’s ruling class decided that what African Americans needed most was less rule of law.”— Homicides Way Down
“As I reported in 2019:”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“Something that almost nobody knows other than my readers is that blacks became, on average, strikingly worse drivers per capita after Ferguson in 2014 unleashed the ironically lethal Black Lives Era.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
““We have three types of homicide”, I was told by the chief of detectives in a larger southern city. “If a n*gger kills a white man, that’s murder. If a white man kills a n*gger, that’s justifiable homicide. And if a n*gger kills another n*gger, that’s one less n*gger”.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
“I certainly could not discover any principled reason for not becoming a criminal, and it is not my poor, God-fearing parents who are to be indicted for the lack but this society.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
“In his 1920 pamphlet Crime in the America and the Police, Raymond B. Fosdick reports the following:”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
Organizations Involved
Black Lives Matter emerged in 2014 and pushed for less rule of law, prompting de-policing that contributed to homicide surges. [2] The organization promoted narratives that led to reduced policing, and its waning influence later allowed enforcement to resume. [4] BLM riots advanced anti-police activism, causing police withdrawal and spikes in violence. [1] The movement enforced lower policing through social pressure, resulting in worse driving and higher traffic deaths. [5] Prison unions influenced politics to favor over-incarceration, removing males from communities already short on order and worsening violence. [1] The New York Times ran a sympathetic profile of Marshawn Kneeland's suicide, skipping details about his flight from police and gun possession. [4] The CDC supplied mortality stats that revealed racial disparities in traffic deaths, tying rises to the anti-police era. [5] Former slave states under Jim Crow systematically under-policed segregated African-American communities, lacking trust and capacity. [6] The modern American state continues this pattern, showing little willingness to impose order in those communities. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (9)
“Massive surges in anti-police activism led to police withdrawal, leading to fewer interruptions of confrontations, leading to surges in homicide.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“The political influence of prison unions is a factor in this over-incarceration.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“the emergence of Black Lives Matter at Ferguson in August 2014”— Homicides Way Down
“nobody cares about Black Lives Matter anymore, so black lives are being spared.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“Why did Mr. Kneeland try to flee, and why did he have a gun in the car?”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“Before Black Lives Matter, whites usually used to die the most per capita in traffic accidents... after Ferguson in 2014 unleashed the ironically lethal Black Lives Era.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“The Asian death rate is up 8% since 2014 (back when Asians and Pacific Islanders were lumped together in CDC mortality stats up through 2017)”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“The former slave States of the American South, under the Jim Crow system, systematically failed to provide that level of public order in the segregated communities inhabited by former slaves and their descendants. They were certainly not trusted by them to do so.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
“But medieval Europe lacked a state with the capacity to impose trusted public order. The contemporary American state, by contrast, lacks the informed willingness to do so within African-American communities.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
The Foundation
The assumption took root in the belief that police presence caused harm, seeming reasonable amid anti-police activism. [5] It drew from the code of the streets, born of alienation and lack of faith in police protection for inner-city Black residents. [1] This propped up the idea that police withdrawal would cut bravado culture, though growing evidence suggests it worsened violence instead. [1] Ongoing low homicide clearance rates in African-American communities encouraged self-help bravado, contradicting claims that less policing boosted safety. [1] Social stereotypes about violence in descendant-of-slaves communities held some accuracy, reinforcing high-homicide patterns, yet elite narratives dismissed them as racism. [1] The ruling class advanced the view that reducing rule of law would aid African Americans, fueling protests against enforcement. [2] High-profile cases like Freddie Gray's death in Baltimore underpinned the assumption that de-policing was safe, but it led to unchecked murder rises. [3] Policing of Black drivers was framed as racially motivated, not a response to bad driving, supporting the sub-belief that fewer stops would save lives. [4] Pre-BLM data showed whites with the highest traffic death rates per capita, used to argue against racial disparities in policing. [5] Post-BLM shifts saw Blacks surpassing them, increasingly seen as evidence against the safety assumptions. [5] Stigmatization of African-Americans as inherently violent masked under-policing as the real driver, creating self-reinforcing stereotypes. [6] Medieval court records of killings over quarrels were cited to show violence persists without state order, countering ideas that poverty or traits alone explained it. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (10)
“Urban anthropologist Elijah Anderson analysed inner city youth attitudes as a fluctuating and overlapping tension between street (bravado) and decent (dignity) outlooks and behaviours, with the power and appeal of street culture coming from: ... the profound sense of alienation from mainstream society and its institutions felt by many poor inner-city black people, particularly the young. The code of the streets is actually a cultural adaptation to a profound lack of faith in the police and the judicial system.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“The ongoing failure to impose sufficient public order—as evidenced by dramatically lower homicide clearance rates within African-American communities—not only allows the highly violent to be more violent, it increases the incentive to be violent, both as retaliation and as pre-emption.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“In accordance with the tendency for social stereotypes to be (relatively) accurate, a high-violence stereotype became established regarding descendants of American slaves.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“what African Americans needed most was less rule of law.”— Homicides Way Down
“how bad the Ferguson Effect was in Baltimore, beginning with the Freddie Gray riot April 27, 2015.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“the cops stopped pulling over black bad drivers a few days after May 25, 2020.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“the anti-police drove up death rates”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“Before Black Lives Matter, whites usually used to die the most per capita in traffic accidents (of course, whites drive the most per capita too) among the four major races/ethnicities.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“Stigmatisation is about how people are perceived: stigma is negative ascription of others. If some group is seen as inherently violent... and are so stigmatised that bad outcomes are acceptable, are seen as “natural”, even preferred; their communities are then under-provided with, or even starved of, policing services. This results in much higher crime levels, which then supports stigmatisation, creating stereotypes which are accurate, self-reinforcing and, to that scale, the result of stigmatisation—stigmatisation that obscures, even hides, the reality of under-policing.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
“The sort of reasons that—overwhelmingly male—folk kill each other for in medieval court records are much the same reasons as—overwhelmingly male—folk kill each other in contemporary African-American urban communities.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
How It Spread
The idea spread through BLM riots and protests starting in 2014, leading to police withdrawal from high-risk confrontations. [1] Contemporary academe sidelined parts of Martin Luther King's speeches that critiqued moral failings in African-American communities. [1] The ruling class decision took hold after Ferguson, via elite consensus on BLM. [2] The Ferguson Effect began in Baltimore with the Freddie Gray riot in 2015, amplifying calls for de-policing. [3] The George Floyd racial reckoning spread through media and public pressure in 2020, prompting police to cut traffic enforcement on Black drivers. [4] The Black Lives Matter era expanded via social movements post-Ferguson, fostering anti-police sentiment that reduced enforcement and led to riskier driving. [5] Early 20th-century public opinion propagated under-policing attitudes, as chronicled by Raymond Fosdick, where Black-on-Black killings were shrugged off, breeding generations of legal cynicism echoed by James Baldwin. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (7)
“Massive surges in anti-police activism led to police withdrawal, leading to fewer interruptions of confrontations, leading to surges in homicide.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“a substantial proportion of Martin Luther King’s speeches and writings were directed against moral failings within African-American communities—something that contemporary academe memory-holes.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“America’s ruling class decided that what African Americans needed most was less rule of law.”— Homicides Way Down
“beginning with the Freddie Gray riot April 27, 2015.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“the young black male traffic fatality rate shot up during the George Floyd racial reckoning for reasons that I, but few other pundits, understand: the cops stopped pulling over black bad drivers a few days after May 25, 2020.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“Ferguson in 2014 unleashed the ironically lethal Black Lives Era.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“This is as explicit a statement of abandonment—or, at least chronic under-provision—of public order for African-American communities as one can imagine. This persisting history which has led to, completely understandable, levels of what sociologists call legal cynicism.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
Resulting Policies
After Ferguson in 2014 and George Floyd in 2020, activism pressured police to de-police Black communities, cutting presence and clearance efforts on the assumption that police caused harm. [1] Police departments quietly reduced traffic enforcement against Black drivers just days after George Floyd's death on May 25, 2020. [4] De-policing measures during the George Floyd era and post-Ferguson lowered traffic stops, based on the view that police posed the main road danger. [5] Jim Crow segregation in the American South structured under-policing in Black communities, without the trust or capacity to curb honor-style violence. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (4)
“The most effective way police reduce homicide rates is by being present to interrupt and defuse confrontations. Police who are sufficiently respected are directed towards such confrontations.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“the cops stopped pulling over black bad drivers a few days after May 25, 2020.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“the return of good times and the anti-police drove up death rates”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“The former slave States of the American South, under the Jim Crow system, systematically failed to provide that level of public order in the segregated communities inhabited by former slaves and their descendants.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
Harm Caused
Homicide surges followed the Ferguson and George Floyd BLM riots, as police withdrawal left confrontations unchecked; genetics stayed the same during these spikes. [1] African-American communities faced far lower homicide clearance rates, locking in high-violence patterns and fueling bravado culture. [1] The assumption ushered in a murderous decade, with homicide spikes tracked weekly by the CDC from 2018 on. [2] Murders rose after 2014, and 2024 levels remained high before 2025 drops to lows like zero in Modesto. [2] Baltimore's murder rate climbed worse than the early 1990s crack era due to the Ferguson Effect. [3] The racial reckoning sparked a nationwide murder spree, seen in elevated rates post-Ferguson and Floyd. [3] Young Black male traffic fatality rates jumped during reduced policing. [4] Their suicide rates also rose sharply over the last decade. [4] Black homicide deaths climbed amid de-policing and fell only when policing returned. [4] Black traffic death rates rose 45 percent from 2014 to 2024 and 11 percent from 2019 to 2024; Hispanics saw a 39 percent increase over ten years; whites rose 8 percent since 2014; overall rates went up 15 percent since 2014. [5] Population-wide traffic deaths increased 15 percent since 2014 and 7 percent since 2019, linked to anti-police effects after the recession recovery. [5] Under-policing left Black male homicide rates twelve times higher than Euro-American rates in 1950, with low clearance rates driving bravado, feuds, and aggression in urban areas. [6] In 1919 Indianapolis, a Black perpetrator walked free after a killing over a girl and got his pistol back, showing outright impunity from under-policing. [6]
▶ Supporting Quotes (13)
“We can see the importance of such disrupting and defusing very clearly in the surges in homicides after the Ferguson and George Floyd BLM riots. Massive surges in anti-police activism led to police withdrawal, leading to fewer interruptions of confrontations, leading to surges in homicide. Needless to say, people’s genetics—their continental ancestry—did not change during these sharp surges in homicides and serious assaults.”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“dramatically lower homicide clearance rates within African-American communities”— Bravado in the absence of order (3)
“the U.S. went through a murderous decade starting with the emergence of Black Lives Matter”— Homicides Way Down
“There were no homicides in Modesto in all of 2025, mayor confirms”— Homicides Way Down
“The Ferguson Effect drove up Baltimore’s murder rate to be even worse than in the crack era of the early 1990s portrayed on The Wire.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“The racial reckoning murder spree is over The Ferguson and Floyd Effects are finally over and done with if homicide stats are reliable.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“the young black male traffic fatality rate shot up during the George Floyd racial reckoning”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“the young black male suicide rate has gone up a lot in the last decade for reasons that nobody seems to understand.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“for the same reason black homicide deaths have declined: nobody cares about Black Lives Matter anymore”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“the black death rate was still 11% higher in 2024 than in 2019 and 45% higher in 2024 than in 2014... The Hispanic death rate is up 39% over the last 10 years... The white death rate on the roads is up 8% since 2014”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“Overall death rates are still up 15% since 2024 and 7% since 2019.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
“That the overall male homicide death rate in descendants of American slaves communities was twelve times that in Euro-American communities in 1950... speaks to the long-term failures in providing public order in those communities. Low homicide clearance rates means that people are literally getting away with murder.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
“In Indianapolis in 1919, a negro shot and killed another following a quarrel over a girl. Upon apprehension, the perpetrator admitted the act, but was freed by the Grand Jury presumably upon the ground of justification in killing a trespassing rival. Upon release from custody he called at the coroner’s office to collect his pistol which he had left by the body of his victim and which had been held in evidence.”— Bravado in the absence of order (2)
Downfall
Growing evidence suggests the assumption is flawed, as homicide statistics show the end of the Ferguson and Floyd Effects, with Baltimore's murder rate now only slightly above 1977 levels. [3] Reliable stats increasingly reveal the murder spree has ended, bringing rates near historical baselines, though the debate lingers. [3] The ruling class de-emphasized BLM, leading to homicide declines through mid-2025 per CDC data and 2025 city lows. [2] The CDC WONDER database tracks weekly homicide deaths falling through June 2025, expected to continue. [2] Fading interest in Black Lives Matter let normal policing resume, cutting traffic fatalities and homicides among young Black males. [4] CDC data indicate Black traffic death rates peaked in 2021 and then declined, but they remain elevated post-BLM compared to pre-2014, highlighting the policy's flaws. [5]
▶ Supporting Quotes (6)
“they stopped carrying so much about BLM, so black deaths went down.”— Homicides Way Down
“this graphs goes up through June 14, 2025: Presumably, the second half of 2025 would show a continued decline.”— Homicides Way Down
“The murder rate in Baltimore is now only slightly worse than in 1977, the year after Taxi Driver... The Ferguson and Floyd Effects are finally over and done with if homicide stats are reliable.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“The Ferguson and Floyd Effects are finally over and done with if homicide stats are reliable.”— The racial reckoning murder spree is over
“But it has since gone down for the same reason black homicide deaths have declined: nobody cares about Black Lives Matter anymore, so black lives are being spared.”— Why Are Black Suicides Up So Much?
“black deaths in traffic fatalities per capita... have been dropping since the peak of the Racial Reckoning in 2021. But, the black death rate was still 11% higher in 2024 than in 2019 and 45% higher in 2024 than in 2014.”— CDC Traffic Fatalities: Good News and Bad News
Sources
-
[1]
Bravado in the absence of order (3)reputable_journalism
-
[2]
Homicides Way Downopinion
- [3]
- [4]
- [5]
- [6]