that is what we have seen in the last few years throughout the country finally coming to light. within our second amendment rights to firearms, i hope we can add responsibility to it where this situation gets worse. host: jim kessler, executive vice>> "washington journal" continues. host: what does is rafael mangual best with this is rafael mangual -- with us is mark the almond wall -- rafael mangual. who hurts it the most. we are spending the morning here talking about these related issues and i appreciate you coming on. get your take on the crime rate

that has gone up over the last couple years. is it a blip or something to be concerned about? guest: hypothetically think it is something to be truly concerned about. -- i think it is something to be truly concerned about. if you look at 2015 and 16, i think that could very well be the start of a longer trend. in 2015 and 16, homicides and shootings went up significantly. we saw things level off in -- and in 2019, things pick up. in 2020, there was a big explosion followed up by a more violent year, it looks like. the data is not out. host: that -- the pandemic has caused a bigger sale in guns.

how much of that contributes to crime? guest: i don't think there is a lot that can be say that said about that. there is a graphical connection on where purchases happen and where the violent crime rates increase. we have saw the proliferation of guns through the 2000. --2000s. -- gun ownership rates were much lower. the gun issue is alternately a distraction on -- ultimately a distraction on likely a bigger crime trend which is a shift in public policy. one that systematically lowers the transaction costs of breaking gun laws.

it defanged the credit normal justice system in a way that leads to a loss -- or defenders -- offenders finding their ways back to the streets and police feeling like they cannot do their job and get a fair shake. i think all of those factors are more important than recent personages. host: -- did that trend begin in the wake of the murder of george floyd? guest: it was starting to build, although what happened after george floyd was a radical acceleration. the new york times put out a piece saying that 30's states had passed many reforms after torch happened -- george floyd happened.

just in that month and there were a significant list of reforms that have been enacted in years prior and cents. i think the move to d police -- de police is a trend that accelerated and if you look at 2019, the prison population's was about 17%. in 2020, it declined about -- 20%. in jails, we saw a decline. between 2009 and 2019, 8 25% in arrests. there have been a recruitment and retention crisis for at

least the last five years. in the police. host: you go back to your term in your book, they push for -- what de carson ration gets wrong. -- d carson ration --dec arceration gets wrong. -- guest: we saw court systems slow to a halt. cases were not being prosecuted and people wars the spending more time on the street as in post position, which could include jail. we saw people being expedited in prison and jail to minimize the disease spread within these facilities. i think that contributed to the

crime problem. i do think that the broader trend is much more important and it is driven by policy. host: rafael -- rafael mangual is with us. what is the mission of the manhattan institute? guest: we are a free market think tape -- tank that promotes personal responsibility. our initiative is dedicating -- dedicated to identifying the right policy approach particularly but not exclusively in urban areas across the country. that manhattan institute is somewhat while known for its role or climb the crying -- declining -- crimes declining. host: we welcome our viewers and

listeners to join our conversation. public in -- republicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000 independence, (202) 748-8003. guest: 30 states has passed 140 police and -- some of those will have included funding bills. a lot of the defunding happen at the city and the local level. the lost -- l.a. city council -- this is more state legislation which we are trying to get the idea of the scope because be on

states, we have localities acting. host: that was ground zero on reflecting whether that was the right course with the election of adams. do you anticipate changes in laws in new york city and new york state? guest: it is early to say. we are learning that the mayor in new york only has so much power. a lot of these policies are enacted at the state level and we have not seen albany any signal any willingness to budge to consider any reforms and raise the age. all of these are systematically lowering the transaction cost of criminal conduct, making it less likely that you will be arrested. and if you will be arrested, your case will be possibility -- prosecuted.

we had juvenile cases getting diverted to family court, making present -- prison sanctions less likely. eric adams can use -- he is putting pressure on democrats and all the things that so far, they do not seem willing to budge. you have prosecutors who are at office with adams -- host: bail reform is killing new yorkers and in your piece, you write that sweeping changes in 2019 to the state laws, governing pretrial lease were thought to reduce the number of defendants -- the reforms made it more difficult to -- for

judges to require defendants to post bail. new york is not the only state in which judges cannot remand defendants to reach out the tension based on the danger -- they can only consider risk of flight. can you relate that directly to the crime rate in new york? more these people can't be held so is that one of the root causes of crime on the street? guest: i think it is a contributing factor. it is not the main driver but at the margins, i think we are seeing more crime than we would have seen. one of the statistics that indicates that is the growth and share of violent arrests that are constituted by people with violent cases.

if you look at just violent felony arrests, we see the percentage of arrests constitute people who have open cases increased by 25% in 2020, relative of 2019. 2020 is when the veil reform went into effect. it is hard to understate how much new york is an outlier. there was an equity of book in our pretrial -- afflict in our -- pretrial -- -- waiting for their case to make it through the system. that was criticized as inefficient and i think that was right. the question is how we remedy that and what new york thought to do is to make it likely that they would be imposed and if imposed, it would be an amount

that was unaffordable. my proposal of that proposed -- approach is that we should center the entry around danger, rather than wealth. you get around the inequities and inefficiencies while maintaining some ability for judges to exercise their discretion and keep the public safe when they are confronted with a defendant that poses danger. host: i wish we had the woman who called from queens who son was in pre-tout the tension in new york. not sure which jail. for four years. guest: it is incredible and upsetting. it is a really big problem and one of the things i wrote is

that one of the things is significantly refund the criminal justice system so that people stand to spend much less time in a pre-tile -- pretrial detention. it is the function of how much it takes to -- it is a ridiculous amount of time. there are other reasons why other cases where delayed. covid and defense attorneys will submit motions that will slow down the disposition of the case so that has to be taken into consideration. what is a good thing about the new jersey bill is that there bail reform games with -- time -- came with a increase of the criminal says -- funding of the

credit normal -- criminal justice system. i think it needs more attention. the degree in which we crowded out spending for core functions like the criminal justice system, is a scandal. host: let's go to sharon. caller: thanks for the topic and i was trying to get in with the last gentleman. i am not quite sure that mike questions are befitting -- my questions are befitting but i hope you will let me give it a shot. i have had -- it seems common sense to me that we note that a male's brain does not develop until they are 25 but by the time they are 12, we let them go

into gun safety classes and i think if we can raise the age limit to 25 years old so we have a few more that are mentally able to handle the gun and then my last one would be, is it not possible that everyone who wants a weapon at least -- a fifth grade equivalency test. as an text school --ex-school teacher -- at least a fifth grade equivalency test to own a weapon. guest: i am not a constitutional lawyer but i do know there are presidents that should reject the idea of having a competency test for the constitutional rights.

i'm not how that will -- i am not sure how they will apply to similar things. we see gun crime as a national issue and i think that is right in some ways but wrong in others. gun crime is extremely concentrated in the united states. guns are held in private hands throughout the country. in most american cities, we have the rule of crime concentration, were about 50% of all crime concentrates in just 5% of all street segments. in new york city, about 4% of street segments see 50% of all violent crimes. the vast majority of americans live in safe enclaves without any gun violence to speak of. when you realize that, you realize it is actually quite possible to combat gun crime by

simply concentrating police and resources in those places with problems and identifying a small percentage of the population that is driving this problem. most gun owners, non-gun owners, most americans are not violent individuals. it does not matter their ethnicity or what socioeconomic strata they belong to, the vast majority of american citizens are law-abiding citizens. we have to target those areas and individuals, and then we can make real progress. the proof is in the pudding of what we did throughout the 1990's to get the gun crime problem under control and to keep it there for a significant period of time. host: rafael mangual all got his law degree from depaul university in chicago. next to greenwood, florida, republican line. caller: yes, i have worked in the prison system and stuff and have been around some of the

younger ones that was incarcerated. and a lot of them, we're going to go back to the basics of the home life. it has not been taught when they was younger. a lot of them was fatherless and they belonged to gangs. now gangs run more than you think in this country, and i think a lot of your crimes -- i think they should really be looking at some of the gangs and drugs. basically, drugs bring some of the crime rate, and i think we should control our border a little bit better and concentrate on some of the harder crimes there. i think it would end a lot of your real violence. host: ok. rafael mangual? guest: i do think there is quite a bit of evidence to show that really aiming at gangs is an effective way to keep crime down. there was a recent study out of new york city looking at the

effective king takedowns -- gang takedowns in the post 2010 period, and there was a significant decline in gun crime, almost by a third, i think. i would encourage you to take a look at that out of the university of pennsylvania. that model requires a commitment on the part of prosecutors to targeting these individuals, who are the drivers of a significant amount of violence not just in new york city but cities across the country. one of the troubling things we have seen is that there is a new movement of progressive prosecutors being elected on platforms that involve commitments to nonprosecution and to lowering the transaction cost of anger activity -- of gang activity. george kass cohen in los angeles county has committed to that. it will have a meaningful effect on your public safety picture.

it is one of the reasons why say ultimately looking at the means by which people commit crimes is a distraction. we know how to target individuals who are driving crimes and know-how to incapacitating them. we are systematically choosing not to do that in a broader scope of cases over the last 10 to 20 years. the question is how long we will allow that trend to continue. host: next up is dennis in lincoln hills, illinois, independent line. are you there? we will go to john who is on the republican line in mastic beach, new york. welcome. caller: good morning. my opinion is if your child does a crime, the parents should do the time. that would straighten out a lot of things in this country.

everybody should be able to have a gone, but bullets should cost at least $5,000 apiece. host: let me ask you about a tweet from lee who says, i live in new york city, which is awash in guns traffic from southern states, always felt safer in london. and this one calls it and iron pipeline, firearms freeway of traffic guns from the south to places like new york city, but that there was no federal trafficking law, trafficking statute. do you think there should be? guest: it is certainly a federal crime to sell guns to people who are legally not allowed to own them. it is also a crime at the state and local level in many jurisdictions, probably every jurisdiction across the country. again, ultimately pointing to that phenomenon, a distraction from the real issue, which is

new york is choosing not to enforce these laws that are already on the books with the same vigor, and that is what is at the core of this problem. in 1990, we had 2260 murders in the city of new york with significantly fewer guns on the street and coming into the pipeline. ultimately, we decreased demand for those weapons by targeting and incapacitating the individuals that were driving that crime. we were able to get crime under control for a significant period of time and keep it there for 25 years and we can that again, no reason why we can't. but the idea is purchases in the south are somehow driving violence that would not otherwise occur, i am not sure it makes a ton of sense. the idea that someone would be otherwise nonviolent until they are given a gun recently purchased, there is no demand

for that gun to begin with, i think that is a mr. -- misunderstanding of the dynamics at play. host: to baltimore, curtis, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call, only been trying to get through for the last four months. i am glad to say what i'm about to say, and i know i will be speaking for a lot of people. i hope a lot of people call to back me up. first of all, from the previous conversation or this conversation, no one wants to defund the police anywhere in this country, first of all. i want to say that for every true american and real american that there is. nobody was ever calling to defund the program, i mean the police officers.we just want the police to do their jobs like they were law-abiding citizens and be held responsible like law-abiding citizens when

it comes to their actions. second of all, i want to speak on all the guns in the community, and we know which communities i am talking about. they are not getting there on their own. there was a problem with the drugs in our communities, i am talking about a black communities, people of color. there was a problem with drugs in our communities, and we know after so many years, it has been proven that the cia was putting all these drugs in our communities. we know that. we do not have a problem with people being held responsible for their actions of murdering, killing, rape, robberies, or anything. but we want a justice system that not just focuses on black people committing crimes, because we know that black people just don't commit crimes. if you go to any prison

practically in this country, you will find that 70% to 80% of the prison population are people of color. and why is that? when we know that there is european's in this country that commit crimes, just as well as there are people of color that commit crimes. and please, c-span, and for future reference, stop screening your calls and keeping black people off your lines. thank you very much. host: ok, your thoughts? guest: the first thing to say is there unfortunately were a number of jurisdictions that did defund their police departments, and in new york city we cut our police department by about $1 billion over several years, and minneapolis and los angeles also cut their police budgets by millions of dollars. that was a real thing that happened, and there are people not just calling for the funding the police but for abolishing them altogether. i do think that is a real phenomenon and also think it is largely a fringe position,

thankfully, even today despite the sort of right -- radicalization of the criminal justice reform debate. the other point he was making was one about racial disparities and enforcement, and i do think that is a real concern. it is true that the costs associated with enforcement of our criminal laws are not distributed, and the phenomenon of this, we have to understand it drives a lot of the disparities that we see in our prison populations, in our arrest data, in police using force data, etc. i mentioned the geographic concentration of crime in the united states, most cities with 5% of street segments and 50% of all crimes. it is also demographically concentrated. we know black man in the u.s. constitute about 7% of the population but also constitute close to half of homicide victims. the black male homicide

victimization rate in this country is 10 times the white male rate. in new york city, going back more than a decade come every year a minimum of 95% of all shooting victims are either black or hispanic, minimum, sometimes as high as 98%. we have to understand that those are the data that are driving where police resources get deployed and where they get deployed will affect arrest rates and ultimately incarceration rates and prosecution rates. when we concentrate on enforcement, particularly on places with the biggest problems, we can have the biggest impact, and that is in crime reduction, and crime reduction is to the benefit of black and brown communities in this country. 1990 22014, there was a significant decline in homicides across the united states. if you look at the impact on the decline of homicide rate on the left x becton see -- life

expectancy of white men, .4 years. and it is 4.04 black men. something we cannot sq without -- we cannot look at without consequences for the communities we are talking about, and it goes to the subtitle of my book, what the push for d cursor ration and dipali policing gets wrong and who it hurts most, it is in and around urban centers. i would like to see as much fervor forgetting the prime prop -- crime problem under control as we see with other crimes that get more news coverage. host: the question on twitter. we are systematically choosing to ignore the fact that most horrific crimes and mass murders are not perpetrated by inner-city youth but are carried out by white suburban males. how much time have you spent studying that? guest: quite a lot of time. and i will say that it's simply

incorrect you are the vast majority of violent crimes, particularly homicides, are not committed by white suburban males. there concentrated in and around u.s. cities, and black males alone account for nearly half of all homicides in this country. so i would say that is just incorrect. it does not mean that white people do not commit crimes are that asian or hispanic people do not commit crimes, of course they do. but yeah, there is an undeniable racial disparity in criminal victimization and in criminal commission. host: next is frank in jackson, tennessee. caller: good morning. here is the whole problem, i totally disagree with rafael. to quote john adams, it is more important to the community that innocence should be protected

then it is guilt being punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that all of them cannot be punished. i could go on. and to quote thomas jefferson, i did a trial by jury was the only thing ever yet managed -- imagined by man in which government can be held to the principles of its constitution. rafael can back me up on this, 98% of our federal cases are plea bargains. that is not justice. only 2% of felonies go to jury trial. so that is total injustice. also, the chief mandate of the criminal justice system is to not convict the guilty but to safeguard the innocent from wrongful conviction. this is the whole problem. we have decimated the black community. talking about the black community committing all the crimes, they have been decimated.

the "new york times post quote in 2016, 1 .5 million black men missing from life, people like rafael make me sick. they make the problem worse. also, another quote here, a russian proverb, law is the flag and gold is the wind that makes it wave. host: i will let you go here and hear from rafael in response to some of his comments. guest: i mean, it is no secret that the vast majority of criminal cases in this country go to plea guard -- plea bargain. there are strong cases in which the perpetrator is guilty, and it pays to bargain. they get a significant benefit, one that i think that is often too big. i disagree with the characterization of our plea bargaining rate as a grant injustice of sorts to it one of the things we know is that studies have been done looking at and trying to assess the

wrongful conviction rate, and regularly finds it is less than 1%, which is not perfect but no system is. ours is pretty darn good. god forbid i were ever on criminal trial, i would hope it was in this country more than any other because our system, while not perfect, works better than any other. one of the things we should understand is that there has been a proliferation of technology that has made the procurement of evidence in criminal cases easier. we have cameras, body cameras, something like 80% of all criminal cases now involve some kind of video evidence, which is much harder to push back on if you are a defendant. so i just disagree with the mischaracterization there. host: and we're talking about his upcoming book in july, "criminal (in)justice, what the push for decarceration and depolicing gets wrong and who it hurts most."

is this your first book? guest: this is. host: roy in greensboro, north carolina, democrats line. caller: thank you for c-span. the big thing to me is every other developed country in the world has got off there butt and some form of license, registration, and insurance, now people, the gun worshipers compare cars to guns, that cars can kill people, too. yet, but cars have a million purposes. the only purpose of a gun is to kill, maim, intimidate. sometimes rightly, but that is the only purpose. that is not the same thing as an accidental death, of course there are many of them with guns, too, but we do not have crimes using intimidation's, robberies, etc. but license, registration, and

insurance, if that was done anything like cars, we would just look -- is having to do it, that would get like 99% of these, like iron pipeline guns, coming from the gone worshipers to everywhere else, arming their criminals. and rafael, you did not answer that caller before, that twitter about most of the mass shootings are white suburban guys. that is true. it is, most of the mass shootings, school shootings, everything, a lot of ex-military -- host: we will leave on that point. do you want to respond? guest: i think it is really important to understand that the vast majority of violent gun crimes committed in the places with the highest concentration of gun crimes are usually

committed by people who are already prohibited from possessing and purchasing these firearms under the regimes already in the systems in those restrictions. there is an enormous amount of gun crime committed by people under the age of 18, who are not committed to carry a gun. in new york city, we do not have legally licensed carriage yet, and we have many people walking around with firearms and they are already breaking the laws on our books. we have had significantly fewer gun controls in place throughout the 1990's in that the city, but we were able to get down to 292 murders in 2017, and much of that progress was made without any real changes in gun policy. so i think it is really important to keep that in mind and understand that the enforcement mechanisms, our police, our -- our prison

systems, these are avenues available to us to get this problem under control, and it is out of political will. host: and is it true that most of the mass shootings in the united states are committed by white men? guest: it depends how you define mass shooting. if it is simply shootings in public places were more than four people are wounded, it is not clear to me, i know there are a lot of drive-by shootings in the cities across the country , so i just cannot tell you. host: here is ryan in the nation's capital, independent line. caller: good morning. your guest has talked about the good old days in new york when the crime is low.

a set when they talked about stopping frisky, finding it was totally illegal, and it was aimed at the poor black people and poor brown people, and also, you cannot arrest your way out of crime. if that is what you are thinking , you really kind of missed the whole point. i do not see that happening. in china and russia, those are supposedly two criminal regimes. again, you do not want to talk about guns, but here in d.c., we have some of the strictest gun laws in the country were all guns come from somewhere else. yet, the program i saw on 60 minutes, the atf is unable to get to these dealers who are selling guns that they know are coming into our communities. host: thanks. guest: i would not equate broken

windows with stop and frisk. the nypd stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge, and that is a function of a supreme court case in ohio which has not been overruled, and the nypd still conducts stops, questions, and frisks to this day because it is a perfectly legal tactic. i would note that it is not -- stop and frisk is not a strategy, it is a tactic, a tool. i think there is a strong case to be made that it was, but we also know that it helped in a lot of places, particularly places with the highest crime rates. a study was done looking at the impact of stop and frisk on crime in new york city at the micro geographic level.

if you look at the crime hotspots were a lot of these were concentrated, you saw a significant effect on crime in those places. i would not necessarily just get rid of a tool like that in its entirety, and that is not what is being done. we do have some reported stops by the nypd, and we were still able to maintain some of our public safety in the wake of that decline, but i do think we are seeing a broader safety policing problem, and i think the caller is wrong. it is not that we can entirely arrest our way out of a gun product -- gun crime problem, but we know enforcement matters, and when we do enforcement the right way, we can decrease crime to a significant degree. i would remind the caller that we had 2262 murders in 1990, and the latest books and authors, television for serious