Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Ol'ga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] In Central America, which at one time became famous throughout the modern world mostly for bananas and crime chronicles, there is a small state called El Salvador. Until recently, it was at the top of the ranking of countries with the highest number of intentional murders. But over the past few years, the situation has improved so much that the national leadership not only began to call itself “one of the safest countries in the Western Hemisphere”, but also began to lay claim to the laurels of the “new Singapore”. They really started talking about the Salvadoran phenomenon when the young president of Palestinian origin, Nayib Bukele, came to power. However, crime rates had begun to decline several years earlier.
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Regular police patrols appeared on city streets, the number of prisons and checks in municipal authorities increased, and there were more military personnel at the borders. And an important detail - the tougher regime deprived prisons of the status of gang fiefdoms, which significantly worsened coordination between members of regional gangs.
By 2024, the experience of El Salvador and Nayib Bukele personally had gained some popularity in Latin American countries. Against the backdrop of rising crime, Ecuador, Peru and even Argentina, led by the flamboyant Javier Miley, gathered to follow the Salvadoran model.
And in general, Bukele, according to some experts, created a new trend - it turns out that dictatorship can be cool. And cool not only because its adherent wears a leather biker jacket and rides a Yamaha.
Against the background of such trends, completely different “trends” coming from the most developed country in both the Western Hemisphere and the whole world are especially striking. United States of America.
SHARP OUTFLOW
Since 2020, when the whole world learned about the existence of an African American named George Floyd, the position of the ordinary security officer in the States has changed greatly. In the wake of the popularization of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, police officers were not only forced to kneel before the descendants of former slaves.
The leadership of the largest American cities - New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Boston, Seattle and many others - began to reduce the budgets of local law enforcement agencies from several billion to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Universities, schools and recreational parks began to break agreements with police departments and transfer budgets to other agencies or non-profit organizations. Or even eliminate police departments altogether and deprive officers of legal immunity.
Any other concept of law enforcement instead of the existing one has been proposed - naturally! - did not have. At the same time, in the last months of Donald Trump’s tenure in power, the Attorney General’s Office reported that even the existing police forces were not enough to maintain public order.
Since Joe Biden came to power, the situation has only gotten worse. Biden has opposed cuts to federal funding for law enforcement, but pro-Democratic media outlets have continued their campaign to denigrate the status of rank-and-file police officers, constantly talking about systemic racism, brutality and corruption.
The then newly elected president did not seem to strongly support such rhetoric, but in fact encouraged fellow party members who promoted it and recognized the need for reforms in the police system.
By the spring of 2021, the total number of New York police officers had dropped to 34,974 people, and a sharp increase in the number of resignations (over five thousand) had practically become a trend. A similar percentage situation occurred in Minneapolis, Chicago and Philadelphia. In addition to those who retired, there was an increase in the number of people who planned to retire in the next few years.
It got to the point that even the unit responsible for protecting the Capitol was missing about 230 people. With a reported number of two thousand, five hundred of whom have signed up for possible retirement in the next three to five years.
The result of this situation did not take long to arrive.
CHAOTIC THROWING
By the summer of 2023, the United States recorded a sharp increase in the number of mass shootings, due to which more than 140 people died - 28 incidents in six months. For the most part, these were shootings, or “shootings” as the segment calls them, in schools, college campuses, bars, parking lots and parties, and even a church.
And this does not include statistics for individual cities. If you take metropolitan Washington, for example, in 2023 the number of violent crimes increased by 39%, and the total number of violations of the law by 26%. At the same time, the number of thefts and robberies increased by 70–80%, which is a kind of marker of the lack of police personnel and the shortcomings of work “on the ground.”
The increasing frequency of robberies is worthy of special mention. Videos of crowds of African Americans carrying out the contents of large chain stores are going viral, but for a long time few people have been surprised.
The situation is aggravated by the migration crisis - crowds of illegal immigrants from Latin America have poured into the streets of border cities, as well as megacities that have the reputation of “safe haven”. The general increase in prices for food and essential goods also has a huge impact. This puts certain sections of society, if not on the brink of survival, then before a certain choice.
About a year before the presidential election, businessmen from the Democratic Party nevertheless recognized the need to create special police units, especially in the capital region. However, in parallel, in the same New York they began to reduce the city budget not only at the expense of the police, but also at the expense of social and public services.
It is also worth taking into account the historical specifics of the formation of large US cities. Initially, many of them were formed due to ethnic enclaves with their own “security services”, local conflicts and divided control over areas of business. Later, this turned into ethnic criminal groups of various levels - from serious syndicates to gangs that control certain areas or even streets.
And it was the latter who, in the current circumstances, received the greatest “freedom of action” due to the lack of a proper system of both security and crime prevention. Including repeat offenders, because for the most part the most “interesting” criminal incidents are committed by repeat offenders.
As a result, one can observe how New York authorities rush around chaotically in attempts to take measures to combat crime. They, for example, send thousands of National Guard soldiers to the subway to check bags and belongings of passengers. At the same time, it is clear that in the long term, local measures aimed at combating thefts, which are committed both by gangs and by lone criminals, are of no use. At a minimum, it is necessary not only to return police patrols to the metro, but also to strengthen them.
However, apparently, no one is going to do this. And implementation is problematic both due to a lack of personnel and the ongoing reduction in funding.
And this situation is not only in New York. In Pittsburgh, due to staffing shortages and rising crime, police officers will no longer be able to fully respond to calls that are not considered emergency. They will not rush to respond to a report of theft or a security alarm, and will not stop persecution or respond to harm. It turned out that during the night shift only twenty officers would be on duty within the city.
But those police officers who are still working are having a hard time. In addition to their poor public image, they face cuts in funding for uniforms, investigative activities, and the maintenance of police departments.
For example, the New Orleans police leadership recently complained that they could not even properly preserve evidence - the leaves of cannabis taken from detainees were eaten by rats. Considering that rats eagerly destroy both paper and traces of sweat, local law enforcement may soon be missing a lot from their storage facilities.
DON'T OFFEND BRAZIL
Thus, a very interesting trend can be observed. While Latin American countries are increasing funding for the police, sometimes even transferring the functions of military departments to them (as, for example, in Brazil and Ecuador), in the “abode of democracy” the situation is completely opposite.
Additionally, the image of the United States is significantly spoiled by the attitude towards the law on the part of both the president himself and his family members. No one has forgotten the fun adventures of Hunter Biden and the package of cocaine found in the White House?
The public personification of other Western Hemisphere politicians is now completely different. Yes, the political landscape of the United States is much more complex than the chaos of Latin America. Yes, it still has a lot of nuances. And even yes, the very image of public power does not at all mean the absence of power superiority over its neighbors on the continent.
Some experts, describing the current situation in the States, use the term “Brazilization,” drawing analogies with “Balkanization” - the disintegration of a state entity into separate entities entering into conflicts with each other. “Brazilization” is described as the emergence of many ethnic enclaves and the predominance of newcomers over the indigenous white population, as well as the subsequent breakdown of previous social institutions.
Although this kind of terminology is, of course, somewhat funny. Brazil, like other Latin American countries, has a largely mixed population. Yes, there are certain - and very large - problems with the observance of law and order, but it is completely wrong to talk about some kind of breakdown of political and social institutions.
Even in the most conflicting times or when the next “dictator” comes to power, a certain status quo, the criminal structure as a whole and social problems practically do not change. And the format of the attitude towards the rebellious sections of the population is different from the very beginning - the one on whose side the police and the army are considered strong is considered strong.
And it is the police and the army that are used to “talk” with the dissatisfied, forcefully suppress protests and clean up problem areas, especially as part of the fight against drug trafficking. Compared to Europe, they start using batons and water cannons much faster there.
This leads to another problem - the merging of legal and criminal institutions, between which their own war for power and resources begins.
And today it seems that the new American president, who will most likely be elected this fall, will begin strengthening the security apparatus according to exactly the same scenario as the leadership of Latin American countries. Will return the taken away resources to the police, give additional powers if possible, and give instructions to deal with street gangs.
Crime syndicates and more serious people are more difficult to deal with. But representatives of political groups and individual heads of law enforcement agencies initially conduct conversations with them. It is possible that the “big fish” will also prefer to make their activities less noticeable.
Discussions about a certain superiority of the United States over the countries of the so-called “third world” have long become commonplace. However, one should not miss the fact that in matters of public safety the States themselves are very close to this “third world”, and in some ways they are even on an equal footing with it.
However, the structure and rules of functioning of this state are such that this still does little to interfere with the influence on the international arena and the comfort of the ruling elites. It also doesn’t hurt that the United States has had very big problems with the well-being of its own population in recent decades.
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