The Philadelphia District Attorney has come under pressure for a drop in violent crime convictions. I generally support efforts to reduce arrests and trials for non-violent crimes, although a lot more tickets need to be written for speeding and reckless driving in the city – not doing this is killing people, both drivers and pedestrians, at alarming rates, and I don’t know how you can call this “non-violent”.

Nonetheless, the statistics on violent crime convictions do look somewhat bad, and the downward trend started before the 2020 pandemic so you can’t blame it on that alone. I like the data transparency that the District Attorney’s office provides. This, along with police data, could allow journalists to provide a lot more context on individual cases and short-term statistics than they do. I think they could do this without giving up the blood-soaked entertainment value that seems to be necessary to pay the bills in our messed up society.