"When people do not perceive the police to be legitimate in their practices and actions, crime rates tend to increase," Rosenfeld said. No good explanationConfirming findings in The Post's analysis, Rosenfeld's report determined that the worst violence was concentrated in a few cities. And threatened by the violence, neighbors might have armed themselves instead of going to the police for protection, the theory suggests. There were fewer homicides in the 50 largest U.S. cities last year than there were in the same cities as recently as 2008. A loss of trust could have made residents of those places less likely to share information with law enforcement about dangerous criminals.

Source: Washington Post June 15, 2016 12:18 UTC