By Adam Pagnucco.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines crimes against society as representing “society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity and are typically victimless crimes.” In Montgomery County’s crime database, the most frequently cited crimes against society are drug/narcotic violations, driving under the influence, liquor law violations, disorderly conduct, trespass of real property and weapon law violations.
As stated in our summary post, reported crimes against society have fallen precipitously from 15,862 in 2017 to 6,459 in 2022 at this writing. The steepest drop came in the 2018-2021 period, when crimes against society fell by 66%.
This raises the question of whether these behaviors have truly declined or whether enforcement of these laws has waned.
Let’s start with drug crimes, which have fallen from 5,891 in 2017 to 1,651 in 2022. Drug equipment violations have also declined from 508 to 195 in the same period.
The pie chart below shows the distribution of drug crimes by type of drug. Marijuana accounts for three-quarters of them.
Societal attitudes towards marijuana have softened quickly, culminating with the decision by Maryland voters to legalize recreational marijuana last year. If the police have cut back on marijuana enforcement, that’s one thing. But the chart below shows crime incidents involving more serious drugs including cocaine, opium, heroin and hallucinogens. Those crimes are in steep decline as well.
Finally, the chart below shows the six-year trend for four other crimes against society: driving under the influence, liquor law violations, disorderly conduct and trespass of real property. Those crimes have also fallen sharply.
The central question here cannot be answered by the data: does this represent real changes in behavior or changes in enforcement? Few people are going to be upset if the police have been declining to make busts for marijuana possession. But if they are not pursuing cocaine traffickers, trespassers and drunk drivers, that’s a different matter.
The county council must investigate these trends, starting with its public safety committee. (Its members are Chair Sidney Katz, Dawn Luedtke and Kristin Mink.) If for some reason the police are not enforcing laws against drunk driving and hard-core narcotic use, that needs to be resolved.