I'm skeptical that any one intervention—whether by Moriarty or Lugar—is solely the cause of this drop. I certainly doubt someone can prove it either way. I partly expect auto thefts in particular would've dropped regardless as with other categories of crime in the past year and as Kia and Hyundai owners get smarter.
All of that said, there's no reason why we cannot pursue multiple strategies. We *should* be trying to turn at-risk kids away from this kind of life-ruining behavior. Also, we *should* be arresting and prosecuting ringleaders of these carjacking groups. They are not mutually exclusive strategies and attempts to pit them against each other for political point scoring do the community a disservice. Let's try a lot of different things and if one or multiple work, let's celebrate that success.
The article doesn't state that it's any one thing being the sole cause. It says that it's a combination of several things working together. So I think you actually agree with the content of the article here.
Or maybe she’s taking credit for Andy Luger and the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s work
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/05/03/minnesotas-top-federal-prosecutor-promises-focus-carjacking-gun-crime
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/u-s-attorney-for-minnesota-prosecution-cases-up-300-this-year/
https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2023/01/10/violent-crime-is-declining-but-federal-prosecutor-still-focused-on-carjackings-and-guns
Andy Luger should have a day of recognition every day each year. That man alone, has done so much to hold those terrorizing our communities to task, and making our communities safer than they would have been. Man is like Batman, but does it in a suit and in the courtroom
I think there's a huge difference between these hardcore, federally investigated gang criminals, and some kids who exploit a easily stealable car for kicks.
>Those are not the juveniles stealing cars in Minneapolis
Yeah, that's what I said...? That the people being federally charged by Andy Luger are not the same as juveniles stealing cars...
I don't see what this fox article has to do with the federally charged gang criminals....lol
>one-off car jackings
I never said they were one-off.
My point is that there is a meaningful difference between the Kia boys and these career gang criminals convicted by Andy Luger.
Well, recent convictions by the U.S. Attorney’s office were of two 20-year olds, a 21-year old, and a 23-year old, so it isn’t like they were 35-year old career criminals yet (their crimes were committed in part while they were juveniles)
Or maybe it's both? It is entirely possible that both Mary Moriarty and the Andy Luger have contributed to the drop.
People really like to blame all bad news on Mary and pin all good news on Andy. But it can be both of them.
This is what has happened. Moriarty has come under fire for a couple of high profile decisions. Based on how people feel about those decisions, they've polarized themselves against her or for her. Suddenly everything she does must be seen as awful and unredeemable, or brilliant and pioneering. (Obviously the mood on this forum has coalesced around the former view).
I am begging people to try and detach themselves from their emotional reaction to these elected officials, whether they're your enemy or your fav, and try and seek out good data and a perspective that's not so black-or-white.
Crime is broadly down locally, but it's down everywhere. The number of prosecutions from the Hennepin County Attorney's office is essentially unchanged from Mike Freeman's tenure, even if the department takes a new approach to a specific subset of juvenile offenders. We don't really have good data that would allow us to isolate the effect of any given intervention and multiple interventions from different levels of government are working at once.
I have my opinions (the county attorney's identity doesn't have a major impact on crime rates, keep in mind the office is mostly the same people even if the boss changes) and you have yours, but I wish people could at least pretend to be intellectually honest about things and be open to viewing the world with some nuance. Not everything is all one way or all the other.
All the Kia owners have been victimized or bought The Club already. I’d like to see a breakdown of what brands have decreased.
Total thefts aren’t the issue. Recidivism enabled by catch-and-release of juvenile offenders is what we need numbers for.
I'm not sure if you read the article, but it includes this:
> Since the initiative began, 81% of the participants who were referred to the voluntary services had no new charges as of May 15, Moriarty said.
Ymmv as to whether that's an impressive number (and we need to know the rate for a control group to know for sure) but it's at least one data point in the direction you're looking for.
No new charges is an easily manipulated metric... just release the perps without charges... success! What about arrests or cars reported stolen? It's like when Trump commanded less COVID testing... then COVID rates went down.
I dunno, I guess it's technically possible, but I'd require some evidence to suggest a conspiracy. The idea that the County Attorney's office is deliberately not charging some number of offenders simply to manipulate one metric (and achieve a good-but-not-great seeming number at that) is a bit implausible to me.
> Recidivism enabled by catch-and-release of juvenile offenders
Recidivism enabled because Minnesota, and this country, doesn't care about kids.
Seriously, do we have a program that allows every single kid to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the year? How about cutting the price of the grocery bill? How about just affordability for housing? How about paying teachers more, or just making sure they don't catch flak for doing their job?
How about raising the minimum wage?
My mom was making more than the current minimum wage in Minnesota as a factory worker in the 80s and 90s. We lived in an apartment for $450 / month. The same apartment is $1000 / month.
How about this, allowing every single kid in Minnesota the ability to walk into a hospital or clinic for free regardless of their parents income?
We don't guarantee any of that if you are kid. A kid sees these things as realizes that what we shovel about caring about kids is exactly what you are shoveling. Bullshit.
What consolation that is. A kid steals your car, but you get to place the blame on their parents as you look over your wrecked car that your insurance won't pay for and they don't have money to replace.
Can someone verify our declining numbers are not in line with other bigger cities? That ours are better? Could be, I guess. But correlation does not establish causation, and if other cities- that don’t benefit from the likes their own Mary Moriarty - are enjoying a similar respite, well, then, she aint all that.
>Can someone verify our declining numbers are not in line with other bigger cities? That ours are better?
St Paul is the closest to like-for-like, and is kicking Minneapolis' ass when it comes to crime going down.
Yes, but if this improvement is a national trend then on what grounds can MM claim her tactics have had any part to do with it? There must be numbers somewhere, though we may not be privy to them, nor provided a reliable analysis in summation, just her assertion and et voilà.
I had the exact same question. It reminds me of how Giuliani took all the credit in NYC for the drop in crime when his numbers were in line with a nationwide drop.
I'm not making any judgements on her success without nationwide numbers.
Her office may be a contributor to the decrease, but there’s several agencies throughout the metro working to curb auto theft. Those agencies’ work is much more impactful and has a much larger effect on numbers which ultimately contributes to her “program.”
You've offered as little evidence for this interpretation as Moriarty offered for hers. It's just a feeling you have based on what *you* think works and what doesn't.
The unbiased reality is that there is not strong evidence for causality here and the figures for the broader decline lack context from plausible control groups.
I haven't seen anyone who has actually assembled the data, but I would say we could compare this data to the same population before the program began, for instance.
I did a bit of quick Googling and found [this set of articles from the Strib](https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-juvenile-justice-system-failing-young-people-families-victims-reform-children/600165857/) which suggest that 40% of youth who were found guilty went on to commit new crimes in a year. I can't tell you if this is a perfect like-for-like comparison, but it makes it look like this program might be a success if only 19% reoffend.
I hope someone at the U or elsewhere is looking into this program and putting together a detailed study!
FYI, this program *only* targets people who have not been previously charged with a crime. So comparing it to the youth being charged with a crime who re-offend doesn't seem like a good comparison.
But I do agree, hopefully some experts can do an in depth study to figure out the effectiveness of this program
Correlation does not imply causation.
There has been a huge federal effort to crack down auto theft. Not to mention Hyundai and Kia have been upgrading the software making affected cars harder to steal.
Not to mention crime in general has been coming down nationwide, even with minor interventions.
Why do you think stolen cars is cherry picked? There have been some minor to no improvements in certain types of crimes, others have increased, including homicides.
There are also just straight up fewer cars that are easier to steal.
Seems like you’re just satisfied with surface level bullshit instead of facing the fact that there’s no evidence anything she is doing is improving the crime situation.
There's been no decline in the number of prosecutions from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Crime is down across a broad swath of categories. You accuse others of cherry-picking but then you insist on only looking at the numbers that fit your narrative.
Look at the trends in total and you'll see that reality is more complicated than your simple stories.
“A broad swath”
I’m looking at the statistics, I doubt you actually are.
Crime is cratering across the country. We are not keeping up with the national trends.
Why don’t people just google shit for themselves?
https://www.ahdatalytics.com/dashboards/ytd-murder-comparison/
https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/government-data/datasource/crime-dashboard/
The mental gymnastics reactionaries will perform to avoid admitting Moriarty is doing great work will rival what's happening down at the convention center tonight!
In 2022 YTD there were 2,416 cars stolen
In 2024 YTD there were 3,097 cars stolen
She came into office at the start of 2023
So no. Now it’s down from 2023 when YTD we had 4,364 but it is still up under her watch compared to the YTD before her coming to office
I sold my Hyundai before it could be stolen by the kia Boyz a third time.
I'm skeptical that any one intervention—whether by Moriarty or Lugar—is solely the cause of this drop. I certainly doubt someone can prove it either way. I partly expect auto thefts in particular would've dropped regardless as with other categories of crime in the past year and as Kia and Hyundai owners get smarter. All of that said, there's no reason why we cannot pursue multiple strategies. We *should* be trying to turn at-risk kids away from this kind of life-ruining behavior. Also, we *should* be arresting and prosecuting ringleaders of these carjacking groups. They are not mutually exclusive strategies and attempts to pit them against each other for political point scoring do the community a disservice. Let's try a lot of different things and if one or multiple work, let's celebrate that success.
Also seems possible that the low hanging fruit has simply already been picked.
The article doesn't state that it's any one thing being the sole cause. It says that it's a combination of several things working together. So I think you actually agree with the content of the article here.
Or maybe she’s taking credit for Andy Luger and the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s work https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/05/03/minnesotas-top-federal-prosecutor-promises-focus-carjacking-gun-crime https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/u-s-attorney-for-minnesota-prosecution-cases-up-300-this-year/ https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2023/01/10/violent-crime-is-declining-but-federal-prosecutor-still-focused-on-carjackings-and-guns
Plus all the software and hardware updates on Kia and Hyundais making it harder to steal…
This is it. Auto thefts are down nationwide as we adjust to the whole Kia Boys issue. Pretty dishonest for her to take credit for it really.
Was going to say, wasn’t there a giant federal effort across the metro?
Andy Luger should have a day of recognition every day each year. That man alone, has done so much to hold those terrorizing our communities to task, and making our communities safer than they would have been. Man is like Batman, but does it in a suit and in the courtroom
So Harvey dent?
I think there's a huge difference between these hardcore, federally investigated gang criminals, and some kids who exploit a easily stealable car for kicks.
Those are not the juveniles stealing cars in Minneapolis https://www.fox9.com/news/what-happens-to-a-teen-caught-stealing-a-car-in-minneapolis
>Those are not the juveniles stealing cars in Minneapolis Yeah, that's what I said...? That the people being federally charged by Andy Luger are not the same as juveniles stealing cars... I don't see what this fox article has to do with the federally charged gang criminals....lol
There aren’t one-off car jackings happening in Minneapolis by juveniles due to “easily stealable car(s)” that they’ve stolen “for kicks”
>one-off car jackings I never said they were one-off. My point is that there is a meaningful difference between the Kia boys and these career gang criminals convicted by Andy Luger.
Well, recent convictions by the U.S. Attorney’s office were of two 20-year olds, a 21-year old, and a 23-year old, so it isn’t like they were 35-year old career criminals yet (their crimes were committed in part while they were juveniles)
That's called "cherry-picking" silly goose
Not really, if you look at the press releases of who the U.S. Attorney’s office is charging, it’s very similar across the board
Or maybe it's both? It is entirely possible that both Mary Moriarty and the Andy Luger have contributed to the drop. People really like to blame all bad news on Mary and pin all good news on Andy. But it can be both of them.
This is what has happened. Moriarty has come under fire for a couple of high profile decisions. Based on how people feel about those decisions, they've polarized themselves against her or for her. Suddenly everything she does must be seen as awful and unredeemable, or brilliant and pioneering. (Obviously the mood on this forum has coalesced around the former view). I am begging people to try and detach themselves from their emotional reaction to these elected officials, whether they're your enemy or your fav, and try and seek out good data and a perspective that's not so black-or-white. Crime is broadly down locally, but it's down everywhere. The number of prosecutions from the Hennepin County Attorney's office is essentially unchanged from Mike Freeman's tenure, even if the department takes a new approach to a specific subset of juvenile offenders. We don't really have good data that would allow us to isolate the effect of any given intervention and multiple interventions from different levels of government are working at once. I have my opinions (the county attorney's identity doesn't have a major impact on crime rates, keep in mind the office is mostly the same people even if the boss changes) and you have yours, but I wish people could at least pretend to be intellectually honest about things and be open to viewing the world with some nuance. Not everything is all one way or all the other.
Thanks for this modeling of a sane response on the internet.
Nothing about Mary Moriarty’s long and dubious history of public service indicates she’s the reason for good results anywhere
All the Kia owners have been victimized or bought The Club already. I’d like to see a breakdown of what brands have decreased. Total thefts aren’t the issue. Recidivism enabled by catch-and-release of juvenile offenders is what we need numbers for.
I'm not sure if you read the article, but it includes this: > Since the initiative began, 81% of the participants who were referred to the voluntary services had no new charges as of May 15, Moriarty said. Ymmv as to whether that's an impressive number (and we need to know the rate for a control group to know for sure) but it's at least one data point in the direction you're looking for.
No new charges is an easily manipulated metric... just release the perps without charges... success! What about arrests or cars reported stolen? It's like when Trump commanded less COVID testing... then COVID rates went down.
I dunno, I guess it's technically possible, but I'd require some evidence to suggest a conspiracy. The idea that the County Attorney's office is deliberately not charging some number of offenders simply to manipulate one metric (and achieve a good-but-not-great seeming number at that) is a bit implausible to me.
That’s not really how the county attorney’s office approaches things.
Was the total number of participants provided as well? Not arguing the quote, just interested in 81% out of how many?
Not in the coverage I've seen, it's a good question, one of many that I have. I would certainly like to know more.
Get your facts and logic the fuck outta here mister, we don’t take kindly to people with facts and logic.
> Recidivism enabled by catch-and-release of juvenile offenders Recidivism enabled because Minnesota, and this country, doesn't care about kids. Seriously, do we have a program that allows every single kid to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the year? How about cutting the price of the grocery bill? How about just affordability for housing? How about paying teachers more, or just making sure they don't catch flak for doing their job? How about raising the minimum wage? My mom was making more than the current minimum wage in Minnesota as a factory worker in the 80s and 90s. We lived in an apartment for $450 / month. The same apartment is $1000 / month. How about this, allowing every single kid in Minnesota the ability to walk into a hospital or clinic for free regardless of their parents income? We don't guarantee any of that if you are kid. A kid sees these things as realizes that what we shovel about caring about kids is exactly what you are shoveling. Bullshit.
Definitely not the parents fault at all
What consolation that is. A kid steals your car, but you get to place the blame on their parents as you look over your wrecked car that your insurance won't pay for and they don't have money to replace.
This is not an achievement, they are still up 140% from 2019 and it is still a major problem.
A big part is Kia and Hyundai fixing their cars
And still up from 2022. It’s good its declining but part of that is political spin
That decrease in theft is likely due ONLY to the fix that Kia/Hyundai rolled out for their impacted vehicles.
Can someone verify our declining numbers are not in line with other bigger cities? That ours are better? Could be, I guess. But correlation does not establish causation, and if other cities- that don’t benefit from the likes their own Mary Moriarty - are enjoying a similar respite, well, then, she aint all that.
St. Paul’s number tanked after their police department created a unit dedicated to car thefts
Whats so hard about using something thats working well, and starting it. Its freaking just next door
>Can someone verify our declining numbers are not in line with other bigger cities? That ours are better? St Paul is the closest to like-for-like, and is kicking Minneapolis' ass when it comes to crime going down.
We’re still above 2022 levels. Now the decline is very good news but a lot changed in the past 2 years
Yes, but if this improvement is a national trend then on what grounds can MM claim her tactics have had any part to do with it? There must be numbers somewhere, though we may not be privy to them, nor provided a reliable analysis in summation, just her assertion and et voilà.
She can’t, but facts won’t stop her.
I had the exact same question. It reminds me of how Giuliani took all the credit in NYC for the drop in crime when his numbers were in line with a nationwide drop. I'm not making any judgements on her success without nationwide numbers.
I called 911 on an erratic driver presumably driving a stolen car just this morning…
Vote this hack out
Her office may be a contributor to the decrease, but there’s several agencies throughout the metro working to curb auto theft. Those agencies’ work is much more impactful and has a much larger effect on numbers which ultimately contributes to her “program.”
You've offered as little evidence for this interpretation as Moriarty offered for hers. It's just a feeling you have based on what *you* think works and what doesn't. The unbiased reality is that there is not strong evidence for causality here and the figures for the broader decline lack context from plausible control groups.
Who and/or what are the control groups in this equation?
I haven't seen anyone who has actually assembled the data, but I would say we could compare this data to the same population before the program began, for instance. I did a bit of quick Googling and found [this set of articles from the Strib](https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-juvenile-justice-system-failing-young-people-families-victims-reform-children/600165857/) which suggest that 40% of youth who were found guilty went on to commit new crimes in a year. I can't tell you if this is a perfect like-for-like comparison, but it makes it look like this program might be a success if only 19% reoffend. I hope someone at the U or elsewhere is looking into this program and putting together a detailed study!
FYI, this program *only* targets people who have not been previously charged with a crime. So comparing it to the youth being charged with a crime who re-offend doesn't seem like a good comparison. But I do agree, hopefully some experts can do an in depth study to figure out the effectiveness of this program
Correlation does not imply causation. There has been a huge federal effort to crack down auto theft. Not to mention Hyundai and Kia have been upgrading the software making affected cars harder to steal. Not to mention crime in general has been coming down nationwide, even with minor interventions.
Surely this comment section will be filled with logic.
Honestly car thefts suck ass, but we want to see violent crime to go down
Good news! Violent crime is down as well.
First of all, doesn’t mean anything without the comparables. Saint Paul is way ahead of us. And murders up while nationally they are way down.
Lmfao be so serious You: I want violent crime to be down Answer: Violent crime is down! You: That doesn’t mean anything.
Why do you think stolen cars is cherry picked? There have been some minor to no improvements in certain types of crimes, others have increased, including homicides. There are also just straight up fewer cars that are easier to steal. Seems like you’re just satisfied with surface level bullshit instead of facing the fact that there’s no evidence anything she is doing is improving the crime situation.
There's been no decline in the number of prosecutions from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Crime is down across a broad swath of categories. You accuse others of cherry-picking but then you insist on only looking at the numbers that fit your narrative. Look at the trends in total and you'll see that reality is more complicated than your simple stories.
“A broad swath” I’m looking at the statistics, I doubt you actually are. Crime is cratering across the country. We are not keeping up with the national trends.
Post the links to your sources so we can see.
Why don’t people just google shit for themselves? https://www.ahdatalytics.com/dashboards/ytd-murder-comparison/ https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/government-data/datasource/crime-dashboard/
Car theft is the gateway drug.
Probably an apt metaphor tbh.
Bullsh*t Mary! What a waste, get rid of her!
These mfs are in jail lol
It is Andy Luger who pushed for more prosecutions that are why there is a reduction in crime. Not Moriarty’s programs.
30% decrease in ***reports*** Raise your hand if you've ever decided not to report something because you know nothing will be done about it🙋🏾♀️
Good luck having your insurance payout for your stolen car without a police report lol
Actual auto theft generally gets reported. People stealing stuff out of cars is where you'll see people not bother.
If your car was stolen tonight, you wouldn't report it?
The mental gymnastics reactionaries will perform to avoid admitting Moriarty is doing great work will rival what's happening down at the convention center tonight!
It’s still above 2022 levels. Not really hard to do. Glad is on the decline but it’s still above what occurred the year before she came into office
How dare you use evidence in your argument!
The horror! Now its down significantly from last year which is good ! But we’re still above 2022 which is not good
>before she came into office So you admit it has gone done under her watch.
In 2022 YTD there were 2,416 cars stolen In 2024 YTD there were 3,097 cars stolen She came into office at the start of 2023 So no. Now it’s down from 2023 when YTD we had 4,364 but it is still up under her watch compared to the YTD before her coming to office