“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
Except the Dickensian tale below isn’t about London and Paris in 1789.
I’m talking about the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul right now.
In the heart of these neighboring metropolises, a stark contrast unfolds in the battle against a growing wave of car thefts and carjacking.
Two cities, side by side, facing the same problem but taking entirely different approaches.
Their stories offer profound lessons in problem-solving and systems thinking.
Put on your seatbelt, and let’s dive in.
24 Cars Stolen Every Day
By the middle of July, about 4,700 vehicles had been reported stolen across Minneapolis in 2023.
That is an average of 24 stolen cars a day, which is a whopping 70% increase from the same time last year.
Yet just across the Mississippi River, St. Paul leaders were celebrating a 32% decline in car thefts from the year before.
Why the stark difference?
It’s fairly simple.
St. Paul (in conjunction with Ramsey County) took a proactive approach that included an 8-person team – called the Carjacking and Auto Thefts (CAT) unit – dedicated to proactively addressing thefts and carjacking head-on.
Just across the river, Minneapolis has only one full-time officer dedicated to auto thefts. By necessity, their approach is much more limited and reactive.
Two Contributing Factors
But surely it can’t be that simple, right?
Well, maybe it is if we include the causal web of why the police response varies so greatly between cities.
Size of police force
First, and most obvious, is an insufficient police force in Minneapolis.
As of May 2023, according to the Department of Justice, the Minneapolis Police Department had 585 sworn officers, down from 892 in 2018, marking a reduction of approximately 34%.
Despite sustained efforts to rebuild its police in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and subsequent social and political unrest, Minnepolis is still losing more officers than it can hire.
According to Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, he asked Minneapolis to join the CAT team, but Minnepaolis didn’t have sufficient manpower.
No-chase policy
The second causal factor is a difference in policy and police tactics.
Minneapolis has a no-chase policy for its police force, meaning that officers are generally discouraged from engaging in high-speed pursuits of vehicles unless there is an imminent threat of violence.
In practice, this means that Minneapolis police will not pursue teenagers engaged in joyriding or property crimes.
In contrast, Ramsey County does not have a no-chase policy.
Pursuit of stolen cars is allowed.
Look Beyond “Good” and “Bad”
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that there is one objectively correct level of police force, or that a no-chase policy is always bad.
Rather, I’m encouraging you to avoid thinking of policies as “good” or “bad.”
Problems themselves are inevitable (as opposed to just being caused by bad decisions and policies) and all of our responses are trade-offs.
The real difficulty begins when we don’t weigh the trade-offs and consider feedback loops.
When that happens, problems grow bigger because we fail to see or deal with the consequences.
As I see it, some in Minneapolis clearly believe they can have their cake (fewer police officers and relaxed enforcement) and eat it too (less violent crime even as car thefts skyrocket).
And maybe they’re right.
Assistant Minneapolis Police Chief Katie Blackwell recently informed a Minneapolis City Council committee that positive trends are emerging in violent crime statistics. Homicides, robberies, and the gun violence index have all seen substantial declines compared to last year.
Yet, even as progressive activists cheered on that this was hard evidence that fewer officers always leads to less crime, Blackwell emphasized that sustaining this momentum would pose a significant challenge in the long term, given the ongoing decrease in the number of officers.
“It’s easy to say look at all this crime reduction and we’re doing it with only 515 cops on duty, but really we’re doing it with the help of external partners who are doing it temporarily with us whether they are civilians, or temporarily with us for the summer events.
And, that’s when you start having more complaints against officers, or possibly use-of-force incidents, or mental health, or all these things that associate with it.”
Everything depends on the kind of risks you’re willing to take.
Minneapolis and St. Paul Are One System
One last systems thinking point:
You can’t successfully tackle car thefts in the whole metro region without an effective response in all areas.
That could involve separate but effective approaches, a coordinated approach, or a regional strategy.
There are a lot of ways it could potentially work.
But just think: if you were to steal a car today, would you do it in St. Paul?
Or just walk across the river to Minneapolis?
The numbers suggest the most common answer.
In this sense, Minneapolis is not just a victim of its own ineffective policies, but also a victim of St. Paul’s success.
TLDR
Don’t think that this policy is “good” or that policy is “bad.”
Rather, think: when x happens, y increases or decreases.
This is just one crucial step toward embracing the cold, hard reality of trade-offs that cascade through whole ecosystems.
See you next week.
==
Whenever you’re ready, there are two ways I can help you:
→ I’m a strategic advisor for the toughest societal problems like poverty, crime and homelessness. People come to me when they want to stop spinning their wheels and get transformative, systems-level change.
→ I’m a coach for emerging and executive leaders in the social and public sectors who want to make progress on their biggest goals and challenges.
Let’s find out how I can help you become transformational.
