Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS  Jim Kenney (D), former mayor of Philadelphia; Danielle Outlaw, former Police Commissioner Source: City Journal Read time: 1.7 minutes This Happened Trying to reverse Philadelphia’s slide as one of the worst major cities in the United States for homicides, violence, and crime, new mayor Cherelle Parker (D) declared a state of emergency based on crime In January 2024 immediately after taking office. During the 2023 race for mayor, Parker ran as a moderate compared to other progressive candidates by prioritizing public safety. She also selected new police commissioner Kevin Bethel. Since coming into office Mayor Parker and Commissioner Bethel cleared out the infamous Kensington open-air drug market and cracked down on illegal packs of ATV and dirt-bike riders. Why Is This Happening? These changes came on the heels of previous mayor Jim Kenney (D) who had refused to declare a state of emergency despite record homicides. The city had 561 murders in 2021, its highest total ever; 80% of victims were Black. Kenney had supported defunding the police and sanctuary city status. Bethel’s predecessor as police commissioner was Danielle Outlaw, who was lured from Portland, Oregon and hired in 2020. Emphasizing her status as the first Black woman to lead the police departments in Portland and Philadelphia, she had promised to tackle racism, gender discrimination, social injustice, inequity, and most of all, gun violence. Outlaw resigned in September 2023, shortly before the mayoral election, after three years of worsening crime under her watch. Philadelphia’s crime problems are also worsened by the policies of progressive DA Larry Krasner, who remains in office. The background of crime in Philadelphia, however, has older roots in the city’s failed attempts to use trauma-informed approaches. The Trauma-Informed Past of Philadelphia Philadelphia was the first major city to deploy large-scale public health efforts under the banner of trauma and toxic stress. As described in my book, The Trouble With Trauma: “In 2005, the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services initiated a transformation of the city’s mental health services in order to address high unemployment and murder rates. The keystone of this transformation was the creation of a trauma-informed system based on the premise that exposure to trauma and violence was causing these problems with unemployment and murder. The transformation included efforts to train clinicians in evidence-based psychotherapy for PTSD, and to bring together a large number of community human-service organizations to train their staff according to the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies.” [1] Pulling together mental health experts, politicians, public health, and law enforcement, the plan essentially cast trauma as the largest public health issue we face in modern times, and we need massive funding for social programs to attack trauma on the order of the Manhattan Project that created the first nuclear bomb. It was supposed to address racism, inequities, and reduce violent crime. Mayor Parker’s new crackdown on crime and sudden rediscovery of law and order seems to confirm that toxic stress public health efforts didn’t work. Neither the Mayor nor the police chief mentioned the failure of the 2005 trauma-informed initiatives. REFERENCES [1] Scheeringa MS (2022). The Trouble With Trauma: The Search to Discover How Beliefs Become Facts. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press. ISBN 978-1949481563 Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. Comments are closed.
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