What happens when you reduce policing?

NY Times on the incentives facing police in Baltimore.  The article noted that targeted policing, a type of statistical discrimination, was found to be illegal by a Justice Department report:

The report concluded that the police ... frequently patted down or frisked people “without identifying necessary grounds to believe that the person is armed and dangerous.” 

A former police chief said that the resulting consent decree prohibiting such statistical discrimination has made it more difficult for police to deter crime:

The decree’s demands had made it too difficult for officers to clear drug corners, he said. He was hearing from his former colleagues that loiterers were already reciting the limits it imposed on the officers to them on patrol, mockingly. ...

“What do you think happens when these guys see the cops not getting out of their car?” Barksdale said. ... “Look at the number of bodies,” he said. “We’re losing horribly in Baltimore City.”

HT:  MarginalRevolution.com