Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast.

This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is

Charles Lehman. He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He's a contributing editor of City Journal.

He's been working primarily on the Manhattan Institute's policing and public safety initiative,

and he writes prolifically for CJ, including a number of recent web articles about criminal

justice.

And he's got a wonderful feature on the legendary social scientist James Q. Wilson called

contra-rouped causes that will appear in our forthcoming summer issue.

So Charles, thanks very much for joining us.

Yeah, glad to be on, Brian.

One of your recent pieces for the website, which I was mentioning,

it seeks to answer why cops across the country are quitting.

This is, in fact, I believe your most recent piece for us.

The numbers are quite striking.

As you know, a 2020 survey found that resignations were up around 20%,

retirements were up 45% nationwide.

Many officers who haven't quit, they're leaving big city police departments to work in suburbs.

You did quite a bit of reporting for this story, talking to police about their profession,

there are reasons for leaving how they see the job today.

What are some of the conclusions that you reach from these conversations?

Yeah, I think that the overwhelming sense is, you know, policing is a dangerous job and it's a particular kind of danger.

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