Ann Arbor Scraps Crime Watch Signs Over “Racism”
Neighborhood watch programs “were often rooted in assumptions about who did and did not ‘belong’ in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance.”
Ann Arbor, Michigan, just spent $18,000 of taxpayer money to rip out anti-crime signs because city officials decided the signs were racist.
More than 600 blue-and-white metal signs were pulled from the ground in Ann Arbor this week after city leaders approved the funds to dismantle and scrap them, arguing the signs could contribute to racial profiling and community distrust.
City officials defended the move as part of a broader push toward “inclusivity”: a word that apparently now extends to keeping neighborhoods free of signs that warn against crime.
“Frankly, neighborhood watch signs are expressions of exclusion and they’re inconsistent with our values,” Mayor Christopher Taylor said in a video shared by the city.
“Ann Arbor is a welcoming community. We don’t want to push people away. We want to welcome folks in.”
The decision followed a unanimous 10-0 vote by the city council in December. Every single Democrat on the council agreed that anti-crime signs were the problem, not crime itself.
In its formal justification, the city said the program itself was outdated and rooted in assumptions about who “belonged” in certain neighborhoods.
The neighborhood watch programs “were often rooted in assumptions about who did and did not ‘belong’ in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion particularly toward Black, Brown, and other marginalized residents and visitors,” the council resolution stated.
City officials also claimed the signage does nothing to prevent crime, a convenient conclusion that let them check a DEI box while drawing $18,000 from the city’s cash reserves to do it. For context, Ann Arbor recorded roughly 2,382 crimes in 2024, with a property crime rate of more than 1,700 per 100,000 residents. Apparently, the solution is fewer signs, not less crime.
This isn’t a local quirk. Across the country, DEI frameworks have increasingly been applied to public safety decisions: police budgets cut, enforcement scaled back, and now anti-crime signage deemed offensive. The ideology is consistent even if the outcomes aren’t.
“Such signage does not reduce crime and can reinforce biased surveillance,” the city said in a statement announcing the removal.
Council Member Cynthia Harrison pointed to concerns from residents who felt scrutinized in their own neighborhoods.
“There are people that look like me, and those from my community that have been questioned, quite frankly, in their own neighborhood by others, you know, wondering what they’re doing there,” Harrison said.
“This is just representative of our values and how we want people to feel in Ann Arbor.”
It’s worth noting that Harrison’s concern — people being questioned in their own neighborhood — is a legitimate issue. But removing a sign doesn’t change anyone’s behavior. If biased surveillance is the problem, scrapping a piece of metal while leaving the city’s crime rate untouched doesn’t solve it. It just makes the council feel better about it.
The Neighborhood Watch program dates back to the 1970s and was originally introduced as a community-based effort to deter crime, though Ann Arbor officials described the local version as defunct and no longer active.
As for what replaces the neighborhood watch program? Taylor told residents they can direct concerns to the city’s Independent Community Police Oversight Commission, a bureaucratic body that, unlike a simple yard sign, costs considerably more than nothing.
The move drew immediate and widespread mockery, both online and from elected officials.
“They’re just insane,” said New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino.
“For years the Democrats have demanded community policing over police funding, but today they have hit a new level of protecting the criminal over the community,” said Tudor Dixon, conservative commentator and former Republican candidate for Michigan governor.
“There was a time Democrats believed it took a village to raise a child,” Dixon added. “Now they believe that village is racist.”
Online reaction was equally withering.
“Oh my gosh. Is this a SNL skit????? This is the best laugh I have had in a long time,” one commenter wrote.
Another called it “an absolute joke,” adding: “Neighborhood watch type signs absolutely help. I’ll be sure never to go there.”
Ann Arbor residents, meanwhile, are presumably still free to be watched — just not warned about it.
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Comments
So glad I don’t live there anymore; bunch of morons.
Yes, the aroma of Democrat.
Sounds like the mentally ill party and criminals are running the city. Ann Arbor has historically been at odds with rest of the Country.
Signs cause crime. Good to know.
Gee where have I seen this story before??
I don’t know! It was at some web site.
Oh I know. It was at Legal Insurrection!!
Wait that’s here!!! And the story is just a few stories below this one.
Left hand meet right hand. Right – Left.
“were often rooted in assumptions[*] about who did and did not ‘belong’ in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion particularly toward Black, Brown, and other marginalized residents and visitors,” the council resolution stated.
*Born out by evidence over the decades
And now for something completely different,
from Charles Murray, Facing Reality (2021),
The charges of white privilege and systemic racism that are tearing the country apart float free of reality. Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The allegations of racism in policing, college admissions, segregation in housing, and hiring and promotions in the workplace ignore the ways in which the problems that prompt the allegations of systemic racism are driven by these two realities.
What good can come of bringing them into the open? America’s most precious ideal is what used to be known as the American Creed: People are not to be judged by where they came from, what social class they come from, or by race, color, or creed. They must be judged as individuals. The prevailing Progressive ideology repudiates that ideal, demanding instead that the state should judge people by their race, social origins, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.
We on the center left and center right who are the American Creed’s natural defenders have painted ourselves into a corner. We have been unwilling to say openly that different groups have significant group differences. Since we have not been willing to say that, we have been left defenseless against the claims that racism is to blame. What else could it be? We have been afraid to answer. We must. Facing Reality is a step in that direction.
In LA a neighborhood removed signs about no loitering and not picking up hitchhikers because they were “anti-gay”.
Democrats will do anything to normalize deviancy and make it easier to accomplis
In rural areas, the real ones with dirt roads, a ‘strange’ vehicle driving down that same dirt road usually at least a 1/4 mile from the house is cause to draw attention. Around here (the 4 mile stretch of dirt road in front of my homestead) the normal traffic count total is 6 vehicles per day on weekdays increasing to maybe a dozen on the weekend and holidays. All of that traffic following a usual pattern/timeline. Any additional traffic draws extra scrutiny precisely b/c it is unusual. It isn’t uncommon for folks to drive to the neighbors after purchase of new vehicle, not to ‘show off’ but to inform/present the new vehicle as ‘belonging’ here.
Once again, the Left overuses/misuses a word and robs it of all meaning.