I attended the Police Community Council meeting on Tuesday night. As I'd heard previously, our precinct has lost officers, although we have gotten some back. But we're still about 30 short of where we were in the beginning of 2006.
I also learned that the force overall is short about 5,000 officers, and is also missing the crime-fighting capabilities of the 1,000 who are occupied with counterterrorism . (Pathetic that our city has to do its own national defense because the feds are so not on-task. Seriously, imagine if residents of Peoria had to use significant local money to prevent it from being attacked like we were!)
The officers from the precinct are clearly working as hard as they can to contain the burgeoning violent crime problem, but there are not enough of them. They also would like to downplay that murder number and treat it as a fluke (and it's true that it looks extra-bad because any changes in small numbers results in a large percentage change), but I found the spin unconvincing; they just referred to the number of homicides being up for "various reasons". The only real fluke in the data, so far as I could tell, is a death in 2006 which was attributable to an injury inflicted 30 years ago -- but take that one out and homicides for 2006 are still more than double what they were in 2005.
The one bit of good news (other than the increased numbers of officers, which I regard as mixed news since we're still so far below the early 2006 numbers) came from a speaker visiting from the mayor's office -- someone (whose name I didn't get to write down and now can't locate online) involved in firearms policy. Considering carrying a gun? Don't. According to this gentleman, as of November, the minimum penalty for carrying a loaded firearm increased from 1 year to 3-1/2 years, and an "interest of justice" exception that was being used by judges in a majority of cases to give less than the minimum sentence was eliminated. If this change gets kids to change their gun-toting practices, it has the potential to have a palpable effect on murder rates -- apparently, those convicted of carrying loaded firearms are 4 times more likely than other felons to commit a homicide within the next 7 years.
With murder numbers like ours compared to the city, we need more attention. Regardless of any absolute shortage of officers, we obviously need a greater proportion of those who are available. At the very least, we need more and more resources until our trend data comes back in line with the rest of the city. And no fair comparing 2007 numbers to the appalling 2006 numbers and claiming things are improving -- we should not be further penalized for last year's failures!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hey uptown mom welcome to the blogging community. I am a Harlem mom too and have just discovered a world of Harlem bloggers. I came across Harlem Bagel today, and now she is gone! But that’s where I found you. I will be sure to check back and see if you have updated your blog with anything new! You have great content.
Hey there uptownmom and suzanne. My family and I are considering moving to the neighborhood (coming from out of state); in particular, moving to one of those new developments on manhattan ave. near 120th. We have one toddler and one newborn (congrats on the twins, uptownmom). I would very much appreciate knowing your feelings on the safety of the area. We walked the neighborhood during the day a few times and it feels fine but we've never been there at night. Also the crime stats do not look encouraging, particularly when you account for the fact that it is a small precinct in terms of space and people. Is there a way to get more details on the crime (e.g. whether they were random)? Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.
Post a Comment