March 9, 2007 Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge By KATE ZERNIKE Violent crime rose by double-digit percentages in cities across the country over the last two years, reversing the declines of the mid-to-late 1990s, according to a new report by a prominent national law enforcement association. While overall crime has been declining nationwide, police officials have been warning of a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005, particularly in midsize cities and the Midwest. Now, they say, two years of data indicates that the spike is more than an aberration. âThere are pockets of crime in this country that are astounding,â said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which is releasing the report on Friday. âItâs gone under the radar screen, but itâs not if youâre living on the north side of Minneapolis or the south side of Los Angeles or in Dorchester, Mass.â Local police departments blame several factors: the spread of methamphetamine use in some Midwestern and Western cities, gangs, high poverty and a record number of people being released from prison. But the biggest theme, they say, is easy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people. âThereâs a mentality among some people that theyâre living some really violent video game,â said Chris Magnus, the police chief in Richmond, Calif., north of San Francisco, where homicides rose 20 percent and gun assaults 65 percent from 2004 to 2006. âWhatâs disturbing is that you see that the bloodâs real, the deathâs real.â The research forum surveyed 56 cities and sheriffsâ departments â as small as Appleton Wis., about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, and as large as Chicago and Houston. Over all, from 2004 to 2006, homicides increased 10 percent and robberies 12 percent. Aggravated assault, which is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by a means likely to produce severe injury or death, according to an F.B.I. Web site, increased at a relatively modest 3 percent, but aggravated assaults with guns rose 10 percent. And some cities saw far higher spikes. Homicides increased 20 percent or more in cities including Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford, Memphis and Orlando, Fla. Robberies went up more than 30 percent in places including Detroit, Fort Wayne, Ind., and Milwaukee. Aggravated assaults with guns were up more than 30 percent in cities like Boston, Sacramento, St. Louis and Rochester. Seventy-one percent of the cities surveyed had an increase in homicides, 80 percent had an increase in robberies, and 67 percent reported an increase in aggravated assaults with guns. This study relies on numbers from cities, rather than yearly F.B.I. totals, which are typically released in the fall. The group collected similar numbers last year, and those numbers were largely borne out by the data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Police chiefs say the trends in aggravated assaults are particularly alarming. They are often considered a better gauge of violence than homicides; the difference between the two is often poor marksmanship or good medical care. âHad we not had some of the trauma rooms we have here in Rochester, our homicide numbers would be higher,â said Mayor Robert Duffy, who served as a police chief for seven years. While murder rates hit 11-year highs in places like Boston, police officials note that they are not seeing the highs of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack cocaine fueled spikes, particularly in large cities. Some cities like Denver and Washington had declines in homicides. Still, the overall trend is mirrored in other places not covered by the report. New York City, for example, which had enjoyed remarkable declines and seemed immune to the rising murder rate elsewhere in 2005, reported a 10 percent increase in homicides in 2006. In Chicago, which had been cited as another model of declining violence, homicides rose 4 percent from 2004 to 2006. Police officials say the violence tends to happen among young men in their late teens and early to mid-20s. In some cases, it is random. But in many cases, it is among people who know one another, or between gangs, as a way to settle disputes. Arguments that 20 years ago would have led to fistfights, police chiefs say, now lead to guns. âThereâs really no rhyme or reason with these homicides,â said Edward Davis, the police commissioner in Boston. âAn incident will occur involving disrespect, a fight over a girl. Then thereâs a retaliation aspect where if someone shoots someone else; their friends will come back and shoot at the people that did it.â In Richmond, Chief Magnus said he would often go to the scene of a crime and discover that 30 to 75 rounds had been fired. âIt speaks to the level of anger, the indiscriminate nature of the violence,â he said. âI go to meetings, and you start talking to some of the people in the neighborhoods about whoâs been a victim of violence, and people can start reciting: âOne of my sons was killed, one of my nephews,â â he said. âItâs hard to find people who havenât been touched by this kind of violence.â Many chiefs blame the federal government for reducing police programs that they say helped cut crime in the 1990s. But they also say the problem is economic and social. âWe seem to be dealing with an awful lot of people who have zero conflict-resolution skills,â Chief Magnus said. In Rochester, Mr. Duffy said his city had the stateâs highest dropout rate â half of all students drop outâ and the highest child poverty rate, with 40 percent of children under 18 living below poverty level. âThereâs a direct correlation between the kids who drop out of our high schools who get involved in selling drugs and who end up in homicides,â Mr. Duffy said. As a police chief, Mr. Duffy brought in programs that had reduced crime in other cities: a project cease-fire to end gun violence, a Compstat data collection program to identify the areas of most stubborn crime. But it has not helped. âWeâre doing all the right things consistently, but we have not seen relief,â he said. âIt takes much more than law enforcement.â http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/us/09crime.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
The chicken's are coming home to roast, there are at least two generations of black youth that are basically uneducated, unemployable, angry and armed. I almost beat the hell out of a black dude the other night in a pub over a conversation similiar to this. He wanted to blame me, and my white accomplices for the poor state of education. (I didn't even have to resort to the story of my grandfather who was educated in a one-room-school house, that they kept heated with the wood the kids chopped) OReilly is right. There are plenty of dregs in society willing to cash in their morality for a dime. Gutter music aside, if anyone has the ever had the misfortune of clicking on a "Girls Gone Wild" commericial, you've seen they've been prostituting america's future for all of us to see for years. Faimly Values? It was worth a try. The detractors pointed at a reverand getting a gay handjob and debunked the whole concept. Catchy tune, not exactly "Singing in the Rain" ... http://lyrics.astraweb.com/browse/bands/4/Ludacris.html Ludacris] DRAH! 2 Fast... DRAH! 2 Furious... I'M TOO FAST FOR Y'ALL MAYN! DRAH! 2 Fast... DRAH! 2 Furious... OHH! I'M TOO FAST FOR Y'ALL MAYN! [Chorus: Ludacris] AHH, you just came home from doin a bid Tell me whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Somebody broke in and cleaned out your crib BOY whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Just bought a new pair and they scuffed your shoes Tell me whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Now them cops tryna throw you in them county blues BOY whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL [Ludacris] Talkin about gats, traps, cops and robbers It's 9-1-1, PLEASE CALL THE DOCTOR Evacuate the building and trick the pigs Since everybody wanna piece, we gon split ya wigs See some fools slipped up and over-stepped they boundaries You about to catch a cold, STAY THE FUCK AROUND FROM ME Ya peeps talkin 'bout what kinda shits he on You disappear like "POOF, BITCH BE GONE" You think twelve gon catch me, GIMMIE A BREAK I'm super-charged with the hide-away license plate It seems they wanna finger print me and gimmie some years They'll only get one finger while I'm shifting gears I got suede on my roof. wood grain on the dash Sheep skin on the rug, +Golden Grain+ on the stash Hydraulics all around so I shake the ride We go FRONT, BACK AND SIDE TO SIDE, WHAT [Chorus: Ludacris] Some punk just tripped up and made you spill your drink Tell me whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Now your car just stopped on a empty tank BOY whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL If you got late bills and you lost your job Tell me whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL If you about to get drunk and you ready to mob BOY whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL [Ludacris] Let's take it to the streets cuz I'm ready to cruise Just bought me and my cars all some brand new shoes And the people just stare so I LOVE TO PARK IT And I just put a computer in the glove compartment With the petal to the floor, radar in the GRILLE TV in the middle of my STEERING WHEEL It's my car's birthday so we BLOWIN THEM CANDLES More speakers in the trunk than my ride can handle Got my name in the headrest, read it and weep NOS tank in the back, camel hair on the seat and when I pull up to the club, I get all the affection Cuz the women love the paint and they can see their reflection I'm about to take off, so F what ya heard Because my side mirrors flap like a FUCKIN BIRD And the fools, we gon CLOCK ONE and we'll POP ONE Cuz my folk ridin shotgun with a shotgun [Chorus: Ludacris] You just got hustled for a wire of cash Man whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Now your friends just smoked up your brand new stash Say whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL Now them gulls up the block still runnin they mouth BOY whatcha gon do? ACT A FOOL If anyone talk bad about the Dirty South Tell me what I'M gon do? ACT A FOOL [Ludacris] I got my eyes wide shut and my trunk wide open Did donuts last week and the streets still smoking ...
Without blacks and Mexican's American cities would be virtually crime free. The statistics understate the problem. With more and more unsolved crimes (statistics only show who's ARRESTED) it's hard to get a grip on the extreme racial divide.
http://bci.utah.gov/Stats/StatsHome.html More Utah <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1389754>
You made my point. Lily white Utah has less murders than several police districts in Los Angeles...... Blacks make up around 1% of Utah's population yet commit 14% of Utah's murders. That's statistically significant. Now perhaps you can see the skew towards lawlessness when a city is 35% black.
I agree, ZZZZ's stats are completely idiotic to make his point. I lived in Utah for 10 years. Its almost entirely white, except western SLC, which has a decent sized hispanic population. There is also a large native American population, but most are on reservations. So, of course whites commit most crimes there, but at a much lower percentage than the population would suggest. I lived in both Salt Lake City, and Park City. Never locked my home unless I was away on vacation for an extended time. Rarely locked my car either. I didn't know anyone who had ever been assaulted other than a bar brawl. I didn't know anyone who had ever had their home robbed either.
I did not make your point at all. We can take any area of the country, and we will find crime by whites. Your use of the term "virturally" crime free is what I object to... Prison populations nation wide are not "virtually" all black and hispanic. I don't argue that the percentage of crime by black are higher, but rather than apply racist conclusions that I find are so common here at ET, I am applying just scientific observation. If we were to filter the crime results by economic status, say take only those who have incomes in the six digit realm or higher (no, not drug dealers...but law abiding businessmen) then analyze white to black, or white to hispanic, etc. the conclusion that I believe a rational non racial person would make is that poor blacks and hispanics are convicted of more crimes. So, why is it that more poor blacks and poor hispanics are engaged in more crime per capita than whites? This then becomes a sociological issue, not really one of race per say. Then the solutions becomes a sociological solution, not a racial issue per say. It is not that I don't think we have a problem, and no, I don't think that necessarily pouring money on the problem is going to fix the problem, and yes black and Hispanic community has to take the major responsibility. But let's consider this. Imagine if we suddenly legalized drugs, legalized prostitution and made both affordable to the low income districts. How would that impact crime statistics on the basis of race? See, the issue really isn't not about race, it is about the condition and culture, the family history, etc. of the particular situations, and the socioeconomic conditions. The growing disparity in income in this country, the lack of education and opportunity is what ultimately leads to crime...not race.
In Utah, you are much more likely to become a victim of a multi level telemarketing scam, than get your Escalade jacked.