Cities see violent crime surge

(Chart, NY Times. Click to enlarge.)

As winter breaks, news comes of a sharp surge in violent crime -- murder, robbery, assaults, gunplay and shootings -- in cities across the country since late 2005.

The NY Times ran the story in Friday's editions ("Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge"), based on a report released by the prestigious organization of law enforcement professionals, the Police Executive Research Forum.

The principal cause, as PERF sees it is --

[E]asy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people.

The Times continues --

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.

“There’s really no rhyme or reason with these homicides,” said Edward Davis, the police commissioner in Boston. “An incident will occur involving disrespect, a fight over a girl. Then there’s a retaliation aspect where if someone shoots someone else; their friends will come back and shoot at the people that did it.”

In Richmond (CA), Chief Chris Magnus said he would often go to the scene of a crime and discover that 30 to 75 rounds had been fired. “It speaks to the level of anger, the indiscriminate nature of the violence,” he said.

As for the effectiveness of some highly touted practices, Rochester (NY) Mayor Robert Duffy, who served as police chief for seven years, thinks something more is needed --

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.

“We’re doing all the right things consistently, but we have not seen relief,” he said. “It takes much more than law enforcement.”

All of this echoes themes that have been brought out by PT and others before.

Plainfield has had CompStat-type internal reporting and planning for several years in the Police Division. An Operation Cease-Fire program is imminent, or so we've been told for the last six months or so.

Unlike Newark, where Mayor Booker has been more proactive about keeping residents informed of the crime picture, Plainfield generally does not discuss stats except when the FBI's annual reports are issued in August or September of each year. Combined with less coverage by the daily papers, Plainfielders are generally being left in the dark about the actual state of affairs regarding crime and crime trends.

But, as PT noted in January, incidents involving guns and gunplay were up sharply in Plainfield in 2006 according to the Star-Ledger, as were robberies and burglaries. Assaults seem to have risen only slightly. And of course, murders were down over 2005 -- thank God! -- though not as a result of any proactive government effort.

How will things play out in Plainfield for the rest of 2007?

No one can know, but if Mayor Duffy of Rochester is right, there is plenty more to do and it will take much more than just law enforcement.

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FURTHER READING

NYT - Article: "Violent Crime in Cities Shows Sharp Surge"
PERF Report: "Violent Crime in America: PERF Report" (PDF)
PERF Homepage: "Police Executive Research Forum"

Plainfield Today posts --

December 03, 2006: "Crime: Good news, bad news" -- The Ledger on guns and gunplay.
January 8, 2007: "Themes you will and [probably] won't hear tonight" -- In advance of the State of the City address.
January 14, 2007: "Guns and violence on everyone's mind"

John Farmer OpEd in the Ledger --

Sunday, January 14, 2007: "Rise in violent crime was predictable"

-- Dan Damon

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ARCHIVED POSTS OF PLAINFIELD TODAY FROM 11/03/2005 THROUGH 12/31/2006 ARE AT
http://plainfieldtoday.blogspot.com/