Potential cures for city’s crime problem
Hat Tip: Leonard Sparks
BALTIMORE-
And as Baltimore’s number climbs, 193 at press time, it becomes apparent that this urban center is not the only one with the mounting problem. Philadelphia registers 251 homicides, 12 more than this time last year when their total reached an all time high of 402; Miami has 56 compared with 39 this time last year and a 2006 total of 77. Washington, D.C. is actually seeing a reduction—106, down two from this time last year—as is Newark, N.J. with three fewer homicides than the 63 of last year but was recently thrust into the spotlight with the execution style shooting of four college students, one of whom survived the tragedy.
And while the killings mount, as do the suggested solutions, some say Baltimore’s seemingly crime-plan-resistant problem can only be significantly altered by stable leadership in the Police Department, harsher sentences and cures that tackle the city’s enervating blend of poverty, illegal drug use and poor-performing public schools.
“I do not envy the individuals who are responsible, politically and otherwise, for addressing Baltimore’s homicide problem,” said Tara Andrews, deputy executive director of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and a one-time candidate for state Senate. “It has defied even the good stuff.”
Between 2006 and 1999, the last year killings reached the magic number of 300, homicides bottomed out at 253 in 2002, and have increased the past two years. Andrews said the city was able to “put the lid” on the problem.
“I think in all the transition between O’Malley and Sheila [Dixon], I think that transition revealed [that] all we had managed was to put a lid on it, but we had not managed to really address the root causes.”
In terms of law enforcement, Andrews said the Baltimore City Police Department has suffered from political micromanaging from the mayor’s office and the lack of stability in the police commissioner’s spot.
“If the argument could be made that by churning through all of these commissioners, the city was actually getting safer, then maybe there’d be reason to not be worried,” she said. Â
“But the fact that we continue to churn through so many different commissioners with different leadership styles and different strategies … and Baltimore City is still not getting safer, I think that’s a very bad and sad omen for the city.”
Of the city’s last three mayors, she said, none had first-hand experience about street-level crime-fighting.
“Until we get someone who can identify someone that they trust to do the job, and then are willing to back that person up 100 percent … we’re not going to get anywhere,” she said.
“You put one plan in place, and 18 months later, it’s a different plan and 18 months after that it’s a different plan. And no organization can function like that.”
Andrews said that the city also needs to heal community-law enforcement relations wounded by former Mayor Martin O’Malley’s emphasis on “zero-tolerance” policing.
The focus on quality-of-life crimes like loitering not only filled Central Booking, but exacerbated already-existing tensions between residents and police officers. Citizens, she said, could be the Police Department’s greatest ally.”
“It hurt the credibility of the Baltimore City Police Department,” Andrews said. “I don’t care how much goodwill you have as an elected official or a law enforcement officer. If the citizens don’t trust you, if they’re afraid of you, if they don’t believe your good intentions, if they cannot sense your goodwill, they’re not going to cooperate with you to the extent that they should.”
The Rev. Heber M. Brown III, a member of Young Clergy for Social Change, said that the emphasis on gang- and drug-related crime should be accompanied by a focus on systemic issues, like stifling the flow of drugs into the city and combating social injustice.
“Gentrification issues, poor schools, unemployment, liquor stores on almost every corner,” he said. “I was in a community … and a liquor store was open at 9 a.m. And people were in there and getting their drink for the day.”
Brown said that public officials should consider the role that the city and institutions play in sustaining a stock of vacant properties estimated at 40,000.
“When we look at [Johns Hopkins Hospital] and the city, land-banking and buying up a lot of properties and then just letting it sit there, a lot of these vacant and abandoned and boarded-up houses become crackhouses or drug-stash locations or prostitution locations,” Brown said. “You have to look at how our official policies are helping to aid a criminal culture.”
Mark Washington, president of the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello Community Association, said he would like to see crime addressed “collectively.”
Of particular concern to his Northeast Baltimore community, which has been designated a high-crime area as part of the city’s C-SAFE [Collaborative Supervision and Focused Enforcement Program] program is that light sentences are given to some convicted criminals, Washington said.
“It constantly keeps that revolving door in operation,” he said. “What we have been asking for, for the last 3 1/2 years—just so we can have an opportunity to catch our breath—is that federal sentencing guidelines be applied to this C-SAFE area.”
Along with harsher sentencing, Washington also suggests that state and local legislators tighten restrictions on gun and bullet purchases, and that they create an 18-month detention program for nonviolent drug offenders that would combine treatment with job training.
But the ultimate solutions are an improved education system, early childhood interventions and economic opportunity, Washington said. Those panaceas, he said, are neglected by public officials who find it easier to embrace “getting tough” approaches.
“Most of the major candidates have been elected officials for quite some time. When they initially ran for their offices in City Council, I can remember vividly that the majority of their platforms were that they were going to improve public safety,” Washington said.
“So the question has to be, in the 12 to 14 to 16 years that a number of the major candidates have been in political office … why have things gotten worse?”
August 13th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Worse than MIAMI?? Dang…