Posted on 06/24/2006 7:03:13 PM PDT by 1066AD
The Sunday Times June 25, 2006
Murder wave hits US ‘exburbs’ Tony Allen-Mills, New York
THERE were five teenagers in the car rolling quietly through the muggy night an hour before dawn in central New Orleans. By the time the police caught up with them last weekend, they were all dead — riddled with bullets in the worst outbreak of gun violence since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city last year.
An apparent ambush by unknown gunmen in an area still recovering from Katrina’s flooding has delivered a sharp jolt to what many criminologists are describing as complacency about violent crime.
As more than 100 reservist military police and 60 state troopers were sent to reinforce the police last week, New Orleans was emerging as a blood-spattered symbol of an alarming trend in US criminality.
The city that briefly enjoyed a zero murder rate in the wake of the evacuations forced by Katrina is on the way to regaining its status as America’s most dangerous city, even though its population has halved.
After 54 murders this year, New Orleans has become one of the deadliest examples of a rising murder rate that is defying the trends of the past decade and fuelling concern about a crime wave that appears to be spreading to smaller cities and states with little experience of serious gun violence.
From Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cities that rarely make a dent on the FBI’s annual statistical surveys are recording sharp jumps in violent crime.
Researchers are re-examining the factors that may be influencing crime, among them the migration of middle-class populations to the “exurbs”, or distant suburbs, often with weak police forces unable to handle the influx and little experience of urban crime.
Experts say they do not fully understand why murders shot up 10% or more last year in cities such as Buffalo, in New York state, Memphis, in Tennessee, and Little Rock, in Arkansas. But they believe that the distractions of fighting terrorism and a possible migration of criminals chased out of the bigger cities may have contributed to a jump of 5% in America’s overall murder rate last year — the biggest rise in a single year since 1991.
“These are not the bad old days yet,” said Professor Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “But I don’t think it’s a blip on the radar screen either. I think it’s the beginning of a trend and we could see a whole new crime wave.”
For more than a decade American police chiefs have been “sticking their chests out” while claiming credit for falling crime rates, noted Professor Peter Scharf, a criminologist at the University of New Orleans. US crime-fighting techniques such as zero tolerance, computerised analysis and focused deployment of resources have been used around the globe.
Some cities continue to record significant falls in crime — notably New York, where the number of murders dropped again last year to 539 compared with 2,245 in 1990 — and the trend has been reinforced by long prison sentences that keep potential killers off the streets.
Yet police in San Antonio, Texas, have been scratching their heads over the causes of a dramatic 70% increase in the murder rate this year. Traditionally peaceful states such as New Hampshire, Iowa and Kansas are also experiencing violence unknown a decade ago.
In some cities, rises in the murder rate have been linked to the arrival of Katrina evacuees. Yet FBI officials shied away from blaming any single factor for increases elsewhere.
“Our large cities seem to be doing something right,” said Regina Schofield, an assistant attorney-general in the justice department. “We need to find out what’s going on in the smaller cities.”
One official acknowledged that some communities were “less prepared” to deal with the activities of criminal gangs displaced from bigger cities. Richard Hertling of the justice department said he had heard of experienced criminals moving out of California, which has a “three strikes and you’re out” law for repeat offenders, and setting up operations in Nevada, Oregon and Arizona.
Officials are also concerned about the release of thousands of prisoners arrested during the 1980s war on drugs who have now served their sentences.
Several criminologists argue that US officials have been distracted by terrorism since the September 11 attacks and that the government is complacent about ordinary crime. “We’ve been resting on our laurels,” said Levin.
Researchers are re-examining potential crime-breeding factors, from the role of abortions in poor communities — theoretically preventing criminals being born — to the spread of more lethal weapons.
“In West Side Story [the musical] they fought with switchblades,” said Scharf. “Now you might as well be in Falluja. When you give kids automatic weapons nothing good is going to happen.”
Hey, cut the N.O. gangstas a little slack willya, they're trying to catch up as best they can.
Anyway, Detroit has about 6 or 7 times the population of N.O. and a lot of that population migrated there decades ago from southern state ghettos like N.O.'s because of it's auto industry jobs.
As of 2004, Detroit's population dropped to approx. 900,184 and it is still declining.......
I will give you credit tho, at least they are trying.....
Don't leave out Section 8 housing, where the government has decided to spread the rot around and give the hip/hop/thug life style new ground to grow.
That's in the Detroit city limits, most of which is now populated by minorities as the whites move out to the burbs. The greater Detroit metro area outside of the city is much more populous than the inner city, but OTOH the N.O. official population is primarily within the city limits.
The "Principal Agglomerations of the World" web page gives the 2006 figure for Detroit metro area at approximately 5,800,000 including Windsor Ontario just across the St. Clair river, and N.O. metro area at 1,325,000. When you visit both metro areas and drive around quite a bit the difference in size and population is very obvious.
I'm not saying the Detroit gangstas aren't doing a good job of depopulating the inner city by killing off each other for fun and profit, just that the N.O> gangstas are doing the best they can to catch up.
By exurbs he ought to try Aurora, Ill. Now that is an exurb which has seen a significant rise in crime. There are many former Aurorans I know personally living down here in Mississippi who left there because of the gang activity. Many Aurorans extended families: moms, dads, children,aunts,uncles,nephews,nieces,grandparents...whole extended families.
Memphis is not an exurb, but he is correct about it being crime ridden. Funny he did not mention this during the 90's when the crime rate first spiked. Folks in Memphis at one time despised Mississippi; now they are coming here in droves. They all will tell you to stay away from Memphis now.
Crime rate has gone down in New York because the N.Y.P.D started acting like a police force is supposed to. Take no crap whatsoever, you think the guy is pulling out his pistol so he can enact his own rap song, put 30 bullets in him. And Rudy wasn't afraid to let people know if they are friends with criminals, then the cops will treat them just like criminals.
Also, New York is gentrifying, it's not as easy to live there poor as it once was, many areas of Manhattan that were famous for being crime-ridden hellholes have been rehabilitated, and of course, the gays have had something to do with it. If you want to reduce crime in an area, start moving gays into it, because they keep up their homes, they cause property values to rise, and eventually, you tax the poor right out.
Illegals, drug infested criminals from NO, and the 'new welfare' dependents - those on "disability" are the problem.
What brought down the crime rate was welfare reform, and what's going to bring it back up is "disability" payments. Liberals are substituting one for the other - with the same consequences to society.
People who have nothing productive to do and lots of time on their hands, are going to find resentments, drugs, and crime to fill up their useless boredom.
There is no more "White Flight" and hasn't been for a number of years. The only flight taking place now are the gainfully employed blacks who are fleeing for their lives and because of taxes. The remaining 14% white population are made up mostly of elderly and retirees whose homes have virtually no resale value now and they can't afford to move to the suburbs.
My company's plant on Detroit's east side which has a long standing history as a major supplier in the auto industry is closing down. The result is the remaining 350 employees will be out of work with no other non-skilled jobs available in this part of the state.
Just another brick in the wall of Detroit.....
Crime rate has gone down in New York because the N.Y.P.D started acting like a police force is supposed to. Take no crap whatsoever, you think the guy is pulling out his pistol so he can enact his own rap song, put 30 bullets in him. And Rudy wasn't afraid to let people know if they are friends with criminals, then the cops will treat them just like criminals.
Much more complicated than that...
Look up who makes up the percentages of our jail populations.
I was listening to a local radio talk show one afternoon when the topic of "disability" was raised. The guest mentioned a fair number of individuals declared disabled with what was called "authority aversion". Lazy buttwipes who won't work because they don't want to be subordinate to anyone. The result is that they get declared "disabled" and sit at home drawing disability while the rest of us work to generate money to pay the lazy dogs.
Disability is a godsend for those who really need it - and something we should all support. But, as usual, the good intentions of caring people has been exploited by the usual suspects... Disability as welfare substitute is the new crime generating machine -- we could reap the whirlwind on this one.
I haven't been in the Detroit area for several years. It must be going downhill even faster than I thought. What a shame, not too long ago it one of our greatest cities and it's industrial output was the envy of the world. I hope Detroit isn't an omen of what will eventually happen to the rest of the US, but with all our industrial capacity going to Asia as fast as they can build plants over there I don't see how that can't happen.
My 26 year old son has had 4 open heart surgeries. He has had a pacemaker installed since age 15. He has ADD and isn't particularly emotionally mature. That doesn't stop him from getting up 5 days a week to work at Deseret Industries. I'm not certain he will ever be able to make enough money to be self sufficient. His real physical and mental problems go way beyond the lazy buttwipes claiming "authority aversion" to put themselves on the disability dole. My son has thus far eschewed the label "disabled".
The urban blight has been incredible over the past 20 years. While they are working hard on refurbishing the downtown area, expensive condos around Comerica Park and Ford Field and along the river front, the only people buying there are blacks with a lot of money and work downtown. Forget the fact that the majority of the new condo places are gated. Ill never forget a year and a half ago when I attended a Detroit tiger ballgame and we ended up having to take Woodward to get to downtown. You would have thought that you were in a third world country.
Not far from Comerica Park we drove by a relatively new condo complex which my sister suggested i look into buying (Forget the fact that I work in Troy and traffick from downtown Detroit north on I-75 is a bitch during rush hour). Again this was on Woodward and you would not have believed the number of homeless (drunks, druggies and prostitutes) which were hanging out on the street immediately outside the gate of this upscale condo complex!
If anyone thinks they can buy and live in upscale overpriced housing in Downtown Detroit, that is what you have to live with!
Like they say, you can put sunglasses and perfume on a pig............
In retrospect tho, several decades ago Atlanta Georga was considered a hopeless lost city but somehow managed to turn itself around quite admirably. Can Detroit do the same? I really don't know considering the differences in employment demographics. Detroit being automotive assembly and blue collar and Atlanta being white collar and business......
As to your statement that all our industrial capacity is moving to Asia, I have to cordially disagree. For all the industrialization that is moving to Asia, the primary reason is to gain a foothold in automotive sales in those countries and what better way than to build plants there rather than ship vehicles from the U.S..
You also have to take into consideration the number of Japanese auto plants and suppliers that are building here in the United States, heck, even our socialist governor Granholm went to Japan recently in an effort to entice Japanese industries to consider Michigan for their U.S. plants rather than the south or Midwest. But until Michigan becomes a right to work state and these Japanese manufacturers can be guaranteed that they won't have to deal with the U.A.W., they aren't even going to set foot in Michigan.........
LOL, for what its worth, the local 6:00 p.m. news is now reporting about a body found shot in an alley on Detroit's east side..........N.O. has some catchin up to do....
I met a woman who was truly disabled -- but she told me that of her siblings (and there were more than 10) all were on disability. And from her story, I got the impression all of them were - well, to put it mildly - were faking it.
I was in a Social Security office a few years back and more than half the people there were under 35 - many looked like gang bangers and street walkers. I was stunned. I asked a clerk and she said there were there because they were disabled. If you saw them, you would know better.
Next time some democrat tries to scare an old person about their social security - let them know where they're money is going - and why it won't last. The fund wasn't set up to provide 50 and 60 years of benefits to any one person - but that's what's happening. And your son? He might really need the kind of assistance disability was set up to help with - and God only knows if there will be money there for him when the time comes - or for our parents or for ourselves. The usual suspects will drain it dry. When President Bush talked about reform -- the dems just wanted to make sure the "disability" folks were taken care of -- they could care less about people who have paid into the system their whole lives. I have a family member who works with the disabled (the really disabled) and he's concerned too that the fakers will take away support from the people who really need it. What a mess. Not as bad as the illegals, but up there. Well, come to think of it, the dems want to make it possible for illegals to get social security - and for dems, that means disability. Do the dems really hate this country as much as it seems?
A combination of out-of-control borders, drugs, and dysfunctional family life.
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