Shocking, Strib - Crime Up ‘Sharply’ in Minneapolis
Posted by Andy on December 29th, 2006
Well the Strib does finally admit crime is up sharply in Minneapolis, but they do it a bit too late.
Reports of violent crime in Minneapolis rose 17 percent through Monday, compared with the same time in 2005, driven by a continued proliferation of aggravated assaults and robberies.
The year-end number of homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies will be the highest since 1997. And the department’s Fourth Precinct, which makes up the North Side, is again facing double-digit-percentage increases in overall serious crime reports.
The story is pretty much a fluff piece with no real meat. There is one small hint at one of the major factors though.
Every crime expert offers a variety of theories on why homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies are back on the rise, including a decrease in police staffing levels, easier access to guns, high recidivism rates and even the glamorization of violence or crime becoming “a sport.”
recidivist |riˈsidəvist| noun a convicted criminal who reoffends, esp. repeatedly.
Now who could be responsible for that I wonder? Of course that person is left out of the story completely. And I am sure she was unavailable for comment while traveling.
Look, I’m not surprised the Strib left out the entire role the justice system covering Minneapolis plays. Lord knows they did everything they could to protect the former County Attorney from any connection to the rising crime during the Senate campaign this year.
She was given, or rather, allowed to take credit for the fall of crime from 97 to the early 2000’s, but not responsible for any of its rapid climb the last year or two. It is a shame, because this has so much more to it than just the Senate race.
In Minneapolis, serious crime, which includes the violent crime categories plus theft, arson and burglary, increased 4.3 percent this year. So far this year, there have been 59 homicides compared with 49 in 2005. The sale or purchase of marijuana was the motive behind 10 of them.
As of Monday, Minneapolis had nearly 1,000 more robberies and aggravated assaults than the same time last year. Robberies increased 19 percent, down from a 36 percent rise as of June.
Well, gee, do you notice something? It seems that after June, things got better. What could have happened in June. Well, Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak finally realized he couldn’t keep cutting cops for green projects. And Amy Klobuchar was an absentee County Attorney as she spent all her time on the campaign trail and the day to day decisions on justice were not in her hands anymore.
The attention the blogs gave crime in Minneapolis definitely did change the tactics of those entrusted to deal with it. Once there was pressure and blame being passed around, officials finally did something about it. Its too bad that these people didn’t take their jobs seriously at first though.
59 murders, over 3000 robberies, hundreds of rapes, and countless other violent crimes. What is always lost in these events are the victims. For every crime committed in Minneapolis last year, some one or many were left to pick up the pieces. In 2006 there were more than there should have been if you ask me.
Let’s only hope with one factor of the problem now off to DC to be derelict in the US Senate, those who are still here will take their jobs more seriously and do a better job in 2007. There is definitely room to improve this situation, time will tell if they are up to it.
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December 29th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Looks like I am adding you to my blog tour. Yoiu are right in one of the areas of concern in this country, I do believe. I’ll be curious to hear your take on things when Conyers starts hyping his pro-Jihadist legislation, HR 288 I believe is the number.
Anyway, Happy New Year!
December 29th, 2006 at 11:28 am
“The attention the blogs gave crime in Minneapolis definitely did change the tactics of those entrusted to deal with it.”
boy do you ever have a false sense of reality when it comes to how much impact blogs actually have at this point
December 29th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Murder and violent crime is up across the nation in all metro areas, many that had shown some ability to sustain the record lows of the 1990’s (I know, that was due to Reagan). Some of these cities have Republican leadership running them. Its a trend that can be traced to economics. I know, the economy is doing well.
Back to Minneapolis. You think the Cops got anything to do with this? Their union consistently endorses Republicans, maybe that why they have been left out.
What about the Governor? The governor appoints the judges. There hasn’t been a Democratic Governor elected in 20 years.
December 29th, 2006 at 11:44 am
also, by Andy’s logic, since A-Klo was more focused on her Senate race the last 2 years, that’s when crime increased… so by his way of logic & reasoning, he’s admitted that crime was lower on A-Klo’s watch than without (and thus the increase this year with her not doing her job as CA full time…
not saying i agree or disagree with that, just pointing out his way of reasoning)
December 29th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Somebody will pounce on me if I’m wrong, but I believe the biggest criticism of our new Junior Senator (Dayton in drag) was that she promised “no plea bargains” and then delivered nothing but. Such free passes to major crimes are the largest single element in a crime increase, since absent commensurate punishment, all deterrent value is lost. There are other factors, of course. Reduced policing leads to fewer arrests, but weak prosecution leads to more repeat offenses and lower police interest in pursuing them, too. It seems to me that much of this can legitimately be laid at the clay feet of our past prosecutor.
December 29th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
fwiw, as someone with a friend in prison, harsher punishments aren’t nearly as much of a deterrent for hard criminals we’d like to think they are. the punishment or consequences never really come into question for about 9 outta 10 felony crimes, especially things such as murder, rape, etc. they rarely even strike with the thought of possibly being caught, so obviously the punishment that they may incur if caught is even less of a deterrent.
December 29th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
not that i’m saying lessen the punishment or give everyone plea bargains, just making a statement that stricter punishments do not = less crime most of the time.
December 29th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Chicago violent crime down but murder rates up http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_356094346.html
Crime down 8% in Los Angeles
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20061227-11100800-bc-us-lacrime.xml
That is what I came up with on the fly. Maybe I can find more later.
December 29th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Montana - agreed, stronger sentences might not be the total cure but what do you say we put a few of the perps in jail for ANY length of time. Any punishment might be a deterrent for robbery and assualt!
LL
December 29th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
i just read an article the other day about Murder being up quite a bit in NYC (after being down to the levels of much much smaller cities over the last decade)
LL, agreed, i have no problem with longer/stricter sentences for those people who are 100% without a doubt guilty & convicted, i just don’t see stricter punishments as being much of a deterrent to a hardened criminal, especially in cases of murder, that’s all.
December 29th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
According to FBI recent statistics:
Murder is up in Chicago, New York, Houston, Oakland (57%), Cincinnati (record high), Philadelphia and New Haven, Conn.
Cities like Los Angeles (’Hollyweird’) and San Francisco(Pelosi town) are recording decreases in the murder rate.
I went with murder because its a crime that is prosecuted by District Attorneys and County Attorneys. It makes it relevant to the A-Klo theory that Andy is putting forth. Some violent crime is handled by the city and other by the States Attorney depending on what region you’re in. Murder is the consistent factor.
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I think very strict punishment for first time offenders and young people coupled with either a skill training program and/or drug rehab program is the best effort to curb repeat offenders.
You catch them early, make them pay heavily, offer an out that will useful to society (trainings and getting clean) and then you have a much better chance of creating someone who can be contributing rather than taking.
As far as the repeat offenders now. I don’t know. More policing for sure and crime prevention programs like neighbor patrols (in groups of course), but I’m thinking about an exchange program. WHen we jail them, we exchange them to another state in a different time zone. That way, while serving time, they are there with strangers and outside contact doesn’t matter as much. You’d be surprised how many people are still dealing from behind bars, or how many of them go to jail just find many of their boys inside with them. It’s like summer camp. This program will mean that we take offenders from other states (like Wyoming and Georgia).
December 29th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Montana - if the story was in the NY Times, those statistics were for 2005.
DJZ - how about a link? Everything I saw reported in the papers for LA and Chicago say different!
December 29th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_re_us/murder_toll_10
After many years of decline, the number of murders climbed this year in New York and many other major U.S. cities, reaching their highest levels in a decade in some places. Among the reasons given: gangs, drugs, the easy availability of illegal guns, a disturbing tendency among young people to pull guns when they do not get the respect they demand, and, in Houston at least, an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
In New York, where the city reported 579 homicides through Dec. 24 — a nearly 10 percent increase from the year before — the spike is mostly the result of an unusually large number of “reclassified homicides,” or those involving victims who were shot or stabbed years ago but did not die until this year. Thirty-five such deaths have been added to this year’s toll, compared with an annual average of about a dozen.
At the same time, Police Department spokesman Paul Browne noted that this year’s total is only slightly higher than last year’s 539 homicides — the city’s lowest death toll in more than 40 years.
Browne blamed the rise in part on the availability of guns, particularly weapons from out of state. The city this year sued dozens of out-of-state gun shops that it says are responsible for many of the illegal weapons on the streets of New York.
In Chicago, homicides through the first 11 months of the year were up 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2005, reversing a four-year decline. A police spokeswoman said gang violence has been a contributing factor.
In New Haven, Conn., there were 23 homicides as of Tuesday, compared with 15 in 2004 and in 2005. Police Chief Francisco Ortiz said that about half of this year’s killings involve young people settling disputes with guns instead of fists.
“They’re all struggling with this thing about respect and pride,” Ortiz said. “It’s about respect. It’s about revenge. It’s about having a reputation. It’s about turf and it’s about girls.”
Houston police attribute the 15 percent increase in the homicide count to the influx of Katrina evacuees from the Gulf Coast.
“So we expect that to settle,” Lt. Murray Smith said. “We’re hoping it will go down.”
New Orleans, with its post-Katrina exodus, is the only major U.S. city that saw a sharp decline in the number of homicides. There were 154 in New Orleans this year as of Monday, said police spokesman Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson, down from 210 in 2005. But the city was largely empty during the fall and winter of 2005-06, and even now has only about half of its pre-Katrina population of 455,000.
Some cities, like Cincinnati — which has had 83 homicides so far, up from 79 in 2005 — posted their highest numbers ever. Others saw their highest death tolls in years.
Oakland, Calif., had 148 homicides as of Wednesday, up 57 percent from last year and the highest in more than a decade. Philadelphia’s 2006 homicide total was 403 as of Wednesday, the first time the number has topped 400 in nearly a decade. There were 380 killings in all of 2005.
Philadelphia officials have struggled all year to reduce the violence. In July, Mayor John F. Street gave a televised address in which pleaded with young people: “Lay down your weapons. Do it now. Choose education over violence.”
A few cities reported slight decreases in murders. Los Angeles’ total was down about 4 percent to 464 homicides through Dec. 23. San Francisco’s fell about 15 percent. San Francisco Police Sgt. Steve Mannina said the drop is partly due to increased patrols in violence-prone areas and more overtime approved by the police chief.
The
FBI does not release its national crime statistics until several months after the end of the year. The bureau’s statistics for the first six months of 2006 showed an increase of 1.4 percent in the number of murders in the first half of 2006 compared with the first six months of 2005.
Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at John Jay College in New York, said that while there are various theories for the drop in murders in New York and other cities in the 1990s, no one knows for sure why it happened. And if they are going up again, no one knows the reason for that, either, he said.
He noted that police departments tend to take credit when the murder rate goes down. “When crime goes up it will be interesting to see whether they will accept responsibility,” Karmen said.
December 29th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371091/
December 29th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Thanks guys - you covered murder - what about other violent crimes? The story that AAA first posted was for ALL violent crime and not just murder…..
December 29th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
The Chicago story that I first linked even said “Murder up but violent crime DOWN”.
LL
December 30th, 2006 at 1:57 am
right, but we only stated Murder, not like we were claiming otherwise
December 30th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Yes but Andy’s story was on violent crime overall…..We should be comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges. That’s one reason why I didn’t post the murder storys.
December 30th, 2006 at 11:33 am
You don’t understand LL, anything to try to discredit me is OK. Yes, taking a story about one thing, then YOU are supposed to change the subject entirely in the comments, that way they can claim I make no sense. Pay attention, it is the feverswamp comment troll way.
December 30th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Ummm, Scroll back I did explain why I went with the murder rate. I’ll repeat it,
“I went with murder because its a crime that is prosecuted by District Attorneys and County Attorneys. It makes it relevant to the A-Klo theory that Andy is putting forth. Some violent crime is handled by the city and other by the States Attorney depending on what region you’re in. Murder is the consistent factor.”
December 30th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Andy, you did the same exact thing yourself in the thread below this. Pot. Kettle. Black.
December 31st, 2006 at 3:17 pm
So DJ are you really saying that the DA doesn’t prosecute crimes other than murder? Are you really saying the don’t prosecute rape and robbery and fraud, because if you are then Ms. Klobuchar could be herself prosecuted for prosecutorial malfeasance.
LL
December 31st, 2006 at 4:33 pm
*sigh*
I’m saying that the DA doesn’t have the same jurisdiction over crime in every state.
For instance in Chicago, the city attorney and states attorney office handle a lot of violent crime that our AG office and city attorneys do not. It’s all about how the different state consitutions and local ordinances over crime. The one thing that’s consistent are the murder charges. The DA seems to have jurisdiction over these cases across the board.
So, comparing murder rates is applicable to DA and CA offices across the board. Violent crime is too generic a term that is broad in actual crime activity.
If the murder rate is going up in major metro areas across the nation, then its hard for you to lay your arguement at the feet of a lone Prosecutor. It’s, illogical.
Didn’t the people of Minnesota already decide that Amy Klobuchar was good enough to be their Senator and Mark Kennedy, who was already serving in Congress didn’t measure up?
December 31st, 2006 at 8:49 pm
No but the DA DOES have jurisdiction over his/her county. Since we ARE talking about Minneapolis (Hennepin County) as opposed to St Paul (Ramsey County) or Duluth (St. Louis County). This is not Chicago, this is Minnesota. The DA may not have jurisdiction over federal cases, but over rape and robbery and murder in her county, Ms. Klobuchar HAD jurisdiction.
LL
January 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
From today’s Chicago Sun Times DJ - Homicides up but VIOLENT CRIME DOWN!
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/193998,CST-NWS-crime02.article
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 am
I’m gonna cry…
I used murder (which you admit is up) because its the consistent crime that…nevermind. I give up.