WILLIAM BRATTON, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), likes to say that “cops count”. They certainly seem to count when Mr Bratton is in charge of them. New York’s crime rate withered when he ran its police force in the mid-1990s, and Los Angeles has become more law-abiding ever since he arrived in 2002. Burglaries are down by a fifth, murders by a third and serious assaults by more than half. The setting for innumerable hard-boiled detective novels and violent television dramas is now safer than Salt Lake City in Utah.
Yet Los Angeles’s good fortune is not replicated everywhere. Compared to ten years ago, when crime was in remission across America, the current diagnosis is complex and worrying. Figures released this week by the FBI show that, while property crimes continue to fall, the number of violent crimes has begun to drift upwards. In some places it has soared. Oakland, in northern California, had 145 murders last year””more than half again as many as in 2005. No fewer than 406 people died in Philadelphia, putting the murder rate back where it had been in the bad old days of the early 1990s.
The most consistent and striking trend of the past few years is a benign one. America’s three biggest cities are becoming safer. Robberies in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York have tumbled in the past few years, defying the national trend (see chart). Indeed, the big cities are now holding down increases in overall crime rates. Between 2000 and 2006, for example, the number of murders in America went up by 7%. Were it not for Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, all of which notched many fewer, the increase would have been 11%.
This is especially surprising given the big cities’ recent woes.
Not exactly on subject, but maybe…
The article shows that 200,000 young people and a whole slew of Blacks have disappeared from the three cities; where the heck did they go?????? And what are they doing when they get there?
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
As an explanation on how to explain why crime rates have been creeping up in the last few years, I offer for consideration the following:
INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants
2006 (First Quarter)
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.
86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.
75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.
24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually
53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.
50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border.
71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes”.
47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens.
63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens
66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens.