good news/bad news from the minneapolis police department
I. the good news:
a. the city of minneapolis honors 39 officers today for outstanding valor in the line of duty.
b. official reports of violent crime continue to drop -- about 14 percent from january-june 2008 in comparison to january-june, 2007. this follows a drop of similar magnitude between 2006 and 2007. the numbers look (surprisingly) good for just about every part I crime.
II. the bad news:
city attorneys are advising that the city pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit by five african american police officers alleging discriminatory treatment. such news is disturbing in both its costs to taxpayers and its meaning for the department and the city. i don't have any inside information about the case, but cities are rarely eager to settle on numbers this large without some evidentiary basis for the allegations. as of friday, the city council had yet to approve the settlement.
i've got some excellent former students on the minneapolis police force, so i'd like to think they've played some part in the good news reported above -- and, of course, that they bear no responsibility for the bad news.
posted by christopher uggen @ 12:46 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Just out of a matter of interest, despite the fall in violent crime according to the official stats, would you say the perception of violent crime incidence is much higher and believed to be on the rise?
Good news, though we easily forget that violent crime rose 46 percent in Mpls between 2002 and 2006. So the 20 odd percent drop is good, but there is still a ways to go.
I'd credit it to the increased resources given to MPD in recent years.
They went from over 900 officers in the late 90's to under 800 in the bad years to almost 900 again now. More resources to restart the juvenile unit, strengthen investigative units and interact with the community.
Hopefully this trend continues.
thanks, phil and brad.
i think perceptions are really localized (e.g., my cedar-riverside minnversity neighborhood does not feel safer today than it did two years ago) and often lag the numbers by a year or two. also, unemployment and home foreclosures have been trending upward in minneapolis, which might be contributing to a general sense of uncertainty. plus, nobody ever recognizes that they are living in a "golden age" until the good times are over.
i hear brad on the investments in law enforcement, with the obvious caveat that it isn't just about officer numbers. i remember that the force was up to about 1,000 officers in the bad old (1995-ish) "murderapolis" days.
Yep, officer numbers are just piece of it. I do find it interesting that violent crime did not rise as fast in St. Paul, they kept their officer numbers up during the 2003 state aid drops. Duluth is dropping officers now - be interesting to watch their trends.
One of my favorite articles http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
Levitt suggests that more officers, addressing the crack trade, use of prison and abortion effect crime trends. My thoughts are that more officers leave more resources to address the drug trade. MN has about half the prison pop rate as other states, but we are catching up. We also are using prisons as Asylums, about25% of the prison population in Seriously Mentally Ill. Kinda wonder where those community resources are that were promised when they closed the state hospitals.
As I get older and have kids, not so happy with the abortion link, but in the CJ community I belong to, we often have conversations about "where are the parents" and "kids having kids." If I had a few extra dollars, I'd throw them to pregnancy prevention, to give kids a fighting chance to go to school and become adults before becoming a parent. That's a long-term 15-year plan for crime reduction.
Enough of a sunday morning rant, going out to have some fun at boy scout camp : )
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