 |
|
|
| |
Opponents: Jim Hahn's Raising the Homicide Rate!
|
1777 Reads
|
|
|
|
| |
 Summer's over, and the gloves are off: Mayor Jim Hahn's blown his chance at making L.A. the "safest big city in America," according to mayoral candidates quoted in today's Times.
Leading the criticism is former LAPD Chief and now-Councilman Bernard Parks, who, as we mentioned earlier, faults Hahn for letting the murder rate rise, but doesn't exactly suggest what he should do to correct this trend.
Parks apparently wants the council's Public Safety Committee to call the LAPD on the carpet to explain its long-term policing strategies for fighting serious crime. Pretty ironic, considering the Times reports that the homicide rate under Chief Bernard Parks rose from 419 a year to 591 before Hahn wisely muscled him out in favor of Chief William Bratton ...
|
|
As of Saturday, there had been 368 homicides in Los Angeles this year, compared with 353 at this time last year, a 4.2% increase. By comparison, New York City experienced a 7.7% drop as of Aug. 15, and Chicago's rate dropped by 25.6% through July 1.
But Los Angeles' overall violent crime, including assaults, rapes and armed robberies, is down 15.2% through Saturday.
"We're going to keep going with the strategies we have," Hahn said. "We're still better off than we were two years ago," the mayor said, referring to the period in which Parks was chief.
The real trick in all this is to parse through the politics: Any good cop or criminal justice number-cruncher will tell you that crime is generally cyclic: rates of murder, rape and assault rise and fall based on many factors including the economy, the weather and a host of other things beyond human control.
Good police work attacks root causes like gang activity, and helps keep the homicide rates generally lower, but blaming the rise in gang activity in Los Angeles during the 80s and 90s - or indeed the homicide rate during Hahn's term - on bad policing is sort of like faulting roofing contractors for the number of wet carpets in Florida this month. Bigger forces are at work.
What's more, unlike other Part 1 crimes, the murder rate the "crime of passion" wild card - a certain number of killings that are completely unpolice-able (if that's a word). I think Bratton's finding success with his "broken windows" approach, as is born out in the substantial drop in the lesser violent crimes.
Not one of the politicians quoted in the Times offers a practical suggestion for reducing the homicide level.
I'm not defending Hahn, but his record on crime is just a big, fat, side-of-the-barn target issue for lazy campaigners - it's important, popular with voters, and ripe for attention-grabbing media coverage (I mean, look at THIS!)
I'll be more interested to hear what practical treatment Parks, Hertzberg, Villaraigosa and Alarcon can apply to L.A.'s other open wounds - gridlocked traffic, substandard public schools, runaway film production, overcrowded jails and so on. Those will require a bit more finesse than just blaming the mayor or strongarming the LAPD.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Posted by: mack_reed on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 08:35 AM
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
