FBI: Murder Up 13% in 1 Year in Mid-sized Cities

[JPZenger]

FBI: Murders Up 13% in 1 Year in Midsized US Cities

Here's one more example of how the Bush Administration's neglect of urban problems, avoidance of gun control, and reduction in the number of Federally funded police officers is hurting cities. The FBI has submitted a new report showing that there was a major increase in violent crime in many mid-sized US cities across the country. Some of the worst increases were in Hartford, Connecticut, which is a pocket of poverty in the middle of one of the richest states.

There was a 13% increase in the number of murders in cities of between 100,000 and 250,000 population. There was a 12% increase in the number of murders in cities of between 50,000 and 100,000 population.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel06/prelim2005061206.htm

Excerpts:
"By percent change in the number of violent crime offenses in 2005 compared with totals from 2004, cities with populations from 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants saw the greatest increase, 8.3 percent, and cities with populations of 10,000 to 24,999 saw the smallest increase, 0.5 percent...

"...cities with populations from 100,000 to 249,999 had the greatest increase in the number of murders, up 12.5 percent. Cities with 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants experienced the greatest increases in both robbery, 9.9 percent, and aggravated assault, 8.5 percent."

The Midwest experienced the steepest increase in murder rates of the 4 regions of the country, followed by the south and the northeast. More detailed data at:
http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/2005preliminary/05jan-dec.pdf

[OhioChick]

1. These Numbers

will continue to climb as long as the poverty levels do.

On edit: Spelling

[wryter2000]

3. Exactly

Oakland and Richmond, California are battle zones.

[LisaM]

2. Someone tried to steal from our mailboxes Friday

We are on a quiet street in Seattle. People often put their mail out "to go" with the little flag sticking up. I've lived in this house for 12 years and never saw that before.

[tridim]

4. Before 2000, I had one car stereo stolen

And that single incident was in 1988.

After 2000, I've had 3 stereos stolen, two broken windows and two busted locks on my car.

I guess it might be a coincidence, but it's probably not. Petty crime is definitely up.

[sam sarrha]

5. i have been predicting this since we went into Afghanistan.. Heroin

when we went into Panama and released the Cali Cartel banker that Noriega put in jail.. and we not only released him but made him president of Panama.. the quantity of Coke shipped out to the USA from Panama went up 600%.

i knew when we went into Afghanistan that there would be an EPIDEMIC of Heroin soon in the United States. and they had the largest crop of opium in history there a couple of years ago.. the English army was busting heroin factories and we told them to KNOCK IT OFF..

Heroin ='s MURDER, BURGLARY, PEOSTITUTION and increased crime of all kind

especially when all the rehab facilities are disfunded...

[Asgaya Dihi]

8. It's the way we deal with it

Heroin is bad news no doubt but the way we deal with it is what makes it more dangerous. The British medical journal the Lancet just published an article recently showing a 4% a year drop over a roughly 15 year period for a program the Swiss are running. Link to an article on it if you're interested.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/439/swissresults.shtml

The way we've handled it has just increased damage, price is down sharply with greater purity than we used to have and death rates are up sharply as well. Might be interested in a collection of charts showing our progress over the years, it hasn't been good. Everything we've done just resulted in more damage. It's our policies as much as the drug itself, maybe more.

http://www.briancbennett.com/heroin.htm

[Zynx]

13. Exactly. Jump in drug trade = jump in murders

That's just a fact.

[JPZenger]

6. Feds Used to Pay for 118,000 Police Officers

During the Clinton-Gore Administration, the Federal government funded 118,000 police officers in local communities. This program is almost abolished. New York City now has 3,400 fewer police officers than it did a few years ago, while Los Angeles has 435 fewer police officers according to a December 2003 USA Today article. Minneapolis had to reduce their police force by 140 officers because of budget cutbacks. Here's excerpts of that USA Today article:

"Federal, local cuts pull cops off streets
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

The federal program that added more than 100,000 cops to local police forces and helped to cut crime to historically low rates during the past decade is being rolled back because local governments can't afford to keep many of the officers on the street. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program was a hallmark of the Clinton administration, providing more than $8 billion in grants to saturate crime-plagued areas with officers and forging unprecedented ties between cops and neighborhood patrols. From New York to Los Angeles, "community policing" became a symbol of America's frustration with the high crime rates of the early 1990s — and of governments' big spending in a soaring economy.

But now budgets are leaner, and law enforcement analysts say that the largest federally funded buildup of local police in U.S. history is being washed away by cutbacks and retirements...Some police officials, while acknowledging that crime typically rises when the economy is down, believe that the declining number of cops on America's streets has contributed to slight increases in the number of homicides, rapes and burglaries reported nationally during the past two years.

...In Minneapolis, $6 million in COPS grants allowed the police department to hire 81 cops and boost the city's number of officers to 938 by 1997. But officials have had to cut 140 positions since then — including 38 this year. Officers are being shifted from neighborhoods to handle emergency calls; robberies are up by 20% this year, and burglaries are up 3%. "Our long-term, grass-roots initiatives are starting to fade," Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson says. "We're seeing a resurgence in gang activity. We've got gangsters showing up in hospitals with bullets in them. The real impact will be seen in a year or two."

[Zynx]

15. The Republicans hate all government, even police.

Yet, they love to spy on us. Hmmmmm

[benEzra]

16. No, they LOVE government...

as long as they are the ones with the power.

You don't seriously think the people pushing the Big Brother/Surveillance Nation bit are "anti-government," do you?

Big Government repubs are just as suspicious of individualists and civil libertarians as anybody...

[JPZenger]

7. Big Murder Rate Increases in Many Cities

As the Boston Globe reported today: "In Hartford, for example, murders jumped more than 50 percent, from 16 to 25. Murders soared from 59 to 104 in Birmingham, Ala., up 76 percent; from 59 to 85 in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., a 44 percent increase; from 89 to 126 in Kansas City, Mo., a 42 percent rise; from 87 to 122 in Milwaukee, a 40 percent jump; and from 79 to 109 in Cleveland, a 38 percent increase."

The Washington Post today noted murders increased dramatically in cities, including Cleveland (up 38 percent) and Houston (23 percent).

[Deja Q]

9. They only kill each other. Not the rich. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[madmusic]

10. prepare for the "moral panic" spin

It will be the fault of immigration and their gangs. That propaganda machine is already rolling.

[JPZenger]

11. Many cities saw big increases in murders

Excerpts from today's AP Article

"In Philadelphia, homicides jumped from 330 in 2004 to 377 in 2005, a 14 percent increase, according to the FBI. Murders climbed from 272 to 334 in Houston, a 23 percent rise, and from 131 to 144 in Las Vegas, a 10 percent increase.

Some criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime. Crime dropped dramatically during 1990s, and some cities have since abandoned effective programs that emphasized prevention, the putting of more cops on the street, and controls on the spread of guns.

"We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Still, Fox said, "We're still far better off than we were during the double-digit crime inflation we saw in the 1970s."

Murders rose from 59 to 104 in Birmingham, Ala., up 76 percent; from 59 to 85 in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., a 44 percent spike; from 89 to 126 in Kansas City, Mo., a 42 percent rise; from 87 to 122 in Milwaukee, a 40 percent jump; and from 79 to 109 in Cleveland, up 38 percent."

[paparush]

12. We are reaping what Bush has sewn. Violent begetting violence.

"Bring Em On!" The Clueless Cowboy struts and talks tough and smokes em out and 'Murkah just nods, drools, and reloads.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

14. murders up 5% overall, nationwide: stoc market down; all spells doom....

for His Ass-holiness the Dope.