Conservative Musings

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Showing posts with label crime statistics. Show all posts

Friday, December 30, 2016

"Broken Windows" Works And Chicago Proves It.

Black Lives Matter gets what it wants in Chicago — and crime is skyrocketing

Carlos Garcia 4 hours

Demonstrators protest the fatal police shooting of Paul O'Neal Aug. 7 in Chicago, Illinois. (Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

Law enforcement advocate Heather MacDonald documented some new statistics in the New York Post that challenge the narrative coming from the Black Lives Matter movement.

Focusing on Chicago, America’s petri dish of liberal policies, MacDonald reveals that arrests and overall policing is in decline in the city:

Arrests are down 28 percent this year in the Windy City, the lowest since at least 2001, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and less than half what they were in 2010. Drug arrests are down by half. Pedestrian stops were down 82 percent by early fall.

But rather than launching it into a new golden age of peace and prosperity, Chicago is experiencing a renaissance of crime:

So far this year, 4,334 people have been shot in Chicago: one person every two hours. Almost all the victims have been black. The police have shot 25 people, virtually all armed or otherwise dangerous — less than .6 percent of the total.

This is a drastic increase from last year, when 2,989 people were shot, and there were 492 homicides. Shootings have increased 45 percent over last year, and homicides have increased 56.5 percent, according to the Chicago Tribune. Less than 1 percent of the shootings have been by the police, and yet Black Lives Matter focuses on this minuscule number instead of the real threat to the black community represented by the rest of the 99.4 percent of shootings.

MacDonald says the real culprit is what academics and social justice groups have actually advocated as the solution to high crime rates: de-policing and the undoing of “broken window” policies that help deter greater crimes by targeting lesser criminals before they get a chance to expand their criminal activities.

She hopes that this will highlight the devastating consequences of de-policing to prevent other cities from implementing the policies that have caused so much misery in the beleaguered city of Chicago.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Crime Down, Gun Ownership Up--Is Their Correlation?

Brand New FBI Stats DESTROY Liberal Gun Control Arguments

BY KIMBERLY MORIN - 44 COMMENTS · IN SECOND AMENDMENT

Once again the FBI has released previous year statistics on violent crime in the United Sates and once again violent crime has gone down.

Gun ownership, based on NICS background data checks, is down compared to 2013 but overall still up over past years.

From the National Shooting Sports Foundation:

The FBI this month released the 2014 edition of Crime in the United States , and it revealed that the estimated number of reported violent crimes decreased 0.2 percent when compared with 2013. And the estimated number of property crimes decreased 4.3 percent from 2013 levels.

Homicides with firearms in 2014 were down 3.9 percent on a year-over-year basis. Consistent with previous years of this ongoing work, the vast majority of these murders were committed with handguns, although all categories of gun murders were lower. Rifles of all kinds were involved in just 3 percent of gun murders in 2014, lower than the number of deaths attributable to knives, blunt objects, and even fists or feet.

Using NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data over a ten-year period since 2005, the best proxy we have for firearms sales, we see a 74.1 percent increase in background checks even as the violent crime fell 16.2 percent. The 15-year trend is even more dramatic, showing an 81.8 percent increase in NICS numbers even as violent crime fell 18.2 percent.

Put simply, more firearms in the hands of the mostly law-abiding American population have not yielded an increase in crime.

You’ll never see facts like this discussed from the gun control crowd. Facts are not their friend.

The trend over the past 10 to 15 years has been a steady increase of gun ownership with a steady decrease of violent crime. How can one not believe these aren’t related?

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Crime Stats Are Exploding Throughout The Country. It Will Only Get Worse This Summer. Better Arm Yourself Now, Police Will NOT Be Available!

WSJ: Gun Violence Increasing as Police Departments' Hands Tied by Rules

Saturday, 30 May 2015 01:43 PM

By Sandy Fitzgerald

Gun violence is climbing in the nation's cities, marking a likely end to the 20-year national decline in the crime rates, because of changing laws that make it more difficult for police to do their jobs, according to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

"Crime is the worst I've ever seen it,' said St. Louis Alderman Joe Vaccaro during a City Hall hearing earlier this month, writes Heather Mac Donald, a Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute in her article.

In St. Louis alone, shootings are up by 39 percent, robberies by 43 percent,and homicides by 25 percent.

St. Louis is not the only city seeing increases. According to Baltimore police, gun violence in that city is up by more than 60 percent over last year, with 32 shootings occurring over Memorial Day weekend alone, making May the most violent month the city has experienced in the past 15 years.

Homicides were up by 180 percent in Milwaukee by May 17, over the same period from last year. In Atlanta, murders went up by 32 percent by mid-May, and in Chicago, homicides went up by 17 percent and shootings by 24 percent. New York marked a murder rate rise of nearly 13 percent and gun violence by 7 percent, and violent felonies in Los Angeles went up by 25 percent, MacDonald writes.

Even worse, neighborhood level crime climbed even more, with shooting incidents going up by 500 percent in New York's East Harlem Precinct.

Just last year, though, the first six months of 2014 marked a drop in violent crime nationally, with a 4.6 drop noted.

Mac Donald said the rise in crime may be because of the growing unrest over the nation's police departments in recent months, following the deaths of unarmed black men including
Ferguson's Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Staten Island.

The deaths have brought riots, and the murders of police officers has also gone up. Mac Donald notes that President Barack Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder have "embraced the conceit that law enforcement in black communities is infected by bias," and the media is also putting out a stream of stories about the "alleged police mistreatment of blacks."

As a result, she said, almost any police shooting that involves a black person "no matter how threatening the behavior that provoked the shooting," brings angry protests, and acquittals of police officers for using deadly force often brings violence, with the result being what St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson has called the "Ferguson effect."

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Detroit Chief Nails It. Citizens Must Defend Themselves And Not Depend On Police.

Wild, Wild Midwest: A rash of 'justified homicides' in Detroit

Detroit'€™s police chief believes gun ownership reduces crime; but critics accuse him of encouraging vigilantism

June 15, 2014 2:00PM ET

by Lori Jane Gliha

Watch part one and two of Lori Jane Gliha's report

Lumyra Mitchell, a 27-year-old cake baker and mother of two, never thought she’d ever shoot at a person. It had been years since she touched her family’s semi-automatic rifle, which they kept high on a shelf in their upstairs bedroom closet, until one evening in February, when Mitchell heard some noises on the back porch.

A few weeks earlier, someone had tried to break into their Detroit home, but Mitchell said she scared the person off “just by screaming and hollering.” This time was different. Her husband was away, and she was upstairs with her 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. She grabbed the rifle and yelled that she had a weapon, but the boys – one of whom had a replica handgun – thought she was bluffing.

Mitchell fired a warning shot, and then continued to fire the weapon toward the door. She didn’t hit anyone, but it was enough to convince the teens to retreat.

“Killing someone was far from my thoughts,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t want to kill anyone. I was just trying to scare them – just trying to get them away.”

But a rash of other Detroit homeowners have delivered fatal shots to intruders so far this year, and the city’s new police chief has been very public and passionate in declaring that they’re well within their rights. His statements landed him on the cover of an NRA magazine, and have drawn the ire of residents who say he’s encouraging a kind of vigilantism.

No confidence in police

For years, Detroit has ranked the most dangerous big city in America. Although crime is down about 10 percent compared to the same time last year, there have already been more than 5,000 violent crimes in the city and more than 4,000 burglaries so far this year, according to the Detroit Police Department. And excruciating 911 response times – which grazed an hour last year, according to officials – created more of a culture of self-reliance.

“They’re not around the corner,” Mitchell said of the police, who she called only after scaring the teens away. “So [the intruders] could have been in, broken in, took my stuff, hurt me, hurt the kids, then gone – long gone – and the police still is not here.”

Homeowners have shot and killed five intruders entering their homes since the start of the year, according to Jennifer Moreno, a public information officer for the Detroit Police Department. One other intruder was shot in the chest but not killed. Moreno said the department doesn’t have exact numbers showing how many homeowners, like Mitchell, fired weapons and struck no one during a home invasion.

According to Michigan’s 2006 self-defense law, homeowners who defend themselves with deadly force are protected if they “honestly” and “reasonably” feel their life is in danger. And Police Chief James Craig forcefully defends this right.

“When a person is faced with an imminent threat, and they’re a law-abiding citizen who possesses a concealed weapons permit, they have an absolute right to protect themselves,” Craig said.

Craig grew up in Detroit, but left to work as a police officer in Los Angeles and as the chief in Portland, Maine, and Cincinnati. He returned to his hometown 10 months ago with a goal of improving department morale, cutting crime and rebuilding trust within the community.

I’ve been very clear. I don’t support vigilantism. What I have continually stated is that this is about self-defense.

James Craig

Detroit police chief

“I say it’s fair to say that many who live in Detroit…had no confidence in this police department,” Craig said. “They believed and felt that if they dialed 911, the police may not show up. “

Craig said that since he took the job, the average police response time to a call for help has plummeted from an average of 58 minutes to under 11. But based on his experience in Portland, where he said there were a lot of concealed carry weapons, he also believes that gun ownership has a role in deterring crime.

“I’ve been very clear,” he said. “I don’t support vigilantism. What I have continually stated is that this is about self-defense.”

Activists accuse the police chief of making irresponsible comments that encourage homeowners to reach for their guns first. Ron Scott, the director of the group Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said he wishes the chief would publicize alternative ways to handle the situation, like calling 911, retreating to a safer area of the house and using a non-lethal weapon.

“I think the chief thinks he’s in the Wild West,” Scott said. “We’re not opposed to self-defense where a person is in imminent danger, and we need to do that. But the chief is not highlighting options that people have taken as opposed to shooting someone.”

The death of a teen

In April Divana Webb, a mother of nine, got the news that her oldest boy, Demontae Moorer wouldn’t be coming home.

“When they told me he was gone, I looked out the door…and I kept saying, ‘My son ain’t gone,’” she cried, tears dripping down her cheeks. “My son’s going to turn that corner in a minute…He’s going to turn that corner walking. He never turned it.”

Moorer, 15, had been shot multiple times in the hip outside a house just a few blocks away from home. The initial police report indicated he was with a teenage girl and “trying to break into” someone’s home when the homeowner shot them both, killing Moorer.

While Webb waits for the investigation to be completed, she questions whether the shooting was really self-defense. She said she believes the female at the scene personally knew the homeowner, and was breaking in to retrieve some of her own things. The homeowner did not respond to a request for an interview.

“I just wish he could’ve lived, and just tell me the truth,” said Webb, who described her son as a funny kid with deep dimples and a trademark blonde streak in his otherwise dark hair.

If the police determined that her son was actually breaking into the home when he was shot and killed, Webb said she would understand. She’s just not certain that’s what happened.

“If they didn’t step foot in that house, they didn’t break in,” Webb said.

The police chief acknowledges that some teenagers have been killed breaking into homes.

“It’s always tragic whenever there’s a loss of life,” Craig said. “Certainly, nobody wants to shoot a child.”

But he believes those young people should make better choices, and he remains adamant that homeowners have a right to protect their lives, their families and their property with firearms.

“People in Detroit are sick and tired of being victims,” Craig said.