Comments on: Soapbox: Mayor, City Council must address crime

By: DaleC

DaleC — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:36:20 +0000

Crap, the table formatting went away. Sorry about that.

By: DaleC

DaleC — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:35:42 +0000

It was a major PITA to get burglary info for 2007, but here are violent and property crime info.
I list total numbers and crimes per 100,000 residents. This is for the city of Atlanta, not the MSA.

Stats show, I think, a really good job my the Mayor Franklin and Chief Pennington until 2007.
After 2006, we see huge increases each year. I plan on tabulating those years and doing more
in depth analysis and posting here. I may have found a reason to start a blog for something
other than my obnoxious opinions.

Rate per 100,000 people Change from prev year
Year Population Violent Property Violent Property
2001 433,253 2534 9704
2002 443,492 2289 9066 -245 -638
2003 456,412 1970 8869 -319 -197
2004 465,621 1842 7716 -128 -1153
2005 470,688 1675 7290 -167 -426
2006 487,463 1554 6635 -121 -655
2007 519,145 2574 6981 1020 346

Violent – murder/manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault
Property – burglary, larceny, auto theft, arson

Sources for crime stats –

http://www.idcide.com/citydata/ga/atlanta.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Atlanta

I didn’t feel like tabulating the 2008 info because I am tired and need to
sleep, but the increases in both categories are startling, especially for
some neighborhoods like Kirkwood and East Atlanta. That info can be found in the following links

Informative Crime Links –

Atlanta Police Crime Reports – http://www.atlantapd.org/index.asp?nav=Stats

Crime by Neighborhood 2006 – 2008 http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/02/08/atlanta_crime_rates.html

FBI Uniform Crime Report Shows Increase in ATL and decrease nationally for 2007 http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/09/15/atlanta_crime_stats.html

By: DaleC

DaleC — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:10:21 +0000

I would like to see the Guiliani/NYC “broken windows” policy put into place in ATL. It works. It ispainful for a lot of peple and their sensibilities, but the success is a matter of record.

APD does traffic stops in my neighborhood. I actually got a ticket at one for an expired insurance card. I STILL like the stops.

I agree that per capita is the measure, so I will get ATL population for 2002 – 2007 and do the computations. I think you will see declining crime until 2005 and then increases after that year.

By: s. dekalb voter

s. dekalb voter — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:01:52 +0000

Ok, guys, so now I’ve done my own research. The only way to rationally compare crime in cities is by the crime rate (ratio of crimes to population). You can’t just compare the number of crimes because that doesn’t take population into account. According to the FBI website Atlanta has a similar violent crime rate as other big cities with large minority/poor populations – Detroit, Philly, DC, Oakland, Miami, Milwaukee, Memphis, Nashville, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Baltimore, New Orleans, Birmingham. What does this mean? No, poor people aren’t bad people. To me it means there are socioeconomic factors that politicians in those cities can’t control. Furthermore, when the economy is bad these people are hit the hardest and often turn to crime. This should not be an excuse for pols in these cities, but rather a clarification. What does this mean for the rest of us? Lock your doors I guess. I don’t think any mayor/councilmember can do anything about this without addressing socioeconomic factors. Hiring or firing a police chief isn’t going to make much of a difference.

By: Mr. T

Mr. T — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:57:25 +0000

I’m not sure comparing to ourselves is the right thing to do anyway. While it is true that we’re likely in a worse spot than we were in 2002 – and that is bad – it’s more of a problem to me that a city with more than 2 million people in its city limits (Houston) , that also happens to have a bad rep for crime, has fewer violent and property crimes than Atlanta. That’s not per capita, that’s raw numbers. That’s not okay.

By: DaleC

DaleC — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:47:34 +0000

The stats I linked to are total numbers fo crimes, not rates. It’s agood point, but the population of Atlanta has been stable enough over teh years in question that I doubt it would have much effect.

The MSA has grown like crazy, but the city has not grown so much.

By: DaleC

DaleC — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:44:36 +0000

I am the same way with the hookers outside my building. At first, I didn’t worry about it. I think prostitution should be legal and considered it a victimless crime. Then someone stole my road bike from the garage that they look at while turning tricks on the corner. There is no way they didn’t see it. I also learned that they attract drug dealers and acted as information conduits and lookouts for other criminals.

Now, I call every time they are out there. The report also drives criminal activity stats within APD which helps determine patrol routes and frequency.

By: S. Dekalb Voter

S. Dekalb Voter — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:42:41 +0000

I think there is also some confusion about crime vs. crime rate. Shirley and Pennington often talk about crime rate decreases, which is different from crime decreases. If crime is increasing, but population growth is increasing faster, the crime rate is actually going down. I don’t know if this is actually the case, but just a point of clarification.

By: edgewood adam

edgewood adam — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:18:58 +0000

I have wondered about the property crime v. violent crime issue. Somebody breaking into your home may not be a violent crime per say but it will certainly feel like that to the victim. It is a scary thought to think of a criminal in your home stealing your property. I think that a rise in propety crimes shows that criminals are getting more brazen which will lead to more violent crimes. There are little things we can all do. When i lived on Ponce people used to smoke crack on maiden lane behind our house. I did not call the police at first because it did not really affect me so i did not care. Well one day i got fed up and called the police. Now i call anytime i see something like that. When there is a flop house on your street, call the zoning commision. You would not believe how quickly they act.

By: DaleC

DaleC — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:58:51 +0000

S Dekalb – on the crime thing, I think it may be the Mayor and Chief are claiming that violent crime is flat and the rise is in larceny and other property crimes. I am working from memory here and my memory sucks.

From Mayor Franklins Proposed Budget – FY 2009

“During the past two years, crime has been increasing as it has been nationally. The primary drivers of this increase has been property crimes, particularly larceny, larceny from autos, and
auto theft. Together they have accounted for 70% of the increase in major crime since 2006.”

Property crimes account for 70% of the increase, so violent crimes account for 30% of the increase. That means that violent crime is up.

Auto theft dropped from 2002 to 2004, remained flat to 2006 and rose to or past 2002 levels in 2007.

Burglary did the same, except for a rise in 2006 and exceeded 2002 levels in 2007.

The Mayor admits that drug sales drive and thus are correlated with property related crime. Does that mean drug sales are up?

I see no reason to think that this trend changed in 2008 or will change in 2009.

One thing to keep in mind, COBRA (crime stats tracking system) only puts out what is put in and is subject to manipulation. If a person kicks down your door and steals your stuff, but does not harm you, is that a property crime or violent crime? There is anecdotal evidence that officers have been pressured to classify some violent crime as a property crime. If a property crime occurs and the reports is not entered into COBRA, that crime did not occur. I have personal experience with that. These errors could reasonably be simple mistakes.

It seems that violent crime is up, regardless of the Mayors spin.