By Antonio D. French
Filed Monday, October 30, 2006 at 2:03 PM
COMMENTARY Labels: Commentary, Crime, Police
We observed back in January that the 20% increase in St. Louis' crime rate coincidently matched the proposed pay increase for Police Chief Joe Mokwa. Perhaps now that St. Louis has once again been crowned the most dangerous place to live in America, the Mayor and his fellow police board members will pay more attention to how and where Mokwa assigns St. Louis' finest.
St. Louis is more than just downtown. There are places in our city that have been completely left out of the revitalization occurring just a few miles away. And it is no coincidence at all that these are also the places where most of our young people are dying.
Also back in January, Mayor Francis Slay wrote on his blog, "as most of you know, many neighborhoods in the City are very safe places today. However, as the stats make too clear, a few neighborhoods are not."
Wouldn't it make sense then in the 10 months since those words were written that those "unsafe areas" would have seen a surge of police patrols, a strong and permanent presence of officers to show both residents and criminals that crime would no longer be tolerated?
But ask anyone who lives in the 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th districts and they will tell you that has not happened.
Maybe it's as they say in national politics: We'd rather fight them over there than over here.
Could it be that the spirit of the Team Four Plan still exists in St. Louis? When faced with limited resources, protect downtown and the southern neighborhoods first?
True or not, when it comes to politics, crime, home-buying, home-building, and property values -- perception is reality. And the numbers don't lie.
What remains to be seen is who will accept responsibility and if the problem of "a few neighborhoods" will be seen as the problem of the entire city -- and indeed the entire region. Because it is.
UPDATE: Police Chief Mokwa was on the news Monday night responding to this "Most Dangerous" label. He said if you asked his officers, they would tell you St. Louis was a safe place to live.
Maybe he's forgotten those public meetings earlier this year on the issue of lifting the civilian residency requirement. Just behind the city's schools and affordable housing, "crime" was one of the most cited reasons Police Department employees gave for wanting to move out of the city.
14 Comments:
Since these "new" ratings are based on the 2005 crime stats, not the current year's, isn't it a little soon to condemn the efforts of past 10 months?
10/30/2006 2:20 PM
The allocation of City Resources, which include trash collection, building inspection, police patrols and residency, as well as economic development tools, are directed to affluent areas, all other things equal. This is done to keep those affluent residents in the City and to maintain that neighborhood’s economic activity.
One could make the argument that since the City was facing a fiscal crisis, resources needed to be allocated to those areas in order to maintain them, rather than redistribute resources to areas in need. The affluent tend to pay higher taxes due to their assessed property values, and tend to have more disposable income, thus keeping them could have greater benefit. Of course this also makes the electorate of those 'nicer areas' happy that their neighborhoods are receiving the most attention. The politicians that protect their Ward obviously would be reelected. If an Alderman directed his energy to another Ward, his/her own Ward would be upset.
St. Louis needs a comprehensive outlook when it comes to City services and their delivery. Perhaps public resources should no longer be disproportionably allocated to areas on the basis of maintaining their already established affluent character. If we direct our public energy into the areas which need the most help, through the allocation of City resources and Economic Development incentives, then neighborhood protectionalism will no longer be needed. Why? Spillover effect will no longer be as predominant since the City as a whole is more equal.
When there is a clear contrast between areas, the spillover effect, which is the fear of one neighborhood’s undesirable features entering another, creates a fire alarm response. Increased police patrols, the construction of street barriers, etc., is directed on the border of neighborhoods for maintenance and preservation. If there was a proactive dispersion of public sector goods to the needy neighborhoods, then perhaps those areas would see improvement.
It seems to me that public services should be directed to areas which need them the most. Areas with heavy private sector involvement should not receive the overwhelming attention of the public sector. Affluent areas should not be ignored, yet they also should not monopolize public goods. Rather than direct them to neighborhoods which are already well developed, we should direct them to the problem areas which obviously need services and economic development. If those disadvantaged areas had improvement, the spillover effect would be lessened, since the perception and actual reality of that problem area would be less negative. What happened in the past is the past and how we manage the inputs will determine the outcome of our City. If we act now St. Louis will no longer be on the top of any negative lists.
10/30/2006 4:29 PM
Hey Antonio:
I think I see a connection going on here. St. Louis is the best baseball team in the United States this year and Detroit is the second best baseball team in the United States this year.
St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the United States this year, and the Detroit is the second most dangerous city in the United States this year.
Therefore, baseball teams that make it to the World Series must do so because of their ability to survive on the tough streets of their city. All the bats in the streets and stuff, you know!
If you can take a bat to the head on the streets, what's a 100MPH fastball, curve, breaking ball, or slider. When you have been dodging bats on the street, you can handle a changeup.
I guess the teams that want to compete in the World Series next year better get tougher and rougher to rank higher on the list.
10/30/2006 7:40 PM
Anony #1, according to the Evening Whirl, which keeps up with the City's weekly "Body Count", as of Oct 29 there have been 105 murders in St. Louis (compared to 108 by Oct 23, 2005).
I've requested this data from the Police Dept. but have yet to receive a response.
I would guess that you don't live in the 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th districts. People who do don't need to wait for the New York Times, CNN, NPR, or the Post-Dispatch to tell them how dangerous their neighborhood is.
10/30/2006 7:42 PM
I live on the north side, were murder and volience is a culture, a way of lifestyle. Its like terrorism is an idea, so police alone and money and "resources" WILL NOT fix the problem! People I know love there lifestyle and its like that. If you a realy man dirty you riddin dirty wit a strap an a bitch in yo lap! its like that up here, all you white cats living in wonderland, sayin "Go Cards" while im out here slanging this whitegirl.... See you got your homes and loving families and great educations while thats not a reality on my side of the city, and you dont know how to deal with it, And on the other hand, its more crime than reported looking at this stuff, The po-lice dont doc crimes like they used to, see them cats couldnt lower the crime rate so the changed the way the report the crimes, so they dont even answer most calls which has helped my business :) ..... You know what it is whiteboy.....
10/31/2006 12:08 AM
The city is up on crime again. Funny the Mayor didn't support the Black Police Chief when crime was up. Mayor get real, stop thinking someone is picking on St. Louis. Every St. Louisan knows you and your people want to run the STL and ran the Blacks out.
10/31/2006 10:22 AM
Fo Sho,
I swear, you sound just like a whiteboy sporting some gangsta talk he picked up from his favorite cds.
No northside resident that I know who is truly concerned with increased crime rate would ever claim that increased police presence and other city "resources" would not help the northside situation.
You sound like you trying to convince us that expecting and demanding that the city government take these logical steps of investing in northside population is not worth it. Who's side are you on, fo sho?
10/31/2006 12:05 PM
To Antonio and Doug:
I jsut love the leap to conclusions with out any proof. First about crime. If you go tot the Police Departments website, you can get the latest crime stats. There you will find that IF you count the CWE as Northside, only ONE northside neighborhood is in the top five for crime. If the city really had a Team Four plan in place, if we were trying to move people out of the north side, wouldn't it be the opposite??
Second, about development. Please, allow me to give you some facts. First in 2005-2006, out of the top five wards for single family building permits, THREE were on the northside. And out of the top 10, the north and south were equally divided.
Second, in the categogy of building permit project costs by ward, the 18th ward ranked third, with a project cost of $7.6 million! Oh, and in the 26th ward, there was $3.1 million and in the 22nd ward there was $1.2 million in proect costs. How is the city ever going to complete the Team Four plan with development like that!
Finally, let me share some housing information. Under the Slay adminstration the number of units produced with either CBDG/HOME/AHTF funding show as follows
North completed units: 855
Central comp. units: 1096
South completed units: 132
Again, how can we possible complete the Team Four plan with all that northside activity. The fact is, WE CAN'T! All you have to do is look around the northside and you see development everywhere..so please put that garbage about Team Four to rest.
If you need more stats, all you have to do is ask.
10/31/2006 7:43 PM
Oh sorry, one more thing. Funding for demolition. Northside ward receives far more funding for demolition of vacant buildings than southside wards. Why, because Slay does what Doug suggest, puts the money where the need is.
10/31/2006 7:46 PM
Charles, one might argue the Team Four Plan has been completed.
The City did survive the exodus of the 1970s and '80s -- largely because of the concentration of resources in the center and southern parts of the city -- just as the Team Four Plan said it would.
Property values and the population numbers plummeted in north St. Louis. The City government has become the largest landowner in north St. Louis. The LRA has accumulated lots and lots of contiguous properties ripe for development. And now Phase Three begins -- redevelopment.
Over the next 5-10 years, I expect to see a surge of development in north St. Louis. But the people who live there now and for the past 30 years won't be sharing in it.
On the contrary, the rising property taxes and even the use of eminent domain will drive those poor and elderly homeowners further north into what is becoming the new island of concentrated poverty -- north County and extreme north City.
And I caution you from comparing building permits. Get in your car and drive through these neighborhoods and compare these new northside developments to their southern and CWE cousins. Would you buy one of the new 3rd Ward homes for $125,000? Would the mayor? Or Barb Geisman?
Besides, the issue here is crime and the fact is that police patrols are almost non-existent in the most violent areas of the city as compared to say, Central West End or the Hill.
And I would also caution you from putting too much weight in Mokwa's daily crime statistics. It usually takes an in-depth investigation by the media before he decides to release the correct numbers of rapes, murders and assaults in this City.
But then again, why not fudge the numbers if the Mayor will always have his back no matter how outrageous the offense?
Mr. Bryson, I do have one question for the mayor. Maybe you can pass it on for me. Why has he been so active in trying to get more influence over St. Louis Public Schools, even supporting the state stepping in to take control from the school board, but completely silent on the issue of the City reclaiming control of its police department?
10/31/2006 9:29 PM
Antonio,
We could go back and forth on a number of issues, but suffice it to say that when we took office there were only a few homes being built on the northside and today there is a lot of development. But both personally and professionally, to link the current mayor to the Team Four Plan, without saying that this "plan" was concocted three mayors ago is wrong.
Skipping to your last point, the Mayor and Jeff Rainford have publically stated a number of times that the city should control the police department. The fact has been that no matter who has been in control of the Governor's office, the Senate and the House, the city has not been able to wrestle control of the police department away from Jeff City. And I might add that does mean when each was controlled by the democrats. So unlike there is a means to have more influence in the school district, the city does not seem able to get control over the police board.
Finally, I might add that in the St. Louis American several weeks ago, there was an article where someone interviewed various African-American Mayors about the school issue and all said that they had to be directly and forcefully involved in what was going on to create change. The new (African-American) Mayor of DC made his top priority lobbying Congress to gain control of the school system. All strongly believe that the status quo is unacceptable and must drive the district to change.
11/01/2006 5:18 AM
So again, back to the issue of crime, since violent crime continues to be a national black eye for St. Louis (just like our public schools), when is the Mayor going to publicly, actively, forcefully, and unmistakably lobby the Governor and the state legislature to give St. Louis (and Kansas City for that matter) the same power to police itself as nearly every other city/county in the state?
Or will he continue to sit passively on the sidelines and complain about how the makers of these rankings are just picking on us after our World Series parade?
Slay and Mokwa reminded me of Bush and Rumsfeld this week. Leaders in denial, prefering to fight with the messengers than actually admitting there is a problem and presenting a real plan to solve it.
You do think there is a problem with crime in this city, don't you?
11/01/2006 7:37 AM
I believe there is crime in this city, just like any other city. But I do not believe St. Louis is more dangerous or has more crime than many comparable cities. We all know that the #1 ranking is severely skewed because of the city/county divide and that the FBI statistics used are severly flawed. I believe the rankings list including the Metro areas as a whole is a much more accurate portrayal of crime in our city given our very unique city/county structure.
11/01/2006 11:05 AM
Doug Duckworth is right that this is all about resources. Fighting crime takes prosecutors. So, thank Jim Shrewsbury for cutting the prosecutors' budget!
12/20/2006 2:54 PM
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