Terrell Brown wrote: "I attended the Downtown Command's CODEFOR review last night. ... the only stats that were presented were Part I (serious) crimes and a number of people in the audience mentioned that they thought the livability crimes were not decreasing." Although Part I crime were the only ones on the big screen, I had printed copies of a breakdown for the first quarter 2001 compared to the same period, 2000 of various livability crimes for the Downtown Command. There were copies of this left when we packed up after the presentation, so it seems we had enough for everyone who took a moment to glance at the materials we had in the entry. The stats for these Part II crimes show an increase for some, a decrease for others. We are always faced with the conundrum where we encourage people to report all crimes, including these less serious crimes, but most folks at presentations say "We didn't want to have to bother you with such a small issue..." If people aren't reporting certain crimes each time they witness them, there is no way to know if they are going up or down except by anecdotal accounts from those living & working in the area. Finally, Part II crimes are broken down by precinct on the city web site: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/citywork/police/stats/ucr/index.asp The only Part II crime that went up city-wide (again, in terms of reports) last year was vandalism, and this due to the focussed efforts to deal with graffiti. For the Downtown Command, crimes such as disorderly conduct are up due to more businesses calling it in, and more focussed directed patrol in areas where we more frequently get such complaints. We are also seeing an increase in reporting of these since they are more likely to qualify for the Restorative Justice program, and community members know they will have an impact at least on the individual offenders vs. in the courts where dozens of previous arrests for similar crimes might not be taken into consideration. The bottom line is that in some areas of Downtown at least, people tell us things are immeasurably better, and in some areas (and many fewer areas than when I started in 1995) they tell us things are immeasurably worse. The important thing is that for the past 3 years with CODEFOR, we are more swiftly dealing with the latter areas, and in partnership with those living or conducting business in the affected area. CPS Luther Krueger 673-2923 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Minneapolis Police Department, Downtown Command SAFE (Lyndale, 8th Ward) _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
