RE: [Mpls] Crime stats and Minneapolis residents getting skewed
Vicky here: Apparently a person must die to be counted as a crime these days. My understanding is that an incident is considered medical if an ambulance is called. A police report is not recorded unless the VICTIM requests one. Me: We've seen such understandings be faulty in the past. Hopefully, someone from the Police Department can comment on whether the police won't count a shooting unless a victim requests a crime report (!). In any event, no one questions that murders are accurately reported crime stats. Lt. Reinhart's numbers indicates that number of murders (on the North side, anyway) has been cut in half since 1995. Sometimes, progress must be acknowledged and appreciated. David Brauer Kingfield REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
Re: [Mpls] Crime stats and Minneapolis residents getting skewed
Since it is not Murderapolis should we instead call it Rapeapolis or some other marketing title to denote the lucrative drug sales opportunities? Minneapolis had the distinction of having one of the highest rape rates for major cities in the United States for several years. Of course that is just looking at it statistically from a citywide basis. From an impacted neighborhood basis the statistics were much more indicative of the segregation of social problems. Perhaps even more insightful is the definition of rape as even being a social problem for poor neighborhoods of color. Even one or two rapes in a better neighborhood, or in a suburb, are social problems of such magnitude that they require immediate action and tons of media. Two or three rapes a month of poor women, or women of color, in an Impacted Neighborhoods apparently does not even rate social problem status. Ventura Village with a population of approximately 6000 had those Statistics for the last several years and it never even rated a footnote in the Star Tribune or on the Television News. Jordan Neighborhood I am sure had similar Statistics without rating it being considered a Social Problem. Just as open drug dealing and gang activity is not considered a Social Problem if it is confined to poor neighborhoods, better known as Containment Zones. The rest of Minneapolis and the Metropolitan Area do not consider these things to be a Social Problem or even anomalies because that is where such things are supposed to happen and is normal in their minds. Perhaps Gregory Reinhardt, with his love of statistics, could give us the probability of one Minneapolis resident (not a police officer) helping two separate rape victims within a one year space of time. Not very high, if I remember what I once taught a bunch of college kids. Yet I did help women with two separate incidents of rape a couple of years ago. When I insisted on calling the police one 20-year-old street woman who had just been raped said They don't care what happens to us street people, so they are not going to do anything about it. I cannot express the shame and the outrage I felt that even a homeless person in MY city had reason to think that. But looking at statistics, and the lack of effort on the part of Minneapolis to even acknowledge the problem (let alone to change them), I have to sadly admit she probably was correct. Perhaps Mr. Reinhardt could pull up the rape and sexual assault rates (per hundred thousand of population) for Ventura Village and Jordan Neighborhood for the years from 1995 until today. As he did in the case of murder. Compare that statistic to the FBI's national incidence reports, or to the incidence experienced by the residents of other major cities. Compare it to New York or L.A., or better yet compare it to the closest city of similar size, Kansas City. Now that is a disgrace! The shame of ignoring the plight of poor women in the poor neighborhoods of Minneapolis should affect every elected official in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, and even at the State level. As I have said before Minnesota Nice is not very nice to poor women in the Impacted Neighborhoods of Minneapolis. We have a rape rate in some parts of Minneapolis that should be the shame of the Civilized World and we do not even identify it as a Problem. Our female children are so frequently taken away to a life of prostitution that they have their own strip for prostitution in New York City, The Minnesota Strip. Perhaps Statistics could explain what it is about poor women in poor neighborhoods that make Minnesota and Minneapolis undervalue them so much. Statistically speaking, I wonder what is the probability of having one (let alone 10 or 20) drug dealers on the street corner of a block in Minneapolis as a whole? Probably not very high! I wonder what the probability of having that One on the corner of a Jordan neighborhood is? The probability of finding one on the corner of Franklin and Park is? The probability of finding :One or TWO between 25th and 27th on Bloomington Avenue is? I would say the confidence level in both those neighborhoods if not 100% would be in the 90's. Quite the contrast in probability doen't you think? No, statistics looked at Citywide do not inform us of the human tragedy experienced in a few neighborhoods of Minneapolis. The only purpose they serve is to cut the inadequate public safety that the residents of those neighborhoods already experience. Instead of demonstrating the need for additional police they justify cutting even more police officers from a depleted Police Force. Perhaps statistics could play a more positive role in identifying where more police resources should be located. No wait, you do not need statistics for that. A heuristic observation shows that a bunch of cops 24/7 should concentrate on that 1/4 mile of the Northside where the murders and drug dealings are occurring. With its identifiable problems you should not
Re: [Mpls] Crime stats and Minneapolis residents getting skewed
First-off, we all know (or should know) that statistics can and are used to support many different positions. Both from the far-right and from the far-left, on any given issue. I'd feel much better about using statistical crime stats to analize the quality of life we're experiencing in our city, if there were some bigger plan in place that would allow us (as citizens) to determine whether or elected officials and paid officials were actually doing a good job. I know this sounds like a wild idea, but maybe we should benchmark where we're at right now, and ask for a written plan (from the City MPD) that shows continual improvement in all areas related to safety and livability. Obviously, whether or not someone chooses to commit a crime is not something that we can control. However, when continued patterns of crimminal behaviour occur in very specific geographic areas, I suspect we should be able to demand (and receive) a concrete plan that shows what will be done to bring about specific change and how those projections actually shook-out compared to the actual outcome. In finance, we used to call it budget forecasting. And our quarterly managers meetings were used in part to hold managers feet to the fire, when they weren't performing. Dennis Plante Jordan _ Get tips for maintaining your PC, notebook accessories and reviews in Technology 101. http://special.msn.com/tech/technology101.armx REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
Re: [Mpls] Crime stats and Minneapolis residents getting skewed
Dennis Plante wrote: I'd feel much better about using statistical crime stats to analyze the quality of life we're experiencing in our city, if there were some bigger plan in place that would allow us (as citizens) to determine whether or elected officials and paid officials were actually doing a good job. WM: Statistical crime stats don't mean much to me, living as I do, in the middle of the whole enchilada on Lake St. However, there are some encouraging realities. Last summer we had shots fired every other minute it seems, certainly no five day period went by without shots fired. Four people were shot, one (I think) died. There was a spectacular arson fire across the alley and down a few houses and a store was fire-bombed. A woman walking home from the bus was shot 4 times by a jerk with a gun. He wanted her wallet. By no means has this stretch of Lake St. become a yuppie haven or a Disney fantasy in pastel colors. We still have street dealers up the wazoo, we still have pavement princesses who will do darn near anything for 20 bucks, we still have junkies wandering around in a haze and at least one totally gone person with an invisible friend, it would appear, from his one man conversations. Our last 911 call was two nights ago for some jerk trying to beat the p-waddy out of a woman. I know it's due in part to police attention in the area. I'm assuming they pulled out key gang players, but I don't know it. All in all, it's been kept down to a low roar so far this year. I know targeted resources from Green Central Weed Seed had something to do with that. Sabri, though he may be largely castigatable, did us a favor in bringing back several buildings over the past six or seven years, and planting a building on vacant land that had been nothing but grief. James Walker's Aftercare had something to do with it, and block clubs that work with each other and police have something to do with it. Central Neighborhood Improvement Assn.'s NRP money had a huge amount to do with it. Immigrants had something to do with it. Is it the suburbs? Jeez, I hope not, that's not my ecological niche. Is it pastoral? Nope. But it's way, way better than it was. Everybody working together produced a big improvement and the cops have been part of it. Part of that is that both the police and we have undergone a change of attitude. Hurrah for us! However, I will say that when I was up to my armpits in alligators, I may have made one or two unkind remarks. WizardMarks, Central Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
