RE: [UC] Another Friday robbery

[Anthony West]

Folk wisdom around here has long held that crime tends to pick up during the summer months, to jump in September, to reach a crescendo around Christmas, and then fades for the next six months. There is a lot of residential turnover in June leading to a net *drop* in total street life and experienced Eyes on the Street -- just in time for high school to let out, dumping a passel of new opportunity-seekers on that same street. As new college students flood into the neighborhood in the fall, flush with cash and wet behind the ears, the natural response of ANY entrepreneurially inclined oldtimer is to smack them upside the head and take their excess stuff. Most of us restrain that impulse, but a few weaker souls always give into temptation ... it must be how the Chinook felt, welcoming the salmon back each year. And everywhere in America, burglaries and thefts peak during the holiday season. A lot of Santas out there are under pressure to deliver by the deadline, and they need extra income in a hurry. The last two property crimes I suffered (neither in University City) both took place during December. On one occasion, in fact, the property in question *was* Santa. I was carrying around a carload of giant, unpleasant-looking stuffed Santas as part of a holiday promotion for my job. While I was parked outside my office, somebody knocked out my car window and took my Santas. But in any area, the people who actually work fulltime in the theft industry can be surprisingly small. Most of them are pretty familiar with the people in the local police industry, and vice versa. After a few months, the usual suspects tend to get rounded up often enough that they wind up staying off the streets for longer and longer spells. For their part, enough students hear of pals getting mugged that they start to look around themselves before leaving Smokey Joe's at 1:30, start to lock their doors, and otherwise develop street smarts. So crime drops. That's the traditional Big Picture of University City crime. It is about as reliable as any other scrap of folk wisdom. Others may hold views with a different nuance. -- Tony West Kyle wrote: > i'm wondering if all this new crime is really new crime or if i just know about it because i'm on the list now and have more access to anticdotes. someone had made a lovely crime map from the stats a few months ago -- just wondering if crime is _really_ more or less rampant than it's always been....