New Haven Independent: Shootings Up, Murders Down In '07

Shootings Up, Murders Down In ‘07

by Allan Appel | January 1, 2008 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Even though 2007 saw an overall drop in violent crime — down 7% from last year and 13 percent from 2005 for an average two-year drop of 10 percent — New Haven nevertheless remained a pistol-packin’ city with a troubling 37 percent spike in non-fatal shootings.

Some 80 percent of the suspects in the non-fatal shootings and the city’s 13 homicides (impressively down from 2006’s 24) were either convicted felons, on probation or parole.

And a troubling 92 percent of the non-fatal shooting victims — 162 as opposed to 118 last year — were people of color.

These were among the highlights, or low lights, of the Mayor John DeStefano’s and Police Chief Cisco Ortiz’s annual year-end crime statistics report delivered at police headquarters Tuesday afternoon.

Click here
to view the PowerPoint presentation officials made breaking down the statistics.

While on balance the mayor’s assessment was that the statistics “tell a very good story for New Haven,” they also showed, he said, the persistence of two areas of concern.

One: The predominance of the prison re-entry population in crime, both as perpetrator and victim. 51 percent of the victims of non-fatal shootings have criminal records.

Two: The involvement of young kids at a too early age settling “nonsense arguments” with too easy recourse to guns.

Citing some of the features of a more comprehensive re-entry program for ex-offenders that he hopes to launch in the new year, the mayor said that 25 statewide ex-felons are dropped off each week in New Haven, or 1,260 per year, many left at the Whalley Avenue jail, many woefully unprepared for reintegration to the city. It’s not rocket science, he suggested, to understand how that leads to re-offending.

He said that the single most important choice the state legislature could make when it convenes in January would be for the solons to engage with this issue. “I think they understand it,” he said, “that when an ex-felon is dropped off, before that happens people should address where he’s going to live; if he’s slotted into a substance abuse program if needed; and are there sufficient parole or probation officers to monitor him? We’re lobbying our state delegation hard so that something important happens in this area.”

Other features of the re-entry initiative, he said, would be to push state and federal partners to fund city programs, often run with local-non profits, to provide counseling and job skills. “Yes, there is a limit,” he said, referring to the number of ex-offenders dropped off in the city, “where the sheer density has become a serious issue.”

In addition to former offenders re-offending at increasing rates, the mayor and police chief cited the increasing concern with the suspects being younger and younger. Nevertheless, they deemed as successful in dealing with younger kids a more active school truancy program coordinated with the police, the open schools program with drop-in centers for teens, and in particular, the Street Outreach Workers (SOW) program.

The latter utilizes nine privately funded employees, working through the New Haven Family Alliance, to broker truces between the city’s turf gangs. Although the mayor said it was still subject to evaluation, the SOW program is likely to be re-funded for 2008-09. He was particularly impressed with some 38 kids, according to the statistics, who have been engaged either in a GED program or part- or full-time employment — “positive prospects,” to use his phrase. SOW was created in response to last year’s rash of homicides but funded privately. The mayor suggested those same funders would be appealed to for the next year.

“Still,” said Chief Ortiz, “while I’m proud to be among the few police chiefs standing here to announce significantly lower crime statistics, we can’t do it alone.” He said the “no snitch” mentality is still out there, although he expected sufficient cooperation from the community to solve all outstanding homicide cases.

The city’s own narcotics unit, he added, will be re-established, following the recommendations of the PERF report, but likely not until this summer.

“The people first want the new cops on walking patrols, on bikes, in the neighborhoods, ‘cops on the dots,’ as we say, and that’s where they are and will be.”

The violent crime drop refers to “part 1 crimes” reportable to the FBI, including murder, rape robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. The actual number of incidents declined from 9,175 in 2006 to 8,563 in 2007. In addition 252 guns were removed from the streets. The latter was obviously not enough, but Ortiz said that he and the mayor were instituting another gun buyback program in January following on the heels of December’s, and that prosecution of gun offenses would proceed on the federal and state levels more vigorously in 2008.

Share this story: digg / newsvine / facebook

Comments

Posted by: on whalley | January 2, 2008 8:21 AM

That's just amazing! I mean, who thought that dumping a bunch of felons and crooks into an area would cause trouble?

So lets offer them more boarding houses, "job" training, health care and see if we can't attract EVEN MORE to New Haven.

Incidentally, anyone else see the human trafficking coyote heading this way to bring his "cargo" to yet another "sanctuary city?" He didn't make it. He was stopped only after raping his 12 year-old cargo. Lord knows how long he had been doing this, how many other transportees have been assaulted within our states borders let alone our nations, or how many other coyotes are crossing at this very moment profiting from policies put in place by politicians like DeStefano. I'd go as far as to say DeStefano and his buddies are at fault for the rape of this girl and any others who have suffered the same violations.

Let's attract more of this to New Haven as well.

252 guns removed from the streets? Is that what they've taken in arrests or is that from the gun buy-back? I didn't hear one word about the buy-back since it ended. Generally when these goofy programs have any measurable level of "success" (as defined by the goofy minds behind the goofy programs) the news is plastered with stories about how great it was and how many evil guns were removed from this otherwise Utopian society.

While we're at it lets toss a few more coins to government education. Obviously we aren't spending enough if the kids are running around shooting each other. But then, we do spend more on education than any society in history and still year after year more kids drop-out, more kids find crime more rewarding than college, more kids think it's perfectly acceptable to end the lives of their peers for scuffing their sneakers or looking at them in a "disrespek-ful" manner.

We just need to subsidize this even more and everything will be sweet as a can of government peaches.

It's the fact that there is still hope that makes this all look so bad. It's the fault of people who would like to change the way New Haven approaches its problems that shine the gloom and doom on the city. I'm sure once the mayors more "aggressive" year has absolutely destroyed New Haven then these issues wont seem bad at all. We just need a chance to normalize the crime and perpetual failure then everything will be honky dory. It's all perspective.

Posted by: charlie | January 2, 2008 9:44 AM

This is good, but much more needs to be done. One thing that might help would be to raise sentences on violent crimes, seeing that violent crimes affect much more than just the victim. They massively affect property values, community sense of safety (which impacts % of time children spend outside, etc) and many other things. This is particularly true in densely populated areas. Any violent crime should be punished by 10 years without parole and if a gun is involved that should be raised to 20 years, with no chance of parole -- even if the criminal is 12 years old.

Also, one of the most important questions, which amazingly has not been addressed by any reporter in this town, is how many of the criminals have been caught or tried. Typically, in a major city like New York, about 40-60% of homicides result in a conviction, but in New Haven that figure has always been much higher (better). What percentage of last year's homicides were solved? How about this year's?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | January 2, 2008 1:25 PM

I am going to totally ignore the stat's. They don't really matter at this point. We have to many changes happening in the department. I would like to hope that all these changes that we have been screaming about are underway. PERF made it's recommendations and so far I see the changes underway. Damage has been done mistakes have been made. But I will, at the least, like to give the department the chance to make the changes and see if it helps.

Charlie, I do agree with most of your comment. I just don't understand how people feel bad for the criminals? Unless they have yet to be victims, and the sad thing is until they, themselves become a victim will keep trying to do the "PC" thing. Which I totally get except for what you mentioned above about it making our city even a bigger magnet.
The other thing is changing the laws for lower level criminals also creates loop holes for lawyers to use to help the worse ones. Be careful what you are fighting for.

Posted by: charlie | January 2, 2008 1:54 PM

Numbers are starting to come in from around the country, and it isn't looking great in most places.

Here are the 2007 murder rates for selected cities.

Murders as of 12/31/07, per 100,000 residents.

new orleans 64
camden 57
detroit 48
baltimore 45
birmingham 41
newark 35
cleveland 33
washington, DC 31
philadelphia 27
miami 24
flint 24
rochester, NY 24
montgomery, AL 23
norfolk, VA 21
dallas 17
houston 16
chicago 16
jacksonville 15
springfield, MA 13
boston 12
los angeles 11
fresno 11
new haven 10

New Haven Independent

Shootings Up, Murders Down In ‘07

Comments

Sorry, Comments are closed for this entry

Sections

Neighborhood News

Special Sections

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

Flyerboard

Sponsors

N.H.I. Site Design & Development

NHI Store

News Feed