New Haven Independent

posted by: Jon Doe on May 25, 2011  4:52pm

I’m confused NHI is reporting that there has been 11 killed so far this year by shootings. I read in the NHR that the count is up to 14 so far.

NHPD needs to do something fast summer is coming and these shooting have been done during the cold months wait till the weather warms up.

[Ed.: Police said the total number of homicide victims so far this year is 14, but not all are due to gun violence. The total includes three victims of the March arson in Fair Haven. We updated the story.]

posted by: JB on May 25, 2011  7:16pm

Summer’s almost here.  Scary stuff.

posted by: Bill Saunders on May 25, 2011  8:38pm

New Haven is #4 in the nation in violent crime.
More great press for John’s political portfolio…...

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-cities-2011-5#4-new-haven-conn-22

posted by: john on May 25, 2011  8:55pm

Where is the Chief during this crisis?  O yea he is home in Chi town.  Great leadership!

posted by: KEEP THE WOOL OVER THERE EYES on May 25, 2011  9:01pm

Does anyone else care that Destefano does the same thing every time a serious crime incident happens.  He has a press conference and tells the city there ok.  Guess what, the FBI just rated NH the 4th most violent city in the country, I think its official, WERE NOT OK

posted by: Kevin G. Ewing on May 25, 2011  10:00pm

I am glad to see this increased police presence.  I am also afraid to see this increased police presence. Mostly I’m saddened to see this increased police presence is needed.

I’m glad because I recognize that some of these dudes are too far gone to see other options and to take advantage of the opportunities that are available.  There’s a lot of hurt in dudes out there right now and for their own reasons they just aren’t going to listen. Maybe prison is the slap in the face they need to awaken them from their stupor and make them take some personal responsibility for their choices. Perhaps next them they’ll make better ones.

I’m afraid because the heavy hand of the law will also capture up some dudes that are on the fence.  I’m afraid it might force them the wrong way. It will give them an excuse to give up… loose hope.

I’m also afraid that there will be a few officers who, in their heightened level of alert or unhealthy sense of power, will go a little too far in subduing a resident and further destroy the relationship between the police and many of the rest of us. 

I’m afraid of giving the police that much power. I know most cops are great. I really know how dangerous the job is and how tense it can get sometimes.  And I know better than most how easy it is to loose control.  So not only am I afraid for us citizens but I’m more afraid of what it will do to the men and women on the force.

There was one thing that the mayor left out.  It actually should be a 5 point plan.  He left out the community and what we can do to stop this foolishness!!!  He left out what I can do.

So let me tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to gather as many of my young brothers and sisters around me as I can and I’m going to teach them what I know. I’m going to keep looking for opportunities for them and encourage them to take advantage.  I’m going to be willing to put foot to behind when they mess up and then help them fix it. I’m going to stay on that behind to make sure they don’t do it again. 

I’m going to find people who think like me and are willing to give what they got to this cause too.  I’m going to do everything in my power to make the job of a police officer on the NHPD the most boring job on the planet.

I live here.  I love it here.  I pay taxes (and parking tickets) here.  I’ve chosen this city to be my home. So Mr. Mayor, please don’t ever leave us out of this or any other plans you might be making for this city.  Some of us - MANY of us - are ready to do our part. In fact, we already are working. WE are the solution to what ails this city. It would be so much easier if we worked together.

So New Haven… I’m calling you out. Y’all ready to shut this mess down?  Together we can do it.

posted by: William Manning on May 25, 2011  10:08pm

THIS IS SAD!!!  The mayor, the chief and us as citizens are giving up on security for our neighborhoods!!  First, the mayor needs to reinvent himself by knocking on doors and LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE for a change!!  EVERYONE will tell him that they want a safe city and the one of the ways of doing so is FIRING the chief!!  He’s disconnected, confused and obviously too incompetent to hold this position!! The police officers need to patrol neighborhoods, talk to people—even kids, remain relevant by engaging with the people!!  Not all citizens are hostile to the police!!  And we as citizens can do more by assisting with these developments!!  But it has to start at the top!!  If any police officers dare to read this—PLEASE get out of your car and introduce yourself to the neighborhoods you patrol!!  Trust me—it will help with investigations and security!!  A familiar face starts a conversation!!!

posted by: NHresident on May 25, 2011  10:20pm

Motorcycles are patrolling high crime areas? Why are they sitting at Whalley and Pendleton? Don’t know of many shootings over there. Where are the walking beats, the report with the community of yesteryear. You can’t solve a crime if no one wants to talk to you. If you have a familiar and trusting cop in your neighborhood then maybe someone will speak up…..Those 16 laid off officers could have been put on walking beats.4th on the FBI list of most dangerous cities in the country!!!

posted by: richgetricher on May 26, 2011  12:17am

Today the FBI listed New Haven as the 4th most violent city in the nation! Isn’t New Haven doin’ just great? (And btw, where is Chief Limon? Out-of-town again?) The tone and civility of a city comes from those at the top. It’s time for a change, big-time, everyone can see that. Thank God we still have elections here, limited as they are, otherwise it would be time to appeal to NATO for air strikes.

posted by: Lincoln Robertson on May 26, 2011  7:29am

This is complete BS. Look at the 3rd photo. 6 cops with white shirts or gold brade. All the senior men standing around doing nothing. The 1st photo all them bike cops ready to go like an episode of CHIPS. We’re goin a catch some speeders today. This doesn’t stop crime. This just wastes money and make NHPD look like complete incompetents. The 16 beat cops who were let go are the men who could deter or catch criminals.

posted by: rae on May 26, 2011  8:49am

This is ridiculous. Where is Chief Limon? No one would care if he was not always out of town.  Channel 8 stated yesterday that he was out of town and the Mayor was left having to explain the crisis in New Haven.  The Mayor definitely can not be happy about this. 

Mayor D., we need to look at curfews because the summer is approaching. New Haven also needs clean house with the leadership in the NHPD, including the Chief and newly elected assistant chiefs.  Neither are impressive at all. We need officers from Connecticut and better yet officers from New Haven who have experience working the street, talking to citizens and who care and actually understand the problems, to lead this City. I think its great when you see officers getting out of their cars and talking with citizens, especially the children. 

This kind of communication also helps the police solve crimes because you are establishing a trust with citizens. If we never see officers talking to anybody and just driving by in their patrol cars then we feel you do not care about us, so we are not going to trust you. 

This is the NHPD leadership we have, a Chief and Asst. Chiefs who just sit in their offices giving orders and blaming officers when things go wrong.  This is why you make six figures.  YOU ARE PAID TO FIGURE THIS SH—OUT!!.  You control how the NHPD operates. It would also be nice to see them interact more with the community.

posted by: NEW HAVEN -FEAR CITY on May 26, 2011  8:51am

Well 4th violent city in the country summer coming soon kids out of school bring back the walking cops they are needed and fair haven is off the wall also !!!!

posted by: Atwater on May 26, 2011  10:58am

As bad as New Haven might be there is no way it is the fourth most dangerous city in the U.S. Gun crime in this city seems limited to a small area of the city and affects, for the most part, a certain demographic. An increased police presence is not going to mitigate the crime, cops on motorcycles, why not cops on horseback? The city, collectively, needs to address the issues that lead to criminal behaviour. Specifically, the strength of certain communities, which is directly linked to the strength of the family unit. The Mayor, BOA and Police Department are clueless and it seems are only willing to work to contain crime and not prevent it.
Until we work to make this city safe for all of its citizens than we will be unable to attract new businesses and residents.

posted by: Gerry on May 26, 2011  11:22am

We want a real election in Ward 2 to elect our alder. That’s why there’s this show of force here by the mayor and his praetorian guard. This photo op has nothing to do with crime. It’s all about telling us who the boss is.

posted by: ptb on May 26, 2011  11:24am

Lou Cavalier was right after all. It’s not even summer yet

posted by: Tomas Reyes Jr. on May 26, 2011  11:28am

Ditto Mr. Ewing! Well said and I would love to
meet you and pick your brain to see how the
citizens can effectuate the changes that are truly neccesary to deal with this comprehensive
issue.I stand ready and willing to throw down
with you and all others like-minded to seek
out practical and doable solutions.We should
also think about engaging community-based
agencies who receive public funds to work
with our community.

posted by: Alderman Greg Morehead on May 26, 2011  12:07pm

Its sad that this much police presence is needed and its not even the summer yet.  I agree with alot of the posts on here.(I rarely agree with posters on the Independent)Anyways, when will we learn as a community that we cannot police our way out of crime and violence?  Some said that’s why we needed those 16 that were laid off etc. Think about it, if we had 800 cops working at Union Ave(Double the amount of what we have now) and 700 were on the street, do we really think that we would not have homicides anymore?  I don’t think so.  I strongly agree with Kevin in saying that it takes the community also.  Thats the biggest part in reducing crime; community involvement.  How do we have all of these homicides in NH and most of them are still unsolved?  The reason being is that the people that know or seen what happened, are NOT getting involved or coming forward.  I hear about some of these shootings being in areas that have active block watches etc.  What is an active block watch if when something like this happens, or a home invasion happens and residents on that block don’t come forward and speak out.  A block watch is not all about having BBQ’s and neighborhood cleanups, but about taken measures when crime happens that when you see something, say something!

posted by: Bill on May 26, 2011  12:18pm

WELL SAID RAE!!! 

THE CHIEF LIMON AND THE ASSISTANT CHIEFS ARE PAID SIX FIGURE SALARIES BY THE CITY OF NEW HAVEN TO LEAD, WELL DAMMIT, LEAD!!!. YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO CORRECT THIS MESS IN NEW HAVEN. THAT IS WHY YOU WERE ELECTED TO YOUR POSITIONS, BECAUSE YOU SUPPOSEDLY HAVE THE QUALIFICATIONS TO LEAD. OUR TAXES ARE PAYING YOUR SIX FIGURE SALARIES TO DO A JOB. IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE WORTH THE MONEY THE TAX PAYERS ARE PAYING YOU.

NOW NEW HAVEN IS RANKED #4 IN THE NATION IN CRIME.  MR. MAYOR, IT IS DEFINITELY TIME FOR A CHANGE. LIVES ARE AT STAKE!!.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 26, 2011  1:28pm

Well it appears that many commenters are able to regurgitate headlines from the New Haven Register. Congratulations…

Looking at crime at a yearly, municipal level is pretty useless. Crimes occur where there is a substantial population of people who cannot find or access jobs for their skill level. A culture of crime is the result of groups of people not being able to find jobs for their skill level for several generations. This is true of some inner city neighborhoods, some rural communities, and increasingly for older suburbs across the country. Crime is a symptom, along with teenage pregnancy, and government dependence of the larger economic issues facing millions of Americans.

More police, more arrests, more gun seizures and more traffic stops are not going to get rid of the demand for drug dealers, the demand for illegal guns, and the resulting violence. Law enforcement is needed in addition to steps that get rid of the demand, such as easy accessibility to jobs for low-skill people.

Crime dropped from 2009 to 2010, but we moved up on the “Most Dangerous Cities” List and people are freaking out. What if crime rises this year, but we dropped on the national list, will people be relieved, or will they just freak out about that? What if both crime drops and our raking drops, will people finally be appeased?

posted by: Bueller?? on May 26, 2011  2:19pm

Barbara? Are you there? Worry about who has these guns and what they are doing with them. No one forces these hoodlums to possess or use guns. Start THERE, then work your way back!

posted by: cba on May 26, 2011  2:28pm

Keep adding more assistant chiefs,they are really going to solve the problems !!1

posted by: HewNaven?? on May 26, 2011  2:58pm

“Such rankings rely on so many weak variables that even the FBI doesn’t prepare them. It just releases the hard data. But instantly a site called 24/7wallstreet crunched the data and released a top-ten ranking of sizable cities. That led to instant local stories around the nation, and around the web, most not citing the website as the source. By Thursday morning the New Haven Register had a top-of-the-front-page headline declaring: “FBI: 4TH MOST DANGEROUS U.S. CITY.” The list showed New Haven climbing to number four with 15.4 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens.”

Excellent reporting, as usual, from NHI. Disgraceful excuse for journalism from NHR (as usual).

posted by: Ex-NHPD on May 26, 2011  2:59pm

The dirty secret of the past 20 years is now out in the open.  The failure of the NHPD AND City Hall to get the crime stats presented in a timely manner resulted in New Haven’s absence from the yearly FBI numbers.  Anyone who has worked at the NHPD over the past 20 years knows that there is a violent culture in the neighborhoods that goes FAR beyond the norm, much less the acceptable norm.

The NHPD has put into use just about every theory/practice in the Law Enforcement Book to try to combat the violence.  Community Based Policing.  Problem Solving Policing. District Manager for each Policing district.  SARA Projects.  Young Adult Board of Police Commissioners.  School Resource Officers. Management Teams. Timez Up Program (Federal Prosecutors, ATF, State Prosecutors, Parole, Probation, State and Local Cops).  Guns are not Toys (Cops talking to schoolkids).  Yale Child Study Child Development/Community Policing.  Project One Voice.  Partnership with Parole.  Embracing the Clergy.  Identifying Juveniles at Risk.  Computer Generated Crime Analysis (TASCA).  Midnight Basketball.  Summer Camp with Cops.  Boys and Girls Club. Community Outreach Workers.  Federal Gang Task Forces, with Wiretaps.  High Point Initiative.

None of these programs/initiatives will ever be successful until: the citizens acknowledge that the level of violence is unacceptable,  the citizens acknowledge that the NHPD does not create or is responsible this violence; the citizens acknowledge that it is their family and friends who are responsible for the violence; the citizens stop blaming everyone and everything (except those performing the violence) for the violence perpetrated by their family and friends; the citizens stand up and denounce, with actions and not just words, the violence.

There have been several horrifying acts of violence in the past 10 years that one would have thought any of them should have been the watershed moment when the citizens would rise up and say that enough was enough with the senseless violence that permeated the city.  Completely innocent children were lost forever when unrepentant street criminals unleashed their firepower and took the lives of kids who were merely going about their lives.  Brief outrage fizzled quickly after each incident.

The citizens of New Haven are the missing piece in getting a handle on the violence.  The NHPD has come to you with programs.  They have come to you with access to their cops and their supervisors.  The citizens, the churches and clergy, the after school programs, and most importantly the families, must be united with the same mantra “I am not going to take it anymore, and I will be part of the solution”.

Posters like Ewing and Reyes are trying to play both sides by saying it is time for everyone to get involved, but are concerned about giving the cops too much power.  More cops deployed to an area is not more power; it is just more cops in one area.  Maybe the criminal(s) with a gun will not be able to escape scrutiny when there are more cop eyes on a corner then the week before.

And finally, DeStefano.  With this level of violent crime, how can he ever, with a straight face, sell the idea that laying of 16 cops in 2011 was about fiscal responsibility to save the City immediately.  He had to have a clue about what the latest crime stats were; yet he cavalierly laid off 16 cops.  13 of those never returned, along with the money the city invested in their training and certification. 

Maybe the media could look into whether City Hall was behind having the NHPD NOT submit their yearly crime stats to the FBI in a timely fashion, for years and years..

posted by: KD on May 26, 2011  3:24pm

More police on motorbikes doesn’t beat more police actually living in New Haven.

posted by: anon on May 26, 2011  3:29pm

paul, you know, when it comes to pure reasoning, you really do scandalize, really. I don’t know why you don’t see it.

Do you know what specious means? Here is a dictionary definition:

spe·cious/ˈspēSHəs/Adjective
1. Superficially plausible, but actually wrong: “a specious argument”.
2. Misleading in appearance, esp. misleadingly attractive: “a specious appearance of novelty”.

But by your own argument, you do not know if the conclusions are wrong or right because, as you argue, to really know would take a very careful study involving certain factors, a study that hasn’t been done. 

You did not present such a study here nor point to any careful study that has been done whose results we could look at.

Pointing out a few factors you think are important, such as home rule—no suburban areas annexed to the city—are less rigorous than the arguments you consider specious and lacking rigor.

It may be true that factor skews the stats in this case, or would have resulted in a different conclusion if this careful study —the one you say would be required to be done and hasn’t been done—was done,  or maybe not. We don’t know! Geez, is it that hard to parse out that reasoning?

This thinking is just so remedial. It’s pretty much an opinion piece dressed up like a news story.

I just read a pointless debate between mediocre art and mediocre science.

posted by: Atwater on May 26, 2011  3:39pm

After reading Jonathan Hopkin’s comments I could not help but think that DeStefano, and the majority of the BOA, along with Yale University are working to mitigate crime, not, as John Hopkin’s suggests (among others), by promoting an economic model that encourages low-skill job growth. Instead City Hall, in conjunction with Yale, are working to completely eliminate the neighborhoods were low-skilled labor currently live. A good example is the Winchester Factory plan. Simply put, the city wants to push the working poor out of town. Once the poor are gone the crime rates will steadily drop.
DeStefano, et al. love cops because they create the appearance of control.

posted by: Wicked Lester on May 26, 2011  3:49pm

Jonathan Hopkins wrote: “Crimes occur where there is a substantial population of people who cannot find or access jobs for their skill level”

There are people who have university degrees that can’t find jobs for their skill level. Are they committing crimes?

Crimes occur where there is a substantial population of irresponsible people who screwed off in school, come from dysfunctional and broken families, lack a moral compass of what’s right and wrong and don’t have one iota of respect for the lives and property of others.

They don’t want jobs Jonathan, they want quick cash from robbery, burglary and peddling drugs. And they don’t care if someone gets killed in the process.

posted by: anon on May 26, 2011  3:59pm

To the above anon - this ranking is simply not valid, which is why the FBI doesn’t publish it and why you probably won’t see it in a legitimate news outlet like the NH Independent or the NY Times.  This ranking is a good example of a news outlet - “24wallstreet” - taking a set of statistics and using them incorrectly. 

In any valid ranking of violent crime among places, researchers will adjust for municipal boundaries and such, in order to compare apples to apples.  Equivalents would be neighborhood to neighborhood, block to block, or area to area.  That’s why every single academic, research and foundation study of cities uses the Census Bureau’s MSA definiton of a city (which is based on economic and commuting patterns), not the municipality definition (which is based on artificial boundaries established hundreds of years ago). 

By this ranking, New Haven is average: about as dangerous as Minneapolis, Austin, Sioux City, Honolulu and Portland, Oregon. See http://www.morganquitno.com/met02safe.htm for one example.

Unfortunately, the general public does not understand statistics, which is why you get headlines like those in the Register.

The crime burdens on certain neighborhoods and on certain blocks in New Haven are most certainly real, but they are not particularly worse or better than those in other major urban areas.  Most blocks in the city have not seen a single violent crime in many years.

Kudos to the NHI for having a grip on reality.

posted by: Bill Saunders on May 26, 2011  4:12pm

EX-NHPD,

Great Post. 

Of course, of all of the people that got paid big bucks to administer window dressing will cite the unprovable- like crime would be much worse now if those new-speak programs didn’t exist.

As for City Hall being behind NHPD not filing FBI stats, isn’t the answer an obvious one?  This has been a well known failing of the PD for years.
If the general public is aware of this, so is King John, The Un-Accountable.

Is this recent reported crime data something that came out of the PERF recommendations?

Don’t worry, Yale will ultimately buy up these blighted areas and save the day!  High crime makes real-estate affordable, and we certainly would want the University to have to pay too much.!

posted by: Threefifths on May 26, 2011  4:21pm

Try the broken windows theory.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/4465/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

posted by: Democratic Voter on May 26, 2011  4:28pm

....Another Democratic mayoral candidate, Tony Dawson, issued a statement proposing calling in the “state police gang task force and the FBI gang task force to come in to assist us in resolving what appears to be gang activity in many instances.”

I hadn’t seriously considered Dawson as a candidate until I read his comment in this story.

Why hasn’t the mayor tried to bring in outside help from the State Police and the Feds? Crime has been out of control this year and could send this city straight back to the dark ages if we don’t get it under control. The mayor and the NHPD need to put their egos aside for a second and ask for help here.

I hope Mr. Dawson emerges as a law and order candidate. We need one.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 26, 2011  4:51pm

Ex-NHPD,
As I’m sure you already know, in the early and mid-1990s, many of New Haven’s large drug gangs - The Jungle Boys, KSI, Latin Kings, etc - were dismantled through long-term jail sentences. Also around this time, many new businesses (especially food related businesses) began opening in downtown. Former Chief Pastore also opened many Police Substations throughout the city as part of a larger community-based policing strategy. These 3 initiative, along with several government programs like low-income mortgage loans, job training, and summer youth activities, resulted in a steady decline in the crime rate that continues to this day (the crime rate today is less than half what it was in 1990).
You agree that crime is too high today - correct? Even when massive arrests of drug gangs took place and the city has seen a 60% drop in the crime rate, there is still too much crime. Why do you think that arresting people will solve anything? Law enforcement without economic strategies will not get rid of the entrenched criminal culture in the city, it will merely clear the streets for the next generation of criminals.

Atwater,
I don’t think the people in City Hall are as evil as you make them out to be. I really think that the Mayor and his administration believe in school reform, and that it will help many at-risk kids to get the skills needed to compete in the high-skill job market. Personally, I think school reform will not have a large impact for many students and it will not help to substantially reduce crime, but I think that the Mayor disagrees with my views on this one. I don’t think he realizes how misguided his school reform is.
I agree that the result of the city’s current policies is to push poor people further away from the downtown and out of the city as evidenced by city’s help to Yale in bulldozing large swaths of the Hill neighborhood and the Winchester project, but I do not think it is the city’s intention to do these things. I think the city is trying to take steps to bring poor people out of poverty, even if their policies result in the exact opposite. I don’t think there is a conscience effort on behalf of the city to further disenfranchise people.
I also agree that the city could do a lot more to promote low-skill job growth in the city, but I think that substantial expansions of things like job training programs, tax abatements for companies, and other measures that employ low-skill people will only result in much higher property taxes without having a sizable impact on crime. The federal government is the one in control of MedicAid, welfare, food stamps, etc, not the city. It’s the federal government that has to redirect entitlements into job creation for low-skill workers, and its the fed that has to change national policies on trade, commerce and the tax structure.

posted by: fed up on May 26, 2011  5:50pm

To Johnathan Hopkins:
I’d like to remind you that you grate my nerves every time you open your mouth and suggest more government programs and more this and more that to help people who are already helping themselves to my tax dollars, that you are part of the problem and not the solution.

Every time you post about the government needing to do this, train that, offer programs et al, you are becoming an enabler. People who participate in activities that are illegal have no personal growth or responsibility because ... such as yourself and 99% of the NHI Fan base want to coddle this people and make them feel like it’s not their fault they received an education for free just like everyone else and couldn’t handle rules and regulations that apply to everyone else. Oh no, they’re poor, downtrodden and deserve a break on everyone else’s hard work and tax dollars.

If you suggest one more program or other idiotic idea, I will recommend you pay for it and kindly leave my hard work and money out of even more grubby hands.

Personally, if they were to seal off New Haven and let everyone kill each other and then let people back into the city to rebuild it, it would be a win-win for Connecticut across the board.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 26, 2011  6:02pm

Wicked Lester,
People with college degrees are having difficult times finding jobs because of the recession, which is temporary and will only effect people with high educations for a few years. So yes, these people typically do not commit crimes because of unemployment. I am not talking about them. I am talking about the people that come from families that have faced economic depression since the 1950s. After several generations of chronic unemployment, increasing job scarcity, and accelerating manufacturing outsourcing, certain groups of people are prone to extremely socially degraded and morally bankrupt behavior such as senseless violence. In addition to uncivil behavior, families that have faced decades of unemployment also seek underground markets such as drugs where legitimate employment is hard to come by.
Back in the 50s and 60s when unemployment for low-skill people was initially rising, you wouldn’t have seen people committing crimes and random acts of violence, which was why the crime rate was lower in New Haven in the 1960s than New Haven’s suburb’s crime rates are today. But after several generations of unemployment, increased incarceration of males, and sensationalized media and entertainment and you have a recipe for extremely destructive behavior.
So if the recession never recovers and the job market doesn’t rebound, don’t be surprised when the grandkids of Joe Six pack in the suburbs are killing each other, selling drugs and becoming dependent on government handouts.
This is unlikely to happen since the government finds the middle class less expendable than the working class, but don’t kid yourself into believing that any group is immune to the effects of generations of economic depression and social isolation.

On the other hand, it’s quite possible that the groups who are entrenched in a lifestyle of engaging in random acts of violence and other socially degrading behavior are just too far gone to even become productive members of society. 3-5 generations of chronic unemployment, social isolation and sensationalized entertainment is a lot to overcome and maybe an abundance of low-skill jobs isn’t going to help. I prefer to be hopeful and optimistic, however. I think that if the jobs come back, people will steadily pick themselves up and regain their composure, perhaps it’ll take a generation, but it’s certainly worth a try, and certainly worth more investment than welfare, imprisonment and school reform which haven’t done anything helpful in the last 6 decades.
Also, I attended a community meeting at the Winchester Factory with residents and Winstanley and several older gentlemen asked about low-skill jobs for the Newhallville neighborhood. Those gentlemen were former convicts.
You’re wrong, buddy.

posted by: Ex-NHPD on May 26, 2011  6:38pm

I am sure Mr. Jonathan Hopkins is a well meaning person.  I am sure he believes everything his professors have taught him. 

I was on the NHPD for 25+ years.  I can tell him, and everyone else, first hand, that the sheer level of violence in the city, in the past three years, is as bad as it has been since I started at the NHPD in the mid 1980’s.  And it is not just among criminals shooting other criminals.  The past couple of years have brought a new twist to street violence—-totally compliant robbery victims being shot for no reason, after giving up their money/property without any resistance to the robber(s).

Hopkins will learn one day that not every thing can be boiled down to statistics to explain what is happening.  He says “Crime” has dropped 60% from 1990, and questions whether arresting people solves anything.  My first hand assessment is that New Haven is just as violent, if not more so, than in 1990, despite 60% less crime.  Arresting people will not solve EVERYTHING, but it is certainly a necessity in the NHPD’s response to crime. 

He said economic strategies are needed along with Law Enforcement.  I think that is certainly a factor, but without repudiation of violence being unequivocally embraced by the citizens, NHPD will continue to be only a first line of defense against crime.  No Police Department can make a difference without the citizenry taking an active role.

posted by: The Professor on May 26, 2011  7:50pm

Great reporting by the NHI here—it’s really refreshing to see a media outlet actually discuss what the numbers mean rather than throw out the most sensational interpretation possible. 

As to the posters who are lambasting DeStefano and Limon—would you care to explain what exactly the Mayor and Chief are doing that is exacerbating or at least failing to mitigate the crime problem?  I have a tough time believing that laying off 3.5% of the police force (going from 450 to 434 sworn officers) would have led to this even if it had taken place with enough time (people do realize there’s a lag before you see the effect of a lot of things, right?).

Moreover, there’s a good amount of evidence suggesting that things like unemployment, a lousy overall economy, etc. are big driving forces (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm).  And on that front, the fact is that the current administration is doing pretty well—keep in mind that relative to other cities in the region, New Haven has weathered the bust pretty well.  Things still aren’t great, but they’re better than they are in a lot of other places.

It actually seems plausible to me that the crime problem in New Haven would be WORSE but for the efforts of DeStefano on the economic front.  I don’t know a whole lot about criminology, but I have yet to see anything to suggest that Limon is doing a poor job (though things like having more officers walk beats and stepping up community outreach would seem to make sense…not sure how the union would take that though).

posted by: Mr. Ewing on May 26, 2011  8:24pm

Come visit us. WE are Bridgeport YouthBuild, and I spend everyday working with young people.  We have a graduation on 6/10/2011 @ noon.  The shame is that programs like the one I run are not being funded.  No YouthBuild program was funded in CT, there used to be three. Can you work on a grant.  Want to try.  We need people that care.

posted by: thinktwice on May 26, 2011  8:51pm

What the hell does the mayor know about policing anyway? I was never a fan of Pastore but he is looking real good at this point compared to this present chief. I also wish Lewis was back. Not to say there would not be violence, but he had more of handle of what to do,how to deploy,how to manage his men and women and he led by example,dedication and respect for his officers and the community. The mayor should stop using this horrible rage of violence in my city to grand stand and politicize everything. People are dying mayor, don’t you get it? This is not about your re-election,building more schools,hiring more employees,subjecting your present employees to terrible working conditions of pressure and badgering and on and on. This is about us and it is getting real personal mayor. Wake up John!

posted by: Clifton E. Graves,Jr. on May 27, 2011  12:22am

As a candidate for Mayor,I read with great interest the various commentaries offered by our fellow citizens/residents/taxpayers.I am particularly intrigued by the challenge presented by change agent Kevin Ewing, and seconded by long time public servant,Tomas Reyes,that we need concerted community-based initiatives-in conjunction with various law-enforcement strategies -to effectively address this culture of violence…its symptoms…causes and effects….I am willing to join Rev Kev,Tomas and others in formulating solutions for the complex, myriad of issues/problems confronting our community.Moreover,I am interested in having a dialogue with ex-NHPD,and any others of his/her ilk whose law enforcement backgrounds and experiences can also be helpful in coming up with the multi-faceted,multi-tiered approaches necessary to collectively ,and comprehensively address this “culture of violence”.Posturing and finger-pointing will not do.Our children are being shot and killed.Our neighbors and fellow citizens are being shot and killed.Our children and fellow citizens are being terrorized and traumatized.Election year politics notwithstanding,this madness has got to stop.And we must be committed to stopping it.We need a new vision..a new voice…together we can be the change we seek.

posted by: Anon on May 27, 2011  6:49am

Bill,

I am sure it was mentioned in the PERF recommendations, but Connecticut is one of the states that requires police departments to submit audited crime data. It’s a law in Connecticut. The vast majority of departments comply. Some police departments get behind and don’t do it.

City Hall and PD were confronted on this periodically over the years, because they fell behind at some point after year 2000-2002, somewhere in there. But citizenry failed to appreciate what it meant and this fact would just sort of get buried while people debated the latest homicide numbers. 

For example, there was one of those meetings at Union Ave attended by politicians, and members of the boards of the community policing groups to mark the release of the yearly crime stats. It was the year of or year before Ortiz left as chief, around then

The mayor was there and distributed the report, pointing out which crime rates went up or down and so on.

He was asked before the entire crowd if these were audited crime statistics and whether they could be submitted to FBI. He said no they weren’t. Asked when was the last time the PD had submitted their numbers to the FBI he stated an exact year. Can’t remember the year, but can confirm it showed a few years had gone by since the department reported to FBI.  They weren’t submitted that year either and haven’t been until now.

If you are strapped you might not worry about preparing reports—lower priority.

But a couple things really annoyed me about these almost worthless, unofficial, unaudited annual reports they issued to the city.

Chief among the annoyances was that the press reported them uncritically, which was substandard. Comments on NHI pointing this out were ignored repeatedly by the reporters and editor.

It was a disappointment because in cities where the established mainstream newspapers were still going strong, hadn’t been taken apart yet, and traditional standards were still in place, reporters were not allowed to do this. In fact, in Philadelphia there is a famous case of news reporting that confronted the Philadelphia police stats.

Reporters are required even in mundane, daily crime stories to add a qualifying sentence each time they refer to or want to use the stats to give context to their stories, whether the report of a robbery, murder, what have you. In a burglary story for instance, they needed at least to write something to the effect that city says robberies are up but reports are unaudited and city is behind ...

Just a one-liner to be accurate. doesn’t have to be a headline or the subject of the story. everyone in the press failed to do this in Connecticut. It was particularly annoying in the alternative press because of some people in the alternative press who consider the alternative press more truthful and competent than the mainstream press, but in Connecticut, they were all incompetent in this regard, including the Hartford Courant.

As to whether New Haven just fell behind or whether it deliberately suppressed reporting in order to look better—well, not sure it really matters.

If you fell behind on a non-priority task you dread doing and that won’t make you look good anyway, should someone put your feet to the fire? Eh, there are other things that take precedence.

Yes, it was annoying and substandard to see the mayor spin these reports every year with the press carrying the water for him—and they did carry water wittingly or unwittingly. It was annoying if you were one of the people who knew how bogus it was.

(You were guaranteed to be one of few people who knew since the press literally refused to write about it)

But in New Haven’s case there has been a culture in city hall of pressuring the community to keep quiet about crime in new haven.

You were never allowed to say, sheesh, there is a lot of crime here. Sheesh, there are too many shootings, sheesh, this is the most dangerous city I’ve ever lived in, what do we do about it? What can we do about it?

You were allowed to say, what can I do to help, you weren’t allowed to say the part before that—there is more crime here than when I lived in NYC.

if you did, friends of the mayor/PD would get in your face and pressure you. You couldn’t push a more sensitive button and you learned this if the first time you innocently did it.

Those organizations with an interest in promoting New Haven tend to downplay crime and up play their programs and that is good, it is sort of their job, but they unwittingly played into a city hall/PD policy of coming down on people who tried to discuss it when and where they SHOULD be able to discuss it. It kept the city from confronting honestly its crime problem, which really is one of the worst around.

And it was no service to these organizations which aren’t in the business of suppressing crime victims from speaking out. But their missions ended up assisting the mayor and PD brass in this without their really knowing it. 

EX-NHPD’s comment on this blog is absolutely a good read.

So, if you combine NHPD’s ditching its reporting requirement with the arm twisting the city/and police brass did to keep citizens shut up about crime, you do have something a bit more egregious and deliberate.

As a strategy for fighting crime, it is not a good one, plus it is crude and intimidating being on the receiving end of it.

It also was not fair to city booster groups to be unwittingly manipulated into carrying water for it either.

It got to the point where crime stat stories on NHI only created debates over whether New Haven is dangerous or not. They were contrived debates based on stories that omitted key information. essentially, they were debates that were asking over and over whether we should remain in blind denial or not.

When Chief Lewis appeared, he was able to do two things that were not allowed in New Haven without getting major grief from city hall and that no one else could get away with doing:

He was able to say unconditionally—wow, this city is out of control, never seen anything like it, the casual way kids with guns will shoot.

And he was able to say, this department hasn’t submitted crime reports in years.

Ex NHPD is right - the violence in the neighborhoods is really bad and anyone who doesn’t think so is pretty much nuts. But you weren’t allowed to say that and if you did you were dumped on. the city was open to anyone who had ideas as to how to have a positive impact on the crime in the neighborhoods, but never if those ideas had anything to do with facing it publicly in unambiguous language.

Paul Bass ended up being host to endless non- debates by readers filled with passionate comments symptomatic of these states of denial under stories that were never framed to examine this state of denial and spin coming from PD, city hall, and the poor groups drafted wittingly or unwittingly into enforcing this pure political protectionism.

And this story is a case in point. When I read this story, I am not worried so much about how it can distort data when groups interpret FBI stats to come up with city rankings. I am, but would have written one paragraph exposing it and move on to examine the facts of crime in New Haven in what I think would be a more interesting and productive way.

But the goal of this story seems to me to be about defending turf.  It is not about directly dealing with facts, but making sure we maintain the vague appearance of a politically progressive readership and citizenry.  It doesn’t dig, it doesn’t discover, it doesn’t think, it doesn’t really discuss anything. It isn’t actually progressive, again, the key phrase is appearance—it fights to maintain the appearances. It fights to stay in the camp knowing no other way to do that but to act like you are in the camp all the time. This is not first rate thinking.

I don’t think paul bass has any interest in buttressing whatever the mayor decides to do to protect his image, whether it is downplaying crime or anything else. But I do think the NHI’s preoccupations have benefited the mayor’s strategy here beautifully for years now.

posted by: City Resident on May 27, 2011  7:27am

To KD.  Whether the police, fire or teachers live in the city the fact remains the same.  The families of these violent people need to step it up and learn right from wrong.  Most city employees are originally from the city.  Cops move out because the realized it is unsafe and had their hands tied behind their backs in trying to solve the problem.  One way to stop this behavior.  Have people take responsibility for their own action.  It is a new concept in this liberal city.  I don’t care where people live I care that they do their job and do it to the best of their ability.  Stop with the give away programs hold people accountable for their actions and stop being politically correct.

posted by: D O C on May 27, 2011  7:46am

Oh yeah, put motor vehicle cops out there to give out seatbelt tickets…that will do the trick Mr Mayor.
Should work as well as your strategy of laying off 16 cops!

posted by: Anon1 on May 27, 2011  7:48am

To Anon 2—I am Anon 1 who you addressed, and I also am the Anon who has since submitted a post that addresses Bill Saunder’s comment.
No, people do not understand statistics. 

I don’t doubt for a second that rankings are flawed, I know studies have flaws. You failed to see the point, which was that the reasoning behind NHI’s story was even more flawed. 

But what is incredibly laughable is the alternative you offered us, the link at http://www.morganquitno.com/met02safe.htm.

You thank Paul for having a “grip on reality.” ... All I can say is what I am seeing as the highest competence here is that—being arrogant and so sure of oneself when in fact, one is at best uninformed and agenda-driven.

Your link is for Morgan Quitno’s rankings of cities and is a picture-perfect example of just what the FBI says is unreliable.

Worse, WORSE, than this newest state ranking, Morgan Quitno’s ranking used unaudited, un-submitted crime data from New Haven for years, ranking New Haven on this unofficial and missing data for years during which New Haven never produced a single audited crime stat report and had not submitted anything to the FBI.

And that Morgan Quitno enjoys a good reputation—it is now owned by Congressional Quarterly—is just another indicator to any smart reader that getting off the topic of addressing our crime issues, and waylaid by endless stupid debates on NHI about statistics is futile and unproductive. These studies are no more than guides. MQ’s comes off as far less plausible than this one.

The real debate is whether you are allowed to innocently and honestly describe your crime experience in New Haven if it offends the political interests of various players.

There is NO debate that New Haven has a darn hasty crime problem.

...

The FBI needs facts, and they already know that the audited numbers that come to them are going to have errors, missing incidents, downplayed incidents, in some rare jurisdictions, in some rare instances, even homicides can be under-reported.

So they are going to operate with the best numbers they can get, and know that these are not perfect but the best they can get.

What interest could they have in a million derivatives aside from their ability to guide, fill in, focus on one aspect? Shed a little light, and buttress some policy decisions if the study is good enough. Nothing—no interest.

It is one thing to say studies are flawed knowing the results may or may not generally reflect reality on the ground. It is another to declare conclusions specious because the methods or raw data are flawed.

A good statistician can convince a jury of almost any ranking within a plausible range.

New Haven as fourth resonates with a certain experiential plausibility for many in New Haven. 10 would have too. 15 may have, but average doesn’t and safest doesn’t either. MQ’s rankings are laughable.

The worst thing are the politicians and people who use studies to enforce a denial of reality, to demand that people admit as false what is right in front of their eyes.

Being ranked fourth is true enough based on reality. MQ’s ranking does and should cause more resentment.

Those who tout it have the agenda of getting people to deny reality or have been fooled themselves. That’s an insidious use.

Tools or weapons—the impact of a study depends on who is using them and why.

Specious was too strong a word, but also an inaccurate word to use and the reasoning and conclusions were simply not rationally arrived at, they were about disposition, political leanings, status quo, a sense of what is right, but not an arrival through reason of what is right. lacking reason there are only appearances to go by. It is a feeling story, an opinion piece, and an exercise in appearances in lieu of reason, which is endemic to educated in this community. It is not a news story, period.

posted by: Atwater on May 27, 2011  7:56am

@John Hopkins: I guess I am just too cynical to actually think that the city government (or any government) is actually trying to help the working-poor, especially, as you stated, their actions seem to have the opposite affect. Since the Federal Government is failing to stimulate low-skill job growth doesn’t the State and municipal government have a responsibility to pick up the slack? Also, I do not see the correlation between tax incentives to small/medium industry and a rise in property taxes. An incentive is not the same thing as a waiver. Medium industry would still pay property taxes and they would create low-skill jobs. Also, another benefit of light/medium industry is that it creates a mechanism with which to give valuable training to their employees. So, low skilled laborers have an opportunity to learn a skilled trade, which will benefit them their entire life.
This is all related to crime; if a population is stuck in poverty and dependent on the government than there will be little incentive to work towards lateral advancement. The culture that is produced is one of apathy, delinquency and criminality. City Hall knows this and does nothing to actually solve the problem. Instead they work to quarantine the “bad neighborhoods” from the good ones, they work to protect Yalies and the yuppies of East Rock, Westville, Wooster, and Downtown. There is no push to fully integrate the city, but there is a drive to create the appearance of control as well as to make it appear that they care. Hence the new schools; nice new buildings but little substantive change. The underlying issues remain and City Hall and Yale continue their work to diminish, if not eliminate the undesirable elements from the city. New Haven isn’t the only city that is doing this. It actually seems to be a national effort.

posted by: Moira on May 27, 2011  8:21am

@ Rae and KD—EXACTLY! NHPD should be stocked with NH residents, and officers from city neighborhoods should rise through the ranks to lead our force. Only then will we see real change.

posted by: Westville Mom on May 27, 2011  9:51am

I would just like to bolster the argument of “Ex-NHPD” who is expressing an expert opinion here.  My almost 30 years of residing in this city confirm EVERY WORD he/she is saying.  There was actually a time in the 80s when a shooting in the downtown area was a shocking event.  No more.  Nor are the “better” neighborhoods immune.  There have been armed muggings in Westville, as well as many other types of crimes.  Many of the more recent arrivals to this city are in deep denial about the gravity of this issue.  Crime and the school lottery are the two biggest deterrents to progress and business development in this city.  Mayor DeStefano (while I agree with J. Hopkins is naively well-meaning) is too stubborn to see that his socialistic policies have utterly failed and therefore he MUST be replaced. (Is anyone at Yale reading this?)

When you drive through certain areas of this city, every other building is a school, a govt. “agency” or a “non-profit”—- this mushrooming of govt. intervention since the 80s has precious LITTLE to show in terms of success.

And on top of that, the current climate of political oppression (of non-PC speech, that is) prevents those in power from speaking the truth.  The truth being that out-of-wedlock births, too many births, too many births with too many partners, too low standards of behavior and accountability, absent fathers, absent mothers, neglect and abuse, and addiction are the real underlying causes of all this crime and failure to thrive. The very concept of a healthy “family” is under assault.  Maybe going back to “health class” and “home ec” class for high school girls AND boys would be a good thing.

As for statistics, one need only take the FBI stats themselves and do your own analysis.  A couple of years ago I did just that and posted my numbers in a comment on this site.  I believe we came out similar to Philadelphia and with the recent extreme uptick in violence here, it would not surprise me at all if we have jumped far ahead of Philly.  Some stats lump New Haven regionally in with Milford and Hamden.  I fail to see the point in that—such boundaries are merely gerrymandering stats for political purposes.

So what’s to be done?  The commenter who suggested state/fed intervention makes sense because this is probably drug/gang related. I wonder what happens when the suburbanites don’t have as much money to spend on drugs?  Maybe the drug gangs start competing with one another for bigger turf?  Wouldn’t surprise me.

And here’s another thought ... rather than blaming everything on the cops, the time may have come for voters to consider the justice system and judges of this state.  Rather than continuing to be bullied by liberal pro-offender lobbying groups, people need to sit up and take notice of the fact that these criminals are recidivists who are permitted multiple offenses before serving serious time.  You fix this by throwing the Dems out of the state legislature and electing officials who will appoint tougher judges.  This is an issue that almost NEVER gets discussed and I think should be a major issue in the next state election.

posted by: roger huzendubel on May 27, 2011  11:19am

Are those 1200cc HD fatboys ? they look like it. Those are very nice machines, I would ride none other. But you got to be kidding me that you think they are an effective crime fighting technique.Harley Davidsons have a very specific,some might say loud,rumble if im on the corner hustling I can hear that from three blocks away or around the corner, you cant see a cop car around the corner. It might deter some crime but it might give a warning to others to wait until the cop is gone.
    I think maybe we should stop protesting the police and distracting them with baseless protests (some not all) and let them do their thing, . Go ahead and attack me.

posted by: JAK on May 27, 2011  12:02pm

This has very little to do with police.  And while the stats are misleading inasmuch as the resulting headline is 4th MOST DANGEROUS CITY, we all know that downtown New Haven and lots of the unimpacted neighborhoods are very safe.

This is mostly about a limited group of ex-convicts who like to fight and shoot each other and a few neighborhoods that seem to tolerate it. 

What to do?  How about a “Weed and Seed” policy?  City governments at times have come up with hard-edged solutions that cut crime through aggressive policing and increasing prison populations (Guliani).  I don’t see that working here because the population most directly impacted by the crime in New Haven seems to view punitive solutions as being harmful to the community.  The elected politicians who represent the impact neighborhoods are not exactly tough-on-crime types.  And in any event, the State is actively trying to reduce prison populations.  So longer sentences don’t seem to be a very workable option right now.

How about the aldermen propose an anti-gun ordinance with real teeth?  Anyone found to be in possession of an unregistered gun will serve a mandatory sentence of 12 months, no probation, etc. Repeat offender?  5-years minimum.

Actually commit a crime with a gun?  Clean record or not, you’re done for a minimum of 10 years.  Repeat felons, 20 years+.  No parole.

The bottom line is that it begins with the community ITSELF changing the dynamic.  No other community or government can help until the neighbors themselves really want it to stop. 

How about prevention measures?

Enact and enforce a curfew.

An intensive block watch effort, not just Rabbi Greer and the Guardian Angels but everyday real neighbors? 

How about all the ministers asking their parishioners to call the police whenever they see something suspicious?  The police ought to be within four or five blocks at most these days.  This may result in a level of perceived harrassment, but keeping young men off street corners is a small price to pay to stop the terror, right?  If lots of neighbors are complicit in protecting criminals (No Snitch policy), there really is no place to begin the conversation.

New Haven does community meetings, rallies, marches really well. But it never does what it takes to get rid of the crime.  And until the impacted neighborhoods decide to purge themselves of the bad apples, no one else will.

posted by: observor on May 27, 2011  12:03pm

This article sadly addresses what could be a misinterpretation of the actual facts as transposed by individuals not engaged in law enforcement.
Seeing the mayor and his staff bring this to the forefront is clearly an indication that its election time again. I highly doubt that DeStefano has any iota of what to do to fix the situation. One doesn’t have to listen too closely to realize that its the administration of the police dept that has the right ideas and then the mayor makes it look like him. It would be great to see John stay at city hall and let the highly competent men and women of the NHPD address the issue.
What is very noticeable is that once again Limon is out of town on our dime when the bs hits the fan.Maybe he should stay away and let the 4 AC’s run the NHPD by committee.By pooling their thoughts and experience I’m quite sure the problems at hand would start to be fixed.In any event I think we will see the dedicated and hard working men and women of the NHPD take exception to the #4 ranking and work in a direction so New Haven gets a different type of exposure next year at this time.

posted by: Threefifths on May 27, 2011  5:46pm

This is what happen.And this is all of the country.

WHY COPS LIE-AN INSIDER’S POINT OF VIEW
By: michaeldiscioarro
Posted: Oct 18, 2010

http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/why-cops-lie-an-insiders-point-of-view-3499171.html

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 27, 2011  5:57pm

Ex-NHPD,
There were over 300 shootings in New Haven in the late 1980s and early 90s. In the last 5 years, there have been about half that number of shootings per year. Since 2005, there has been a slight uptick in violent crime as compared to the 1998-2003 period, but overall, it is still a trend of decreasing crime. The statement that crime is as bad as its ever been is a categorical lie and I’m very surprised to hear an experienced police officer offer up something so utterly untrue and demonstrably false.
I would also like to know where I can find these law-abiding citizens who are not fed up with crime and violence in this city. Where are all these apathetic people? Do you not read about the marches, the community meetings, the comments on news articles denouncing violence and calling for an answer? New Haveners have been calling for solutions and rejecting this culture of violence since the early 70s. Apparently you’re solutions aren’t working. We need something else.

fed up,
I’m just some guy, I don’t control your taxes. I am merely suggesting that we take existing funding that is used for MedicAid, welfare, food stamps and other entitlements and redirect that existing funding into more productive uses like government contracts for low-skill workers to assemble components of solar panels, wind turbines, geo-thermal systems and other technologies of the future. This would uplift the underclass and make them productive and also lay the foundation for future self-sufficiency, which would allow government entitlement programs to be reduced or eliminated in the near future thus lowering taxes in the long-term. Government contracts were used during WW2 to keep the economy afloat and they were used after the War to build suburbs and prevent the economy from slipping back into another depression. They could most likely work again.
Again, I can’t make this happen, only a sizable group of citizens coming to a consensus and acting to initiate this or convince political representatives to act will accomplish anything.

atwater,
I think that having the municipal government try to bring in low-skill jobs would ultimately result in higher taxes. Perhaps a state-level investment would work better, but I still think the Federal government needs to play an integral role in any initiative to bring back low-skill jobs to this country’s cities. I might be wrong, but this probably isn’t the proper venue to get into the details of tax abatements, etc.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 27, 2011  6:30pm

The ranking system mentioned in this article and used on the NHR is fundamentally flawed for a number of reasons, a major one being that places like Orlando and New Haven are compared equally even though Orlanda annexed large swaths of suburbs in the mid 20th century and New Haven did not.
But even disregarding the inherent flaws of this ranking system, there are just moronic flaws in the context of the calculations of the rankings.
According to the 2010 Census, the population of Memphis (#5 on the list) dropped from 673,650 to 646,889. The list uses the wrong population, thus skewing the numbers.
St. Louis (#3 on the list) went from a population of 355,151 to 319,000. The list uses the wrong population, again.
The population of Detroit (#2) is actually 713,777, not the 899,447 number used for the list.
The population of Flint (#1) is actually 102,434, not 109,245 as used in the list.

New Haven’s population actually GREW over the last decade so the 124,856 number used for the list is lower than the actual population of 129,779. Not only is this list fundamentally flawed, but even with the assumption that the list is worth anything its still wrong because the people that did it are morons.

posted by: Westville Mom on May 27, 2011  8:11pm

Jonathan—People say that figures don’t lie, but like Three Fifths pointed out, they can be manipulated.  (His article, though, asserts that cops UNDER-report crime, rather than OVER-report it. If this is true, we’re in bigger trouble than I thought.)

You seem to have a rose-colored view of dear old New Haven.  The oldest complete FBI stats that I could dig up were from 1995.  Property crime was higher then (more people have alarms and security systems now?), but violent crime was roughly the same, except for rape.

1995
Pop.: 119,604
Violent Crime: 2,229
Murder: 21
Rape: 98
Aggravated Assault: 1,157

2010 (prelim)
Pop.: 124,856
Violent Crime: 1,978
Murder: 22
Rape: 68
Aggravated Assault: 1,104

With 15 murders so far in only the fifth month of 2011, it looks like we’re on track to smash all the previous murder records.

Trends go up and they go down.  Unfortunately, in New Haven they haven’t gone down far enough and stayed down long enough.  You can cut the stats any way you like, but it won’t change the reality on the ground.  If “Ex-NHPD” is lying, then I’m lying too, because the level of crime in New Haven is totally unacceptable to me and has been for a VERY long time.

I’m not sure at all why you seem to be an apologist for this city, but if you want to know where all the “apathetic people” are, I would point you in the direction of the 82% of registered voters who did not bother to vote in the last mayoral election.  I found this 2009 account from the Yale Herald rather poignant:

“It was disheartening to many to see the extreme degree of apathy that New Haven residents feel toward local governance. It is difficult to believe that a city of 125,000 people actually has no grievances or disagreements with city policies in the middle of a recession, especially given the city’s mishandling of issues ranging from the infamous firefighter discrimination cases to general finances.

New Haven has long been a state charity case, as it receives approximately half of its municipal funds from state coffers. Although some criticize this state of affairs, it has long been the case and, given the apparent disinterest of voters in the city’s governance, is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

Interestingly enough, if current electoral apathy trends continue, voter turnout would dip below 10 percent in two election cycles, and in five wards, a prank write-in campaign involving a group of people roughly the size of a single class year of a single college at Yale could have won the race for a joke candidate.”

I voted for Angela Watley last time around, so my conscience is clear. If only one plank in her platform had succeeded (bringing back neighborhood schools), we’d be that much better off now.

http://yaleherald.com/news/destefano-reelected-despite-low-turnout-in-local-elections/

posted by: Saux on May 27, 2011  10:24pm

Ex-NHPD ..a very cold “Yuengling” for you..You should of hung on.Its guys like you that got fed up..I understand..We had many good supervisors that could have led the charge but city hall wouldnt have it..And because of their inept decisions and not leaving a good department alone..The city is in a fight for their lives..The domino effect of this will be devastating ..residence not being able to sell and move out because property values will bottom out,businesses not wanting to come here..Students not wanting to go to school here.,Taxes will be higher for public service because there will be no other revenue to grasp at..Its sad that the mayor has to headline his strategies to fight crime and not the absentee Police Chief…a very sad state of affairs.

posted by: Big Mama on May 28, 2011  7:47am

I have just finished watching the morning news. I am very upset.It seems the two reporters considered it a joke that New Haven was number four.There is crime everywhere. If you are afraid, why do you come here to work? Leave the jobs for people that live here.Keep your drugs in your own town along with your guns.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 28, 2011  11:48am

Made a mistake in my previous post. Violent crime - murder, rape, robbery, assault etc - as a whole has been decreasing since the early 1990s, only shootings (which overwhelmingly involve convicted felons) have seen a slight uptick in the last 5-6 years. Still the number of shootings per year (+-130) is at about the same level as the late 1970s and early 80s.
The worst gang problems we have today are groups like R2, which would have been considered one of the weaker gangs a generation ago.
Things are most certainly bad, but hyperbolic speech isn’t helping the situation - in fact, I would argue that it hurts the efforts aimed at addressing this city’s very real crime problem by making it seem insurmountable and helpless.

posted by: brett on May 28, 2011  12:09pm

The city feels more out of control than it has at any time in the past decade.  The recent events are the logical outcome of John DeStefano’s willful ignoring of a steady deterioration in the City fabric.

For a reality check all he has to do is go for a walk on the Green.  The city administration seems to welcome the psychotic, degenerate and addicted to the city center.  If that’s what they are willing to accommodate on City Hall’s front lawn, why is there any surprise that a crime wave can be tolerated in New Haven’s back streets?

When are the voters going to demand and install a mayor who puts taxpayers and working residents first before the last one moves out.

Mayor DeStefano: the entire New Haven experiment is in jeopardy.  Wake up!  Start realizing that the rejuvenation of New Haven happened not because of you, but in spite of you.  You didn’t create it but you can ruin it.  Get a clue and start working for the city’s productive people instead of its destroyers.

posted by: Ex-NHPD on May 28, 2011  3:32pm

Mr. Hopkins:

...  I did not write that CRIME is as bad as it ever was; I said the level(and I now add the Culture) of VIOLENCE is.  There is a big difference.

As far as where you can find the law abiding apathetic people-You again missed what I wrote about.  Peace Marches and Community Meetings that occur only after a horrific crime or spate of violence is the issue I wrote about.  That type of window dressing “Solution” that does not last beyond the the last member of the press leaving the scene.  I was writing about the lack of an entire community standing up and putting into ACTION their refusal to accept the violence. 

You write that the community has been calling for solutions and rejecting violence since the 70’s.  My point is that it is easy to call for solutions; many have done so. However, there is not a rejection of the violence by a significant enough portion of the community to even begin to impact the epidemic.

Nancy Reagan was pilloried for being too simplistic is addressing Drug Abuse with “Just say No!”.  “Just say No!” to violence is not enough either.  If you make excuses for the violence by blaming the station of life of those committing the violence, you are saying that level of violence is ACCEPTABLE for your community.

posted by: Alan Felder on May 28, 2011  9:46pm

When ever you reap something, something was sown, for every reaction, there is an action, for every effect, the is a cause. The causalities are the polygenist policies coming from City Hall, to name a few: the PLA(Project Labor Agreement) is a hegemonic policy where 2 billion dollars in school construction and less than 1/4 of 1% of the public resources returned to the communities where these young men are from, (Municipal I.D. Card) having these young men compete with illegal immigrant is politically and morally wrong, Thomas Aquinas said “non enforcement of the law is no law at all”,and what we now have is (The Educational Industrial Complex) privatizing public education, substandard education our children are receiving, a 50% dropout rate, a 40% social promotion rate totally goes against the 1954 landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court case Brown v. the Board of Eduction, where do we go from here?

posted by: Anon1 on May 28, 2011  10:02pm

Amazes me all the energy that goes into picking these numbers apart.

First—NHR carried a story saying FBI says rankings are deceptive. So, to those comments that bash NHR and tout NHI’s superiority, yet again, please, read the paper.

Second—4th, 10th whatever—those numbers feel about right, and that is all these rankings do.

Third—crime is bad here, duh, we know that because we live here, and most of us have lived elsewhere too.

Four—FBI disses ALL rankings, those that put New Haven 118th or 1st, and the one that put New Haven 118th had less reliable numbers than this one did. Again, arguing about numbers is stupid

fifth—yes, police departments have lots of practices in place to lessen crime reporting, and lots of victims don’t report on top of that. That is well established, every criminologist teaches it in college and graduate schools and no one questions the veracity of that. It is beyond debate. Homicide rates are most reliable. The press is the bad guy here for failing to incorporate that in their stories a l l - t h e - t i m e.

...

posted by: richgetricher on May 28, 2011  11:25pm

Three developments were very disturbing this past week regarding public safety. First was the flurry of shootings, second was the designation as the 4th most violent city, and the third was the Mayor’s response. A grandstanding political event, without police chief, backed by his uniformed motorcycle troops, the Mayor gave orders to engage. Good work across the street for pulling that guy over. Sure enforcing the law and showing force is important, but what happened to community policing? Where are the beat cops? Emphasis on the local substations?

The Mayor’s answer is to command his troops to get in the public’s face and confront. At this stage, it seems the Mayor feels that the answer is always a matter of confronting and imposing his will.

posted by: Westville Mom on May 29, 2011  12:28am

Today’s required reading for John DeStefano:

“Hard Times, Fewer Crimes”—Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345553135009870.html

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it’s not the economy, it’s the CULTURE, stupid.

Middle-class culture, unlike what all good liberals were taught in the 1960s and continue to believe today, is healthy and desirable.  It’s actually somewhat tragic that the impoverished in New Haven have so few middle class standards/role models to observe, learn from, and aspire to.

A key move to bring the middle-class back would be a guaranteed “neighborhood option” for schools.  Mayor DeStefano wouldn’t have to jettison his lottery or his “magnets” at all.  Merely give city residents the same option that suburbanites have—- choose EITHER your neighborhood school OR the lottery.  New Haven bestowed “choice” on suburbanites, who have the “option” of entering New Haven’s magnets, while relegating New Haven’s own citizens to authoritarian decree.  Thou SHALT enter the lottery ...

We’ve seen what DOESN’T work for a couple of decades now, but continue along the same hackneyed “progressive” path.  It’s time for a sea change.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 29, 2011  3:21pm

Ex-NHPD,
Is there another way of defining “level of violence” besides the frequency and severity of reported violent crimes? If not, then the culture of crime in the city was worse - much worse - in 1990 than in 2010 and the level of violence was worse in 1990 than in 2010. Between 1990 and 2010 the overall crime rate dropped by 60%, while the violent crime rate dropped by 35%. The severity of crimes was worse when local drug gangs ruled entire neighborhoods, controlled regional drug trafficking networks, and had less threat of legal action from the police and court system.
The level of violence in New Haven doesn’t exist because people accept it, it exists because of economic and social forces that are much larger than the residents of these neighborhoods. You could arrest every criminal in the city (which we’ve come very close to since 1992), and it still wouldn’t get rid of violent crime in the city because the underlying conditions that lead to a life of crime would still be in place to mold the next generation of criminal.
Wanting people to raise children properly and police their own communities is a perfectly reasonable expectation to have, in fact it’s one that I have. However, if people don’t have the tools necessary to rear their children properly and police their neighborhoods, all the reasonable expectations in the world aren’t going to make it happen. Without easy access to employment, shopping, recreation and civic venues, people cannot financially stabilize, provide for the needs of their family, physically and mentally relax, and stay involved with their community, which are components of a healthy life, family and neighborhood.

Westville Mom,
The massive incarceration rate explosion of the late 80s for non-violent offenders, and harsher jail sentences had a big impact on crime rates, that’s for sure. The problem is that incarceration is extremely expensive and it will be impossible to incarcerate our way out of the crime problem. We have to start spending a large portion of that money on job creation rather than incarcerating people. Also in the 1990s and 2000s, low-income mortgage loans allowed many urban families to move out to suburban communities, which helped low city crime rates. Unfortunately, many of these families can’t afford the suburban lifestyle of mandatory car ownership, property maintenance, privatization of recreation, etc. so this too is unsustainable. Our tight municipal budget can only afford so many cops and with the costs of overtime, it is likely that our police force is going to have to shrink in the near future.
I agree that an integrated middle class is important for many reasons, but it is equally important to have a strong working class. We only run into problems when the working class jobs are exported to India and China and much of the working class sinks down to become the underclass, which is the epicenter of violent and socially degraded culture. The middle class has also been running into trouble with the outsourcing of service and managerial level jobs in telecommunications to India. We can’t rely on financial sector growth to sustain our economy as evidenced by the 2007-2008 bubble and crash. We need better solutions.

posted by: Looking for Better Journalism on May 29, 2011  9:17pm

Why isn’t the New Haven Independent, run by smart people with Yale degrees, with access to some of the best urban policy experts in the country, doing more to tell us why the New Haven murder rate keeps rising? Is it the economy? Is it gun distribution patterns? Is it gangs? Is it drugs? Is it bad police leadership? Or what? The answer matters. You guys do the easy stuff: police press releases, cop of the week, the mayor’s press conferences. How about some real reporting for a change?

[Note: Thanks for the comment. We will look into it more. Meanwhile, the crime rate dropped last year, with the dramatic and important exception of murders.]

posted by: Toast on May 30, 2011  1:26am

Why doesn’t New Haven have a K-9 unit? Our officers need to be properly equipped, and the city needs dogs….

[Note: New Haven does have a K-9 unit.]

posted by: JackNH on May 30, 2011  9:31am

Of course we are one of the most dangerous cities in the country.  Those of us who have lived elsewhere know that.  On my street alone this year, there have been two murders.  Had the city reported statistics in the past, we always would have been high up on the FBI list.  Want proof?  Just ask the police how many of them live in New Haven.

Reasons?  1. Inbred, multi-generational culture of violence. 2. Dumping of ex-cons weekly in the city.  3. Don’t-snitch code of omerta.  4. Ineffective policing.  5. Poverty. ...

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 30, 2011  11:39am

Looking for Better Journalism,
“Why isn’t the New Haven Independent…doing more to tell us why the New Haven murder rate keeps rising?”
Because it isn’t.

Homicides
2005: 15
2006: 24
2007: 13
2008: 23
2009: 13
2010: 24
2011: 15 (as of May 30)

2011 includes 3 people murdered in one arson incident in Fair Haven, and a double homicide of drug dealers at their stash house on Front Street. While the higher number of homicides for 2011 is certainly worrisome, it is not enough to conclude that homicides “keep rising”.
It would be great to have “expert” opinions on matters like this, but the questions have to be accurate.

posted by: fed up on May 30, 2011  4:02pm

To Jonathan Hopkins :
Thank you for trivializing and continuing to downplay the violence in the Elm City. ...
Trivializing those numbers does not bring comfort to those of us who are simply fed up with the violent crimes that are driving this city into the ground.
Trivializing those numbers does not bring the suburbanites back into the city, a subject that you’ve spouted off time and time again…about how NH needs to bring back families to New Haven and out of the suburbs.
Trivializing those numbers does nothing to quell my anger about more and more of my tax dollars spent on community this or community that.

Whether New Haven is 4th,14th or 40th in the nation for violent crime, THIS current state of affairs is unacceptable yet you maintain that it is.

posted by: anon on May 30, 2011  4:19pm

Someone asked about murder rates, given the fact that the “violent crimes” measure primarily represents categories such as aggravated assault. 

Aggravated assaults can be highly variable in terms of how they are reported, often can be considered much less severe than a murder (i.e., firearm assaults or “shootings” are a small fraction of the total number of assaults), and typically do not occur among strangers. 

The person above suggested that homicides might be a better indication of safety than all “violent crimes” lumped together.

Using the same 2010 data that “24/7 Wall Street” used, at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/preliminary-annual-ucr-jan-dec-2010/data-tables/table-4/table-4/view, here is a list of municipalities with the highest murder rates per capita:

Murders per 100,000 persons in 2010, among municipalities with more than 100,000 persons

1 New Orleans LA: 49 per 100,000
2 Flint MI 49
3 St. Louis MO 41
4 Baltimore MD 35
5 Detroit MI 34
6 Newark NJ 32
7 Jackson MS 24
8 Dayton OH 22
9 Oakland CA 22
10 Washington DC 22
11 Buffalo NY 21
12 Hartford CT 21
13 Kansas City MO 20
14 Richmond CA 20
15 Cincinnati OH 20
16 Rochester NY 20
17 Miami Gardens FL 20
18 Richmond VA 20
19 Philadelphia PA 20
20 Peoria IL 19
     
New Haven is typically much farther down the list, but due to a spike in homicides in 2010 (22 reported), it had a rate of 16.9 murders per 100,000 persons if you use our 2010 Census population.  Since New Haven has relatively few murders, it might be best to use a rolling average over the past 5 years, which should give New Haven a rate of somewhere near 13 per 100,000 - similar to Boston, Massachusetts’s 2010 murder rate per 100,000.  Regardless of which way you look at it, New Haven wouldn’t be in the “top 25” for this crime category.

posted by: thinktwice on May 30, 2011  4:37pm

“fed up” I do agree with you. And Hopkins ... never looks at the city from a different stand point other than statistics. The truth is we will have to brace ourselves for this summer. Eventually with a new mayor a different PD chief will take over and run the PD differently. This is not all the chief’s fault, but I don’t think he was the greatest pick. We all are paying way too high taxes to have to deal with all this!

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 30, 2011  5:14pm

fed up,
Please show me a single instance where I have downplayed the issue of crime and violence in this city. Show me a single instance where I have stated that the level of crime and violence is acceptable.
Many people have been stating things that are factually untrue, statistically wrong, and demonstrably false, which have painted an inaccurate picture of the city, provided the wrong context for evaluating crime, and presented mistaken historic views of crime and violence in the city. Most people are over exaggerating the negatives. Just because I am not over-exaggerating, does not necessarily mean that by presenting any other view I am therefore downplaying problems. I am accurately stating the situation, accurately depicting the historical context, and factually backing up what I say. That is not downplaying, that is being precise, objective, observant, and accurate rather than being assumptive, emotional, and perceptive.

On a personal level, my perception of crime in the city is that it is worse than when I was a child. When I was a kid I was blissfully unaware (perhaps naive) of crime and violence. When I was five, I didn’t know people getting shot, I didn’t know drug dealers, and grown-ups didn’t talk to me about robberies and theft. However, when I was five many neighborhoods in the city were still controlled by drug gangs, there were many more shootings than there are today and there was about 50% more crime.
As a grew older, I began listening to the nightly news reports, seeing headlines in the newspaper, witnessing crime (I could now see out the window above the dashboard in the car), I heard about incidents that happened to friends, and I was the victim of crime as well. In my mind, crime seemed more visible, more frequent, more intense, but in reality, crime was steadily declining throughout my teenage years. The same thing occurs to new families that move here. When they first arrive everything generally seems peachy, then they start reading the paper, hearing the news, meeting new people who share their experiences, and before you know it, you have a picture painted in your head that very well might differ from reality. For instance, a neighbor of mine moved to my street in 2007, and in a recent conversation she told me that she was worried about the increase in gun violence in the city in the last year and how crime was so much worse than when she moved in. Gun violence dropped for 3 consecutive years after 2007. Her perception was the exact opposite of reality.
There are ways of talking about violence and crime that denote seriousness, worry, and urgency that do not inaccurately use words like “keeps rising”, “getting worse”, “worse than ever”, and other phrases that are inaccurate and ultimately dilute the problem at hand.

posted by: Anon1 on May 30, 2011  10:07pm

To Anon:

You said:

“The person above suggested that homicides might be a better indication of safety than all “violent crimes” lumped together.”

I did not mean to suggest anything like that although I can imagine that my comment might have suggested that to someone.

I said homicide numbers are considered the most accurate. I said that is well established and beyond debate. And that’s true. I stand by it.

I said absolutely nothing about what they indicate about the safety of a city, though I may have an opinion about that. I certainly did not say anything so inane as to suggest that homicides alone, and not homicides plus other violent crime, should guide our sense of how safe a city is.

There are numbers and there is crime. our sense of how dangerous a city is is based on lots of things. I never ever meant to suggest anything so totally convoluted as that mouthful.

Can we all think plainly, please? this isn’t the debate squad, you know, those entities that exist to win arguments, not search for the truth. ...

Your homicide numbers analysis for New Haven is downright inaccurate.

...

posted by: Anon1 on May 30, 2011  10:31pm

To: better journalism,

well, I guess you got your answer, the statistics lie and now suddenly, they don’t. they will look into it.

I feel sorry for Yalies, and this is not directed at Paul, but Yalies.

All that money spent on education and what do they get? They get to get by on snobbery, elitism and a powerful credential.

that’s not fair at all to them or the rest of us, but mostly them.

As for doing math in public—NOT a good idea, trust me, just wave that diploma or your sunk! Ditto on knowing how to think—fake it till ya make it.

the most impressive Yalie I met recently could read Euclid upside down, that’s what it looked like. Oh, wait ...

anyway, I agree, we need some real stories on it.

Also, I don’t even want to know what the clearance rates are for homicides in New Haven. The trend nationally is that they are going down, which means more people get away with murder. Honestly. don’t want to know.

posted by: Anon1 on May 30, 2011  11:26pm

Give people credit. They aren’t all a bunch of empty vessels filled with whoever’s spin. Those who spin, spin, and have a reason, those who aren’t, well, aren’t and that doesn’t make them some sort of vessel for someone else’s spin. 

So, when you say this:

“When they first arrive everything generally seems peachy, then they start reading the paper, hearing the news, meeting new people who share their experiences, and before you know it, you have a picture painted in your head that very well might differ from reality.”

That strikes me as quite an assumption about those who perceive crime as higher.

Why? Because you seem to assume that people who perceive crime as higher here are not experiencing crime themselves or witnessing it in their proximity but merely reading some anti-new haven propaganda in the newspaper.

Or, perhaps your point is that they are experiencing crime themselves, but they are wrong to assume they are experiencing reality—not sure, since you did say they meet people who share their experiences. You mean, crime experiences?

I can tell you that many, many people I know in New Haven have developed the perception of high crime because the crime they have personally experienced has been higher than other places they have lived, or it has touched more friends and family than other places they have lived. And when you hear some of the names of the cities that make up those other places, it is often surprising to those who aren’t heavily involved with this subject, because people have some outdated ideas about what cities are more or less dangerous.

Reality is a funny term to throw around as something that supposedly isn’t what happens to us and around us when it comes to crime.

Maybe it’s an East Rock reality warp causing the perception that others are out of touch with reality.

You do know a pot hole in East Rock takes precedence over a crack house in Edgewood, right?

posted by: Westville Mom on May 31, 2011  10:02am

I would like to put some alternative numbers out to suggest a basis for “perception” of crime.  It occurred to me while looking at “Anon’s” numbers that something didn’t seem right.  So I re-calculated the murder rates based NOT on murders per 100,000 people, but rather on murders PER SQUARE MILE.  You see, I was driving my kid up Chapel St. the other day and felt compelled to point out the sites of the two shootings that happened there in the last couple of weeks.  I drive up Chapel St. frequently and passing TWO shooting sites (one fatal!) within an extremely short distance of one another is not only perception of crime, but also stark reality—reality close to home ... regardless of what the stats are.

So here is my alternative list (in descending order) based on Anon’s cities:
(If this doesn’t format properly, I will re-post—also I left out Miami Gardens, which wasn’t in the sq. mi. listing I used.)

City(#Murders)/  Sq.Mi./  Murder Rate PER SQ.MI.

Boston(73)      48.4   1.50

Flint MI(49)      33.6   1.46

Newark NJ(32)      23.8   1.35

Hartford(21)      17.3   1.21

New Haven(22)    18.9   1.16

Richmond CA(20)    30.0   0.67

St. Louis(41)      61.9   0.66

Rochester NY(20)  35.8   0.56

Buffalo NY(21)      40.6   0.52

Baltimore(35)    80.8   0.43

Peoria IL(19)      44.4   0.43

Dayton OH(22)      55.8   0.39

Oakland CA(22)      56.1   0.39

Washington DC(22)  61.4   0.36

Richmond VA(20)    60.1   0.33

New Orleans(49)  180.6   0.27

Cincinnati(20)    78.0   0.26

Detroit(34)    138.8   0.25

Jackson MS(24)    104.9   0.23  

Philadelphia(20)  135.1   0.15

Kansas City MO(20) 313.6   0.06

Not surprisingly, New Haven is still near the top of the list.  There are two surprises, though, and they are Boston and Detroit.  As Anon suggested, Boston DOES fare badly in this analysis.  Detroit, however, fares better.  Detroit’s whopping 138.8 square miles mean that its 34 murders would not be perceived nearly as badly as New Haven’s.  It is reasonable to assume that PROXIMITY to crime affects PERCEPTION of safety (or lack thereof.) I would bet that Boston’s mayor would dispute this ranking and Detroit’s mayor would confirm it.  And it should be mentioned that if New Haven’s current murder rate continues unabated this year, it will zoom to the top of this list next year.

In addition, it seems to me that New Haven’s square mileage is accurate and its figures should NOT encompass surrounding towns.  The identity of New Haven is certainly distinct from, say, Hamden or East Haven and it would be inaccurate to lump them together.  My family, for example, hardly ever sets foot in Hamden, other than to drive through it occasionally.

What this indicates is that New Haven has a big problem.  Perception of crime and proximity to crime are creating a bad (but definitely not undeserved) reputation for prospective residents and investors/businesses.

After all these years, it doesn’t seem logical that the mayor, the police chief, and (I would argue) the superintendent of schools can do any better in tackling this problem than they have already.  We should fire them all.

The (year 2000) land area list I used:

http://www.demographia.com/db-uscity98.htm

posted by: anon on May 31, 2011  12:41pm

Westville Mom:

Detroit had 310 murders last year, not 34. 

Newark had 90 murders in 2010, not 32.  That translates to 3.8 murders per square mile - many times higher than New Haven.

...

posted by: James P. on May 31, 2011  1:45pm

Former long time NH resident, moved to Brooklyn two years ago.

Read the story about New Haven being #4 on MSNBC, decided to check in to see what the Independent has to say.

Just a brief comment on “perception of crime”.

One thing I’ve noticed here in Brooklyn is that people hardly mention or even know about murders or shootings unless they happen right in their immediate (and I mean immediate) neighborhood. 

Shortly after I moved here, a teenager was murdered in a donut shop right across the street from my apartment. The immediate block, where the victim lived, was in an uproar, had community meetings, etc., but when I mentioned it to people at work, in another part of Brooklyn, absolutely no one knew about it, and to be honest, no one seemed disturbed or concerned about it representing a “downhill slide” or perceived it as impacting the overall safety of the community one iota. 

This murder (there were plenty of other violent crimes and murders while I lived there) occurred in a higher crime area, but only about two miles from affluent Park Slope (very roughly equivalent to New Haven’s East Rock), but there wasn’t even the faintest murmur of concern among people I talked to from outside the immediate neighborhood (read, a few hundred yards radius).

There are shootings all the time in NYC, but unless they are particularly sensational, you have to wade fairly deeply into the tabloids, beyond the gossip pages, to read about them. 

Greater New Haven, by contrast, is comprised of many suburban communities with virtually zero violent crime to speak of.  So every NH shooting gets a blaring headline in the Register or a report on WTNH, and people in Orange shudder about how dangerous New Haven is.

Currently, I live in a safer area of Brooklyn, though only still about a mile from a high crime police designated “impact zone”. Here, there just isn’t the climate of fear that I used to hear from suburban New Haven residents I knew who wouldn’t even go to a restaurant downtown after nightfall for fear of getting shot. 

Finally, it does seem ridiculous to lump in every city over 100,000 in population together in these comparisons. Have to believe that you could take areas of NYC or Chicago or LA with 100,000 people living in a certain locus and find very high numbers also.

posted by: anon on May 31, 2011  2:06pm

Westville Mom, all of your numbers are way off. Detroit had 310 murders in 2010, not 34.  Newark had 90 murders, which translates into nearly 4 murders per square mile - many times higher than Boston or New Haven. 

The list above yours is clearly labeled as a list of murders per capita, not total murders.

posted by: Westville Mom on May 31, 2011  2:28pm

Thanks, Anon.  Will have to recalculate.  Was a little sleepy when I transcribed numbers.  The news on crime in Boston today is rather shocking, by the way.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 31, 2011  5:08pm

Homicides are the most accurate crime statistic, but they also speak very little on what the overall atmosphere of crime is. Homicides generally involve criminals that know each other, or they come down to sheer chance. Often times the only different between an unlawful discharge, an assault with a firearm, and a homicide is luck. Sometimes the bullet misses entirely, sometimes it hits an extremity and sometimes its a fatal location. Most criminals do not have formal training, and are either in motion while firing or at great distance from the victim. While murders certainly are not meaningless, they tend not to weigh all that much in evaluating the climate of crime and danger posed to a population.
I also am not a huge proponent of comparing crime rates to other cities. Perhaps its because I’ve lived in New Haven my entire life, but in many instances I don’t see the real relevance in looking at other cities for their crime rates.
I’ll use my neighbor again as an example. She felt safe in 2007, but not in 2010. She doesn’t do anything different now than she did 4 years ago, she doesn’t associate with any more dangerous people than she did before, and she doesn’t walk alone at night on Winchester Avenue with a gold chain on. The actual threat of violence against her has decreased since 2007, yet the perceived threat of violence has increased. The same has happened to me. In my mind, there is a greater perceived danger, but this perception is not supported by the facts.
It’s quite possible that many people are in different circumstances and they are now in situations that make their threat of bodily harm at the hands of a criminal much higher than at another time in the past, but this is not the case for most people.
I spent a decent amount of time at the intersection of Norton and Chapel on foot a couple weeks ago trying to get a new phone service. The fact that this was the location of several recent homicides and shootings never became relevant while I was there because I don’t rip off the drug dealers that post on that corner, I don’t rob people there and then worry about them getting me back, I don’t sell cocaine at 2 in the morning, I don’t walk around with a giant chain on my neck, and I don’t talk junk to guys haning out in front of the liquour store, so none of the violent crimes based on other people’s disputes that had occurred there really had any relevance to me. Now it’s certainly possible for my to get mugged, or jumped, or even shot, but the chances of that happening are so incredibly unlikely that it’s not something I really have to worry about so long as I am mindful of my surroundings. I have a far greater chance of getting injured in a car accident in Orange than getting shot in New Haven.

posted by: anon on May 31, 2011  6:09pm

That’s interesting, Jonathan.  There are actually studies showing that despite falling crime rates in many cities, the perception of safety has dramatically decreased in recent years in cities around the globe.

Perhaps this has something to do with media saturation, over-reporting of crime (as opposed to other issues) and instant communication? 

On a related note, people are far more worried about kidnapping nowadays than they were 10 or 20 years ago, even though the risk of kidnapping by a stranger in your neighborhood is literally orders of magnitude lower than the risk of your kid dying in a car crash or dying prematurely from diabetes because he/she wasn’t allowed to get adequate physical activity.  Freakonomics writes about this extensively, but few solutions have been proposed.

posted by: Westville Mom on May 31, 2011  6:21pm

Anon—What I did was use your list and your numbers, but in my pre-caffeine state, did not notice the “per 100,000.” Sorry about that. That was because a lot of those numbers are actually similar, except for the larger cities. New Haven’s ranking improves, but is still nothing to write home about. 

So I’m curious to see what you think of the corrected list below in terms of “perception” and “proximity.”  Do these “proximity” rankings correspond to your perception of dangerous cities?  It’s important to note that New Haven is BY FAR the smallest of the cities when compared with the “high crime” cities you cited in the list you compiled, except for Hartford. 

It is hard for me to understand why people commenting here do NOT understand that high crime numbers in a SMALL city correspond to close proximity to crime.  Since you do not seem to think the murder numbers are high, perhaps you live on the east side of town?  Just as an aside, living near serious crime (and murders) is not a desirable thing for anyone, which explains why people who are first responders and have to deal with miscreants all day long often do not choose to live near where they work.  Forcing them to do so is a bit like forcing a mortician to buy a house across the street from a cemetery.

But anyway, just FYI, I am also including a ranking of the infamous “Top Ten” as reported, but ranked by murders PER SQUARE MILE.

For regional comparison, one could look at a city such as Springfield, MA, which has a population of 154,314.  Its murder count for last year was only 16, which translates to a rate per 100,000 of roughly only 10 and its rate per sq. mi. would be only 0.50 (at 32.1 sq. mi.)  Maybe that’s why Connecticut wants to create a commuter line from New Haven to Springfield—- to ship some of our criminals up there.

We should also be aware of the fact that if New Haven’s current murder rate continues, this year will yield a roughly 50% increase over last year—batten down the hatches. 

City(Total Murders)/ Sq.Mi./  Murder Rate PER SQ.MI.

Newark NJ (80)      23.8         3.36

Baltimore MD(223)  80.8         2.76

St. Louis (144)      61.9         2.33

Philadelphia(306)    135.1         2.27

Detroit(310)        138.8         2.23

Washington DC (132)    61.4         2.15

Oakland CA (90)      56.1         1.60

Flint MI (53)      33.6         1.58

Boston (73)        48.4         1.50

Hartford CT (26)      17.3         1.50

Buffalo NY (55)      40.6         1.35

New Haven (22)      18.9         1.16

Rochester NY (41)  35.8         1.15

New Orleans (175)    180.6         0.97

Cincinnati OH (67)  78.0         0.86

Richmond CA (21)  30.0         0.70

Richmond VA (41)  60.1         0.68

Dayton OH (34)      55.8         0.61

Peoria IL (22)      44.4         0.50

Jackson MS (41)      104.9         0.39

Kansas City MO (99)  313.6         0.32

10 Original “Most Dangerous” Ranked by “Murders PER SQUARE MILE”

Baltimore MD (223)  80.8         2.76

St. Louis (144)      61.9         2.33

Detroit   (310)        138.8         2.23

Oakland CA (90)      56.1         1.60

Flint MI (53)      33.6         1.58

New Haven (22)      18.9         1.16

Stockton CA (49)  54.7         0.90

Rockford IL (20)  56.0         0.36

Memphis (89)        279.3         0.32

Little Rock AR (25)  116.0         0.22

posted by: Westville Mom on May 31, 2011  6:38pm

Jonathan—When I was around your age, some jerk threw a can of beer in my face on the NYC subway and ran out the door. Believe me, I wasn’t provoking.  I was on my way home from “the theater” with a female friend.

Maybe you just feel safer because you’re a guy.  Be sure you listen to your “gut” while out on these streets—I often didn’t, had many close calls, and in the end just got lucky.

posted by: anon1 on May 31, 2011  7:15pm

Ok Jonathan, indeed there are those not experiencing crime who fear it because they read about it.

This perhaps has lead you to believe that others who feel New Haven is somehow more dangerous than, say, NY, have fallen into the same self deception.

Perhaps you have NOT come to that conclusion—I don’t want to presume.

But I can tell you factually it is not the case that all people who feel more at risk here are hullucinating.

I know many whose perception is grounded in their personal experience of New Haven, and the numbers only fortify that primary data—their experience. I am one of those people. I do tend to perceive New Haven as more dangerous and it has in fact been more dangerous for me than literally everywhere else I have ever lived.

Without giving away too much because I do prefer anonymity on the comment boards, the list of other places I have lived, other cities, other neighborhoods in those cities, I think would be surprising to many, maybe even you.

Yet the crime I have personally been subjected to has indeed outstripped every other place I have ever lived and not by a small margin, by a wide one, wide enough to say, whoa, what is up?

Because of it I got involved in community groups and block watches.

By the way, if you hang out at Norton and Chapel long enough Jonathan, you will likely be hastled at some point no matter how hard you keep to yourself unless you are particularly unusual.

I have a lot of ideas about it. New Haven’s geographic size, the relative cohesiveness and wide dispersion of crime compared to tightly knit neighborhoods in some cities, is one thing I have observed about New Haven that contributes to the perception. Not that new haven does not have distinct neighborhoods and neighborhoods that are more or less crime ridden than others—I am speaking relativity here, not absolutes. It is not as easy to be remote from it.

For me, New Haven actually has, as a matter of indisputable fact, been more dangerous and many other people are in that same boat, who have never been in that boat anywhere else they have ever lived. I meet them, I know them, I talk to them.

I don’t think it would be right or fair to make assumptions about the appearance, or attitude, or street-wiseness, or psychology of those in that boat here with me. In fact, it would be obnoxious and harshly unfair to stigmatize what is a diverse group. You would think of me as quite street wise and I don’t even go out much at night, not out of fear but choice—just not out much.

I know you through your comments on the NHI and don’t think that is the way you would think anyway, but for anyone who might, a caution.

At the same time, the numbers are not at all contradicting my experience and those with similar experiences here. It is not surprising that there are people who have had or are having that kind of crime experience here.

It is NOT all a chimera as so many would like New Haveners to believe. There are worse places by far. But New Haven has issues, there is no doubt about that.

I honestly don’t think we can deal with it with the endless crime PR war that emanates from city hall and picks up troops as it rolls out all over the city. it is just not productive.

posted by: anon1 on June 1, 2011  7:38am

Ok Jonathan, indeed there are those not experiencing crime who fear it because they read about it.

This perhaps has lead you to believe that others who feel New Haven is somehow more dangerous than, say, NY, have fallen into the same self deception.

Perhaps you have not come to that conclusion—I don’t want to presume.

But I can tell you factually it is not the case that all people who
feel more at risk here are hallucinating.

I know many whose perception is grounded in their personal experience of New Haven, and the numbers only fortify that primary data—their experience. I am one of those people. I do tend to perceive New Haven as more dangerous and it has in fact been more dangerous for me than literally everywhere else I have ever lived.

Without giving away too much because I do prefer anonymity on the comment boards, the list of other places I have lived, other cities, other neighborhoods in those cities, I think would be surprising to many, maybe even you.

Yet the crime I have personally been subjected to has indeed outstripped every other place I have ever lived and not by a small margin, by a wide one, wide enough to say, whoa, what is up?

Because of it I got involved in community groups and block watches.

By the way, if you hang out at Norton and Chapel long enough Jonathan, you will likely be hassled at some point no matter how hard you keep to yourself unless you are particularly unusual.

I have a lot of ideas about it. New Haven’s geographic size, the relative cohesiveness and wide dispersion of crime compared to tightly
knit neighborhoods in some cities, is one thing I have observed about New Haven that contributes to the perception. Not that new haven does not have distinct neighborhoods and neighborhoods that are more or
less crime ridden than others—I am speaking relativity here, not absolutes. It is not as easy to be remote from it.

For me, New Haven actually has, as a matter of indisputable fact, been more dangerous and many other people are in that same boat, who have never been in that boat anywhere else they have ever lived. I meet them, I know them, I talk to them.

I don’t think it would be right or fair to make assumptions about the appearance, or attitude, or street-wiseness, or psychology of those in that boat here with me. In fact, it would be obnoxious and harshly unfair to stigmatize what is a diverse group. You would think of me as quite street wise and I don’t even go out much at night, not out of
fear but choice—just not out much.

I know you through your comments on the NHI and don’t think that is the way you would think anyway, but for anyone who might, a caution.

At the same time, the numbers are not at all contradicting my experience and those with similar experiences here. It is not
surprising that there are people who have had or are having that kind of crime experience here.

It is NOT all a chimera as so many would like New Haveners to believe. There are worse places by far. But New Haven has issues, there is no doubt about that.

I honestly don’t think we can deal with it with the endless crime PR war that emanates from city hall and picks up troops as it rolls out all over the city. it is just not productive.