August 23, 2006
Aim Low, Mayor Williams
Maybe Marge Simpson was onto something when she noted that the best way to live your life is to set your goals so low that if you fail, no one will even notice. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams should have taken note.
It was one month ago that Williams promised to cut violent crime by 50 percent in 30 days. To do that, he pushed the D.C. Council to pass legislation that would allow a stricter juvenile curfew, expand the size of the Metropolitan Police Department, and install some 48 surveillance cameras throughout the city.
But today the D.C. Examiner's print edition reports that violent crime hasn't fallen by 50 percent. Heck, it hasn't even fallen by 10 percent. According to police statistics, violent crime fell by 6 percent from July 12 to August 20 when compared to the same time last year. While any reduction is a good reduction, it remains to be seen if this drop is merely statistically consistent with years past. After all, the summer months tend to see a spike in crime, and we're nearing the end of summer. If it is consistent, then not much of anything has been accomplished.
What does this all mean? Williams may have set his goals far too high. The District's homicide rate has fallen in recent years, but it's been a slow decline. Drops in violent crime can't be expected to be dramatic and sudden, with almost all other conditions remaining equal. Had Williams promised a more modest decrease over a longer time frame, say three months, he may have gotten closer to what he was looking for. But he went for the dramatic and show-stopping, and may now face a city skeptical of the measures he promised would have an obvious impact on crime.
On the other hand, the same crime statistics show improvements in other areas. Juvenile arrests jumped 26.9 percent, while adult arrests increased some 13 percent from last year. More importantly and more (or less, depending on how you look at it) encouragingly, gun recoveries have risen by an impressive 47.9 percent. And as for the curfew, violations rose from 636 this time last year to 1881 this year.
So what does this add up to? Again, it's tough to say. We're barely into the second month of the crime emergency, so jumping to conclusions as to whether the emergency measures have been effective or not would be risky. But what we can say is that we shouldn't be optimistic. These increases in arrests and gun recoveries have come during a period in which police work longer hours and get less time off. Why does this matter? First, the cost. As we noted last week, more than 60 percent of the $8 million granted by the council for overtime pay has already been spent. This means that they're either going to have to cut down on overtime work or go back to the council for more money. Second, morale. Police officers can only work these schedules for so long before they start to burn out. It happened with the U.S. Capitol Police last year, when they were forced to work extended schedules manning checkpoints by the Capitol. We're guessing it will happen with the MPD eventually. What will happen when the crime emergency lapses and police go back to working normal hours and deploy in a more regular fashion? Will those number of arrests and gun recoveries fall? If so, does this serve as justification for Williams' plan to increase the size from 3,800 officers to 5,100?
We're getting a headache just thinking through this. Many conditions cause crime, so boiling down the increases and decreases to one or two factors is dangerous. Similarly, mere snapshots of crime during short periods of time doesn't offer us much useful information. Maybe some crime is down now, but maybe it fell in the same fashion and at the same time last year and the year before. Has the crime emergency worked? Have the curfew and the surveillance cameras played any role? Where do we go from here? What next?
These are questions we hope Williams and his staff are looking to answer.
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I'm sure Adrian Fenty has all the answers to crime. His vote against the crime emergency legislation without offering any alternative solutions was brilliant. We need a leader who has done nothing in his political career but fix potholes.
Geezus, I'm so sick of hearing how horrible Fenty is for voting against Williams' band-aids. It's as bad as when Neo-cons evoke Clinton's faults everytime someone criticizes Bush.
The answer to questions about Williams' performance is not "Adrian Fenty", it's Williams. Williams is answerable to the positions he takes and to his own performance. If anti-Fenty forces spent as much effort discussing the mayor who is instead of the mayor they fear could be, perhaps we could expect a little more from a mayor who is lacking in results when it comes to crime.
Last time I checked, Anthony Williams wasn't a juvenile delinquent running around the city knocking 29 year old Ward 1 Fenty yuppies to the pavement and stealing their money. Actually, last time I checked, Anthony Williams was doing a cannonball in a public pool to kickoff the Summer. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe I've been out of the loop too long. Maybe Anthony Williams *is* the root of all evil?!?!! Ooooh, and Fenty is our saviour. FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! *puke*
And why is it so wrong of Fenty not to want to throw money at a problem in a way that was likley to be ineffectual? Shouldn't we, as DC taxpayers, at least be happy that someone questioned the wisdom of the plan. Sometimes you don't need another solution to know the proposed one is going to cost a lot and not work. Maybe Linda Cropp could've used her "consensus building" to work on a more rational solution.
According to the releases on http://newsroom.dc.gov/show.aspx/agency/mpdc/section/2/release/9537, there were 10 homicides in the past 30 days, versus 17 homicides in the 30 days preceding that (which led to the whole crime emergency thing). if you check last year's homicide rates, you'll see that the homicide rate started to dip in October, but then went back up in November so the "nearing end of summer = instant dip in homicide rate" isn't backed by the stats (which are here- http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,A,1239,Q,543322.asp). I think he overpromised on the stats, but the overall picture is that the recent upswing in violent crime and especially homicide is abating and once again we're on track to have fewer homicides than the prior year.
I have no problem with Fenty criticizing the current approach(es), but would really like to hear his proposals. So far nothing.
The "Crime Emergency" is just a bullsh*t bait to dumb voters and chicken littles. I really can't muster much respect for anyone who thought the bill was anything but that right now. I can tell you once and I can tell you twice, but you're not going to listen, so now I don't bother.
Basic fact: Voters want zero crime, so pol will promise a cut making it seem like zero crime is a destination. Basic fact: there will always be crime and it will always be too much. Would I like it lower? Of course! Do I think pablum to the people is the way to do it? No. If you can't figure out that it's not as easy as throwing a hissy fit to fix a problem, I suggest you go work for Katherine Harris' campaign, where delusion is a watchword.
Ward 1 is Graham territory, not Fenty territory. I like Graham- he had the sense to require a tangible benefit (that an additional late-night rec center stay open in Ward 1) in return for his support of the Williams/Cropp chorus-line knee-jerk crime "emergency" bill.
Fenty, who's Ward 4 people (like we in Ward 2) have been royally screwed by DPR/OCP incompetence, not only did not have that option but, given the bigger picture of the election, IMO rightfully judged putting lipstick on a pig and then voting it beautiful to be a poor trade.
There's actually a very nice article in the WT today on Fenty's crime/safety positions. It starts by talking about FD/EMS, but goes from there to MPD staffing and deployment:
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20060822-102254-1498r.htm
So Anthony Williams and Charles Ramsey cooked up the crime emergency in order to get "dumb voters" to do what now? Neither are running for anything.
There was a surge in high profile violent crimes (Mall robberies, Georgetown slaying, wheelchair activist guy killed, large number of weekend homicides), the mayor and the police chief came up with some proposals (which no one agrees on), and in the meantime the crime rate has actually gone down since the emergency was instituted but not as much as the mayor promised/hoped.
Thanks for the link, Mark- I had not seen that. From the article:
"His crime-fighting plan includes putting more officers on foot patrols, requiring police officials to create written plans for "eradicating problems" in their areas and holding the officials accountable for the success of those plans."
While officers on foot isn't a bad idea, I think it's a tradeoff of visibility vs. coverage. And the writeup thing seems like more of a procedure than a solution to an upturn in crime.
Wow, mojotron, way to burn those strawmen! I don't remember anyone accusing Williams of any conspiracies.
Rather, in a city with such a high violent crime rate to begin with, there is something disingenuous about getting "tough" on crime just because that crime rate spills over into politically touchy areas. Even more disingenuous is offering a band-aid fix to that spillover, rather than having made DC's high crime rate a bigger priority during Williams' time in office.
And for folks like Randy above, that's why the anti-Fenty bullshoot is getting so annoying---yep, Fenty hasn't given us any proposals to DC's crime problems. But two months of no proposals seems minor indeed compared to the YEARS of no solutions from Williams.
"Wow, mojotron, way to burn those strawmen! I don't remember anyone accusing Williams of any conspiracies."
see reply #6 - "The "Crime Emergency" is just a bullsh*t bait to dumb voters and chicken littles."
And we're going to have to disagree on the "years of no solutions" part- if you check the statistics, overall crime has gone down from the previous year every year Williams has been in office with the exception of 2001. Last year's number of homicides was less than half of what it was in 1993 or 1994. And this is with an expanding population, so the rate has decreased even more significantly.
Your statement about spikes in crime in summer is meaningless when you're comparing year-to-year figures.
A better statement would have mentioned standard deviations; even better, correlations.
Hope your headache's better.
If the crime rate has decreased every year Williams has been in office, and continued to decrease this year, then by definition the crime bill was pretty meaningless in that effect, right?
I mean, if crime went down seven of the last eight years without the "Crime Emergency" bill, then what possible support is there for linking any decrease in crime over the last month to the crime emergency bill?
Is that a good enough reason for Adrian Fenty to vote against it - that it is an unnecessary expense that impinges on civil liberties without any real justification for it?
I guess if not, you can keep waiting.
Because in the weeks leading up to the crime emergency bill there was an upturn in violent crimes. If murders had continued at that rate, we would not see the overall decrease that we have now. Can I prove that? Not really, but the stats seem to bear that out.
Yes, if murders had continued at that rate indefinitely, we would eventually all be dead. That I can agree to.
It is clear now that we owe a great debt of thank to the Crime Emergency Bill for making people stop killing other peopel. Thank you, Crime Emergency Bill, thank you for making my life possible.
Crime does rise each summer and fall each...fall. I don't want to say it's only weather related, I'm sure other things are in there as well. It's not really useful to compare rates from week to week, or from one short period one year to another short period in a past year. There's too many variables. It's just good to see the overall rate falling, and to appreciate the line is not linear. The "crime emergency" hoopla was and is cynical and distracting crap.