Charlotte’s Crime Numbers Tell a Mixed Story
| More news stories on Crime |
|---|
Christopher D. Kirkpatrick, Charlotte Observer, Oct. 29, 2008
Charlotte has made public safety strides this year, but increases in homicides and home break-ins overshadow the progress.
{snip}
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department released a mixed bag of news Tuesday in its September crime report. The numbers of violent and property crimes were down slightly from last year, 0.3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
{snip}
Putney said the increase in homicides is especially troubling because it overwhelmingly involved black victims and suspects.
The department didn’t have precise race statistics available Tuesday. But Patrick Graham, CEO of the Urban League of Central Carolinas, agreed with Putney.
“It seems culturally, for some in our community, life doesn’t have any value,” Graham said. “We have to renew a spirit of brother and sisterhood, in a real communal sense.”
Graham said black-on-black crime is a story of economics—not race—because too many black people are also poor.
“Something we attribute to race may (really) be attributed to class,” Graham said. “It’s just that African Americans find themselves in that economic situation.”
Violent crime in Charlotte’s black community is also caused by a breakdown of the traditional family structure, he said. “We’ve failed with the education of our youth, not just in our school system, but at home.”
Chief Rodney Monroe, hired in June, said he is focused on reducing crime using traditional neighborhood policing.
{snip}
(Posted on October 30, 2008)
Comments
“Police investigated 61 homicides in Mecklenburg County over the first three quarters this year, up 17 percent from 52 investigated during the same period last year. Putney said the increase in homicides is especially troubling because it overwhelmingly involved black victims and suspects.”
Like the well known rocket scientist and ex-mayor, Marion Barry, of D.C. said: “They keep telling us DC has a high crime rate. But if you throw out the murders our rate is very low.”
Posted by ice at 5:43 PM on October 30
The article claims that crime is caused by poverty, not race. We can test this claim by looking at crime during the Great Depression. What we find is that even though a great many people were unemployed and some were actually starving during the Depression, crime did not dramatically increase. Hence, poverty, by itself, does not cause crime. Something else causes crime.
Posted by at 6:46 PM on October 30
I’m wondering if the decrease in violent crimes that are not homicides has anything to do with Mayor Pat McCrory’s crackdown on immigration. McCrory is running for Governor this year, so hopefully he’ll be able to take his efforts to the state level, which in NC (“Mexico’s Newest Colony”) is acute.
Posted by Question Diversity at 7:01 PM on October 30
Yeah, it can’t have anything to do with race or culture. It can only be poverty. And that is whitey’s fault.
Posted by at 7:22 PM on October 30
Anonymous poster wrote:
The article claims that crime is caused by poverty, not race. We can test this claim by looking at crime during the Great Depression. What we find is that even though a great many people were unemployed and some were actually starving during the Depression, crime did not dramatically increase. Hence, poverty, by itself, does not cause crime. Something else causes crime.
I don’t believe that poverty causes crime. I do believe that crime causes poverty. It would take a Ph.D. thesis to explain it all, but you should note that crime in many American cities drives away industry, and good jobs, thereby making the people there poorer.
Posted by Question Diversity at 9:28 PM on October 30
Oh, please. Black Africans cause and commit crime, at a rate astronomically higher than any other racial or ethnic group. They’re the “root cause.”
This phenomenon repeats itself with unvarying regularity wherever they’ve found in significant numbers, be it in the USA, Latin America, Europe, the Caribbean, and, of course, in Africa itself.
Their generally low intelligence and lack of self control make this inevitable anywhere they’re not brutally controlled, as they were in the old South and in the old South Africa.
Posted by john at 11:05 PM on October 30
The White folks that live in Appalachia are ALOT worse off than the “poor” black folks in the inner city. Alot of them don’t even have running water or electricity and have dirt floors in their homes. I don’t EVER recall hearing of much crime among them.
Posted by Tom S at 11:38 PM on October 30
On the John Boy and Billy Show here in NC some years ago, Raeford, who’s sort of an old curmedgeon take-no-prisoners type, talked truthfully about carjackings in Charlotte and stated that something like 98% of the carjackings in Charlotte were committed by Blacks.
When I was growing up, the word “carjacking” wasn’t even in the dictionary.
Posted by at 11:44 PM on October 30
I agree with Question Diversity. I cite an example from my present locale, Columbus, Ohio. Over a decade ago, the City Center Mall was built in an attempt to revitalize the downtown area. Initially, it worked; the stores teemed with customers. Eventually more and more “youths” from the nearby east side began to hang out in the mall. The more upscale shoppers slowly dwindled, which caused the high-end anchor stores to pull up stakes and relocate.
The final nail in the coffin was the shooting of a black “youth” by a “gangsta” in the center of the mall. This moron murderer committed this act in front of scores of witnesses and actually posed momentarily over the dying victim!! Needless to say, tumbleweed now rolls through the empty stores and wings of a once busy shopping center.
Many of those shops employed local blacks. Those who wouldn’t work ruined opportunities for those who would. Does anyone see a pattern here?
Posted by Queequeg at 12:30 AM on October 31
If you had spent time in Charlotte 20 yrs. ago, and went back now you would think you were in some 3rd world country, building more prisons and longer sentences is the only way.
Posted by abc at 5:59 AM on October 31
“violent crime in the black community is caused by a breakdown in the traditional family structure”,,,
What is left unexplained is why this is the “fault” of Whites, when in fact it is the fault of blacks.
“we’ve failed with the education of our youth”,,,
Again who exactly is “we”? America’s education system is a public one available to all. It is blacks in fact who have failed.
Posted by at 11:55 AM on October 31
“crime in many American cities drives away industry, and good jobs, thereby making the people there poorer.”
Absolutely!!! Detroit, Gary Indianna, Philly so many cities were destroyed when black criminals forced not just evil whitey but evil whitey’s factories and businesses to the far suburbs.
Recently Toyota moved its American headquarters and main factory from Carson Ca (black and hispanic S Los Angeles area) to a rural area of Tennesse that has the least blacks in the entire state.
Obviously some Toyota executives did some demographic research before re-locating from a crime ridded black town surrounded by other crime ridden black towns to a criem free white area.
Posted by at 1:01 PM on October 31
“Putney said the increase in homicides is especially troubling because it overwhelmingly involved black victims and suspects.”
Yeah, It’s no great concern when white people murder or are murdered. Only when precious black people are involved is it “troubling”.
“Graham said black-on-black crime is a story of economics—not race—because too many black people are also poor.
“Something we attribute to race may (really) be attributed to class,” Graham said.”
Then again, something you attribute to class may actually be due to race. Every thought of that, Mr. Graham?
Posted by S.L. Cain at 3:08 PM on October 31
“Graham said black-on-black crime is a story of economics—not race—because too many black people are also poor.”
If true, this would seem to bolster the argument that one’s economic destiny is heavily influenced by one’s behavior.
Ronald
Posted by Ronald at 5:44 PM on October 31
@ 1:01: Toyota? Are you certain? Nissan moved here to Tennessee from, I think, the Gardena area which may as well BE Carson. And I would hardly call the Smyrna-Nashville area “rural”.
Posted by the friendly grizzly at 7:32 PM on November 1
Even in small towns that have a black population, crime is out of control, it costs tax paying citizens in many ways, none of the solutions tried have been sucessful, our current educational system does nothing to stem the rise of criminal behavior among blacks and it is only going to get worse, it would be cheaper to build more prisons and give longer sentences, separate them from society.
Posted by tess at 4:52 AM on November 3