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According to the FBI, the number of violent crimes reported by law enforcement in Oregon has mirrored a national trend and gone steadily downward over the past few years. Despite a bad economy in 2008, violent crime dropped more dramatically here than in any other state.
There are many possible explanations for this reduction in assaults, rapes, murders and other crimes. Some credit Oregon's strict mandatory minimum sentencing laws, particularly Measure 11 which was passed in 1994. Others point to treatment programs and a crackdown on meth labs in recent years.
Even though violent crime is on the decrease, many Americans believe it's going up. Criminology professor Randy Blazak cites media coverage of crime as a main reason for this misconception.
Does violent crime seem to be going down, or perhaps up, in your community? Do you pay attention to crime statistics? What bearing do they have on how you live your life? Have you been a victim of violent crime? How did it change your perception of where you live?
Tagged as: crime · media · police · violence
Photo credit: Ian Britton / Creative Commons
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“Who believes any statistic churned out by a Govt that routinely lies to its people?“
‘88’ would not do that!Would they?
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"‘88’ would not do that!"
Maybe I'm showing my age, or my lack of internet with-it-ness, but who/what is "88"?
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Many meanings; but in this case 88 = BB or the "nondenominational" Big Brother.
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Whoa. Some serious semiotics!
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From my old Post 21 Dec10:
"I was walking on the Pioneer Square site admiring the City Tree this past weekend. And other people were enjoying the season as any other Christmas.
But I could not suppress the potential tragedy that might have happened. On this open square with a amphitheater wall, placing a shaped charge with 300 lbs of metal nails and shrapnel would have decimated a packed square.
Probably deaths approaching 100. Casualties including decapitations, amputations, and lifelong facial scars and unremovable shrapnel affecting 10 times as many. Newly made disabled who now have to deal with a lifetime of newly acquired blindness, deafness, paraplegia, gimpy arms and legs, incontinence, and quadraplegia.
And a whole city plunged into darkness of Depression and PTSD during the happiness time of the year. How do you wash the blood off the brickwork? Or would it have to be demolished--physically and psychically.
Instead of rushing from party to party during the celebrations. We would all be going from funeral to funeral. Memorial services would be daily. Candlelight vigils. No singing, laughing or smiling. We would have worldwide media camped out on Pioneer Square for the last month. We would all be interviewed by the BBC, care packages would be sent from NYC, Counselors would be made available on the street. People spontaneously breaking down in crying fits and hysteria...and these are the normal citizens.
The NORTHWEST 9/11.
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What in Heaven's name are you talking about? Good God!! At any time and in any place a madman might blow hell out of something or someone. But hauling around this kind of fear and imagery is again one more bit of evidence of govt's very effective non stop effort to keep Americans scared out of their tiny wits. Deceit? Lies? Hell yes!
In all our history that 9/11 attack on the USA is the single example of the kind of monstrous fury we routinely release on other nations with nary a tear shed here at home. So whenever I read some bit of information or data the govt decides to share with us, I think of the Wikileaks and how much deceit and disinformation is routinely used by govt to advance an agenda NOT known or approved by WE the People of his country.
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My Comment To-day:
The City of Portland normally experiences about 30 homicides a year. But how different would the figure be if ONE event had succeeded on 26Nov2010 on Pioneer Square?
We are very fortunate this time. But we cannot continue relying on luck. And today is a Second chance at the rest of our lives. From what could have been, we are very fortunate to be where we are despite the Great Recession, Record Unemployment, Foreclusures, and Education system in the toilet.
Count your lucky stars...... It is a Wonderful Life!
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That was another case of the Government encouraging naive and angry young men into stupidity. That man would not have done anything if the FBI hadn't supplied him with the tools.
That is just more propaganda. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
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In every one of these cases of so called Terror attacks, the people involved are low grade morons, or recent immigrants from the VERY NATIONS WE ARE WARRING AGAINST. Frankly I can't imagine any policy more ridiculous, if not outright insane than to permit immigration of Muslims at a time when about 75% of all Muslims conside that these wars we are fighting are against their faith.
In every instance I know of the so-called terrorists were set up by the FBI and encouraged in their fantasies to the point they accepted the weapons and dud bombs brought to them by the FBI agents. These are stings, plain and simply and at one time would have been tossed out of any court in America. It is also a fact that the home grown "terrorists" have all been black, with low grade IQs.
These are all simpletons who on their own without FBI luring them in, would never had the energy, mental capacity or material wherewithal to do anything, but sit about smoking pot and gassing to one another about what they would like to do to Whitey.
The whole war on terror is a construct of our own Govt used as an excuse to destroy our constitutional rights and ease the US into a dictatorship by the financial elites who already own our Govt.
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Remarkable statistic heard on NPR:
There were 3 times more violent deaths in Mexico related to Narco-Terrorism last year than in Iraq. NOTE that Iraq is an active war zone with heavy weapons, jets helicopters and ordinance. The specialty in Mexican violence is beheading.
IF our violent crime rates are plunging and we are in a new renaissance of peaceful coexistence, how can we be assured that the Mexican violence will not spill into border states and the rest of the Union?
Murders who break the law will not honor simple national borders and cease and desist once they cross the Rio Grande.
I would keep an eye out for spillover violence from the Southern border for 2011 and beyond. And perhaps law enforcement should be prepared for it.
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Instead of fighting Israel's wars in the mid-east, the first and only duty of our armed forces is to protect THIS nation, and not the entire planet.
Our armed forces ought to be deployed along our southern border. If Mexico can't, or won't control her own population and insists on using the USA as a dumping grounds for her jobless millions, then it is our army's job to see the Mexicans remain on their side of the fence and we will stay on our side.
Our prisons are stuffed with alien Mexican nationals. They are sending out of the US an estimated $100 billion annually plus using our public facilities freely at a time when many American citizens have no access to medical care nor jobs nor houses.
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The crime rate has been going down for Decades! The baby-boomers and Vietnam Generation are all getting older. Many of my generation have already been to prison. Even if not, we just don't do that stupid crap any longer.
Companies like Correction Corporation of America have tried to lie and imply that crime is UP so that they can influence lawmakers into locking more people up. They make money from it. America has a larger percentage of it's population locked-up than any other "Western" nation.
Most people are being locked-up because they are Poor. If there were more jobs, people wouldn't have to commit crimes.
BTW-- You are more likely to be shot by a Police Officer in Portland than by a "Criminal".
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"Thugs In Blue" should make a fine new TV series. Tasing old ladies and beating the holy crap out of elderly men and of course, at least one incident at a grade school where a child is handuffed and maced would be required in each episode. If they want a reality series that is, and not just more Hollywood fantasy where every baddie is in civilian clothes and every hero in blue.
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hey dave. i didn't know either, and may not still...
but on "88"...
http://www.internetslang.com/88.asp
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See above. A hint: it's not about Hitler!
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Why are you looking for Horror stories? "Tell us if you have been a victim of a crime" What agenda are you pushing, trying to steer to conversation to fear mongering?
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"What agenda are you pushing, trying to steer to conversation to fear mongering?"
Far from it. Among other questions we're interested in looking at how personal experience affects your take on dropping crime rates.
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I came home in the early afternoon last May to find my kitchen window broken in and our house robbed. Beyond the usual trauma, we were fortunate that the Clackamas Sheriff officers that responded to our call took the time to take fingerprints off the window. We never expected that the burglars would be found, but they were - it ended up being two kids. They both went to court and spent time in detention or in jail. Now we have an alarm in our house. Our only consolation was that they didn't get anything worth money (taking an old laptop and a camera with no charger) and had to answer for their actions.
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When my eldest daughter was attending Catholic University In Washington DC in the mid 80s. She went one evening..about 7.30 to a 7/11 at the edge of the campus. Returning to her car she was assaulted by a black man. She had one ear lobe torn, all her jewelery stolen and rec'd facial bruses as she fought off her attacker.
She fianlly managed to shut her car door and drive away. She recalled that other blacks standing on the corner watching the attack, yelled out encouragement to the man knocking her around "Kll the white B...ch" was mostly what she heard, that and laughter.
In 1981 while spending a work week in our NYC offices, I narrrowly averted a mugging coming back to my hotel on second avenue and 36th street, at about 10.30 at night. Again it was two blacks. Only my alertness saved me from physical violence and quite possibly maiming or death. Here in OR it is peachy keen.
These are the only two criminal attacks affecting me or my children here in the states. Overseas it was quite a different story.
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Your segment today focuses on physical violent crime. Physical crime and death are easy to identify, and of course extremely damaging to all involved.
However, emotional crime is another matter. Even if the person abusing or stalking or bullying does not cause physical wounds, it can easily contribute to emotional crippling or death. In many cases, the victim would rather just die physically, or at least show physical wounds. They have no "proof" to show their trauma, except as it etches and grows inside.
I am absolutely not discounting the pain that the families and friends suffer when a loved one's life is taken - in the police or military or simply walking down the street.
I just hope to remind everyone that even if the wound is not visible, it is still a gaping hole.
This is not about politics, but about human beings.
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I can not believe how schoolyard bullying has become a national obsession. When I was bullied in the third grade, my dad bought me a set of boxing gloves and tought me how to box. That was how my father dealt with the issue. He didn't sue anyone or expect the school authorities to deal with it. No ltr to the editor.
I used my acquired skills to give the bully a drubbing. That ended the bullying. But horrors! No one wants little Billy to defend himself today. Nooo, it becomes yet another source for national hysteria.
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With property crime at an all time low, and our economy in the tank, legislators were smart to delay Measure 57 that would have created longer prison sentences. One can only hope that this year legislators will have the support and political courage to do so again.
Fear mongers like Kevin Mannix continue to push "tough-on-crime" ballot measures, fueled by the "if it bleeds, it leads" mantra of local news media - making our citizens believe that crime is rampant and they should spend more and more of their limited tax dollars on expanding the already exploding prison population.
Like Oregon did in 2005 in response to the meth epidemic, Oregon chose a more effective way of dealing with the problem by reducing the availability of substances used to manufacture meth and invest meaningful resources into drug treatment and drug courts which have proven to reduce recidivism and future crime. The reduction in Oregon's crime rate is indicative that those strategies have been successful.
We've clearly seen that Oregon can reduce crime more effectively and less expensively by investing in smart policies. Sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into prison spending is not being smart.
No disrespect to Mr. Foote, but the law of diminishing returns dictates that harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws passed in the mid-1990s have little impact on crime rates today.
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I have a pal from the servce who was a San Francisco parole officer for 30 yrs. He recently told me that incarceration policies, such as the length of sentences handed down and parole are heavily influenced by the corrections officers' union. It is large and powerful and behind the scenes works relentlessly to keep incarceration numbers high.
So if keeping the criminals inside longer reduces crime, measureably, and the taxpayers are prepared to foot the ever increasing costs of prisons, then that is part of a solution. On the other hand imprisonment may actually end up costing more than the expense of additional crime. Shorter sentences and some decriminalized 'crimes' might be necessary in the near future as enforcement costs rise and state revenues fall.
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The Pendleton police chief is the most articulate law enforcement officer I've ever heard. Clearly there are some good lessons here for small communities, but the approach is resource intensive and I'm not sure how scaleable for larger metropolitan areas.
Jim, Portand
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A paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2001 by John Donohue of Yale and Steven Levitt of U of Chicago argues that crime has been falling since the passing of Roe v Wade, accounting for more than 50% of the drop. The argument claims that unwanted babies are more likely to grow up to be criminals, so fewer unwanted babies yields a lower rate. The paper is rather compelling.
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I am really glad someone commented on this specific phenomon. While certainly not a good way to lower the crime rate, there is enough evidence to show a correlation. Here is a link to another good paper on the subject.
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I found a great examination of the crime drop in the book "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner.
They found that the crime drop can be attributed to three main factors:
1. Increased number of police
2. Increased imprisonment
3. Roe v. Wade
In fact, they put a heavy emphasis on #3. As those that would be most likely to commit crime are no longer present.
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Here's the KTVZ thread Emily just mentioned.
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I was arrested for trying to drive an intruder out of my home. They never even bothered to look for the intruder, but did arrest me for having a gun. I was charged with felon in posession of fire arm even though the felony was for driving while suspended at least a decade before hand. It was easier and more profittable for them to prosecute me than to pursue the real issue that our entire community suffers with, which has been a continueing increase in home invasions and burglaries. Since I was charged with this crime I have since lost my medical license, not to mention the extensive costs both financially and personally.
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Law enforcement agencies are under great pressure to lower crime rates. So they do it artificially by underreporting crime. Several respected journalists have written about this trend. Sorry, but I can't recall the sources. Maybe someone else does.
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A growing number of city police departments have advised their residents of the types of crime reports to which they will no longer respond. Some of these seem to me to be serious enough to warrant the interest of the police. Oakland, CA is one such city that has listed the crimes they won't bother with. Oakland has always been crime ridden. It is a national trend. It isn't surprising that crime stats show a decrease. This is just one more example of govt disinformation for the purpose of justifying some action or another. Most official lying has an ulterior purpose..
The wikileaker really upset the power elites with his release of confidential material concerning which our owners would prefer we remain ignorant. One can only surmise why Govt desires to under report crime.
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Comments are now closed.
My first thought: Who believes any statistic churned out by a Govt that routinely lies to its people? Several wars come to mind immediately. Most of my friends view with skepticism any set of statistics the Govt and the allied media put out. I am persuaded that no information the Govt releases to the public is done without an underlying ulterior motive and purpose..
The Wikileaks demonstrate how much deceit and disinformation the Govt deals out to the public. Another factor that makes this data suspect is the still rising unemployment, hunger and homelessness that is now endemic through out America. Commonsense suggests that crimes against property and persons defending property are bound to have risen.
If the Govt says violent crime is declining the first thing I ask myself is what does Govt gain by citing this data?