Okay, first the facts. The crime rate in LA over the last 13 days has taken a jump, reports New American Media: reporting on a story in La Opinion. To wit:
Twenty-two killings in just 13 days have put the LAPD on alert and brought a surprising end to the low crime trend of recent years, reports La Opinión. The unusual surge in homicides, which has been a lingering fear for several months as a result of the early release of prisoners and the budget cuts to law enforcement agencies, coincides with an AP report this week that found the early release included a percentage of violent offenders. Until two weeks ago, the police had recorded a double digit drop in the homicide rate, which has been consistently declining in the last few years. However, as of March 31, there had been 73 killings in the city Los Angeles, compared with 74 in the same period of 2009.
So why the rise? The jobless rate? The stress caused by tears in the social safety net due to state and local budget cuts?
Mercury in retrograde?
Some of those in official law enforcement believe they have the answer. Here is the what the LAPD union has to say about the crime spike:
The unusual surge in homicides, which has been a lingering fear for several months as a result of the early release of prisoners and the budget cuts to law enforcement agencies, coincides with an AP report this week that found the early release included a percentage of violent offenders.
Okay, yeah. Well that explains it. The rise in crime is due to California’s early release program.
Uh, no wait a minute. There’s also this in the original New American Media/La Opinion article:
An even steeper increase in violent crime has taken place in New York, where crime is up 20 percent. There have been at least 103 murders in New York as of Monday, compared with 86 killings at this time in 2009.
Oh.
Did I mention that New York has no prisoner release? Consider it mentioned.
The truth is, neither spike is extended enough to qualify as a trend. It may turn into a trend, or both in LA and NY, the rise may be an anomaly caused by a few people.
By the way, Mercury is not in retrograde either.
NOTE: My apologies to the majority of the WLA commenters whom I value and who make this site more vibrant with your varieties of opinions—right, left and in-between. But I need a rest from the group that simply will not stop engaging in serial personal attacks and counterattacks, despite numerous requests on my part. Thus the comments on new posts are closed for the next few days.
[…] crime recently. This may or may not be statistically significant, but it ain’t good, writes WitnessLA.com: Crime Rate Spikes – The Question is: Why? April 6th, 2010 by Celeste Fremon Okay, first the […]