Another standoff?

[Jim O'Bryan]

Ken

I think you have absolutely nailed this one down. Lakewood has become the dumping ground of unstable, and unfit. The only good news is that there are so many they are being dumped and stashed everywhere.

I spent the afternoon with the brother of the guy on Coutant. His was a very serious problem that I can see happening more and more every day, in every city in America. Much of it ties in with Congressman's Kucinich's Health Care Plan and that of Senator Hillary Clinton.

I am working on a full story of what went down, and would rather wait to get it from his mouth directly but the short story is. Health issues cause him to miss work, soon after he was let go, health care ran out, went into debt, lost wife and house, had no reason to go on.

I spoke with other family members but as I mentioned I think it will be even more interesting hearing it from them.

It is all so sad, killing 200,000 innocent people and leaving our country without health care.

.

[Charyn Compeau]

Well - now that we have played armchair politician/sociologists and have pondered the decline of civilized society, I would like to point to some facts here.

Bearing in mind that facts/statistics and figures are only of value when taken in context, I have looked up the violent crime statistics for Lakewood and have plotted them as a trend line compared to the general population trend.

See for yourself:



Now I know the image is teeny tiny - but if you squint you can see that there are actually two lines there - Pink for population and Yellow for violent crimes (raw).

I think this shows QUITE clearly that as a percentage of our population the number of violent crimes has not changed with any statistical significance in the last ten years. In fact I have data all t he way back to 1985 - and the pattern is consistent and striking.

In other words - no - things are not getting worse. And we are not having all these horrible situations as the result of an influx of__________ (fill in you favorite group). Things are about as mixed up as they always have been.

Ill review property crimes next. If anyone wants the actual chart - just PM your email to me and Ill send it off (much easier to read when its nice and big).

Regards,
Charyn

[Charyn Compeau]

It is all so sad, killing 200,000 innocent people and leaving our country without health care.

Let me just add that regardless of any facts I have obtained from the LKWDPD, the above point should never be disregarded.

Charyn

[Charyn Compeau]

Property crimes:



Again, somewhat hard to see; however, pink is again population, blue is property crimes. If will notice, there seems to be a decline in the property crimes per capita in the 2002/3 range. ANy gains made at that time have been lost in the 2004/5 years as the crimes per capita increased beyond their pre 2002 rate.

Again, I have the data for anyone that wants it.

Charyn

[Colleen Wing]

Two stand offs and a guy who stole a car running through my kids school. hmmm...are we calling that a bag week and chalking it up to statistics.

I agree with Mark. Our aptitude for tolerance and gee these people have to live somewhere is creating this environment. Until we stand up as a community and say enough is enough, we are surrendering our safety.

I'll bet our numbers are diluted by our population numbers.
Let's look at the statistics by per capita by ward. How many calls are there to given areas? What are the calls about?

Ken,

Just because someone evokes a police stand off and is "distrought" doesn't mean they are mentally ill. My mom has been a psych nurse my entire life and works with the high risk clients. What has been disclosed that makes us think that these criminals are mentally ill. It's the difference between dysfunctional and dissociative.


As far as the Mayor's role, or any Mayor's role, is the fact that I haven't heard boo from him on these issues. Maybe he should say what his plan of action is. We can speculate but it is his job to address it...which hasn't been his strong suit.

[Kenneth Warren]

Ms. Compeau:

I appreciate the crime statistics. You have delivered a CITISTAT for the rest of us.

From my armchair, however, crime statistics don’t fully capture the anxiety, disorder, expense and quality of life issues born by an inner-ring community such as Lakewood. As these mad events have clustered around SWAT action in the past year, with peanut gallery inquiry about police and finger pointing at the Mayor for economic and social conditions impossible for one man of action to control, I think it is only proper to raise the political question and to consider the burdens associated with the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and the requirements for proper medication regimes and treatments.

Perhaps only a GIS system with patients, locations, medications, regimes and connected professional staff will give the police the support needed to handle the after-effects of decline of civilization in a way that makes people feel totally secure.

On the way to Total Information Awareness, of course, in the city that would know itself better than any other city and thereby enter into the Guinness Book of World Records......

Kenneth Warren

[Kenneth Warren]

Colleen:

I am not at all saying that we tolerate these chaos-makers, whether criminal or criminally insane. I am saying there needs to be a recognition that chaos-making is on the rise in Lakewood and other places too, and that political force and organization are required to advance policies and practices that will advance the construction of institutions that will contain the chaos-makers.

I don't want to wait either. I know what I see. That's why I say a police levy please.

Kenneth Warren

[Charyn Compeau]

I'll bet our numbers are diluted by our population numbers.

That was the entire point of my post. I went into this research assuming I would be able to prove that there has been an increase in both property and violent crimes.

I was wrong.

What I discovered when I went out looking for the truth, is the fact that despite the advances in communication and media penetration (which heightens our awareness) there has been no significant change in the level of violence in this city. The trends in violent crimes and property crimes are DIRECTLY related to the population.

This is not to say that we should all sing Halleluia and crack open another beer! There IS room for improvement and there IS room for change.

I think it is only proper to raise the political question and to consider the burdens associated with the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and the requirements for proper medication regimes and treatments.

I do agree, and believe that these are important civic issues to be discussed and, whenever possible, acted upon. I am glad if these incidents bring discussion points to the front; however, it would be dishonest to state that these issues are the cause of any perceived 'increase' in crime - just as to say that we are in the midst of some urban decline that is the result of section 8, or the influx of mentally ill residents, or the result of the current (or prior) administration is also wrong.

As for the 'bad week' - most of the time you donnt know when we have a bad week. You dont know when there is a string of robberies, or rapes, or car break-ins. I have seen more than once in this city, 'bad weeks' that are kept quite quiet so as not to start the ever popular 'flight' from the city.

This week the irony was not lost on me that because the city responded quickly, decisively, and with transparency we became the center of *negative* attention. My response is not to feed the fires of fear that demand knee-jerk reaction, but to determine the true facts about crime in Lakewood so we can focus on where we really are and determine what/where we really want to do.

All this to say I think we should remember the boy that cried wolf... because, God forbid, there may be a day when we are really facing an issue, and the powers that be may turn a deaf ear thinking: "Well you know that's Lakewood, they've been saying that for years."

[Brian Pedaci]

This week the irony was not lost on me that because the city responded quickly, decisively, and with transparency we became the center of *negative* attention. My response is not to feed the fires of fear that demand knee-jerk reaction, but to determine the true facts about crime in Lakewood so we can focus on where we really are and determine what/where we really want to do.

Thank you so much for that sentiment, and for crunching the numbers!

[Stan Austin]

Charyn----

Let me step aside from the issue at hand for a moment in order to compliment you on your fast and skillful use of accounting and graphics to make statistics easily understandable for us.

I'm sure the current and future clients of your business consulting firm appreciate your work as much as we do!

Stan Austin

[ryan costa]

I can understand the graph. Yet it kind of implies that each person experiences one violent crime on average per year.

Add a legend or a right-axis to describe data of yellow line.

Do the standoffs count as violent crime? Nobody was violented, except possibly the perpetrators. It was more like an annoyance crime, like a semi-truck breaking down in the middle of a busy street and leaking volatile chemicals.

[Mark Reinhold]

Charyn,

Do I understand your charts?...

When comparing the slopes of the lines, and they pinch together (like a golf tee pointed to the right) crime is being reduced as a total percentage of population.

When the comparison of the slopes is opening up (like the bell of a trumpet) crime is increasing as a percentage of population.

It doesn't matter if the line is sloping up or down.

The line pinches in 1997 +/- and 2003+/-.

In the the ideal world the pink line would have a steady rise.( maybe up to 60,000) and crime would be seperating itself from that line.

Please clear this up.

Thanks

[Mark Reinhold]

Actually in a positive slope population trend the trumpet shape would be the better solution and the the negative slope population trend the pinching together would be better.

Sorry.

The +/- slope of the line would matter.

[Charyn Compeau]

Ryan: there is a legend as well as a data table on *my* graph - but that is hard to see on the mini version that I can present here as a graphic.

And yes, it is important to understand the way in which the graph works.

Mark: you are correct in your first statement - when the lines are closer together, the % growth/decline of crime is closer to the % growth/decline of population.

If the lines cross is to because the rate of growth of one is greater/lesser that the rate of growth of the other. I your second statement - that would be true provide we see the crime trend line cross below the population trendline thus creating the widening gap - the other way around would indicate crime gone wild...

Regards,
Charyn

[Shawn Juris]

Ah statistics, God love 'em. They can certainly show whatever it is that the author would like them to. While I can appreciate their use to generate a discussion, let's look beyond the 300% increase and see how it effects us as a community and individuals. I agree that it's frightening and that it's not a positive by any stretch to have the visual of swat team members running through the streets. The response though factors into both the images we remember and the statistics that we compare ourselves against though. If this is a factor of Lakewood PD being highly responsive and prosecuting crime effectively then I'll take whatever images and statistics we come up with. I prefer that alternative to allowing a crazy man with a gun or a house full of propane to do what he will because it takes the police hours to respond and then they don't bother to file a report. I wonder if we could compare unsolved crimes and unreported crimes to the national averages, probably not.
The good news in all of this though is that it's taken the spotlight off of the last 2 things that were going to "destroy Lakewood", the smoking ban and the bars that became "punch palaces".