Badge of Shame
Phila. was No. 1 among big U.S. cities in ‘05. Some say numbers can deceive.
By Barbara Boyer and Peter Mucha
Inquirer Staff Writers
When it comes to violent crime among America’s largest cities, Philadelphia is the worst, the FBI reported this week.
However, when overall crime, which includes nonviolent offenses such as burglary and theft, is considered, the city drops to No. 5, while Dallas tops the list.
Of course, the real problem in Philadelphia is violent crime. That’s what everyone’s been howling about. You don’t see any anti-burglary marches. The problem is violent crime. This is like saying, “Sure I beat my wife once a week, but when you consider that I snort heroin four times a week, sell crack Mondays, Wednesdays, and throughout the weekend, and read child pornography every waking hour of the day, the beatings really aren’t THAT frequent.”
On Monday, the FBI released 2005 crime statistics showing that from 2004 to 2005, the violent-crime rate in the United States increased 1.3 percent, while property-crime rates decreased 2.4 percent.
In Philadelphia, last year violent crime was up 3.4 percent, including a 15 percent increase in homicides. Other violent crimes include forcible rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults.
This year, homicides are up slightly. The number of shooting victims is up about 13 percent, while overall violent crime is up about 4 percent. Overall crime, which includes property offenses, is up 2 percent, according to statistics recently released by the Police Department.
At least one local crime expert and several law enforcement officials - reviewing national numbers yesterday - said violence in Philadelphia is not as bad as it appears based on the FBI numbers, which they say can be deceiving.
Lawrence W. Sherman, a criminologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerry Lee Center, said that rankings among the city’s 10 largest cities make Philadelphia look bad, but that there are far more dangerous cities.
“They’re sticking out like a sore thumb because some of the larger cities have become some of the safer cities,” Sherman said.
If Philadelphia, with a population of 1.47 million, is compared with cities closer to 100,000 in population, not just those with about one million or more, the city is nearer to the middle of the list in violent crime, Sherman said.
Unfortunately for Mr. Sherman, Philadelphia is not being compared to smaller cities. It’s being compared to other large cities, which seems to make sense considering we’re the 5th largest city in the country. When compared to a chimpanzee, I am very very smart. Wehn compared to Albert Einstein, maybe not so much. Remarkably, it’s not so much the actual crime rate that seems to be at issue, but the way the city is compared to others. This might be a valid point if Philadelphia was being compared to small towns, but it’s not. It’s being compared to similarly-sized cities, among other things.
Detroit, for example, has a population of 900,000 and doesn’t make the list of the top 10 largest cities, but would replace Philadelphia as the worst of the worst if the list were expanded to the 12 largest cities.
And if wishes were My Little Ponies, I’d have a stableful of Shetlands.
Detroit has 2,358 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with Philadelphia’s 1,467 per 100,000 residents.
New York, which has a population of 8.1 million, and which has seen a slight increase in homicides this year, had 673 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2005.
Camden, with a population of 80,125, has 1,680 violent crimes per 1,000 residents, making it among the most dangerous cities in the country.
Among the larger cities, Sherman said, Philadelphia has a high crime rate for various reasons. “We have the poorest population,” he said.
In addition, he said, the commissioner in Philadelphia does not have the same freedom to deploy police and make top appointments as do law enforcement officials in other cities, such as New York and Los Angeles.
Influence by the mayor and City Council and restrictions in labor contracts limit Philadelphia’s commissioner, he said.
In the list of safest cities for overall crime among the 10 largest in the nation, New York was at the top - the safest. For most violent crime, it is No. 6 on the list of the safest, while San Jose, Calif., is No. 1.
Philadelphia Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross said it was important to look closely at overall crime and not just violent crime. Philadelphia, he said, aggressively classifies crimes that other cities may not classify as violent.
“Overall, crime is down over the past five years,” Ross said, adding that Philadelphia had been hit hard in recent years by the number of guns on the street, which are responsible for 85 percent of the city’s homicides.
“Overall”. This directly contradicts the Philadelphia Police Departments own claim a few paragraphs back: “Overall crime, which includes property offenses, is up 2 percent, according to statistics recently released by the Police Department.”
“You can’t ignore the proliferation of handguns in this city and the proliferation in comparison to some of the other cities that are larger than Philadelphia,” Ross said.
In 2004, Philadelphia had nearly the same number of confiscations of illegal firearms as New York did, even though New York has a population more than five times the size of Philadelphia’s.
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It’s a total embarassment. Everybody knows the crime in this city is out of hand and that the Mayor isn’t leading on the issue. These excuses and “what-ifs” are just lame.
The City should change its name to Killadelphia.
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