Jackson Free Press

"Jackson is one of the 10 most dangerous cities in America." How often are you hearing that jingle right now? From Haley Barbour. From Hinds County D.A. candidate Wilson Carroll. From The Clarion-Ledger. From your co-workers. From your Aunt Lula in Kemper County who won't visit you. Scared to death yet? Don't start packing your bags, though. Read the fine print first. With a little careful sleuthing, you'll discover that crime is dropping steadily and dramatically in the city since a spike early this year, and felonies are nearing their lowest level in over 20 years, despite what the challengers have to tell you.

You won't find the golden nugget of information, though, in any mammoth headline (you know, like "Crime up 45%: I hate having to be paranoid" C-L, May 15, 2003). You'll have to train your magnifying glass on The Clarion-Ledger's third installment of "The Changing Face of Jackson" series.

Of course, crime was a major thread running through the series. (As in "I got a dog, I'm packin', I'm stayin' and I'm fightin', by damn; bring 'em on.") In an article in that installment, the paper gave a quick examination of "Crime: Perception vs. Reality." Its conclusion? Well, maybe there is a lot of inaccurate crime hysteria out there, and perhaps the overblown perceptions really are driving people (and the tax base) out of the city.

In that story, The Clarion-Ledger finally reported in detail the Jackson crime trends from 1981-2002 compiled by its (former) reporter Gregg Mayer months ago, who gave it to the police, who gave it back to the media. The JFP reported his findings—which didn't support the media's crime hysteria—in our Sept. 4 issue. The analysis of major crime (felonies) in Jackson showed that they have steadily dropped since the early 1990s. And the rate of violent crimes in 2002 was at its lowest point in those 21 years, save for four years when crime was lower in the early 1980s. (That lull in crime happened to have coincided with Gov. William Winter�s term, but we�re not saying it�s causal. Necessarily.)

But the real crime news was in the story below about a Jackson man and his big dog. And even here some of the best news the city has heard in a long time was buried in the eighth paragraph: "Major crime in Jackson was up 1.4 percent through Oct. 15 of this year compared to last year." What? Say that again?

If you have followed the 2003 crime saga, you know that a spike in property crime, and a string of home break-ins, early in 2003 meant that crime in January and February was up dramatically over the year before, a spike that got front-page news coverage. But in this story, that history is mentioned only in the 29th paragraph: "Since an initial spike that saw crime shoot up more than 20 percent in January and February, major crime has been on the decline." (Specifically, it jumped 18 percent in January and 29 percent in February over those same months in 2002.)

OK, think about this for a minute. The crime rate has dropped so steadily over the last several months that even with a 23.5-percent spike through February, we�re only up 1.7 percent overall in 2003. (As of July 1, the overall rate, including �minor� crimes, had dropped to 8 percent over 2002's.)

This, of course, does not mean that we should all stop putting Clubs on our cars when we park on the streets, or start leaving checkbooks on our dashboards again; the crime we are most likely to experience involves our cars and, fortunately, not our persons (especially since police have arrested the young men accused of much-publicized burglaries in Fondren earlier this year). In fact, the auto-theft rating in Jackson last year was 759 per 100,000 people, the 14th highest in the nation, according to a National Insurance Crime Bureau Vehicle Theft Study, using FBI figures. Cities ranking above us were also car-culture cities, including Phoenix, Ariz. (No. 1), Miami (No. 9), Detroit (No. 11) and six California cities.

Those high auto theft rates, along with other property crimes, are the major contributors to the "10 Most Dangerous" ditty that politicians are recklessly throwing around this month. "Jackson is Ranked in the 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America," barked a Mississippi Republican Party glossy mailer in early October, with a photograph of a worried woman staring our a window. This is also a phrase favored by D.A. candidate Carroll in appearances and ads, in his campaign against incumbent Faye Peterson—using figures for 2001 crimes, including those in the five months before she was appointed in May 2001.

The "10 Most" statement is from a �danger� report done by Morgan Quitno, a "Best and Worst" list-making book publisher in Kansas started by a former attorney for Sen. Bob Dole. Although the Barbour mailer (pictured) says the figures are for 2002, the most recent report was released in November 2002—using FBI crime figures for 2001 (remember, crime fell in Jackson from 2001 to 2002). Adding more confusion, Morgan Quitno uses a rather imprecise methodology, compiling total FBI figures for felonies with equal weight given to violent crimes and property crimes committed. The tallies include property crimes such as auto theft lumped in with armed robbery, murder and rape, to determine the "most dangerous" ranking as compared to the national average.

Southern cities, and cities in states with strong gun (and car) cultures, did not fare well in 2001: Atlanta was No. 3; Tampa, Fla., No. 9; Jackson was No. 10; Memphis No. 11; New Orleans No. 12. More recently, the book company released a different report finding that Mississippi was the 14th most dangerous state in 2002. It is also the least healthy and the least livable, according to Morgan Quitno. (The latter study uses 47 criteria, many of which haven�t come up much during the campaign season, including graduation rates, birth weights, poverty rates and unemployment.) The most recent study announced the �Smartest� states: Massachusetts was No. 1; Alabama was No. 46, Louisiana No. 47, and Mississippi No. 48.

Screaming the bad (or wrong) statistics and burying the good (or correct) ones isn't a new political strategy—there is a rich tradition in Mississippi of using coded and unsubstantiated crime rhetoric to scare people into voting based on hysterical perception rather than hard, cold reality. But it is not an honorable scheme, and it�s something the media or voters shouldn't fall for.

As your mama undoubtedly told you, never forget to read the small print.

Previous Commentsshow

Ahem, this letter today to The Clarion-Ledger speaks volumes about one major source of crime hysteria about Jackson: "Front page proves Jackson isn't safe." The writer adds: "First, you put Richard Dortch on the opinion page.†Then, on the same day he writes a column about Haley Barbour's saying that "People in Jackson are afraid to leave their homes," there is a front-page story and picture of Cornell Hattix holding his shotgun next to his 'No Trespassing' sign." http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0310/31/l08.html Thanks, C-L, for being such a supporter of the city. Not.

ladd

Oct 31 2003

Donna, we have had this conversation "offline". I would love to bring this "online". You assail MQ for ranking Jackson as one of the most dangerous cities in the country (and the people, like me, who use those stats). Here is my challenge. Prove it wrong. On relative terms, prove to me that Jackson is "not as bad as we think" in comparison to cities of similar size or in our geography. Please give us the numbers and the source of those numbers so that we can do our own journalistic research to make sure they are accurate and in context. Given that the city of Jackson does not publish arrest data regularly (monthly or weekly) and in such a way that makes it easy to dissect, you may or may not be correct that felony arrests may be down (slightly). However, IMHO, we need a quantum shift in the numbers (not single digit percentage improvements). We need to do what NYC and Rudy Giuliani (BOO!) did 10 years ago - take a crime ridden city and turn it into the safest big city in the country (if not the world). Ball is in your court. I look forward to the discussion.

Alan Lange

Nov 6 2003

An official welcome to the blog, Alan. I'm happy to have this discussion in the open as I've been doing for months, although I only will touch on the highlights, and keep covering these issues indepth in the print version. First re Morgan Quitno. There are many issues here that have been glossed by folks using the numbers as a scare tactic. First, as I say above, Carroll used 2001 figures to full-on attack Peterson, even though she only held the position half that year. That's just an obvious problem. Beyond that, I question both your (and I'm using the second person because you inserted it, and it's easier; it also stands for Carroll, media, SafeCity/Whitlow, Barbour and others) obsession with statistics, but only that hold up your side. Such reliance on Morgan-Quitno is problematic for several reasons, which I touch on in the piece above. For one, it doesn't help anything to lump all those stats together to scare people to death. The truth of the matter is, "danger" is usually considered as a threat to the person; many of the crimes that pump up that rating (say, auto theft) for Jackson aren't to the person. Now, that doesn't mean they're not a problem, but it means that someone who is serious about solving those problems would focus on the specifics and how to deal with those (which some people are doing). Second, those numbers are the FBI figures -- the same ones that show that crime dropped from 2001 to 2002 and are set to show only a minimal rise to 2003 (at least so far this year). And this year's rise is driven by property crime (again, not excusing it). As for the D.A.'s (or governor's) race, my problem with using the M-G figures is that the campaigns didn't take the figures, break them down and then show how their candidates where going to fix those problems better than the incumbents. It was a sea of rhetoric, seemingly designed to scare people to death (and out of Jackson, ultimately).

ladd

Nov 6 2003

MORE ... Now, you mention the comparison to other cities. That, frankly, is not our biggest concern, although it's certainly worth looking at. But if you do look at it, you also need to look at the factors at play in the other cities -- the different poverty levels, availability of decent jobs, re-segregation school issues, city politics, policing strategies (zero tolerance v. community policing, for instance), access to guns/gun laws (young people here can have a gun in the car as long as there's an adult there), and many other factors. The truth is, Jackson ranks very close to other southern cities with demographics and other circumstances similar to ours. Solving the problems hinges on looking at those issues and then solving them -- not this Wild West rhetoric so many people like to throw around. The truth of the matter is -- again, if you happen to study criminal-justice data -- many of the so-called "zero tolerance" policies actually increase recidivism. Thus, they are short-sighted.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

MORE ... Finally, Giuliani, and then I have a meeting. I suggest you read up a bit on the criminal-justice scholarship (not political rhetoric) that has emerged since his term. First, Rudy cost the city many millions of dollars in lawsuits because of his policies that bypassed constitutional rights. Jackson simply cannot afford to emulate the "Street Crimes" approach of assuming guilt first. Secondly, while three-strikes policies around the U.S. certainly put more criminals in jail (especially blacks, and often for minor offenses), crime in New York City fell at the same rate as other cities that did not employ Rudy's tough street policies, and that used more holistic community-policing strategies. The fact of the matter is: crime fell dramatically across the U.S. during the good economy of the 1990s. That's simply a fact. Crime fell to some of its lowest rates in 20 or more years in Jackson and other cities around the U.S. However, in many places, crime (especially property) is now creeping back up -- and that is caused by a wide variety of factors, all of which need to be dealt with. Policing, prosecution and judges are all strong elements in that, but not the only ones. I'm with you on the need for more regular figures being released; I'm an open-records kind of gal. But, I will say, I've never worked in a city where the media/political forces are trying harder to find dirt on an administration, and thus slit our own economic throats in the process. We all should show personal responsibility with public information -- and that means not trying to get it simply to twist it into a meaning that serves your own politics, or in the media's case to sell more papers and increase ratings. The police should release more info, but I certainly can see why they resist. And the funny thing is, the folks who only speak up to criticize the police (DA, etc.) have such strained credibility that they're not going to attract new supporters. People are smart enough to see what's going on.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

Now, what I would suggest to Carroll and you (both of whom I believe have good motives, ultimately) is to do positive work that's useful. Sure, do statistical research, but not only to find dirt to change the "leadership." How about using it, however it comes out, for positive good -- to help the leadership that is there and expose weaknesses in a way that doesn't seem so political. I liked some of Wilson's ideas about juvenile justice, for instance. (And if you dropped the big-ass gun off your blog and use it to track criminal-justice info in an unbiased, I'd link to it.) Compliment what the police are doing well; they're humans who need good feedback like anybody else, and they don't make a lot of money. And, frankly, we probably have the best chief who has come along in a while; he isn't without fault, but he understands the unique problems associated with Jackson, and he is making progress. And if Wilson really wants to be D.A. in four years, I promise you that this kind of sincere/positive approach will get him further than scare-mongering. I think he has great potential; I just think he got some really bad advice in this campaign. That's all I can say now. I will suggest to you and others, though, that if you want to help prevent and fight crime in Jackson that you do more homework, and not simply the type geared to make the city "leadership" look bad. That's not helping anything, and it strains your credibility.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

Alan, glad you've raised this question, because I think it's an important one. Donna's response was pretty solid, but I want to add my 2 cents as well. My frustration with the discussions on crime is the total lack of precision we use in discussing 'crime' and the lack of historical & national perspective. At this point, I don't trust any statistic handed to me by a politician, or by the Clarion Ledger. Precisely because they fail to do any analysis of the type that Donna offered in this article. For me, there's a huge difference between having a car window smashed (happend to a roommate in San Francisco), having my apartment robbed (happened to me in Oakland), and being held up at gun point (happened to a friend in Oakland) or worse. Lumping all of those numbers together to create some index of crime is not at all helpful. And when a number like that is used in a political campaign, well, it smacks of a lie. (Much like Barbour's campaign literature that says we lost more manufacturing jobs than any time since the Depression - it's a bogus statistic, designed to frighten people. It's bullshit, and it pisses me off.) As to the media - they are not doing their job. If the're doing stories on spikes in crime rates, I want follow ups months later when the crime rate drops. It would have been so easy for the CL to do an in depth piece on crime in Hinds County, using the DA's race as a 'hook' for the story. Alot of people have been working hard to reduce crime, and if they're successful, I want to know about it. For me, the campaiging and reporting by the CL has been on a single note. We need a full blown chorus to get to the truth of the matter. It's not about copying New York and it's not about arguing about statistics. It's about trying to figure out real root causes for the problems, figuring who is already doing real work to fix those problems, and discussing, in depth, ways to move on. The good news is that there are well intentioned people working on this issue. The first thing I would like to see is a holistic overview of the criminal justice system in Jackson. I don't think we've adequately diagnosed the problem yet. It feels like all we've done is yell 'crime is up' and diagnosed a broad spectrum anti-biotic. And it may be that the problem is viral, and the anti-biotic is useless. Let's spend a little more time getting to the details, before making a diangosis. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors.)

Kate

Nov 6 2003

These are not without weaknesses, but they're potentially revealing: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/02cius.htm

kchilton

Nov 6 2003

Well, I am honored that I am thought of as part of the collective CL, Wilson Carroll, SafeCity Crime Imaging Cartel - we usually meet on Wednesdays at the Legion of Doom to hatch our next sinister plot to overthrow local political figures :-). I guess our cover is now blown. The TRUTH is that no one, and I mean no one, wants Faye Peterson to be the best DA in the world as much as I do. I hope you feel the same way about Mr. Barbour after his election. Since I feel unsafe (rightly or wrongly) and the statistics say that I am unsafe, then something is wrong. And all I get to the contrary is that "it is not that bad" or "well arrests are down 1.7%". The truth is that progress is not happening. Statistics show it is not happening as indictments are down 32% over the last year. That is not some fabricated number. I sent you the spreadsheet. Tell me where I am wrong. I don't want to make Faye look bad. I want her to take criminals off the street and put their ass in jail so that there is a disincentive to the next guy that would do the same thing. Donna, you also assert that I (along with my evil minions) are conspiring to make the city look bad in order to advance our cause. Let me ask a rhetorical question - What if it really is bad? What if people are moving out of Jackson - and they are - because the system (crime, leadership, education) is fundamentally broken. Don't we need everyone (leaders in particular) to admit the problem before we fix it.

Alan Lange

Nov 6 2003

Kate, I appreciate your post as well. I really want to stay only on crime with my response. Let's look at the FBI numbers that the MQ stats are based on. In any particular category, Jackson is still 2-4x the national average on auto thefts, murders, and property crime. The fact that they are lumped together really doesn't mitigate the fact that there is more crime in Jackson relative to other cities. It is funny to me why everyone is scared of the New York model. The TRUTH is that NYC did benefit from the crime reduction with the economic boom of the 90's - no question. But NYC went a step further. They, like Jackson had an unacceptable rate of crime in lots of areas. Not only did the "draconian" changes that they implemented change real numbers as far as crime reduction in the city, but NYC showed relative improvement to other cities. They were actually doing a better job of reduction than other cities of relative size or geography. I equate personal feeling about crime like I do to wealth. I feel wealthier when I look at my bank account and see more money there. I feel safer when I look at the statistics and see that I am.

Alan Lange

Nov 6 2003

So, Alan, do you wear capes and masks at your meetings? My own perception is that most people are not *trying* to make Jackson look bad. However, the way many of the campaigns were run this year, coupled with the failure of the CL to do any real reporting or analysis on the situation, creates an aura of hysteria. As I said before, I would dearly love to see/hear a detailed description of the criminal justics system here, with clear and specific identification of 'broken spots.' then, I'd like to hear from the people in charge of those broken spots. And, I'd like the CL to actually *report* on the whole thing. Instead of just fueling the fire, reporting rises in crime, but not decreases, getting quotes from 'people on the street' instead of actual experts, have reporters do some analysis on statistics, instead of just copying them from some where. Indictments are down 32%. What does that mean? What are the possible reasons for that? What does Peterson's office say? What does JPD say? What does McMillan say. What do criminal attorneys say? The number, for me, being largely uneducated on the criminal system, means nothing in isolation like that. It's a good place to start, but now we need to dig into it. To me, it seems like the debate often ends with the statistic, without disovering the story behind the number. As for 'feeling safe' in Jackson, I personally don't feel any safer or more threatened here than in any other city I've lived in. I don't feel 100% safe, but I don't expect to. But, maybe I just have diminished expecations.

Kate

Nov 6 2003

But for me, the point is - you're much more credible when you say: For Auto Theft, we're 2-4x the national average. For murder, we're 2-4x the national average. And so on. That's far more specific, and scares me more, than "Jackson is one of the 10 most dangerous places to live". And, I do think we can learn from other cities, and what they have done. I just don't want to see Jackson bliindly try to copy what 'worked' in NYC, without looking at problems it may have created, other models, etc. We're not the first to tackle this problem, and NYC is not the only model we have to learn from.

Kate

Nov 6 2003

Donna, by the way, the gun stays on the site, especially in light of Tuesday. You can link to it or not. As to my bias - prove me wrong, PLEASE. Show me contravening statistics, PLEASE. I would love to find that indictments are actually up over teh past two years or that the HCDC is actually 90% full of indicted criminals, or that the property/auto crimes in Jackson were not actually 3-4X the national average. That would absolutely make my day. I am pretty sure you can't, but no one would eat crow more publicly than I. Now more than ever, I will be packin', but I am invested in this town and I am not moving (to the burbs).

Alan Lange

Nov 6 2003

Alan, your "cartel" line is very funny, but I'm not saying that; you're overblowing what I'm saying. I was explaining that I was using second person to stand for the folks who have been selectively using MG statistics to advance the "most dangerous" rhetoric. I'm not saying they're/you're all in concert in that goal. I'm also not accusing you of conspiring to do anything; you'll note that I say above that I believe *your* motives are probably very good. But that doesn't mean I agree that your tactics, so far, are going to make the city any safer. I don't. Certainly, hyperbolic rhetoric about crime will only decrease the city's economic base, thus making it likely to suffer more crime. It's a vicious cycle that can be reversed with good, non-hyped information and intelligent responses. I've told you in e-mail that we are working on a large analysis of the criminal-justice system that is going to take a while to do. I have added your spreadsheet to the piles of information we've already collected, and will consider the data that you've compiled in the larger context of the other research that we're going. As it is, I can't tell whether you're "right" or "wrong" -- and that's not my goal anyway; my goal is to take a larger look at the entire system and ask "why?" and why the various weaknesses all along the system -- as you know, there are a number of reasons that indictments may be down, for instance. We need more than raw statistics, whichever way they fall; we need studied context. If you've followed our crime coverage at all, you will realize that we are perfectly willing to say exactlly what we find; in fact, early on, we reported numbers that were, in the proper context, worse than the city had presented. Above, we report numbers that show that auto thefts are very high. Our goal is acccuracy and positive work, not hyperbole. I would suggest that there's more to this issue than putting people's asses in jail, as you put it. If that's all you're worried about, the crime rate won't go down; there's much more to criminal justice and prevention than that.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

As for your general leadership question, there are plenty of people invested in Jackson who talk regularly about the specific problems and how to fix them. And most of those problems have been here for many years, and the reasons are much too complex to go into here. I don't agree with your fatalistic view: there's no reason to proverbially bomb the city (or its so-called "leadership") and start over. I take a more positive view, and I'm very encouraged by what's happening in Jackson these days. And, fortunately, even local media are starting to figure out, belatedly, that "perception" of hopelessness is costing the city dearly. As I said on another blog, much academic study has been done on how to counter overblown perceptions (usually spread by politicians and sensationalistic media) before it really costs communities in tax base and local businesses. I didn't come up with this. I just study it and report it.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

One more thing: Alan, my goal is not to prove you right or wrong. My goal is to try to cut through the rhetoric and figure out what is really going on in Jackson and what specifically needs to be done about it and how to find the resources to do that. Whether that proves you right or wrong is not my concern. This isn't personal.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

Alan, I missed your last NYC post. Just quick points about that: I'm not "scared" of the New York crime model. I just happen to know a lot about it. I was working there as a journalist then, and did a lot of research about community policing, and other crime-fighting models. I don't have time to go deep into this here, but NYC is not a smart model for crime-fighting in Jackson. You mention yourself the need to compare Jackson to similar cities (although in a different post you seem more interested in comparing us to the national average). Rudy's policing model was complicated and costly. Crime started dropping in NY slightly before the rest of the country in the early '90s (which many experts believe was due to Dinkins' community-policing strategies, not Rudy's "zero tolerance"), but crime in NY also stopped dropping before the rest of the country, even as Rudy's policies became tougher and costlier (in innocent lives and lawsuits). I'm just scratching the surface of this -- it's complex -- but suffice it to say that just pointing toward Giuliani as a model for Jackson is extremely insufficent. I'm done blogging for now. Deadlines loom.

ladd

Nov 6 2003

"So if you're JFP, and you're faced with the choice of admitting that the crime problem in Jackson is not just caused by black criminals on the street but exacerbated by black politicians in positions of power; or arguing about data; you obviously do the latter. After all, everbody knows there are lies, damned lies, and statistics... what better diversion than to claim that the truth is distorted by a bunch of fancy and complicated numbers?" Ladd writes: That comment comes from Greg Griffith on Alan Lange's Jackson crime blog in response to this thread, which Alan has linked. Griffith presents an interesting-if-flawed false dilemma (stats-vs.-race) about what the crime discussion is about and, predictably, ignores most everything we've written on the topic, especially the part where we say that we're only analyzing all these stats because everybody else on the beat can't seem to use a calculator. Mostly, I find it intriguing that the very folks who love to throw around statistics suddenly start quoting Mark Twain when you start analyzing their favorite stats. And I'm just not sure how to respond to Griffith's race comments. I'll just say "wow" and leave it at that. Here's another comment that appeared above the first one I quoted above: "Furthermore, if real numbers are going to be put on the table and examined dispassionately, then the only conclusion that can be reached about those who commit crimes in this town is that they are overwhelmingly young, male ... and black." Ladd again: Well, then. All very intriguing. Y'all should click over for a minute and read the rest, and you can see the big-ass gun while you're there.

ladd

Nov 10 2003

I just browsed that site and must say it totally f***ed up my chi for the day. If any readers feel the need to vent negatively about crime, jacksoncrime.org is the place. That said... I am all about the resources everyone is presenting for the citizens of Jackson but it seems to me that blog is nothing more than a place for the author to vent his frustrations. While that is completely healthy, it seems like all the time attacking could be betters spent mending, repairing, or suggesting solutions. After all, everyone can complain... The world's full of them. <>

Knol Aust

Nov 10 2003

Yikes! Who needs scary movies? Who is Greg Griffith?

Nia

Nov 10 2003

;-) I don't really know, I've heard his name around. It looks like he's the Webmaster of the site, or at least set it up. He should take note, though: the front page of the site doesn't load right on my browsers.

ladd

Nov 10 2003

It didn't load properly on my Mac but loaded fine on my PC. Not a clue why.

Nia

Nov 10 2003

Maybe they think only liberals use Macs.

ladd

Nov 11 2003

Well, it's nice to be loved. I noticed no one who visited the site commented on the site. Like I said above, and on the radio last week (WJNT - where I gave you a nice plug, Donna :-)), PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG. Please give me the stats, please show me the data that says I am wrong. I WILL EAT CROW GLADLY AND PUBLICLY. And while you are at it, if you think I am so off base, post on my site and tell my readers so. I say that not to be an a-hole, but because I am confident I am not wrong. By the way, sorry about the chi, KA. I hear green tea works well.

Alan Lange

Nov 12 2003