The final item in Daily Worcsterias coverage of last night’s city council meeting seems to be a reoccurring theme.
9:00: Police Chief Gary Gemme is advocating for his creation of a Fall Impact Unit – similar to the Summer Impact Unit – by once again discussing how there’s a significant uptick in crime after midnight.
At what point does a member of the council ask the Chief to qualify that ideology? How can we allow blanket statements like that from city officials with no follow up discussion of population density shifts, influx into the city from surrounding towns and even the possibility that there might not actually be ‘more’ crime, but just more people available to report crime that normally wouldn’t involve the WPD? Statements like that without supporting material and citations and statistics are just opinions. The second largest city in New England can’t afford to develop policy around opinion and conjecture no matter how well intentioned.
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I’m wondering why we can’t just say, “Hey, we need more cops out after midnight” and leave it at that, without turning it into something with a fancy name?
Named response or not, I would still appreciate someone explaining why they felt the need was greater after midnight. Not just stating it.
A new restaurant or bar opens, and the police are out front in force ticketing cars and bicycles, and harassing customers and owners over “potential violations that may happen without a police detail”. Didn’t the mob do that sort of thing?
Worcester has enough police. I hear budget cuts increase after 9am in the fall. That’s why I’m asking the city council to form a Fall Impact Unit to make sure the police have their budget cut by 25%.
Everything needs a fancy name or you can’t pay people for studying, implementing, reviewing, overseeing, etc. the program.
What, you expect the police to do police work without extra incentives? Not in these parts. That’s like asking teachers to teach students without “education coaches” and annual “workshops”.
That said, every policy is the product of opinion and conjecture. If there were a list of FACTS that informed our public policy decisions then every single problem would have been solved long ago and we’d all be living in heaven on Earth.
Of course, the opinions and conjecture offered by our public “servants” invariably require more taxpayer money. Probably just a coincidence.
I’d just like suggestions from the Chief to be accompanied by supporting material. I don’t find the city nearly as scary after dark as some and would like to find out why that is.
Maybe because you’re not hanging out at drug dealer’s houses at 2 AM and your trips to the Worcester City Motel have been less frequent since you got that rash?
As for it being “scary”, that’s a matter of perspective. There’s not a street in the City I wouldn’t walk down at any time of day or night, but there are plenty of places I wouldn’t stop and hang out. We have double the rapes of comparable cities, but only half the murders, so us fellers are statistically safer I guess.
Chief Gemme typically implies it’s crime around licensed pouring establishments and restaurants that increases after midnight. I don’t hear much call for increased details at the residences of crack dealers. And the Worcester City Motel is in Shrewsbury, you don’t need to pay to get laid in Shrewsbury.
Nice to see you noticed our rape stats. Amazing numbers rarely spoken of in town.
Maybe we should have details for crack dealers…
It’s weird that we average about 2 rapes a day in Worcester and there’s hardly ever a front-page story about any of them. Don’t know what to make of that. If the statistics I saw most recently are accurate, we trail only Springfield as the rape capitol of New England. Where are all the task-forces, “special hearings” and crackdowns on the parolees/probation-cases who commit the bulk of the crimes in the City? Nowhere to be seen.
I swear that more people showed up over the great hot-dog debate than would show up to discuss the bizarrely out of proportion rape rate. That’s a testament not only to the failure of City leadership, but of the citizens themselves, and perhaps the local press.
Of course, no change in approach would amount to a hill of beans if the Judiciary continues to insist on inflicting criminals on the most vulnerable neighborhoods. When someone gets a puny “5-8 years” for a violent crime and STILL only spends about 3 years behind bars, there is virtually no deterrent effect. In fact, upon release those criminals magically transform into the “under-served” citizens to whom we must cater.
Oh, I used the City Motel to avoid slandering the Vernon, but you get the drift.
Last I read via FBI stats we were pushing 70+ rapes per year, per capita that puts us at the head of the class. And yes, never hear a thing in the press. Personally, I can deal with violence in the form of a handful of fights, shootings and stabbings a year, especially when there is little to no spillover into non-criminal sectors. But 70 rapes? That’s the mark of city with a big problem.
I spoke too soon, 2007 is up and puts us at 93 (Springfield 91). Mind you that is only forcible rape and reported forcible rape at that.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_08_ma.html
Oh yeah, I meant two a WEEK, not two a DAY.
I posted a question to the Mayor/City Manager about this issue via the peacenik (delnieve?) on Worcesterite. I know I should probably be asking the Governor or the Police Chief, but what the heck? Maybe it’ll be the first time Mike and Konnie hear about real life in “their” City.
Here’s what I posted (I guess to WCUW).
….The last few years of Federal statistics show that Worcester has double the expected number of forcible rapes for a City of our size. Where are the task-forces? The “special hearings”? The headlines and press conferences?
I understand that this isn’t as pressing an issue as hot-dog vendors or winter parking, but I’d still like to see someone in a position of authority address it.