Solutions to Luzerne County's Violent Crime Wave? (Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre: section 8, rental)

[SteelCityRising]

I'm sitting here aghast reading the Times-Leader online on this rainy day to learn that the recent bar shooting that left 38-year-old Joseph Bensen of Wilkes-Barre dead in a parking lot is the eighth homicide so far in 2009 in Wilkes-Barre and the 12th so far this year in the county! At this rate we'll have 16 murders this year in Wilkes-Barre (pop. 40,000) and 24 murders in Luzerne County (pop. 300,000). If this holds true then Wilkes-Barre's murder rate will be approximately 1 per 2,500 individuals. Just to give you guys something to chew on a bit:

New York City:
2009 Murders to Date: 138
Estimated Population: 8,300,000
2009 Murder Rate: 1 per 60,145 individuals

Minneapolis:
2009 Murders to Date: 4 (Yes, You Read That Correctly)
Estimated Population: 380,000
2009 Murder Rate: 1 per 95,000 individuals

Pittsburgh:
2009 Murders to Date: 22
Estimated Population: 310,000
2009 Murder Rate: 1 per 14,091 individuals

Get the picture thus far?


How can it can be that Wilkes-Barre, per capita, has become one of the nation's most dangerous cities? Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a population much higher than all of Luzerne County, has had a homicide, on average, just once every six weeks so far in 2009. Pittsburgh, reeling from a bloody 2008, is having a relatively safe and tame 2009. Meanwhile Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County are on track for record homicide tallies this year. What's going on?!! What can be done to ebb this before it becomes even worse?

[Mr Yuk]

Bring in the National Guard!

[ki0eh]

Send all the juveniles to corporate detention centers!

(No, wait... )

[Mr Yuk]

Close down Sherman Hills and give the residents one-way tickets to their choice of Harlem, Compton, or Camden.

[Magritte25]

The only thing that I can think of is that the residents in Luzerne County seem to love their heroin so the dealers move here to sell. So of course there is going to be criminal on criminal crime.

I don't know how to stop the violence that is happening. These are not random murders. It is not known who knew who in that bar shooting but I'd be shocked if the shooter didn't know the victims. I don't believe that Wilkes-Barre is a dangerous city because these crimes are not random. It's dangerous when you are a criminal. I know people disagree with me but the facts of these crimes support this. Also, crimes tend to go up when the economy is doing poorly so that could be another factor - especially in this area.

[Magritte25]

Originally Posted by go phillies

Close down Sherman Hills and give the residents one-way tickets to their choice of Harlem, Compton, or Camden.

Were any of these crimes committed by people who live in Sherman Hills? I'm not being snarky, genuinely curious.

As was stated on a previous thread, Section 8 and Public Housing do their homework on who they rent to. More often than not, the people who commit crimes in these projects are not residents but rather friends of residents. If someone has no criminal history and a good rental history, you cannot deny them a place to rent. So how do we stop it?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Magritte25

The only thing that I can think of is that the residents in Luzerne County seem to love their heroin so the dealers move here to sell. So of course there is going to be criminal on criminal crime.

This is the fundamental problem nationwide, the war on drugs has been escalating since the 70's? The result is more profits for the people peddling them making it very lucrative and more than enough people are willing to take that risk. Those that do get caught are filling out jails and may not be there otherwise except for the drugs being illegal.

I get a good laugh when they have one of these press conferences with recent ring of dealers they took out because there is some other guy cheering for it as well because they took out the competition.

The only plausible solution as I see it is legalization, it will most definitely remove much of the crime associated with it particularly the violence and crime perpetrated by addicts. The effects on the violence associated with the dealers may not be so dramatic as they may move onto something else but truthfully I cannot think of anything as lucrative and easy as the drug trade.

The downside is we're making some highly addictive drugs quite readily available.

The money used to house these criminals and addicts can be redirected towards treatment for addicts which I honestly think is money very well spent compared to housing them in jail. A lot of these people go to jail and come out worse, it's nothing more than criminal college for a lot of them.

[The Commish]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

The downside is we're making some highly addictive drugs quite readily available.

I'm not certain it serves our interests to do that. Marijuana is certainly innocuous enough to legalize. But I don't think making far more addictive and dangerous drugs legally available is on balance the right choice. I haven't thought this one through very much though.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

The money used to house these criminals and addicts can be redirected towards treatment for addicts which I honestly think is money very well spent compared to housing them in jail. A lot of these people go to jail and come out worse, it's nothing more than criminal college for a lot of them.

Agreed.

The Lackawanna County Treatment Court has been a major success. It costs tens of thousands per year to house inmates versus a fraction of that for those who qualify for treatment court instead. There's been something like 500 graduates of the program and another 500 are currently in it now. Recidivism rates are much lower for program graduates, too.

[Magritte25]

I'm not sure how I feel about hard drugs being legalized. In theory it sounds like a good idea, but they are super addictive and make people act almost psychotic at times. Though I've seen people act that way with alcohol too....

[thecoalman]

Well my theory is you're going to have people that will use and people that won't. I don't think legalizing will make them any more prone to taking them. I believe there are nations that have had many of these drugs legalized for quite some time that can show that ism the case but I'm really going from memory.

Whatever the case is what we are doing right now is not working and something has to change.

Of course there are certain drugs that should never be legalized and that may prove to be the downfall of legalization anyway. Meth for example can cause delusions, agressiveness and all kinds of freaky behavior which is certainly a recipe for disaster. Heroin is the complete opposite, might as well be bump on a log. It's when they do not have it that they get dangerous.