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| Winning back Philly streets |
This is the type of news I love reporting.
The city of brotherly love is successfully winning back the streets. I hope and pray this trend becomes the new norm. The credit is given to smarter and more proactive policing.
Another novel approach to reducing crime even further: Investing in our urban talent would not drain our tax dollars.
On the contrary, we know the crime prone years are 18-29 years old, targeting this demographic for skill development and job training would save us billions of dollars in law enforcement. Second, it would create millions of new tax donors and this additional revenue would lower the tax burden on the middle and working class.
Read on:
THE STREETS of Philadelphia are less mean this year because of a major decline in crime, led by a decrease in the number of homicides.
If the pace in the second half of this year matches the first, the city will end 2013 with fewer than 70,000 Part One crimes recorded. Part One includes murder, rape, robbery, serious assaults, burglary and theft.
As you can tell by that number, Philadelphia still has a lot of crime. But going below 70,000 would be significant, bringing crime down to the lowest level in 40 years and homicides down to the lowest number since 1969. Read more
To those FOX news leaning folks who claim blacks are only concerned about homicides when it's white on black, here's some folks rallying in Chicago to address street gun violence. They are convening in an emergency summit.
While Congress tangled over gun control legislation earlier this year after the killings in Newtown, gun violence in Chicago went on unabated, taking lives in clips of one, two and three at a time.
“I equate it to when a 747 crashes as opposed to a two-seater,” said Rep. Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Chicago. “In Chicago, every day we have mini-massacres.”
After a particularly bloody Fourth of July weekend, in which 72 people were shot, 12 of them killed, Kelly and a couple of fellow local Democratic members of Congress have convened an “emergency summit” to address the issue of gun violence facing Chicago and so many other cities across the country. The two-day “National Summit on Violence in Urban Communities,” hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, began on Friday at the Chicago State University Convocation Center in Chicago.
Speakers and attendees from all over the city, region and country, including members of law enforcement, the clergy, politicians, community leaders, and victims of gun violence, attended. Panelists will discuss what approaches have and have not worked. And organizers hope to glean practical strategies that could be applied in Chicago and in other struggling communities. read more
The sound you are about to hear is a broken record: Once again -- not rocket science -- investment in our Urban youth is equivalent to an ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure.
- Education curriculum for the 21st century economy
- Better resourced and funded public schools
- Private sector/Public sponsored vocational and job training
- Tax credit incentives for corporate job hiring and training programs in Urban America
- Sensible (and much needed) gun control laws -- in particular closing loop holes for gun shows
- Decriminalization of drugs: take out the profit motives for street gangs
- Urban youth activity centers
- Urban family outreach -- by Fraternities/churches
"What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter." - Peter F. Drucker
I agree that education really needs to change. In some parts of this nation, people are busy bickering about if science in general should even be allowed, because it contradicts literal scripture. And, pure speculation here, that thought is probably in the mind of a lot of zealots who control educational standards, especially as it pertains to sexual education, computer education, and other things that don't fit a "traditional" narrative.
ReplyDelete(I just hear Bobby Boucher's mom shouting "The Debil!" in my ear.)
I have to disagree on more funding for schools. In much poorer nations, there are 50 kids stuffed into a hut, bereft of modern technology and clean water, and they can whip our kids' asses in subjects we should have a firm grip on. They're engaged; they know education is important. A lot of our kids aren't and don't.
I think we need better teachers to teach a better curriculum. We need coaches; motivators and enablers, able to be canned if they suck at the job. We need more school choice so bad teachers and schools can go extinct like they should rather than doing that "lemon dance."
Totally agree on vocational schools. The line pushed that everyone needs college is misleading, because what a lot of kids will study is something in the liberal arts or in sociology. Fine, sure, but we still need carpenters and plumbers and engineers, not an entire herd of thinkers that never do.
Agree with the tax incentives, to an extent, and with stricter gun laws.
Disagree with the drugs for the time being. I think addiction is as big a problem as dealing in most precincts, so that has to be addressed first.
Outreach is great, but kids need more permanent support. And it should start a lot earlier than school to help them prepare for school. So the family outreach it what I'd personally put more emphasis on. Reach and strengthen the family structure (not "wedlock"; I dislike that view) to strengthen the youth.
I'm on board.