Baltimore Crime: Can't Get Enough BCrime?

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Can't Get Enough BCrime?

I'll be on a panel discussion this Thursday at 8 p.m. at Goucher, along with some very interesting characters.

23 comments:

ppatin said...: Whoa, I just heard a number of gunshots coming from northeast of my place. I'm curious to see if this makes it into the Sun tomorrow.; Sun Apr 20, 12:28:00 AM EDT
Brian said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; Sun Apr 20, 02:34:00 PM EDT
Brian said...: The Economist: Baltimore is "less violent" due to "smarter policing"; Sun Apr 20, 02:36:00 PM EDT
Brian said...: Link
http://tinyurl.com/65gsgp; Sun Apr 20, 02:37:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: On the Economist article:

"If you build it, he will come."
- Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams (1989)

"If you build it, they will comply."
- Sheila Dixon, Mayor of Baltimore City (2008)

Both can be found in the fantasy aisle.; Sun Apr 20, 03:11:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Question: When Hopkins & the City bulldoze 'derelict blocks to build nice homes for biomedical researchers', where, pray tell, do you think the dealers and junkies and thieves and murderers go ??

Not to Canton. Nor Hampden. Nor Federal Hill. Nor Mount Vernon. Nor by Hopkins Homewood campus. Campaign-contributor Struever Bros. owns in all those places.

Were the hetto denizens rehabilitated? No, the number of criminals in Baltimore has remained quite constant. (Sheila Dixon is lying; the Ghetto population is no smaller.) They just get moved.

Where to? Baltimore B. The dumping ground. Baltimore City effectively designates who is to be victimized by criminals. It is an active participant in the criminal enterprise, sometimes known as a co-conspirator.

And with the massive displacement of the scum of the earth out of Hopkins East, you can think of it as 'Coming to a house near you.'

The mode of transmission used to be large public Housing Projects which you could see coming, but now the same thing is done with Section 8 certificates, which are issued without a word spoken by the City until it's Too Late.

Until you see radical reductions in the number of working-age males on the loose and not seeking employment, this city is a Ghetto. Civilian unemployment, btw, is only 6%. So how about all those problematic young males hanging around ?? 43% of Baltimore's population is classified as not in the labor force. And about 1 in 3 young males here has been recently adjudicated or not unjustly charged a criminal.

Coincidence? I think not. You shrink the Ghetto by placing them in jail. If they're still here, then

It's the Ghetto.

Stop lying, Sheila Dixon.; Sun Apr 20, 03:50:00 PM EDT
Maurice Bradbury said...: Thanks Brian!

Is the police dept. really hiring mediators? Interesting.

Comments are good too.; Sun Apr 20, 04:08:00 PM EDT
Maurice Bradbury said...: galt when you say: "43% of Baltimore's population is classified as not in the labor force," who do you mean? Old people and kids, or does that count people in jail too?; Sun Apr 20, 04:09:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: That's from the population aged 16 and over.

Over 42% of Baltimore households have (lawful) household income of less than $25,000 a year.

And even where Baltimore people are employed, it's largely in fake jobs:

22% are governmnt workers
10% are public administration

Contrast that with a real city, like Manhattan:

10% are government workers
3% are public administration

The Ghetto is not composed of bricks and mortar, not is it measured in terms of square blocks; it's a function of the quality of your people.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in our selves.

And Baltimore's selves rot.; Sun Apr 20, 04:20:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: People in jail (at the time of the count) are actually deemed residents of the locality housing the correctional facility, so our number here actually understates the uselesness of our male population, since the worst of them are already in prison in Hagerstown or Salisbury or wherever.; Sun Apr 20, 04:26:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: A pretty good measure of ghetto would consider the ratio of the number of active criminals to the number of full-time employed minus those fake government jobs and possibly the dead-weight positions at do-nothing nonprofits.

Basically, a predator:prey ratio.; Sun Apr 20, 04:40:00 PM EDT
buzoncrime said...: ppatin---where is your place at?

The Economist article is interesting, but seems focused on the murder numers (of course, that's where the focus is). And while most of Baltimore can be nice most of the time, I think it has more than "a couple" of bad neighborhoods. And the picture chosen was kinda weird; we don't have cops with M-16s standing around even in John Galt's neighborhood.

By the way, in some senses, he is right. During the housing boom, many thugs and their families were displaced from Hampden and other places where a "renaissance" was occurring. Many of them moved to Waverly, for example. When they tore the high-rises down, McElderry-Decker went from being a nice neighborhood to dangerous in a matter of months.

Buz is skeptical that there are really a lot of mediators working with the police department. And some of the other things I read in the article were, uh, surprising.

I wonder where Baltimore B is.

Sheesh, John, you are really bitter. But I understand. Both of my parents were victims of violent crime.

As a lifelong civil servant, I am concerned that my past career was not a real job. I wuz a government public administrator.; Sun Apr 20, 04:54:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Decent, yet thoroughly urban, municipalities have rather low populations of criminals under the age of majority.

Places like Baltimore, Camden, and Detroit, with large adolescent ghetto subcultures, have lost the battle for civility before it's begun.

IMHO, adolescents who exhibit materially antisocial conduct on a regular basis ought to be summarly airlifted out of their context (f#@k their do-nothing mothers) and placed into an enclosed, residential Maryland State military academy some distance away with considerable statutory latitude w.r.t. discipline and little means of appeal.

If they adapt and become obedient cadets, they may get a leg up on a federal military career. If not, there's no time like the present to place hopeless incorrigibles under correctional supervision.

I'm kinda fed up with the idea that out of control fourteen year-olds have four years' free reign before the basic criminal code applies to them. Why wait?; Sun Apr 20, 04:59:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Gerry, I don't assert that all public employment is useless. In fact, I call for the hiring of many, many (really capable) police officers in Baltimore.

I think I said I criticize excess government employment. If you need three DPW workers on a truck to properly replace a segment of pipe and they have five people standing around, that's two excess jobs.

The City Schools administrative building on North Avenue, for example, has a lot of excess employees.

Baltimore has a lot of fake government employment. There just aren't all that many people in this town who actually do anything well. Incompetence isn't a viable survival strategy in the real world, but in Baltimore, Camden, Detroit, and other postapocalyptic ghettos,...

Think of this commercial, which I like. Of course, Baltimore has managed to taint even its firefighters.; Sun Apr 20, 05:14:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Oh, and on the subject of M-16's, we have 'em. Only, the guys carrying them around aren't exactly cops....

My next-door neighbor was caught with a cache of handguns, automatic weapons with laser scopes, big bags of heroin, and a forest of pot bushes. The weapons charges were all nolle prossed! He was sentenced to 8 years on CDS-Intent to Distribute, of which seven years were suspended.

So he's back already.

No big deal. Same ol' ghetto.

Come to our local chinese carryouts at night. While patrons wait for their orders, you learn a great deal from their discussion of the relative merits of the action on different models of Glock 9mm.

It's nice that someone here takes their work seriously.; Sun Apr 20, 05:32:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...: Buzz: I'm in Fells Point, fairly close to where Boston St. & Fleet St. intersect.; Sun Apr 20, 05:48:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Murder by gunshot this a.m. on the 3400 block, 6th St. in South Baltimore.; Sun Apr 20, 06:07:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: Here's a thought-provoking theory on the lifestyles which tend to promote group progress and those which normally immiserize their practitioners absent the sort of public coddling you find in places like Baltimore City.; Sun Apr 20, 06:15:00 PM EDT
John Galt said...: WTF ??

I think Baltimore just legalized murder.; Mon Apr 21, 08:10:00 AM EDT
ppatin said...: "Baltimore just legalized murder"

Awesome. I'm going to go shoot my annoying alcoholic neighbor.; Mon Apr 21, 09:09:00 AM EDT
Caederus said...: Galt,

It's not a decriminalization of murder, it's an effort to save the life of at least 1 witness per homicide. No need to kill all the witnesses any more. You can leave one alive.; Mon Apr 21, 09:09:00 AM EDT
Sean said...: Examiner article on the subject.; Mon Apr 21, 10:03:00 AM EDT
Steve said...: I really hope Prevas is as interesting in a panel discussion as he is when singing karaoke.; Tue Apr 22, 08:37:00 PM EDT

Baltimore Crime

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Can't Get Enough BCrime?

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