Though federal gun-crime prosecutions are up, that doesn't mean crime goes down, poopoo'd Bourgeois intellectuals r.e. Project Get-a-Room. Meanwhile, city cops are starting a new weightloss and endurance program. And the Brooklyn DA's office has a 90-percent conviction rate in its special gun court.Livery:
Friends of cab driver Omar Ba, shot to death by 15-year old Damon Holmes, are trying to traise money to have him buried in his native Mali.In Harford County, 18-year-old Wayne Bond got life plus 60 years for the gang-initiation killing of cab driver Derald Guess.
Fugitives:
Keep your eyes peeled for fugitives Ricardo Jones and Joesph Leaks, who escaped a DC jail and caught a Metro shuttle bus. Oh, wait, they caught Leakes. Well, Ricardo (left) is still on the lam. And now arsonist Robert Whetzel of Bel Air has escaped from the Eastern Shore pre-release unit after serving seven out of 10 of his years. Domestic Horror:
Roger Hargrave, still not taking responsibility for the vicious burning of his own wife, got life in prison.
Around Town:
What really epitomizes Charles Village: shaking hands with Doug Duncan, then two minutes later having a high-ranking member of the Bloods walk by, following the Edmonson Village Steppers.
Are O'Malley's mayor pals trying to tell him something? There's a major conference of mayors and health officials coming to town Wednesday and Thursday. Topic: Building Public Drug Treatment Systems.
This just in:
black men are a diverse group.
9 comments:
from the sun on drug treatment:
Treatment advocates estimate that Baltimore has about 60,000 addicts -- the highest concentration in the state --
They say that if Baltimore's treatment network had the capacity to serve 45,000 addicts a year, the city might finally reach a "tipping point" in its battle against addiction. In 2005, 23,320 addicts received treatment in Baltimore, according to figures compiled by the city.
my observation:
waitaminute - of baltimore's 635,000 population, about 150,000 are over 55 years old and 137,000 are under age 15. That means the population aged 15-55, that most likely to be using drugs and making up the base for the 60,000 users, is only about 348,000. If we are treating 23,000 per year,
then all users would have been treated twice on average over five years, and one in three in the age-appropriate base would have been provided treatment, on average.
So why aren't we done with it? Is it youth recruitment, young'uns coming up using? No, that's a small number, relative to treatment slots.
The answer is that our addicts are often poor candidates: they fall off the wagon over and over, which means they were never really on it.
Most users in Baltimore don't seek treatment voluntarily. They are court-ordered, which means they are not self-motivated and they return to substance abuse the minute 'the Man' is no longer watching. That is probably a waste of a treatment slot.
I'm betting that if you examine a plot of number of treatments and time to relapse, you will find that there's a bimodal distribution: two distinct groups.
One consists of people who screwed up getting into drugs, got into a program once or twice and basically stayed off the stuff for years.
The other group consists of people who have been using forever, like to do so, get caught and forced into programs, and have been treated more times than you can shake a stick at. These are probably a poor use of treatment slots.
What's the solution? We should offer a guarantee of treatment twice in a lifetime. Once you use up your treatment entitlement, conviction on drug charges should be quite punitive: treble penalties come to mind. That way, people who m a mistake get 'fixed' and those, like the Police Commissioner's step-daughter, who like being junkie criminals, get incarcerated for the long term, keeping them away from a society they harm.
from the sun on police foot patrols:
"The last three Fridays that we've had them out, we've seen a huge decrease in crime on Fridays," said Col. Deborah A. Owens, the chief of patrol.
"If people don't see cops, then they think it's safe to commit crimes," Owens said. "I think the visibility does cause people to take a second thought about committing a crime."
OK, so now that we've established the efficacy of patrol resources, and since the City Council has provided more funding than the Commissioner has utilized, my question is:
"What's the holdup, Lenny?"
Your staffing is down double digits, down as much as 20% in the Northern District. According to what your Chief of Patrols just said, YOUR FAILURE TO HIRE COPS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRIME WHICH DESTROYS MY NEIGHBORHOOD.
Fire Hamm. Vote no-confidence in O'Malley. Get these clowns outta here and put cops on the streets in quantity. Call your councilman on this point, folks.
On a fiscal note, because Hamm hasn't hired cops to replace those exiting, he makes up some of the gap by assigning officers to stressful 12-hour shifts. In addition to burning them out, remember that they're getting paid overtime, which costs at time and a half. Hence, you're not only getting less manpower, you're also paying 50% more for it. What a collossal waste. You're really getting very little policing for your money, hence, the ridiculous level of crime, which is also up double digits in Harm City. It's just not rocket science, y'know.
That excessive overtime, BTW, has not been authorized in the budget by City Council. Question: Isn't that called a... misappropriation of public funds,... Mr. O'Malley? Who is investigating it? No one.
Can the Hamm. It's a no-brainer.
Mayor McCheese claims 'he' reduced violent crime by 40% since 1999. That calculation incorporates an artificial 16% boost in the base year 1999 crime engineered by then councilman O'Malley
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060310-104848-8409r.htm]
Notice the this year-to-date, crime is up over 13%.
Result: if your back out the 1999 rigged figures and recognize the current year crime increase, O'Malley's claim to fame is that crime dropped (40%-13%-16%) = 11% in Baltimore, whereas nationwide, cities have recorded crime decreases on the order of 50%. To make matters worse, keep in mind that Charm City's population has continued to drop since 1999 by about 3%, so the per capita crime trend in Baltimore could be a mere 8% reduction, compared with a 50% drop in New York.
Think about it.
FYI: Maryland is the 6th -worst state in America insofar as poor driving is concerned.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/05/26/gmac_test_rankings/index.html
Thanks for the SOROS article and the one on black men.
you're so welcome, my dear, considerate, concise reader!
Is that a very courteous way of pointing out that I'm a windbag, Cybes ?
We wouldn't need a BGE rate hike if someone could just install a wind turbine in front of my keyboard.
this just in: john galt thinks we "need a BGE rate hike!" i've got you now, galt!
;)
When you demand a high level of a commodity, such that the average total cost of production exceeds the price you have been paying, that demand will not be met by supply unless the price goes up.
That's why the PSC had to approve a rate hike. The financially sustainable alternative would be the expectation of brownouts.
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