Public Safety

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The Effect Of Youth Unemployment On Crime

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Reducing unemployment among D.C.’s young people will help reduce crime, according to a new report by D.C. think tank Justice Policy Institute.

The group, whose mission is to lower the incarceration rate, found that neighborhoods with high crime rates also have high unemployment rates, particularly among young people. A previous report found a similar connection between boosting education levels and public safety.

D.C. has an unemployment disparity, in which joblessness is very low in wealthy neighborhoods, while low-income neighborhoods have Depression-era unemployment rates. The Justice Policy Institute report also showed how unemployment is chronically high in places with a lot of crime:

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Racial Stereotyping: What’s Alcohol Got To Do With It?

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Racial stereotyping others is more common among people who’ve been drinking alcohol, but just thinking about alcohol can have the same effect. That’s according to a new study by University of Missouri’s Bruce D. Bartholow, who found that people who saw alcoholic beverage ads were more likely to mistakenly see tools as handguns when associated with black male faces.

This is how the experiment went down: participants were shown a bunch of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink ads. Then they saw pictures of black and white men’s faces for a split second, followed immediately by pictures of handguns and tools. Those who were exposed to the alcohol ads were more likely to exhibit racial bias, by mistakenly identifying the tools as handguns after seeing photos of black male faces. Participants who saw non-alcoholic drink ads didn’t make the same mistake as often. The quick speed of the experiment kept participants from over-thinking their responses.

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Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman And Beyond Black And White

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A photo of Trayvon Martin appears on a protester's sign during a March 19 rally in Sanford, Fla.

A national debate about racism in the criminal justice system has been reignited by the Feb. 26 killing of an unarmed black teenager in Florida by a non-black man who hasn’t been charged with a crime.

Here’s what happened, according to news reports and newly-released 911 recordings: Trayvon Martin, 17, was walking from a convenience store to his father’s house in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. That’s when Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, 28, spotted him. Zimmerman called 911, reporting a seeing a suspicious person. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,” Zimmerman said to the dispatcher, and began following Martin. A struggle ensued and Martin, unarmed, was fatally shot in the chest. Zimmerman claims self defense and hasn’t been charged with a crime. Federal authorities announced late Monday that they would launch a full-scale criminal investigation following protests over local police’s handling of the case.

The narrative appears to be a sadly familiar one, of seemingly double standards, of little to no punishment when the shooter is white and when the person shot is black. Benjamin Crump, the Martin family’s lawyer, has said that if the roles were reversed and Trayvon Martin was the shooter of a white man, an arrest would have been made immediately.

Orange County Jail

A 2005 photo of George Zimmerman.

But a letter from Zimmerman’s father, Robert Zimmerman, to the Orlando Sentinel complicates the narrative. Robert Zimmerman writes that his son, George, is “a Spanish speaking minority.” (He also goes on write that his son has black family members. “The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth,” the letter states.).

Orlando Sentinel reporter Rene Stutzman has been closely following the case and had an exclusive interview with Robert Zimmerman. Stutzman tells DCentric that George Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic.

Does Zimmerman’s Hispanic heritage change the larger story? Maybe not, but it does demonstrate that America’s longstanding black-white debates about racism have been complicated by the country’s shifting demographics. Racial identity for Hispanics is much more fluid than for other groups. Many Hispanic immigrants feel they are accepted as white by larger society, but those with darker complexions still face plenty of discrimination, according to a 2010 American Sociological Association report. In other words, a light skinned Hispanic, such as Zimmerman, may be treated as a white man by larger society, while a darker Hispanic may be treated as black. And when it comes to racial profiling, anyone can discriminate against anyone else. A person can even be sued for racially discriminating against another person of the same race.

In the end, no matter how many debates about race this case spurs, one thing won’t change: a teenager who was carrying little more than a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea is dead. And for now, a community is torn apart as so many questions remain unanswered.

Report: Fixing Education Disparities Is a Public Safety Strategy

Chris Hondros / Getty/Newsmakers

Focusing on educational disparities in the District would help reduce crime, according to a report issued today by D.C. think tank Justice Policy Institute. According to the report, D.C.’s high school dropouts are more likely to have prison records. It went on to show that states that have increased the money they spend on higher education have also seen their violent crime rates decline.

The think tank, whose mission is to reduce the incarceration rate, recommends spending more money on parks, mentoring and schools and less money on courts and policing. They also recommend revising school policies to keep kids in school.

Researchers found the same stark disparities we’ve examined when it comes to education levels in D.C.’s wards; for instance, one-fifth of Ward 8 adults haven’t completed high school. But the report also breaks down formal education levels of D.C.’s adults by race. Nearly all white adults in D.C. — 99 percent of them — have a high school diploma or higher. For African Americans, 80 percent of adults have completed high school, while 57 percent of Hispanic adults have high school diplomas.

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‘Avoid the Ghetto’ App and Pegging Neighborhoods as Dangerous

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Critics have dubbed a feature for GPS tools that would direct pedestrians to take alternate routes based on crime and demographic data the “Avoid the Ghetto” app. They say it could redirect people away from low-income or minority neighborhoods, or reinforce stereotypes about such areas. Others say the app makes GPS devices more intelligent by giving people useful information.

According to Microsoft’s patent for the app, which was approved last month, pedestrian routes can be calculated relying on demographic and violent crime data, among other things. The potential result: a pedestrian would be directed to walk a route where violent crime falls below a certain threshold, according to the patent.

Dubbing neighborhoods as “dangerous” can be tricky. Calculating the probability that you’ll be the victim of a crime is actually quite difficult, University of Maryland criminology professor Charles Wellford says. For one, it’s most useful when examined by block, not by an entire neighborhood. That’s because crime is highly localized, partially having to do with the conditions of specific locations, he says. However, calculating an accurate probability by block is difficult because it’s affected by how many people travel there, not just by who lives there.

For example, downtown D.C.’s population swells during the day as commuters increase the city’s daytime population by 73 percent. Is the probability that you’ll be the victim of a crime in downtown D.C. based based on how many people live there? The app patent is unclear on how it would take that into account. Wellford cites another example: he says the “most dangerous” place in San Francisco last weekend was Candlestick Park, where the New York Giants played the San Francisco 49ers.

“Any city that has an NFL team, the day they play at home, there’s a lot of crime around and within the stadium,” he said.

The app could potentially tell you to avoid that area. Depending how the data is used, the app can “paint pictures of communities that aren’t useful or accurate,” Wellford says.

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Is Gentrification Really Why D.C. Has Fewer Murders?

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D.C. was once called “Murder Capital.” In 1991, at the height of the crack epidemic, 479 people were murdered. But the end of 2011 brought good news: the number of homicides in D.C. had reached a 50-year low. The Washington Post reported that meanwhile, Prince George’s County experienced a slight increase in its number of murders, and that D.C.’s poorer residents moving into the county have taken neighborhood disputes and other issues with them, contributing to the uptick in crime.

Given the city’s demographic changes, a number of people are pointing to one reason in particular: gentrification. The narrative seems logical enough: violent crime tends to be higher in poorer neighborhoods, and demographic changes have left D.C. a wealthier city. That may make sense in D.C. neighborhoods where there has been gentrification. But it doesn’t fit when examining District communities that have historically had the most homicides and the highest poverty rates.

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