PA Forum: Baltimore, Philadelphia Move Towards Martial Law. Thoughts?

[cyberpj]

This was very hard to find on the net (only the Baltimore Sun article that I could find) but it was big news in Philly all weekend on the local talk shows. I heard it once on local news, but I couldn't find anything about it in the Philly papers.

BALTIMORE, PHILADELPHIA MOVE TOWARDS MARTIAL LAW
Saturday, May 19, 2007
JOHN FRITZE, BALTIMORE SUN

Large swaths of Baltimore could be declared emergency areas subject to heightened police enforcement - including a lockdown of streets - under a city councilman's proposal that aims to slow the city's climbing homicide count. The legislation - which met with a lukewarm response from Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration yesterday, and which others likened to martial law - would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks and halt traffic in areas declared "public safety act zones." It comes as the number of homicides in Baltimore reached 108, up from 98 at the same time last year. . .

In addition to closing businesses in the zones, the bill would permit police to limit the number of people who could gather on sidewalks, in streets or in other outdoor areas. It would prohibit the sale and possession of weapons, though Curran acknowledged that weapons used by criminals are almost always already obtained illegally. Zones could be established solely by the mayor, initially for a two weeks, with the option to renew indefinitely.

Provisions of the bill are identical to a law in Philadelphia that recently gained attention when a mayoral candidate and former city councilman proposed relying more aggressively on the code. That candidate, Michael Nutter, won the Democratic nomination for mayor Tuesday. . .

Philadelphia's law allows the city to impose a curfew in the emergency zones, but Curran said he removed that provision from his bill because it seemed too strict.

The blog:
http://prorev.com/2007/05/baltimore-philadelphia-move-towards.htm


'Desperate' plan to slow crime
Council bill would put areas of city under enforcement some liken to martial law
By John Fritze
Sun reporter
Originally published May 17, 2007

Large swaths of Baltimore could be declared emergency areas subject to heightened police enforcement - including a lockdown of streets - under a city councilman's proposal that aims to slow the city's climbing homicide count.

The legislation - which met with a lukewarm response from Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration yesterday, and which others likened to martial law - would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks and halt traffic in areas declared "public safety act zones." It comes as the number of homicides in Baltimore reached 108, up from 98 at the same time last year.

"Desperate measures are needed when we're in desperate situations," said City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran, the bill's author. "What I'm trying to do is give the mayor additional tools."

By introducing the legislation, Curran - who is an ally of Dixon - is promoting increased enforcement at a time when City Hall is moving in the opposite direction, shifting away from zero tolerance and toward an approach that focuses more attention on individual criminals. Dixon has sought to ease tension between police and residents who feel the city's past arrest policies were overzealous.

The entire article cont'd:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-te.md.ci.emergency17may17,0,620067.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

[Demit]

1. I'm not panicking. And I'd take with a grain of salt what talk shows consider BIG news.

Something has to be done, and it sounds like the emergency plans are incremental. 156 murders so far this year in Phila, and no end in sight. Gun lovers in the rest of the state don't want the city to try and control the supply of guns, so the city is trying to control the environment. Families with murdered relatives, and people who live in the affected areas are crying out for relief. It does not strike me with foreboding, this BIG news that talk shows are trying to drum up. That's what talk shows do.

[JPZenger]

2. Philly Murders are Too Distributed

I don't see how this would work. There are some concentrations of murders in Phila, but they still are widely distributed in several areas of the City.

A few years ago, Philadelphia tried to pay overtime to have cops sit on the highest crime intersections for most of the day. Guess what happened? The crime moved a few blocks away. I don't believe it resulted in any net reduction in crime in the City.

[PhishWithLemon99]

3. that isn't true...

Most murders in Philadelphia happen in the same neighborhoods and police districts. There's just a lot of high-crime pockets in the city. It's pretty rare for a murder to happen outside of a handful of areas.

Read the Inky on a daily basis, and you'll constantly hear reports of murders in Point Breeze, West Kensington, Strawberry Mansion, and Southwest Philadelphia. Most of the murdering is happening in the same general areas.

Philadelphia Weekly did a cover story a few weeks ago about the most dangerous parts of the city, which is worth a read. You can probably find it somewhere at www.phillyweekly.com.

Of course, murders are up from the 2002 low of 280-something, but they're still far below the 500+ shootings a year that happened in the early 1990s. I don't think the murder rate dropped below 400/yr at all in the 1990s until almost the end of the decade. The increase is pretty hyped up by the media, but something still should be done to try to stop it.

When you consider per-capita murder, Baltimore's rate is still way, way higher than Philly's. New Orleans (before and after Katrina) makes both look like Disneyworld.