As a follow-up to this post about the City of Urbana spending more than half-million dollars beautifying Philo Road while not mentioning addressing the crime issues in the area, this information was included in Council Member Lynn Barnes' email newsletter sent out over the weekend:
Calls for Service and Reported Crimes for the area bounded by Florida, Kinch, Colorado and Cottage Grove.
2005
2006
2007
2008 (YTD)
Calls for Service
1349
1636
1303
324
Reported Crime
554
513
416
89
Discuss.
If the 2008 YTD figure is correct, that would cover JAN-FEB-MARCH. So, if we multiply that by 4 for the remaining months would that mean nearly 1300 calls for service in 2008? WOW...sounds like a lot for such a small area.
JohnBoy,
What's your point?
1296, (324 * 4), calls for service and 356, (89 * 4), reported crimes would be the lowest totals compared to the actual totals from 2005, 2006 and 2007. 1300 may sound like a lot, but compared to previous years it would be an improvement.
The point is that it is an EXCESSIVE amount of calls to such a small area. While 1300 calls is a reduction, it still represents an excessive number. Sort of like the argument.....gee only 8,000 people died of food poisoning last year compared to 10,000 in previous years.
Deputy:
Don't break out the champagne and confetti yet. If the projected total for 2008 service calls is 1297 and the 2007 total was 1303, that seems like a pretty miniscule change.
Also, IIRC, don't crime rates usually increase during warmer months?
I'm nitpicking, but that may affect the final totals as well.
Thomas Paine Elementary School's located in that area too, isn't it?
Take a look at the nightly NEWS GAZETTE on page 2, it shows crime in the CU area and highlights where crime is occuring. Take note of today's crime in this area...
Isn't that area just 5 blocks by 5 blocks?
Urbana's aggressive recruiting of low income housing projects has resulted in a pocket of unemployed citizens and that correlates highly with both calls for service and crimes. I am not sure its in this area, though.
Businesses are what drive calls for service and crime reports with shoplifting and bad check reports.
The 2007 figure is an average of 3.56 calls for service per day, or ONE call for service every 6.7 hours.
Well for one, let me say I have lived within a few blocks of the area for several months now and several of the comments I have seen here are quite overstated. Granted, I wouldn't want to live much closer to the apartments than I do and definitely not in the complexes, but compared to a lot of places, the area is not bad. I shop at the County Market in question at least once per week, usually a couple of times. Most of the time I go after dark and I have never seen people being arrested or anything at all like what someone in the previous thread said. Sure, the place isn't as nice as the Schnucks in Urbana, but it's not as horrible as described. What trouble there is does seem to primarily stay within the complexes and I have not noticed nor heard of any problems in my neighborhood.
Also, the trend shown in the crime stats, and especially the reports looks pretty good to me. Hopefuly the beautification project will reduce crime even further.
Not every call for service is meaningful. Further, calling for the police tends to produce a habit of calling for police rather than dealing with stuff one's self.
But, on the other hand, more than one reported crime per day seems like a lot to me. I suppose that most of them are more egregious than stealing a bar of soap from Schnucks, trespassing in Douglas Park or being flip with one of Champaign's Blackwater wannabees.
What is being done about Crime Prevention?
Well for one, let me say I have lived within a few blocks of the area for several months now and several of the comments I have seen here are quite overstated. Granted, I wouldn't want to live much closer to the apartments than I do and definitely not in the complexes, but compared to a lot of places, the area is not bad. I shop at the County Market in question at least once per week, usually a couple of times. Most of the time I go after dark and I have never seen people being arrested or anything at all like what someone in the previous thread said. Sure, the place isn't as nice as the Schnucks in Urbana, but it's not as horrible as described. What trouble there is does seem to primarily stay within the complexes and I have not noticed nor heard of any problems in my neighborhood.
Yeah, I've also shopped at that County Market at night and agree with you.
Without comparisons to other areas of comparable size, and a breakdown of calls by type, these statistics don't mean much. As any cop knows all too well, most calls in residential areas are nuisance issues (loud music, parking problems, neighbor disputes, dogs running at large, etc.) and domestic issues (stand-bys, domestic disputes, child custody issues, juvenile problems, runaways, disputes among roommates). Any business district generates its share of calls (shoplifting, bad checks, stolen credit cards, unruly customers, etc.) If a neighborhood with three or four calls a day is considered dangerous, then Campustown must be Fallujah-on-the-Prairie.
I do have a minor quibble with the boundary area for the statistics. By any metric (density, zoning, property age, property value, etc.) the neighborhood in question extends several blocks south of Colorado. Any meaningful study of the neighborhood (crime or otherwise) should use Silver or Mumford as the southern boundary.
"Don't break out the champagne and confetti yet. If the projected total for 2008 service calls is 1297 and the 2007 total was 1303, that seems like a pretty miniscule change."
True, but if the reported crimes for 2008 comes in at 356, (89 * 4), that is a decrease of 60 reported crimes from the previous year and a decrease of 156 from two years ago. Calls to the police may be holding steady, but I would submit that continued decreases in reported crime is a good thing.
JohnBoy, I simply misread your post. Thank you for the clarification.
Not a problem, I'm not here to scold.....just annoyed at the crime in the area....thanks!
wow/.. egregious what a nice big lawyer word... nice cheap shot too on the Blackwater comment.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Urbana-Illinois.html
Since people are nitpicking about whether calls for service equal real problems, why not compare national crime statistics. These numbers don't include neighbor disputes or petty squabbles. And Urbana appears to have a higher crime rate than average for the U.S. as a whole. Maybe everything's not hunky-dorey in the people's republic.
(scroll halfway down for the crime stats).
Interesting to note that while crime is a bit higher than the national average, there are fewer than half the number of police officers than the average.
Dane,
I don't follow. So are you saying that you're willing to put up with more crime if there's less of those pesky officers that you have to deal with? Maybe I'm just not tracking....
One word: Monrovia.
More police doesnt do much to prevent crime. It's backasswards thinking, like thinking that medicine prevents disease. Amelikans are not known for their wisdom along these lines.