Could it be true, are reported (and responded to) police calls on the Westside of Madison down? Granted, data from the police department is not exactly easy to get, but from what is available on the police department website, i.e. the west police district neighborhood newsletters, it appears that police calls reported (and responded to) is not increasing exponentially on the westside. In fact, for some months, the police calls that are reported (and responded to) is down ever so slightly. This is what a quick perusal of the info in the newletters tells us.
Month 2007 – 2006 – 2005
(na = not available)
Jan – na – 2760 – 2700 (up slightly in 2006)
Feb – 2551 – 2572 – 2600 (small trend down)
Mar – 2881 – 3020 – na (down a bit)
April – 2738 – 2960 – 3165 (trend down)
May – 3392 – na – 3264 (up but skips a year of data)
June – 3507 – 3519 – na (down ever so slightly)
July – na – 3586 – 3479 (up a little, no data for this year)
Aug – na – 3647 – 3485 (up a little, no data for this year)
Sept – na – 3188 – 3266 (down a little, no data for this year)
Oct – na – 3034 – na (inconclusive)
Nov – na – 2934 – 2955 (down a little, no data for this year)
Dec – na – 2787 – 2445 but data only through 12/26 so inconclusive
Ok, so its not the best data, but it also doesn’t show police calls running rampant and 6 of the 10 months where it was possible to do any kind of comparison, it could be argued that “crime” was slightly down. In fact, comparing this year to last year for the first half of the year, “crime” basically down according to the newsletters.
Jan – inconclusive
Feb- down
Mar – down
Apr – down
May – inconclusive
June – down
So, what’s going on? I don’t doubt people perceive something is different in their neighborhoods, but what? Is it just because more people of color live in the neighborhood? Is it because renters live there? Is it because the renters who live there are lower income than past tenants? Is it because “crime” has shifted from one neighborhood to another (the west police district is rather sprawled out). Are the nature of the calls being responded to changing? Since these calls include traffic incidents, is that impacting the “data”?
Something seems off. The “data” doesn’t seem to support the claims of “westside residents”. Granted, since I don’t have very good data, and hardly any detail, its difficult to say what the real story is, but it is certain that the numbers aren’t showing rampant crime growing out of control as some would have you believe.
Since we don’t have data about the extent of the problem, I have to ask, what are our 18 new officers going to do for these residents? If crime is shifting from neighborhood to neighborhood, then maybe the personnel should shift with the problems and we just don’t need more officers? If crime is taking longer to respond to, then we need to know that and come up with strategies to address this issue. However, throwing more officers at a problem without knowing what the problem is with some hard data, doesn’t make any sense. In fact, it could be a waste of taxpayer dollars. This deserves more careful thought not kneejerk feel-good reactions. Otherwise, we’re just asking for more discontent.
