Cheaper to head off crime than suffer its effects

Today's editorial notes that greater Myrtle Beach's crime problem is real and that we need better strategies for dealing with it:

Behind our communities' crime annual embarrassment at the hands of Congressional Quarterly, and local leaders' annual response to it, lies a potential tragedy. The downturn in the local economy has thrown thousands of residents across our communities out of work - many of them folks who were marginal to begin with. The existing social services network for helping such unfortunates, governmental and nongovernmental, is meager at best.

Most of these impoverished individuals are morally upright - not inclined toward crimes of violent or nonviolent nature. But desperation erodes morality, especially with persons who have already had brushes with the law. Fortunately, the Horry County Faith & Neighborhoods Coalition is already hard at work on erosion-control.

Every year at this time, CQ tells the world that greater Myrtle Beach is plagued with high crime; in last week's report, the publication judged our communities the 14th most crime-ridden place in America - an improvement over last year but still an embarrassment.

Every year at this time, local political and tourism leaders reply that ours is a relatively small metropolitan statistical area with a huge influx of annual visitors who inflate the crime stats.

Obscured in this depressing annual exchange is the fact that we do have crime problems, tourists notwithstanding. Also obscured: We're not trying hard enough to prevent local crimes against local people from happening.

With the economic firestorm that has burned away too many families' personal safety nets, crime prevention has become a vital imperative. It's not an overreaction to worry that crime and violence could escalate to the point where some local neighborhoods collapse. What's needed are stepped-up strategic measures to help vulnerable people find a path to prosperity.

The Faith & Neighborhoods Coalition includes folks from law enforcement, schools, social service agencies, neighborhood groups and clergy, among others with an interest in the problem. Having come together only last July, the coalition has already met six times.

The group is already hard at work on a crime and violence reduction project aimed at linking at-risk folks with the services and support they need. Under the auspices of Coastal Carolina University, members brainstorm new ways to stabilize communities and empower residents.

The idea behind the coalition - a good one - is to ensure that public agencies, nonprofits, churches and other organizations with roles in the lives of fragile people coordinate their efforts rather than work at cross purposes. This organizational model has produced powerful results in other U.S. communities and could do the same here.

What the coalition needs most - of course - are money and volunteer support. An organized support effort from local businesses would be timely, especially since it need not focus on money-raising alone. Allowing employees an hour a week for mentoring - on the clock - could change the lives of hundreds of local young people.

This may sound like a daunting challenge but really isn't. The broad application of social will could go a long way toward buying our communities the peace and prosperity they deserve. Readers interesting in helping can contact community organizer Bennie Swans at 843-251-2061.

Comments?

Comments

[Denney Clements]

When writing this, I did not have advance access to David Wren's splendid Sunday piece establishing that Horry County's crime problem, as memorialized in the Congressional Quarterly annual ratings, is mostly home-grown. But I thought that piece was a good fit with this editorial, which grew out of a conversation I had last week with a local community-improvement activist.

At last we are stripped of the illusion that South Carolina's crime-stats collection methods and the influx of tourists is responsible for our miserable annual showing in the CQ ratings. Those ratings are flawed, as Wren detailed in his piece: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/690288.html
But our crime problem is predominantly local and we'd be wise to acknowledge that fact and deal with the problem head-on.

dc

[Sunny Fry]

Just so you know, if you try to get to the link, you have to manually remove the parenthesis and period at the end, or you get an error reading.

It's been awhile since I looked it up, but there's a correlation between not just poverty, but wild disparity of incomes, and crime, even violent crime.

Here's another economic weirdness. As _nations_ become more equal economically, the people within those nations become more unequal. (Makes sense if you think about it)

[Nick]

http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime2008/citycrime2008.htm

Please show me where it says that Myrtle Beach is 14th.

http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/CityCrime2008_Rank_Rev.pdf

#14 - Memphis TN. Even a search for Myrtle, just Myrtle, brings up nothing.

I don't agree with that whole tourist thing. With the link I found, Camden NJ is #2. Sure, you can argue the whole tourism thing because of Philadelphia, except that Philly is #22. Camden isn't getting a lot of tourists, unless they're going to see the latest injured Yankee play with the Trenton Thunder. And even then, Trenton's #30. So what's Camden's issue? Newark is #24, where's it's tourism? TO see the Bears, and the Devils? Tourism to NYC? Maybe, but NYC is #259, so they're pretty safe.

Maybe they're taking tourism into account for NYC, and if so, then they should do the same all across the board. But I just can't buy that when they have a city that doesn't have tourism at #2, and they have New Orleans at #1 (which does have tourism), and they have North Charleston at #10 (which I suppose is us).

[Sunny Fry]

Nick, you're looking at cities. The CQ Press report in question is for metropolitan areas, which in this case is the greater Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand area.

http://os.cqpress.com/citycrime/MetroCrime2008_Rank_Rev.pdf

[Denney Clements]

Sorry about the link snafu. Have removed the parentheses and period, so it should click through to the Wren story just fine. Thanks for letting me know.

dc

[Denney Clements]

Sunny: I agree about the correlations between poverty rates and crime rates. I also think a big part of our local crime problem is the absence of re-entry programs (literacy training; job skills programs) for people coming out of jail, and also the absence of drug-rehab programs for those with substance-abuse problems. People whose lives have gone bad don't inspire much sympathy, to be sure, but helping them get turned around is much cheaper -- not to mention more compassionate -- than dealing with recidivism-related costs, including the high cost of sending backsliders back to prison.

dc

[Nick]

Doh!

I still don't think I agree with the city. They want tourists taken into account to lower their ranking. Can Florence use the same tactic?

And for Atlantic City, I know there's a high crime rate there. Did they take into account tourists there?

[Denney Clements]

Local officials are contending that the tourists cause a WORSE crime ranking, in that the total number of crimes committed (some allegedly by tourists) get worked into a ratio of the MB MSA's permanent population, making crime rates seem higher. Wren's point, based on solid research, is that if you back out the tourists, you still end up with a higher number of violent crimes than metropolitan statistical area should have. The MSA, by the way, is all of Horry County.

So, Nick, assuming I understand this correctly, local leaders want CQ to amend the formula it uses to calculate crime rankings to back out tourists, in the belief that this would make the crime rate seem lower.

dc

[DanielC]

Nick,

Florence, SC is # 6 behind Sumter, SC #5?

I'm not sure I understand your arguement for or against tourist.

In fact when you look at the top 20 SC has three and coming in at 21st is Charleston, SC.

Does this mean that SC has more crime than other states or that our police arrest more people than other states?

dsc

[Sunny Fry]

You know, as I'm scanning news reports about this CQ Press report, Kansas City is wondering why they're not on it. I think it's probably better to look at it as a starting point. And it might be better if we thought in terms of transient population rather than tourist population -- clearly, grandma and grandpa and the grandkids aren't going to bopping folks on the heads and stealing their Ipods. But we do have a largish population of folks who follow the work, not permanent residents with roots in the area, and they're disproportionately represented at J. Reuben Long.

Whatever the _reason_, and however you want to play with the numbers, it's obvious to any of us who have lived here for any length of time that it's not as safe a place any more. When I was 13, I used to walk daily from my home on the west side of 17, at 44th avenue, down to the beach with another friend, stay all day, and walk back. My parents left their two daughters from about age 11 with a German shepherd as a babysitter. Raising 3 boys in Socastee, it occurred to me that until they were big enough to actually hit back, I was scared to let them out of my sight, and my husband and I rearranged our lives so they wouldn't be unattended. I don't recall ever locking our door growing up, but now I do so faithfully. I'm hearing tales from friends who work in Myrtle Beach of some sort of serial rapist (we had those occasionally, too, when I was growing up) and spots that used to be okay, but are now wildly dangerous.

Which is why I think the very first article here about a group of folks working to address the problem at the roots is a good idea. Some people are just plain bad, and no amount of help or encouragement is going to make them behave in an acceptable manner. But desperation drives people to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, and if you have a subset of folks on the edge of desperation, a friendly, non-governmental hand out is a great solution in a whole bunch of ways.

[DanielC]

*snicker*

Ok I read the story now and understand a bit better.

So what I'm reading is we need to "fix" the way we report crime. *wink* Just don't report it, and we can be as safe as Detroit, MI and Atlanta, GA with a N/A.

kidding aside ~

The transient population can really impact the crime rate. We are a fairly warm area in the winter-time though not as warm as South-West. I remember reports in the papers in Tucson about how the snowbird coming meant the rise in crime for the area. Never really studied it myself but took it for fact from the local paper(s).

I agree with Sunny that it's nice to see a non-governmental group attempting to address help for folks in need of a friendly helping hand.

dsc

[Denney Clements]

Sunny: Thanks for validating the editorial. I haven't lived here nearly as long as you have, but I've sensed a decline in local safety during the seven years I have been here, and the crime stats bear that out. Given the rotten economy, this problems will grow more pronounced if our communities don't tackle it head on. My contact, who works in poor neighborhoods -- black, white and Hispanic -- across our communities, is worried that some of them could collapse. In other places where this happens, crime spreads into more stable areas. Only the application of social and political will can stop it here.

dc

[Denney Clements]

Daniel: Government has to be part of the solution, especially cops but also courts, legislators, local councils, social workers and educators. But you're right in suggesting that grass-roots private-side action is required to really fix the problem. Gvt. can't do it alone. What's needed is a comprehensive strategy.

dc

[Richard L. Wolfe]

The problem with crime is the same as the problem with education. It starts at home. I know that some single parents do a better job than some couples but I think two parents make it much easier. Most people form their attitudes and beliefs before they are teenagers. I know that there are exceptions to every rule, but if kids learn the difference between right and wrong at an early age then the likelihood of them becoming criminals is greatly reduced.

Community centers, YMCA, adult mentors and community churches can play a very positive role in the lives of kids. Especially kids without fathers.

Sunny is right some people are bad but they weren't born that way. We make choices based on learned behavior. We need to ask questions before our kids are statistics. We need to know who our kids are listening to and what are they hearing. Who are they hanging with and what they doing? It is not cool to let our kids do their own thing. Being a parent is the hardest job in the world but raising a well rounded successful kid is also the most rewarding job in the world.

As far as the government goes the best it can do is provide for a good education and provide an enviroment for job growth. The real work lies with the parents, teachers, clergy and community.

[Nick]

Okay, now I'm understanding it better. They don't want to account for the tourism.

Then I would ask them why cities with probably higher tourism (honolulu, boston, nyc, major cities) are lower?
Are they saying we only get the bad evil tourists?
Well, of course they are, they're trying to ban certain types of tourists, without outright saying it.

[Denney Clements]

Right on, Richard. Communities can steer at-risk kids away from crime, and can steer young adults who have messed up back onto the road of rectitude. Appreciate your comment.

dc