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Something disturbing about San Diego
Related Previous Matthew T. Hall columnsIt’s been a trend without end: serious crime in San Diego replica cheap Michael Kors has fallen for eight straight years cheap Michael Kors and 17 of the last 19.In January, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders announced a near 40 year low in the city’s violent crime rate and said, “With all the progress we’ve made, America’s finest city is fast becoming America’s safest city.”Fast forward to July 18, though, and it sounds like San Diego is overrun by crime.”We’ve reached the tipping point,” Police Chief Bill Lansdowne told a City Council committee that day. “For the first time in several years, we’re seeing a disturbing increase in the level of crime in the city of San Diego, and we’re also beginning to experience again officers leaving the San Diego Police Department and making other choices.”He added: “It’s starting to get away from us a little bit. It’s my professional belief that the crime rate cheap michael kors bags will cheap michael kors purses continue to rise.”Oh, and while asking for some $66 million in additional money for his department over five years, he continued: “The services we provide will deteriorate unless we take effective and affirmative action now.”Thing is, Lansdowne based his “disturbing increase” on only five months of data about murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults. And the four council members in front of him cheap Michael Kors didn’t think to question it.Lucky for you, I did.I’m no criminologist, but the ones I’ve talked to over the years prefer to view trends and make policy decisions based on trends over longer cheap michael kors handbags time horizons. This includes one cheap michael kors I talked to last week.”Any increase needs to be michael kors cheap annualized to be consistent with the convention or prior practices,” said criminologist Sheldon Zhang, chairman of the sociology department at San Diego State University. “Just an increase in a five month period is a cause for concern but not enough to justify serious policy or funding changes, unless there are other obvious or compelling replica michael kors reasons other than just stats. Crimes across the country are on a steady decline, but there will always be hot spots and upshots.”So what “other obvious or compelling reasons” might justify hiring more officers or increasing the department’s budget? What about all those officers who are leaving?As part of the department’s push for more money, Assistant Chief Shelley Zimmerman told the council committee that “at least 260 officers” have abandoned the department for other agencies in the past 10 years.Well wait for it the council members didn’t have her elaborate.Here’s the real deal: 270 officers left for other agencies in the 11 years Michael Kors handbag outlet between 2002 and 2012. More than half 141 did so in the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years, when the department’s morale was low because of the city’s economic crisis.Simple math means 129 officers left for other agencies over the remaining nine years, or about 14 a year. What’s more, during the most recent four years, that annual figure has risen from just seven to 13.Articles Connexes: