Bill Lynn - 5th Ward Alderman - Davenport, Iowa  » Discussion Points » Crime in the City

A Discussion On Crime
by Bill Lynn, Fifth Ward Alderman

When I first was elected I began to realize the toll that crime was taking on our neighborhoods. It was a major complaint in many parts of the city. When I finally looked at the Federal data on crime I found that our crime rate was much above the national average (about 60% above). (For comparison to other cities, go to www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm.) Since Iowa was well below national average this meant we had one of the highest crime rates in Iowa. Over the last three years I have taken a lead in trying to reduce crime. I pushed for the community-based policing program (NETS); the volunteer police program (VIPS), and invited the Guardian Angels to form the first chapter in Iowa. All of these have helped, but much more needs to be done.

This high crime rate has a highly negative impact on our city. It discourages people from buying homes in Davenport and thus lowers property values. While we are spending more on law enforcement we are seeing our revenues decline due to low property values. People do not want to live in neighborhoods where they don't feel safe. That is only the beginning. It discourages people from maintaining property since they don't see any return for doing it. Their property values don't rise and too often when they do make improvements those improvements may be vandalized. It makes it more difficult to borrow money to make improvements since property values are not rising.

It also discourages companies from locating in our central city. This means further loss of jobs and income and further declines in property values. I was told by a very reputable source that a company was interested in the old Sears building downtown. They would have created 500 jobs, but they decided not to because of the high crime in the area.

The normal response is that we need more police and we need to spend more money. While I agree we need to put more police on the street, I must ask why other cities can keep crime rates down better than us. We have 161 sworn officers but only 62 on the street. In a study I did, I compared the police departments of other cities in Iowa and Illinois to Davenport. That short study is available on this website if you want more detail. I found that we had exactly the average number of police per capita of other cities, and the number of civilian employees in the police department was about two times higher. That raises a question as to why other cities must be able to do more with the same or less. I don't make any value judgments, I simply raise the question. I believe it is a question that must be answered. If there is something wrong with the structure of the department, we need to know this. That is a low cost change that might have big returns.

I have often pointed out that the service that police departments provide is a feeling of security or low crime rates. That is what we need to strive for. If spending more money won't do this, then it will be wasted.

Other cities have been able to turn their crime problems around. The most notable is New York City in the 1980's. It was around this time that the Guardian Angels started. It was probably one of the most crime ridden cities in the U.S. People were in great fear of their lives. Today New York is one of the safest cities in the U.S. The approach they took was actually very simple. It was called zero tolerance. Prior to this, petty crime were ignored. They were not important enough. Under zero tolerance, if you committed a crime you were arrested. What happened was amazing. The overall crime rate dropped. (Today they have a lower crime rate than Davenport in six of the seven categories.) They found that people who committed petty crimes often had committed several other crimes and they often had many warrants outstanding. By arresting them, they solved several crimes at one time and prevented many more. In essence they decided they would no longer tolerate bad behavior, because the more they tolerated the more they got.

In one of my newsletters I outlined a simple approach and that is to check license plate numbers against car descriptions. Switching plates is illegal, but common among drug dealers and other people into criminal activity. If we ticket and tow the vehicle, and check for warrants when the owner comes to claim the car, I believe we will create a zero tolerance atmosphere and many people who exhibit bad behavior will leave. This is only one idea and I am sure you have many more.

One thing we do not want to do is simply pass more laws we won't enforce. I often get questions about passing ordinances that make certain behaviors illegal. When I check I, find that there is already an ordinance, but we are simply not enforcing it. When you pass laws you don't enforce people lose respect for the law. What we want to do is increase respect for the law.

One argument I hear is that if we arrest all of these people we don't have space in our jail. I know we are bursting at the seams and we are building a new jail, but we can't use lack of jail space as an excuse. I suggest we have several empty buildings in Davenport that could be used. It might increase our cost for awhile; but once people realize we won't tolerate bad behavior, I believe they will leave. I have been very open in stating that we do not need citizens that exhibit criminal behavior. I don't imagine that the criminals in New York became model citizens. I believe they left and found other cities that would tolerate their behavior.