Crime is down but not far enough for mayor

Photo

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams

Some offenses are tied to a bad economy, a city prosecutor said.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Mayor Jay Williams says the overall drop in crime is good but not good enough.

For the first quarter, compared with last year, the city saw a decrease in rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary and thefts. Murders, however, did increase, as did motor vehicle thefts and arsons.

The overall drop was 12 percent.

“It’s certainly a step in the right direction but not enough,” Williams said Monday. “I’m most concerned about sustainability. I want to sustain the drop.”

He said it was unfortunate the fire — “a horrific event” — that claimed six lives in January drove up the number of homicides. He said such events are not seen regularly.

The city has 10 homicides so far this year, compared to nine at this time last year.

The challenge, Williams said, will come in warmer months.

“That’s why we started saturation patrols this early,” he said.

The extra patrols began last week. City police and Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers are doing traffic interdiction, staggering their times and locations. Also, officers are working gang details.

Police Chief Jimmy Hughes credits members of the community working in conjunction with the police department for the reduction in crime. Organized block watches on each side of town are an example of the community involvement driving the reduction, he said.

“We have set in place a lot of community-based police policies,” Hughes said. “Each quarter we have seen reductions. I credit a lot of the decreases to the residents in the communities trying to get rid of some of those bad quality-of- life issues.”

Hughes added that police have worked to reduce the number of illegal guns on the streets, thus creating a safer environment.

The mayor said details will be announced in the coming weeks about a partnership between city police, Mahoning County deputy sheriffs and FBI agents. The new crime suppression unit, similar to the Street Crimes Unit, will be aggressive and proactive, he said.

The new unit will be out overnight, when the criminals tend to come out, he said.

The mayor said he’s pleased that the crime statistics are down, adding things can be done to achieve short-term results, but his goal is to see long-term results. He doesn’t want to see crime exceed what it should be for a city this size.

City Prosecutor Jay Macejko said there was “no surprise” that motor vehicle thefts and arsons rose because those offenses are generally tied to a bad economy. He was a bit surprised, however, that burglaries went down.

“I have not crunched my numbers for this quarter, yet, but I can tell you, anecdotally, that our prosecutions are up,” Macejko said. “Last year, we set record numbers of prosecutions in all categories.”