Aggressive crime fighting gets results in Youngstown

In January, after Youngstown’s crime statistics for 2008 revealed an overall decline, most notably in the number of homicides and rapes, Mayor Jay Williams said his administration would redouble its efforts this year.

“There’s been a concerted and ongoing effort to drive the numbers down, and that’s been evidenced by what we’ve seen this year,” Williams said of the 2008 data. “Crime going down is good; crime staying down is better.”

Well, the witching hour is upon us. The mercury is rising, and an uptick in crime will soon follow. How city government responds will determine whether the decline recorded last year is replicated, or whether the criminals have the upper hand.

It is reassuring that the Williams administration is ready to launch an aggressive campaign this year. By the end of this month, there will be saturation police patrols throughout the city. On Wednesday, the city launched two programs: gun buy-back; and, safe surrender for fugitives from justice.

As last year showed, such crime-fighting initiatives do work.

In May 2008, Youngstown police, the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined forces to launch a hard-hitting program aimed at getting rid of the scofflaws.

Members of the unit were on the streets overnight, when criminals tend to operate, with instructions to be proactive.

Along with saturation patrols, the city police and the Ohio State Highway Patrol were involved in traffic interdiction, staggering their times and locations.

The results, as shown in the crime statistics, warrant a similar campaign this year.

In 2008, there were 28 homicides, including six that occurred in one event — a deliberate fire on the East Side that claimed the lives of two women and four children. In 2007, there were 39 homicides.

As for rapes, there were 47 last year, compared with 73 in 2007. When homicides were grouped with other violent crimes of rape, robbery and felonious assault, the drop was 14 percent, compared to the prior year.

Comparisons

Thus far this year, there have been eight homicides — the last one on April 15. In the same period in 2008, there were 11 homicides, but that number included the six victims of the deliberately set fire.

As Mayor Williams said at the time, such a violent act is unusual. Thus, if the six were set aside, last year’s killing record for the first four months would have been five.

This year’s homicide record for the first four months is eight.

It’s too early to tell whether 2009 will end up being more like 2007 than last year. But, the city cannot wait to find out.

Not only must there be a continuation of the crime-fighting campaign launched last year, but the gun buy-back and safe surrender programs should be aggressively pursued. And, expansion of the weed-and-seed and gang interdiction programs would certainly be justified.

In Cleveland last year, police seized more than 1,100 guns.

The last several years have shown that it takes more than law enforcement to deal with Youngstown’s crime epidemic. Citizen involvement, through being the eyes and ears of the police and block watch groups, is essential.

Residents in high-crime neighborhoods should not only pay attention to what’s going on around them, but must be willing to provide information to the authorities.

Summertime and the living can be easy — if every law-abiding resident in the city does his or her part to fight crime.