TIME Magazine
January 15, 1996 Volume 147, No. 3
LAW AND ORDER
CRIME RATES ARE DOWN ACROSS THE U.S.--SOME DRAMATICALLY. IS THIS A BLIP OR A TREND? WITH SO MANY FACTORS IN PLAY, IT MAY BE A BIT OF BOTH
RICHARD LACAYO REPORTED BY JYL BENSON/NEW ORLEANS, JAMES CARNEY AND ELAINE SHANNON/WASHINGTON, HILARY HYLTON/TAYLOR AND RATU KAMLANI/NEW YORK, WITH OTHER BUREAUS
Who is the author of this article?
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WANT TO SEE A CIVIC MONUMENT THAT NO CITY would ever want? Go to New Orleans and proceed to the intersection of Congress and Law streets, just a few blocks from the tourists' Latin Quarter. Walk anywhere in that neighborhood of trashed storefronts and blunt-shouldered housing projects. It won't take long to find walls that are spattered with grimy little craters. Those are bullet holes. Every one of them is an unofficial memorial to the mayhem that was daily life around there until not so long ago.
What do we know after reading the first paragraph?
In the first paragraph the journalist provides no specific facts, but several themes are stated.
- Crime is an urban problem.
- It is located in poor, run down, ignored and unattractive neighborhoods.
- It is violent.
- This part of the city was out-of-control, but change is happening.
Starting in the late 1980s, drug dealers had claimed the place as their own, part sales ground, part killing ground, where they seized market share the hard way, with drive-by shootings and turf wars. At the nearby St. Philip Social Service Center, preschoolers learned to dive for the floor in "shooting drills,'' then stay there until their teachers sounded the all clear. By 1994 there were three or more killings each month on the streets outside. Standing now where the unthinkable used to be the unremarkable, police lieutenant Edwin Compass III looks around with a shudder. "I'd bet it was the most dangerous block in the U.S."
- Starting in the late 1980s, drug dealers had claimed the place as their own, part sales ground, part killing ground, where they seized market share the hard way, with drive-by shootings and turf wars.
A causal relationship is asserted between drug dealing and violent crime.
- At the nearby St. Philip Social Service Center, preschoolers learned to dive for the floor in "shooting drills,'' then stay there until their teachers sounded the all clear.
Is this a representative example?
- By 1994 there were three or more killings each month on the streets outside.
Are "three or more killings each month" a lot?
- Standing now where the unthinkable used to be the unremarkable, police lieutenant Edwin Compass III looks around with a shudder. "I'd bet it was the most dangerous block in the U.S."
Is the police lieutenant an authoritative source for the the claim "most dangerous block in the U.S?"
The good thing about monuments is they commemorate the past. Last year the city inaugurated a Community Oriented Policing Squad (COPS)... With secondhand furniture and federal money, police set up round-the-clock substations in vacant apartments at three of the city's most deadly projects. The 45 cops assigned to them work foot patrol, get to know the law-abiding residents and sweep out the street dealers. They also help pick up trash, combat graffiti and round up kids who play hooky.
Here the journalist gives us a specific public policy program that may help us in several ways:
- If we find out more about COPS, we will learn about a specific public policy program targeted at solving the crime problem.
- By researching COPS we will discover more about the larger issues of community policing and more generally crime prevention programs.
Some basic questions:
- What is "COPS"?
- Federal or State? (Funding/Implementation)
- Unique to New Orleans?
- How long has the program been around?
- Is it an example of a trend or is it unique?
- Is it controversial? If so, why?
Look to other sources to find anwers!
That mix of shoe leather and social work has made a difference. By the end of last year killings around the three projects had dropped 74%. A dozen dead bodies per annum is still no small problem. But if you don't happen to be one of them, it is cause enough for celebration. Lately, the neighborhood even sees its share of those spontaneous street parades that are defining outbreaks of civic life in New Orleans. What are people celebrating? Maybe just the return of their freedom to move around.
New Orleans is not alone. After years of depressing and implacable upswing, serious crime is retreating all around the U.S. In the nine cities with a population of more than 1 million, the decrease in violent crimes was 8% in 1994. Nationally, murders fell 12% in the first six months of 1995, and serious crimes of all kinds dropped 1% to 2%. The suburbs, long a growth area for felonies, posted declines between 4% and 5% last year in violent crime.
According to the FBI...
contributing factors:
- a decline in the proportion of young males in the general population
- the leveling off of crack cocaine use
- a moderate unemployment rate
- tougher sentencing
...says James Q. Wilson, the UCLA professor who isone of the nation's most prominent thinkers on crime.
Here the journalist gives us the name of an EXPERT. This information will help us in several ways:
- What has the EXPERT written on the topic?
- What are the intellectual or disciplinary homes for the topic?
- Who are other EXPERTS?
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