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Two months after Camden, NJ, laid off 160 police officers, city prosecutors have released a sobering report showing a dramatic rise in violent crime in the drug-and-crime-ridden city of 80,000 residents
Aggravated assaults with firearms jumped 259 percent in January and February compared to last year, and violent crime over all is up 19 percent, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Murders and robberies, however, were down for the period.
Camden Police Chief J. Scott Thomson has cut his salary by $15,000 and demoted many of his remaining senior police officers to patrol positions after the massive layoffs, according to the New York Times. After union-city negotiations broke down in January, the city fired nearly every officer hired after 1998, following the union-dictated seniority layoff policy. So the remaining police force of 200 officers is middle-aged.
"They love seeing a 40-year-old cop get out of that car instead of a 24-year-old guy who can actually chase them down," an unnamed police officer told the Times, referring to criminals.
And residents are wasting their time, sources say, if they report nonviolent serious crimes. "If you're not shot or murdered, or if it does not involve a drug gang, it's not going to be investigated," another anonymous cop told the Times. An anti-crime group called The Guardian Angels volunteered to patrol the streets after January's layoffs.
Camden is one of the nation's most impoverished and crime-ridden cities, though a drop in the murder rate in 2009 and 2010 raised hopes among residents that the tide could be turning.
Police headquarters now sits nearly empty, its front reception window sometimes closed, as most of the department’s staff has been pushed onto the street for patrol duty. Detectives cannot devote as much time to investigations; a widely praised bicycle unit was disbanded. Even the canine unit lost two of its three dogs.
It is too early to tell if the police layoffs have allowed more crime to occur; in the first two months of 2011, there were fewer homicides than during the same period last year. But the number of assaults involving a firearm has more than tripled to 79 from 22 over that period.
Still, at times, the department is fielding as few as a dozen patrol cars during the day, according to three current officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss department staffing.
Chief Thomson said some level of assistance would come from a not-yet-operational network of surveillance cameras that will allow “officers at headquarters to conduct virtual patrols.”
Across the street from a day care center in North Camden, a destination for heroin addicts across South Jersey, a drug dealer who had been standing on the corner for nine hours that day said he already felt less hassled by the police.
“Since the cop layoff, there is no police presence,” said a 34-year-old man who gave his name only as Jose and offered that he “still sells drugs here and there.”
Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
This is how Republicans save money. Just keep that in mind next time you go to the ballot box.
Originally posted by Rockpuck
Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
This is how Republicans save money. Just keep that in mind next time you go to the ballot box.
This is how any politician saves money.. fire teachers and police officers and next time on the ballot there's a tax increase, everyone supports it.
Some would call it extortion ..
though ignorant people believing in a "two party system" blame it on the other guys and think it's normal.