Neighborhood Watch

[donaldOH]

Lorain needs to aggressively establish neighborhood watches throughout the City of Lorain. We must take our neighborhoods back. The Lorain Neighborhood Watch Council and the Lorain Police Department's Community Resource Officer Program are working toward that goal as we speak.

[jf261398]

I was driving through SoLo today and was reminded of the Morning Journal's feature on the "Dirty 30" a few years ago. This neighborhood and so many others are run by unemployed hoodlems who intimidate their neighboors. I agree that most neighborhoods can be controlled by the residents, but some need aggresive police intervention and monitoring.

Of course the long term solution is economic uplift and self-pride brought on by jobs. But those won't come around until we get more than 30% of Lorain students to graduate high-school. But that won't happen until we get responsible parenting at home. But that won't happen until we get some economic uplift and self-pride.

What a cycle Lorain is stuck in!

[christ_jewells11]

I'm a big fan of self-rule and neighborhood watch and militia... but i wonder what good some cops would be when they (i've witnessed this personally recently) let off some crooks who aren't a big enough profile to make the police force look good, and patrol the "good" neighborhoods avoiding the actually high-crime locations.

but the cycle... what do you propose be done about it

[jf261398]

The urban cycle that I described of poor family life + a broken education system = economic strife and crime can only be broken by looking at the larger picture.

The larger picture is that Lorain is a microcosom of any American urban city. The school systems in these cities are just trying to survive. They can't teach the kids who really want to learn because half of the administration's time is spent dealing with truancy, delinquincy, intimidation, violence, and disruption.

Some of today's most progressive Social thinkers propose:

Making schools competitive. In this concept students are not relegated to attend the schools in the city in which they live. But instead, they can choose any public school they desire. The public schools act more like colleges which select students based on testing and the child's previous record. The students select schools that they prefer based on academic offerings, proximity to home, athletic programs, facilities, and reputation.

This creates a positive learning atmosphere for those who want to learn and have demonstrated that they are not a disruption to others.

For those that are a disruption, or have special learning requirements, they are directed to schools that are devoted to those needs.

This system is impossible to implement with our current school funding mechanisms. I don't think the residents of Avon Lake or Amherst would be too happy with an influx of Lorain students on the tab of their property taxes.

There are a lot of details to work out...but let's start talking about a major change.:o

You can only put so many patches on a flat tire.

[donaldOH]

Lorain needs to get the jail open as soon as possible. It has been closed for 2 or more years. We need a place to deal with those individuals doing misdemeanor crime in Lorain. This will do wonders as a deterent to crime in this city. The county jail is only able to handle felony and domestic crimes do to sizing requirements of the State of Ohio.

[christ_jewells11]

And the misdemeanors are still dealt with. a jail in the city won't serve as a deterrent, hell, according to a University of Texas paper, since 1980 the jail and prison populations have grown by 172 percent (United States 11 Sept. 1994) and according to the same study Ohio's prisons are operating at 180 percent of capacity (Varnam 16). But to tie it back in as a failure to disuade criminals, a special report by the US bureau of justice statistics stated that:

"State courts in 32 counties across 17 States sentenced 79,000 felons to probation in 1986. Within 3 years of sentencing, while still on probation, 43% of these felons were rearrested for a felony. Half of the arrests were for a violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, or aggravated assault) or a drug offense (drug trafficking or drug possession)."

This shows an obvious lack of rehabilitation. If anything, it's just meeting some bottom line. As if 2 years in prison or jail is going to rehabilitate the drunk driver that killed my pre-teen cousin who was just riding her bike with her friends... But then again, was that jerk (out of desire not to get too vulgar) as much of a threat to society as say... an intentional murderer? The facts show that neither jail, prison or the death penalty act as any sort of deterrent to crime and in most cases (excluding the death penalty, for obvious reasons) increase the likelihood of repeat offenses. As opposed to a study done by Professor David Mustard involving gun control legislation showed that in states where law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry firearms, the crime level was reduced since the preasence of them presented a risk to any would-be criminal. Be it misdemeanors like vandalism all the way up to murder. Also:

"Allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states that did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and more than 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly." - John Lott & John Mustard, University of Chicago.

I'm not sure if the Mustards are related. One may be Dijon the other may be Ball Park, who knows. But... that's your deterrent according to the facts, not prisons or jails. Dunno why i got that deep into it, but yeah...