I'm interested in getting some feedback about what others think of this situation.

 

As a brief intro, the Ohio City Near West Development Corp. has been providing police brevity reports to residents of Ohio City (and others who can sign up for the email list).  One of the staffers gets the police reports from the district every week through a public information request and then summarizes the crimes that have occured, removing names and addresses, but providing the general area of the crime, and the type of crime.  In addition, the safety committee was sending residents to sentencings and otherwise trying to show up and let judges/police/potential criminals know that they take their neighborhood and its security seriously.

 

I generally think this is a good service as it allows:

- people to be more aware of the types of crimes occuring and where they occur, so people can either change their behavior (leaving 1st floor windows open), patterns (walking in a certain area alone), or to report suspicious behavior. 

- Cleveland is using a mapping tool in the PD called citistat that tracks crimes, but doesn't make it available publicly or real time.

Baltimore has their's available on the web:

Program Description - http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/news/citistat/

Interactive Maps - http://141.157.54.34/bpdmaps/police.htm

 

Apparenty some people in Ohio City thought that these reports actually were hurting the perception of the neighborhood and have convinced the OCNW to stop distributing this information.  None of it was put in the papers or otherwise publicized except for people who subscribed to the weekly safety updates.  Here was the message:

 

Due to concerns from the community regarding the negative perception of the

previous Safety Update reports, I will be suspending the Brevity Reports

(Cleveland Police reports) from future safety communications to this Email list.

If anyone has a specific crime incident that they would like to know about,

please contact me at the OCNW office at 781-3222, and I will look into your

requested report. This Email list will be for general announcements involving

safety matters that reflect a more positive image of the neighborhood. Once

again, this is in response to numerous requests from the community.

 

Thoughts?

 

I concur.

 

Knowledge is not a bad thing. It makes people more aware of what is going on, instead of heresay and rumors. None of this messageboard rumor mill chatter of people making factless accusations of how shitty an area is, actual facts for people to make their own opions on an area. It allows people to actualy take a look at the bad areas and keep away or work to do something about it.

 

IF anything I would feel less comfortable about an area if a group is actively trying to suppress information about crime in the area. To me it idicates the people that 'look out for the area' are trying to improve their image while doing nothing tangeable to fix it.

Knowledge is power - the more people know to be on the lookout for specific perps, the more likely the perp will be caught.

 

As a gay male, I would absolutely want to know if someone was in my neighborhood targeting my community.

Knowledge is power - the more people know to be on the lookout for specific perps, the more likely the perp will be caught.

 

As a gay male, I would absolutely want to know if someone was in my neighborhood targeting my community.

 

Agreed!

I have to agree.  How can a problem be fixed if it isn't acknowledged?

Having covered this issue as a journalist, I think the point that needs to be made here is that what's being reported should be the kind of crime that actually has an impact on the lives of those who live in the neighborhoods: , sexual assaults, robberies, break-ins, thefts from homes or cars, etc ....  or if there is a concentration of crime in a particular area.  This not only informs people, but also gives them something concrete with which to work with police on dealing with these crimes.

 

Odd as it may seem, the crime that is the least relevant is the one that has the least impact on a neighborhood as a whole .... shootings and murders.  The vast majority are not random crimes, but are committed most often between people who know each other.  They have little impact beyond those immediately involved or their families. But this is the type of crime the media usually focuses upon, and that's where the public perceptions of a neighborhood are skewed.

 

I worked for at least one progressive news director in Cleveland (who is now in Houston), who really had a grip on this perception thing.  She basically told all of us in the newsroom that unless a shooting or a murder had one hell of a compelling story behind it, or somehow put an entire neighorhood in mortal danger, we would not cover it for precisely the reasons I stated above. 

 

Should people be aware of crime? Absolutely.  But should they be put in fear of it?  No.  Because it is that very fear that prevents them from standing up and dealing with the problem, which could stem from anything from drug dealers to prostitution to just kids with way too much time on their hands.

What I get from this is the OC is trying to take the "suburban" route when it comes to crime.

 

Crime in the 'burbs is often kept on "the low" as its deemed detrimental to the reputation of the community.  Which is why you always here people say, "this is such a safe neighborhood....", "you don't hear about things like that around here....." or the infamous "I had no idea that ___ was going on around here..."  Its the "out of sight..out of mind" concept.

 

Where as in the city, because its so large and the center of the region, crime is something that is always talked about so its perceived to be more dangerous.

 

I don't agree with keeping quiet, important issues like this should help to bring the community together so that they can be united in fighting real and perceived crime.

Most other cities that I have lived in or around, from small to large, would at least publish weekly or monthly crime stats in the local paper. 

 

I've never seen a "crime watch" section of the PD, listing the crimes.  Are there too many to list?  Is this how the PD "believes in Cleveland"?  or is it some choice, not to report?  I think constructive reporting, as noozer suggests, makes the most sense and provides actionable information for residents. 

 

edit:

here is a link to last week's Akron Beacon Journal Crime Watch Listings:

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=10FC6DF337249B90&p_docnum=2

None of it was put in the papers or otherwise publicized except for people who subscribed to the weekly safety updates.

 

Actually, the information IS put in the papers, at least in the Sun papers. We get the same brevity reports from the CPD and put as much recent info in each police blotter as we have room for. While the First District reporter doesn't put any names or addresses in his blotter, I write the Second District blotter and put names in only for felony arrests and sometimes their addresses -- usually if they are west side residents. We could put all the public information in the paper (as those in our east side office do!), but due to space constraints, I don't put much info in for non-felony incidents.

 

MyTwoCents,

 

Having covered suburban and city police beats and seen brevity/call reports from numerous cities, there really isn't much going on in the suburbs compared with what happens in the city. The only city where I see reports being withheld is Bay Village, and we regularly make jokes about that at the office. When I covered all the West Shore suburbs, if one of those cities had more than two cars stolen in a week, it was notable. In the Second District (covering everything from the Flats West Bank south to Old Brooklyn and east of about 65th Street), if there are as few as two car break ins a day, that's notable! I regularly write about major heroin, crack and other busts. Nasty assaults, shootings are a regular, weekly occurrence in the Second District, and that's not the worst area of the city. But if there was a shooting in one of the West Shore suburbs, the cops I worked with for nine years would call me up and say "Hey, guess what, we actually had a shooting in Rocky River today! Can you put this in the paper!" They were actually excited to tell me about it.

 

So, while it's true some suburban police departments are trying to make their cities appear more quiet than they really are, it's a pretty rare thing.

^ KJP, what I meant was that the OCNW was not actively trying to get the imformation published in papers, but were providing a service to residents or others who actively subscribe to the safety mailing list. 

 

What Sun paper covers downtown and where can you pick them up downtown?  I've never seen one in a machine or at the newsstands downtown.

I see what you're saying now. The West Side Sun News has downtown in its coverage area. I don't think we have many honor boxes down there, but you can get the paper at some newsstands, like one in Tower City, between the portico and the Renaissance Hotel.