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Another spurt of gun violence in Wilkes-Barre has awakened calls for action, with some people suggesting the city’s problem is self-inflicted.
Poor management, they say, pointing blame at the police chief and the mayor.
This simplistic response might gain popularity with rattled residents and others seeking a quick, easy answer. It suggests that calm can be restored to the streets, and personal safety guaranteed, by making a few swift changes in personnel.
Here’s the flaw in that theory: Shootings are not a problem unique to Wilkes-Barre. Shootings are a problem in America’s cities, of which Wilkes-Barre is one. Understanding this distinction is important for anyone in Northeastern Pennsylvania who wants to find and implement workable, crime-fighting solutions, as opposed merely to advance their agendas or flap their gums.
In Rochester, New York, shootings increased from 2011 to 2012 by 52.4 percent, according to a report prepared for the Smart Policing Initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Rochester – a Rust Belt city like Wilkes-Barre, albeit not overseen by Wilkes-Barre’s police chief and mayor – held the dubious distinction in recent years of, on average, having the Empire State’s highest homicide rate. Since many of the city’s shootings involve retaliatory violence, police and research partners from a university there have combined efforts to find ways to try to resolve those disputes before bullets fly, according to the Smart Policing Initiative.
Similarly, police departments in places such as Los Angeles, Boston and Baltimore are exploring how to combine data analysis with law enforcement tactics to discourage shootings, according to the initiative’s March 2014 report titled “SMART Approaches to Reducing Gun Violence.” (For details, visit www.smartpolicinginitiative.com.)
Among two promising strategies identified in the report:
• Targeting persistent gun violence hot spots.
• Targeting prolific offenders in persistent hot spots, a technique also known as “pulling levers.”
Both strategies, incidentally, seem as if they might be more easily applied in smaller communities like Wilkes-Barre than, for instance, sprawling cities such as Phoenix.
Regrettably, discussions about science-aided policing probably won’t get much airplay on the Wyoming Valley’s radio and TV stations in the wake of early April’s shootings. And commentors on online news sites probably won’t devote much space to the sociological and economic factors contributing to crime, or America’s stunningly high level of gun violence compared to other wealthy, Western nations.
However, it’s the area residents who focus on reasoned public policy and modern policing – not those caught up in finger-pointing, racist jabber and hysteria – who will help Wilkes-Barre to overcome its troubles.