Archive for June, 2008
June 18th, 2008
The first question when we broke into small groups during last night’s Community Viewpoints Board meeting was “How has crime affected you.”
“It’s raised my taxes,” Joyce Higgins said.
How true. Even if you haven’t been a direct victim of a robbery or burglary you still pay the price. Not only do our tax dollars go to pay for police patrols and administration costs, we have that 1 cent jail tax to support Winnebago County’s College for Criminals, among other things.
Later, when we gathered as a big group again, Ben Holmstrom asked whether we’d complain about our taxes if the local crime rate was more like Naperville’s. If we saw value in how the tax dollars were spent, would we be as concerned about how much we paid?
What do you think?
Community Viewpoints Board members have their own blog, “Viewpoints Board.” Check it out to read what they think.
June 17th, 2008
Tonight members of our Community Viewpoints Board will be here in the second of its quarterly meetings. On the agenda is the 180 Degrees project. We want to know what CVB members think of what we’ve done so far and are seeking their help as we explore solutions.
They may not come up with any thing tonight, but keep an eye out on the Viewpoints Board blog.
June 11th, 2008
Tomorrow members of the steering committee of the Year of Innovation will visit the Editorial Board.
The Year of Innovation programs will focus on:
Entrepreneurship (Creativity, Courage, Leadership)
Environment (Stewardship, Responsibility, Sustainability)
Engagement (Involvement, Mentoring, Community)
These efforts might help with the solutions segment of the 180 Degrees project. You’ll read about the Year of Innovation in the next few days.
June 9th, 2008
Part of the name for this 180 Degrees project is “Solutions for a Better Rockford.” We haven’t explored solutions yet. The first parts of the series are setting up the where we are and how we got here. This will be at least a yearlong effort, so there’s much, much more coming.
We are serious about exploring solutions. That will be the most difficult part as we go forward.
June 6th, 2008
As part of our crime package, we’ll have a database of reported offenses in Rockford’s ten beats from 1988 through 2005.There were lots of interesting things out of the data. Here’s a few.Crime is way down since peaking in the early 1990s. So much so that it got me wondering why the county built such a massive jail. In the future we’ll have to keep an eye on how many inmates are in it. Unless there was a large jump in crime in surrounding towns — which is possible since Loves Park, Machesney Park, Cherry Valley, Winnebago, Rockton, Roscoe and South Beloit have grown tremendously — we may have overbuilt. (Below: Winnebago County Criminal Justice Center) 
Interesting numbers from within the data:*
In beat 6, which includes the Seventh St. and Broadway corridor, sex offenses grew from 30 in 1988 to 275 by 1998, the highest total for any beat in any year. Then sex offenses dropped every year after, falling to 85 by 2005. But as reported sex offenses fell, the number of deadly weapons offenses rose.
In 1998, there were 68 reported deadly weapons offenses and that grew to 90 by 2005.*
Controlled substance offenses have fallen this decade. In 1996, there were 690 of these offenses and 663 in 1999. In 2001, that had fallen to 448 and in 2005 it was all the way down to 398.
But while those reports have dropped, there has been a marked increase in cannabis cases. In 1989, there were just 65 cannabis offenses reported. The 1990s ranged from 64 in 1990 to 468 in 1998. This decade, there have been at least 402 cannabis reports each year, including 522 in 2003. In fact, in 2003 and 2005, there were more cannabis reports than controlled substance reports. Why?* Couples appear to be getting along better.
In 1994 police responded to 8,690 domestic disputes. That fell to 4,012 by 2000 and was at 5,013 in 2005.There’s a lot more to look at.
Check out the database here.
June 6th, 2008
If you haven’t been able to read the 180 Degrees stories online this week, the entire package will be in Sunday’s Opinions section.
180 Degrees will appear on five of the six Opinions pages.
June 5th, 2008
Since Tuesday, we’ve run stories, videos, photos and more each day as part of our 180 Degrees series. The focus this time is crime. We started with an overview on Tuesday. Then we shared Tina Miller’s story about losing her son to a heroin overdose about a year ago. Today, we told you about Karl Fort, who police say was responsible for bringing crack to Rockford.
These pieces are resonating with you. Page traffic on this package has been high. More than 12,000 page views on 180 Degrees content since Tuesday. We’ve garnered 20,000 page views since the project debuted in early May. Catch up and join the cause.
June 3rd, 2008
The first part of the second part (make sense?) of our 180 degrees project has been posted this morning. This installment focuses on crime, which is the reason we started this endeavor.
How did Winnebago County get to the point of having the highest crime rate per capita in the state? It’s not just Rockford. Rockford by itself has a high crime rate by usually is behind (ahead of?) at least East St. Louis.
We’re trying to answer that question, among others, as we go forward. We see 180 degrees as a continuing effort. We’re serious about finding solutions. We know there are no easy answers. If there were, there’d be no need for this project.
