The real problem with fixing violent crime in Wilmington is that Democrats don't want to pay for it.
Over at Delawareliberal cassandra has another post up about crime in Wilmington. cassandra and I have our differences, but she continues to do excellent fact-based blogging about the nature of the problem, the potential solutions, and the general ineptitude/malaise of the current governmental apparatus to solve the problem.
As cassandra knows and has blogged repeatedly, this ain't rocket science. There are a lot of evidence-proven strategies (like full-scale community policing with a constitutionally careful stop and frisk approach) that could make a dent, a serious dent, in crime and violence in Wilmington.
The problem is--in this one-party state--the Democrats don't care enough about reducing what amounts to urban terrorism in Wilmington to do anything about it.
Instead, last year, they supported a State budget that included millions to bail out casinos and tens of millions in corporate welfare rather than invest in either inner-city education or crime fighting.
In recent years they invested in buying the State Police a navy rather than putting more cops on the streets to keep Delawareans from getting shot on their porches.
They invested tens of millions (the exact figure is difficult to determine because it is hidden in other lines) in developing the Delaware Information Analysis Center, which takes plenty of pictures of your license plate as you drive around the state, but which has done absolutely nothing to apply modern intel-based policing methods to the city of Wilmington.
The simple fact is that you have to evaluated politicians by the way they vote rather than the rhetoric they spew. And the reality in Delaware is that in our General Assembly, where the Democratic Party holds strong majorities, and in our Executive Branch--which is completely Dem--the 140-odd shootings in Wilmington just aren't important enough to dent business as usual.
Indirectly, you could say that these legislators and bureaucrats are only reflective of the positions of those who elected them across the state, and since people in the suburbs and rural areas don't care, why should they?
That's the worst of cop-outs.
Speaking of cop-outs, I understand that the Delaware State Police has invested in new SUV patrol vehicles so that officers on Routes 1 and 95 will be able to better look down and catch talking/texting motorists. I think we're up to about 37 highway fatalities this year, and only a handful involved cell phones. But that tells me exactly where Democratic priorities are: texting while driving is dangerous and must be wiped out. People who live in Wilmington are expendable.
It's difficult to blame anybody else for this when you actually control all the branches of government.
As cassandra knows and has blogged repeatedly, this ain't rocket science. There are a lot of evidence-proven strategies (like full-scale community policing with a constitutionally careful stop and frisk approach) that could make a dent, a serious dent, in crime and violence in Wilmington.
The problem is--in this one-party state--the Democrats don't care enough about reducing what amounts to urban terrorism in Wilmington to do anything about it.
Instead, last year, they supported a State budget that included millions to bail out casinos and tens of millions in corporate welfare rather than invest in either inner-city education or crime fighting.
In recent years they invested in buying the State Police a navy rather than putting more cops on the streets to keep Delawareans from getting shot on their porches.
They invested tens of millions (the exact figure is difficult to determine because it is hidden in other lines) in developing the Delaware Information Analysis Center, which takes plenty of pictures of your license plate as you drive around the state, but which has done absolutely nothing to apply modern intel-based policing methods to the city of Wilmington.
The simple fact is that you have to evaluated politicians by the way they vote rather than the rhetoric they spew. And the reality in Delaware is that in our General Assembly, where the Democratic Party holds strong majorities, and in our Executive Branch--which is completely Dem--the 140-odd shootings in Wilmington just aren't important enough to dent business as usual.
Indirectly, you could say that these legislators and bureaucrats are only reflective of the positions of those who elected them across the state, and since people in the suburbs and rural areas don't care, why should they?
That's the worst of cop-outs.
Speaking of cop-outs, I understand that the Delaware State Police has invested in new SUV patrol vehicles so that officers on Routes 1 and 95 will be able to better look down and catch talking/texting motorists. I think we're up to about 37 highway fatalities this year, and only a handful involved cell phones. But that tells me exactly where Democratic priorities are: texting while driving is dangerous and must be wiped out. People who live in Wilmington are expendable.
It's difficult to blame anybody else for this when you actually control all the branches of government.
Comments
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20131205/NEWS01/312050083/Wilmington-Council-passes-measure-seeking-federal-help-violence
Back when nothing got a consensus in the General Assembly unless it put millions into the pocket of a few with temporary residences in Greenville....
Back when it was still ok to beat up homosexuals because, heck, even half of those in government thought it was ok.
Can anyone seriously imagine a Republican running this state? Greg Lavelle as chief executive officer?
(They have no one else and even his Senate seat is not very safe...) Can you imagine what life would be like, where nothing got done, at all, and then in December, a press conference gets called and he says we need a new task force to study a new problem? Giant moral problems like there is gambling going on in our casino's?
The beefs you mention are very real, and fully I'm supportive of most of the things you propose... And if, if, there was an alternative action or person, then perhaps you might have a case...
But you know as do I, that putting in a backwards, petty-focused, inept, wimpy, small thinking administration just to make a change from the status quo, probably creates more issues than one bargained for....
Image overturning the gay marriage law?
The answer across this nation is not Republicans... Absolutely not. Disagree? Go to DelawarePolitics.Net, and see what I mean...
Whether the challenges come from within the existing party, or liberal leaning new party, they will come.... Just don't forget what an abysmal failure the Delaware Republican Party currently is, and has been since the DuPont legacy left it in the 80's....
Just perform a reality check, and think for one second, of Greg Lavelle giving the State of the State address...
Excuse me, got to leave now. I have to go clean up the coffee I just snorted all over my desk...
Saying that our corporatist, corrupt government is better than the alternative isn't an excuse for the abject failure of the current Democratic Party to deal with what's on their plate in front of them.
And I have already argued that DE needs a new opposition party.
But here's the reality: in most states Jack Markell would be considered a moderate to slightly liberal Republican, and so would Tom Carper and John Carney. It wasn't just that Democrats used to vote for Mike Castle in droves, the moderate Republicans who supported him appear to have moved into the Democratic Party and taken control of it.
You can't continue to use the "we're better than the other guys" when you (a) rule through illegal mechanisms; (b) piss away tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to feed your corporate donors; (c) gut public education in favor of your corporate reformist friends; and (d) treat even your own state employees like so much dirt.
Eventually you have to stand on your own record, awful as it is.
They could go a long way toward eliminating most of the violent crime in Wilmington simply by admitting they were wrong and re-legalizing drugs.