Philadelphia Talks: Crimes, Guns and Murder

By Carrie Caine
Collegian Staff
December 6, 2006

“The time was right to not do business as usual...This violence threatens to retard all the wonderful momentum this city has gained,” said Larry Platt, Philadelphia Magazine editor.

Platt began the most recent Philadelphia Talks program on Dec. 4 by discussing his reasons for featuring a gun on the cover of the November issue. The discussion’s theme was “Crimes, Guns and Murder.”

This introduction to the panel discussion on the problems of violence in the city of Philadelphia was an apt one. In a very real sense, Platt makes a true statement in saying that the city has gained momentum. It’s been a long 20 years since Mayor W. Wilson Goode made national headlines when the Philadelphia Police and Fire Departments enacted an attack on the MOVE organization.

At the same time, even an informal poll of La Salle’s campus community would quickly show that people who live in Philadelphia do not feel safe because of the rampant “orgy of gun violence” as Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham put it.

The five-member panel at the National Constitution Center had the task of discussing Philadelphia’s gun and violence problems in light of a recent magazine article that argues that taking police officers off 911 patrol and putting them onto a patrol for weapons in high-crime areas will drastically lower the rate of gunshot victims.

As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4 in Philadelphia, 375 people had died from gunshot wounds, and five times that number had sustained a gunshot wound and lived. The fatality figure for 2005 was 380.

In New York City, implementing a similar gun-control measure lowered the murder rate from over 2,200 to less than 500 per year. However, challenges from civil liberties advocates voice concern that implementing a patrol to seek concealed weapons will lead to racial profiling and unconstitutional street frisking.

“We’re not gonna break the law to enforce the law,” said Philadelphia Commissioner of Police Sylvester Johnson in response to that issue.

However, another panel member, Dr. Lawrence Sherman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, has done extensive research proving the efficacy of deploying police officers in this way. He finds that when a police officer uses expert knowledge to identify patterns of behavior that indicate a potential crime, that officer can and should take action, such as frisking the suspect, to prevent that crime. Recent Supreme Court decisions support this policy.

Panel members listed various other concerns and measures regarding gun violence and crime in Philadelphia, including overburdened probation officers and case workers from the Division of Human Services, witness intimidation, a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in urban youth and the continued reduction of federal dollars to support hometown security in favor of homeland security.

Diane Wells, president of Mothers in Charge, who lost her son to a shooting death five years ago, and Abraham both posed the same kinds of questions to the audience.

“Where is the outrage?” Abraham said.

Wells wanted to know why more community members neglected to stand up against the atrocities taking place in Philadelphia neighborhoods. She suggested participation in mentoring programs and other outlets to reach misguided youth, whereas Abraham focused on citizen engagement through letter-writing campaigns and political pressure.

While the panel members disagreed regarding the best practices to implement to curb the violence in Philadelphia, all agreed that the city needs a holistic approach to address the root problems of poverty and to make the streets of Philadelphia safe for communities again.

cainec1@lasalle.edu