Nutter seeks advice on fighting crime in Philadelphia

By Jen McShane
Collegian Reporter
August 29, 2007

As the heat and humidity rose in Philadelphia during summer 2007, so did the number of homicides committed citywide. According to Action News, the murder total for the year 2007 is approaching 300. From 1999 to 2006, the murder rate has increased 28 percent. At this point, Philadelphia has more murders than the city of New York, which has nearly six times as many people as Philadelphia. The city known as one of “brotherly love” now has the reputation of becoming one of the most violent cities in the United States.

The reasons given for the high murder rate are numerous: the city needs better gun control laws, drug wars are leading to murders and 25 percent of the city’s population is living below poverty, among other reasons. While it is easy to pinpoint what may be causing the high murder and crime rates, it is difficult to solve these issues. Lawmakers have been working diligently with the Philadelphia Police Department to lower the crime rates with little or no success.

At the same time, Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter is presently studying the status of Philadelphia crime, along with ways to advance the environmental effort. If elected, he proposes to have a plan ready to help decrease crime, especially murder, in Philadelphia. Therefore, Nutter has been researching other big cities to see how other mayors deal with rising crime, the most recent being Chicago.

The candidate favored to win the 2007 mayoral election traveled to Chicago for a meeting with Mayor Rich Daley Aug. 16.

“There’s clearly a lot to learn from a city like Chicago,” Nutter said. “This is all about best practices and seeing what’s working.” .

The men discussed Chicago’s crime rate compared to Philadelphia, as well as crime prevention. According to Action News, Chicago’s crime fighting system is “often touted as the most advanced in the nation.”

While in Chicago, Nutter was most impressed with the 311 phone system and the surveillance camera system.

The 311 call system is a phone network that takes non-emergency phone calls, decreasing the number of calls going to 911, and therefore allowing operators to deal with more emergency phone calls. In this system, a call to 911 would be made in the case of a robbery, but to report an abandoned car, a citizen would dial 311.

The surveillance camera system has over 2,000 cameras set up in Chicago, making the Windy City one of the most-watched cities in the nation. These cameras also have gunshot detection technology installed to help detect crime. Since the cameras were installed in 2003, close to 400 arrests were made with the help of this technology. Criminologists studying the crime patterns and prevention in Chicago made a note of the shift to a more “community-oriented policing model.”

While Nutter may like and want to establish both of these systems in Philadelphia, he must take funding into consideration. Chicago is more economically stable then Philadelphia and has more money to invest in experimenting with new crime-fighting techniques.

Nutter has been genuinely dedicated to investigating ways to prevent crime and lower the murder rates even before officially being elected mayor of Philadelphia. Nutter is planning similar visits to New York City and Baltimore to further research ways to deter crime and murder.

mcshanej2@lasalle.edu