In a nationally published crime rankings list for 2009-2010, only Stamford (302nd) and Danbury (365th) posted better rankings over Norwalk (284th). New Haven was not listed since it doesn’t report FBI crime stats. Bridgeport ranked safer than Miami Beach coming in at 44th. The list, compiled by CQ Press, has riled Hartford Police since it places Hartford as not only the crime capital of Connecticut, but for the first time has Hartford listed in the top 25 most dangerous cities coming in at 24.
To put Norwalk’s ranking in perspective, the safest city was listed as Colonie NY at 393.
The Courant reports:
Law enforcement officials have been critical of the listing, calling it an irresponsible use of crime statistics that provides no insight into contributing factors such as population density, economic conditions and local police strength or crime-reporting practices by citizens. But Krasney said the listing, now in its 16th year, provides a public service and is taken seriously by local police chiefs and elected officials.
“It’s one way to look at data, Krasney said. “It provides a quick snapshot of how you compare to other cities.”
Nancy Mulroy, spokeswoman for the Hartford Police Department, disagreed, saying the department is familiar with the listing but does not use it for crime analysis.
“In the last five years we’ve had consistent declines in part one crime and 2008 was the lowest reported crime in the city’s recorded history,” Mulroy said. Part one crimes include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.
Then again, if every City’s crime fluctuations move in trend lines according to national experiences, over time, the list compiled indicates where cities rank against each other.
Source: Courant, Hartford Ranks 24th On Crime List, By Steven Goode, November 24th, 2009
This report is based on 2008 UCR numbers, published in October. That report deals only with crimes reported and does not look at crimes solved or crimes not solved. Without knowing where Norwalk came out in prior years, it is impossible to know if the trend is up or down. A year from now we will see how we are doing in 2009. Nationally, the trend has been down over several years, but that may have changed in 2009.
We still need more attention to crime prevention so there will be less need for after-the-fact response to crime. FBI statistics show Norwalk had 167 cops in 08 and 176 in 1998. Has crime gone down that much in ten years ?
Old Timer, you sparked my interest in crime stats again and I extracted the UCR data on number of cops. Similar to what I did before, I selected all reporting US cities with populations between 50-100 thousand. I normalized my data by number of police per 10,000 population and I did my histogram thing. I found that, once again, Norwalk was smack dab in the middle in it’s number of police per citizen just as it was for crime rate.
I agree with you that we need more attention to crime prevention. I’ll dig around for the 1998 crime data for Norwalk, but I think that it was lumped into some regional entity and not reported out separately.
I didn’t find detailed Norwalk UCR data for 1998.
On a whim, I ran an R-squared to check the relationship between number of police per capita against crime rate per capita for reporting UCR cities between 50 & 100 thousand. It came out at 0.169, not a high correlation.
I think that alot of the veteran officers decided to take the DROP retirement plan that was offered during the Knopp administration, which resulted in the loss a lot of officers. Since then, there have been at least two City wide hiring freezes. What happens if a candidate is at the Academy and by the time he finishes his training, there is a hiring freeze?
I’m not any kind of statistician (heck I’m not even sure I can spell it!) but overall, seeing as to how the rankings don’t take into consideration all the various factors mentioned above, the cities and towns that don’t report anything and therefore don’t get ranked, these statistics are pretty darned meaningless!
I was a bit surprised to see a publication that used the UCR data to rank cities by crime rates. I guess that it sells. There is an interesting page on the use of the UCR data and cautions against ranking.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/about/variables_affecting_crime.html
I think that it’s a stretch to compare Norwalk to large cities or small towns but I wouldn’t call the stats meaningless.
Does anyone at all out there recognize the obvious in this finding, no matter what the basis: Hartford, and Bridgeport are statistically safer than Norwalk. What is wrong with this picture?????????
Steward:
I went to FBI UCR reports and when the page came up scrolled down to a list by year of reports to 1998 and clicked on it, the entire report comes up. The FBI warns against using their statistics to rank cities for a variety of reasons.
Spectator
The drop plan had virtually no effect on number or timing of retirements. With or without it, the number of officers expected to retire was entirely predictable, but the Police were not given the resources to hire replacements at the rate of retirements. There are officers on the drop plan now with well over 30 years of service. There is no long list of qualified applicants, waiting to be appointed. Recruitment and recruit training should be an integral part of the budget. The City should know the need is greater than the supply and will stay that way until the job becomes more attractive. Most qualified applicants can easily find better pay with less stress in private industry. There was a time when the police were hiring young men at age 18 as cadets just to be able to fill the ranks. Some of those officers are still working.
Wineshine
You are reading the numbers wrong, Hartford is much worse, statistically than CT.
I stand corrected. The statistics are not meaningless. They just have no practical or inherent value.
If Norwalk was doing a lot better, or a lot worse, the UCR would show that and the City would either brag about the result or commit to improving the dept. With the current result, they can argue we are about where we should be, not too bad, not too good. Too good would be OK with most of us, but would cost more, The police dept gets about 7 cents of each dollar in the City Budget now, a couple of cents more would make a big difference.
Today, Dec 3rd, the HOUR (today’s news next week, or maybe later) finally did a story based on the COURANT story of Nov 24th about this CQ report, released Nov 23rd. You have to wonder if they get their news here, or if somebody actually reads the COURANT, very slowly.
Yesterday they ran a story about Chief Harry Rilling trying to arrest a shoplifter at Stop & Shop. The shoplifter got away, but the chief got his backpack, full of groceries. With any luck, there was something in it to identify the guy and he will eventually get arrested.
Play the numbers any way you want. Reality is robberies are way up and so our burglaries. Norwalk safe? Ask the folks who have been robbed. And for the two that ran hard to get away this afternoon, we gonna get you.
Take Your streets back: Robberies are up all over the state. What’s your point?
Point is Turf, we should be addressing serious issues that effect norwalkers quality of life for that matter the safety of our citizens. Mikey may have been over the top but not by much. Last night we had crazies running all over the west side pumping shotgun shells in to homes on Keeler ave and transformers and stop signs. Yesterday afternoon a Norwalk taxi was stolen here and the cab thief ran over a pedestrian in stamford after crashing into numerous vehicles. People Rell is closing the rehabs, the halfway houses, mental health facilities and now prisons. She is cutting funding to the schools. Its more than likely to get worse before it turns around. Tis the season, be carefull peps, its dangerous out there. Now can we, please, ace the silly hot dog vendor non issue debates and work on real issues like getting these kids off the streets and giving them direction? Kudos to the feds and the locals for the sweeps on dealers of society destroying crack. Keep the busts coming. Yes we can clean up our streets and save the children, now lets get busy. Larry Johnson, founder of “Character under Construction” is “walking the walk” . He has organized a FREE basketball tournament open to all middle schoolers Dec 26 at Brookside M.S. and Roton M.S. and championship Dec 27 at McMahon. Forums will be held by community leaders in conflict resolution and inspiring messages. We have kids coming from all over the region to compete against our Norwalk kids ( boys and girls). How about we give the man some support and help him, help the kids. Here is how we can really make a difference, cash donations are needed, tshirts, tropheys, food, – cmon guys and gals, this is where we all can make a difference.
Turf, lets make it count, we do have the ability to help unify and inspire.
Lets do it, do it now.
Too many suffering, cmon my fellow norwalkers, we do care and we are making a difference.
Shoot Hoops Dec 26, 27.
Larry Johnson can be reached directly at 203-981-7607
Character Under Construction cuclarryj@yahoo.com
Take Your Street back: Okay I’ll bite. Just who is driving around committing crimes? Certainly a look at police reports indicate it’s adults who are doing it, not middle schoolers. It is admirable that there’s a basketball program out there. But what’s the connection to a stolen taxi? Would basketball have prevented the Norwalk Taxi cab driver from leaving his cab unattended and running as he went into a store in Norwalk?
For the record, I’m a big proponent of Fixing Broken WIndows. It worked in new York City, and it should work in Norwalk. Look at Lowell Mass.
Lowell, Massachusetts
TG:
We agree, once again. Guliani demonstrated that having the police get aggresive about the small stuff, graffiti, broken windows, parking violations, turnstile cheating, etc was very effective and turned up a lot of people wanted for serious crimes who made a practice of anti-social behavior. The devil, of course, is in the details. It takes a lot of manpower to get a campaign like that going and big improvements in accountability, in a city that big.
On another note, the guys who got caught, in the jewelry store burglary a while ago have now been charged with a similar jewelry store burglary in Greenwich, a few days prior.
Greenwich has released video of a shockingly similar, to the holdup-murder in Norwalk, holdup in Greenwich where a compliant victim was shot, but this one survived. There is a big reward posted for the Greenwich shooter.
Norwalk used to have an ordinance against leaving an unattended MV with the motor running. Wonder if the cab driver was cited for it ?
Speaking of crime the Norwalk Emergency Shelter needs to be dealt with it is overcrowed and very dangerous place to be in the staff are crazy and nuts especially a staff member by the name Wanda she smokes crack and weed during her break she has sex with clients she also buys painkillers from clients one day my girlfriend wantedf to sign in at about 6 pm and Wanda threw the sign in sheet at her like she was a piece of shit we spoke to the caseworker about her the following day and nothing happened another thing is that staff gave me keys to open up the 2 houses that the female clients sleep in the following day I spoke to the night person in charge who is named Fred and then I had to speak to Frank the manager of program operations and Izora the director of social services there once I told them that they told me that it would not happen again but this was the second time it happened a new supervisour by the name of Paul did the same thing to have me open up the female houses I feel the staff is lazy and they don’t give a flying fuck about the clients safety and welfare they should call it the Norwalk Emergency Flophouse also the some clients have been staying there 15 years and longer.
That cab that was stolen turned up in Stamford on Dec 3rd, was in a minor accident, the driver took it up on the sidewalk, trying to get away, and struck and seriously hurt a pedestrian. The kids that stole it have been arrested. Story was in the HOUR on the 18th. The pedestrian is still in the hospital.
Recommendations:
1. Arrange for the health department to take a visit- surreptitiously.
2. Arrange for the fire department to take a thorough look. The place is a death trap
3.All new clients should have TB TESTS. No one is requiring it, when the Shelter has clients coming in from all over the world- especially south and central amercia.
4.IT IS LIKELY THAT, OTHER THAN GENERAL GRIME AND DUSTMITES,
THE DUCTS IN THE FACILITY NEED TO BE CLEANED for other pathogens.
5. It is said that during the time the shelter was being built (it used to be a factory) ASBESTOS WAS REGULARLY USED FOR INSULATION.
THE PLACE NEEDS TO BE TESTED FOR THIS, IMMEDIATELY.
6. The routine actions of staff in taking home donations meant for the homeless is pathetic. They dig through it all and take anything of value.
Sometime back, someone donated an oriental rug (meant for someone starting out in an apartment.) The Caseworker for the females, Ms. Sharon Boyd, asked the man who took care of donations to PUT THE CARPET IN HER CAR.
Superball Sunday someone dropped off a large quantity of subs. Clients were expecting them for lunch or dinner. Instead, staff took them all home.
Food of any value is routinely taken home by staff. The rationale is that they do not make enough money. I agree that they do not, however, stealing items donated to the homeless is criminal.
Finally, some time ago a gentleman donated a Cadillac SUV , with the stipulation that it be given to the families and the staff who worked with them to transport them to appointments, etc.
Instead, the Shelter auctioned off the vehicle and kept the money for themselves. I am not sure how this affected the kind donor when he attempted to fill out “charitable deductions” on his income tax.
Finally, NES needs to accept the offer of psychiatric care for residents of the facility, on site. There are quite a number of people there who are acutely psychiatrically ill, delusional,confused,neuro problems from alcohol abuse, etc. Apparently the offer of sending a psych nurse to the facility once a time was turned down. Why?
People leave and—what happens to the SS checks which are desposited into the shelter accounts? Do they keep people’s money separate? I tend to think in all goes into one pot.
Finally, it was reported (alleged) that the shleter cannot account for THE LOSS OF NINE MILLION DOLLARS OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS…….
Aren’t they audited at least once a year ? If money, or any donations are being diverted, somebody needs to go to jail.