A Proposition: Manage the Crisis Instead of Surrendering to Inertia

By intention, I deferred discussion of the single largest component of the crime wave in New Albany in paragraph 15 of the previous posting.

You'll recall that P15 addressed the major categories contained in official reports to the U.S. Department of Justice or the F.B.I. that qualify as the annual crime reports for jurisdictions across America.

We've previously speculated about why Gary, Indiana's crime rate might be reported, in the aggregate, as lower than that of New Albany. It's at least arguable that something is askew in the reporting. But comparison with Gary is small comfort.

Markedly absent from those crime categories are those so-called victimless crimes, namely drug crimes.

I'm sure many of you will differ with this blogger on the seriousness of drug use, abuse, and trafficking. My drugs of choice are legal ones. Mayhaps your drugs of choice aren't, or you believe that they should be legal.

Nonetheless, because they are illegal, they have an inherent tendency to foster crime. You might argue that, like a 5 mph speed limit, the laws are so inane and nonrational that they will never be obeyed.

(I would contend that, in the minds of most New Albanians, STOP signs and traffic signals fall into that category of nonrational laws. In my experience, they seem to be advisory, at best. I've never heard of, much less lived in, a city where the obligation to yield was less observed. This very evening I was nearly T-boned by a driver blithely tooling through a pretty major intersection's red light [sans headlights at 8:40 p.m. on a January night] and nearly creating a family crisis for this one-car family, not to mention a financial and potentially life-threatening crisis.)

But our drug laws are violated so blatantly in New Albany not because of pure lawlessness. They are violated on pure Capitalist principle. It is cheap, and safe, to sell drugs in New Albany. Comparatively, New Albany is the sump pump for the regional drug trade.

Why? Did James Garner or Doug England or Larry Kochert declare that "doin' those drugs's all right with me?" No.

Nope. On the other hand, they did nothing to diminish the trend.

That's as much our fault as it is theirs.

In New Albany, it's simply safe to deal. I have friends who can sit on their porches and watch drug deals go down every day and night. I have acquaintances who can put their child down for a nap while fretting over the scumbag next door who's dealing. And these are the idealists, the pioneers for a New Albany they only dream of.

By choice, not necessity, they have elected to live in the city's urban core, dreaming of a city where they and their progeny can live, recreate, provide for the necessities and luxuries of life, and just dream greater dreams in safety and fulfillment. I'd wager that their choice is 95% lifestyle (sustainable, eco-friendly, communitarian) and 5% investment-based.

Those friends and acquaintances vote and they WILL NOT sit idly by while the city around them deteriorates as a result of a culture of lawlessness.

Other, wiser observers have addressed the equities and livability issues intrinsic to the corrosive non-enforcement of rational community standards. I'm here to address the corrosive effects of drug-related crime on our community.

While our leaders sleep, are they aware that in the criminal underworld, New Albany is seen as an easy mark, a locale where anything goes? I hope not. I hope they are merely ignorant. But whether they know it or not, whether they acknowledge it, it is true. Dealers know that their chances of being caught, of being brought to justice, are minimal in a jurisdiction where the elected representatives, and the residents who elected them, are content with the status quo.

It is a status quo that says "Bring your trade to this side of the river. Our bridges, our highways, our neighborhoods are yours for the asking. Your black market economy is exactly what we want to encourage. Rest assured that we will not invest in our police department and give it the resources and the force complement to actually enforce the law. Whether you are a slumlord or a drug dealer, New Albany is the place for you. We have well maintained interstate highways for transport, we are ensconced within a major population center. You are very unlikely to be hassled by our police or other regulators. Make New Albany your home."

Ridiculous, you say? Why...I know Mayor X personally. I know council member Y. They would never countenance such a policy.

I'd wager that if you are reading this, you know what I say is true. You know that the situation I describe is real.

So now, what do we do?

I will not pretend that there are easy solutions. Cities like ours are increasingly bereft of the financial resources to address our problems. Surrender is certainly one option. The out-of-control, ideologically driven campaign to exempt wealth from taxation and thus starve government of even more resources (or, in the alternative, to drive business out of Indiana in the name of protecting accumulated wealth) makes it imperative that we collectively act now.

Shadow5 proposes that our restored mayor, Doug England, has a unique opportunity to save New Albany, to establish a legacy that will be spoken of long into his senior years and beyond. Longtime residents of New Albany recall the city as a sanctuary of safety, as a community that provided opportunities for families to raise their offspring in an environment of calm, of vitality, and of safety. Doug England can save New Albany. He can be remembered as its savior.

It won't be easy. Naysayers will emerge, as they always do. Investment will be required to make New Albany an exceptional city instead of a victimized city.

And Job One is to attack the culture of lawlessness. For a couple of years we've concentrated on civil regulation. We've called for a regime of enforcement of basic common standards, of economic equity, of increased property values.

I am now convinced that the most important component for revitalizing New Albany is a commitment to modern policing, a commitment to dramatically reducing crime in our neighborhoods, a dedication to making New Albany a city of lawfulness instead of an anarchic shell that residents long to flee or that residents consider as the best they can afford.

And accomplishing that revitalization will require an investment in our police force, a recalibration of our enforcement policies, and a dramatic increase in the force structure.

It is posited that 80% of the crime in this city (property crimes are disproportionately high here) is in one way or another related to drugs. A focused addressing of that problem will require a significant investment in more cops.

How we do that in the face of draconian tax limitations is, admittedly, a difficult question. But the survival of New Albany is at stake.

I believe that creativity is needed. Surely there is a way to capitalize our expenditures on law enforcement and find a way to fund the necessary force increment. Bonding all non-personnel expenditures is a first step. Aggressive pursuit of non-local grants and non-traditional income streams is a necessary second step.

But, at root, what is necessary is a belief in the future. An 80% decrease in the crime rate is not unrealistic, given its underlying causes. That kind of progress would provide the kind of gradual boost in property values that would induce new investment and undergird the tax base in such a way as to make ongoing funding a reality.

New Albany would then be poised to become a mecca for those who appreciate urban living. Instead of managing flight and a spiral into a poverty, future leaders would be challenged to cope with an increasing population that desires life-enhancing city services. Instead of dealing with a declining tax base, the city would be able to rationally manage growth and direct investment toward a 21st Century ideal, a city of vibrant opportunity, a city that will be the envy of its neighbors instead of a regional dumping ground.

And it just may be that achieving that goal would start with pumping about $800,000 (ironically, the exact figure we paid last year in firefighter overtime) into a muscular but measured force complement designed to put the NAPD at the forefront of modern policing methods.

One City. One Destiny.

Do our leaders have the courage to make that destiny a positive one?