Oakland, California is leading California in a way that no city wants to.
It is ranked number 1 in terms of violent crime in California. It is 6th in the nation. What are they doing about it? They are downsizing the police force.
The Oakland City Council has voted to lay off 80 police officers, which will bring the force down to 694 officers.
The lay offs are the result of budget deficit problems. The budget problems will only get worse for the city in 2011 and 2012, more police lay offs are expected.
The Oakland police chief, Anthony Batts, has promised all 911 emergency calls will be responded to. When a police chief has to publicly promise this, you know there are serious times ahead.
Coupled with Oakland's budget cuts, California is releasing prisoners from jail early because of the huge state budget problem. And, of course, unemployment is climbing.
This is obviously a recipe for a huge crime wave.
Oakland is certainly not the only city in California and the nation with budget problems. Many have problems. It's not going to be pretty (or safe) in Oakland, or in many other cities, in the years ahead. Oakland is just leading the pack. They are a trend leader, if you will. It's just not a very pretty trend.
They laid off about 80 police officers in Tulsa in January because of budget problems. There was an initial uptick in crime and there have been some truly frightening home invasions, but crime outside the inner city really hasn't gone up much.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Oklahoma has a lot of guns and law-abiding people well inclined to use them on criminals.
And crime in the minority areas is heinous.
I would not want to live anywhere near an urban center in California.