Crime is down, by the data, but comfort levels are not up

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Both national and local crime data collectors report that crime is down this year and that it’s been dropping since a pandemic-era high was reached in 2020.

The FBI, for example, reported recently that overall violent crime in the U.S. declined by an estimated 3% in 2023 from the year before. The number of murders and non-negligent manslaughters dropped by nearly 12%.

And, similar to national trends, the rates of major crimes in the Twin Cities have dropped or stayed steady for the first six months of 2024 compared with the previous year, though homicides, shootings and car thefts are still much higher than they were before COVID.

But try sharing those trends with the Twin Cities-area people whose vehicles have been stolen — sometimes more than once — from right in front of their homes, with some of the activity recorded by video security cameras.

Or recite those numbers to those who live in areas where shots fired are part of their regular background noise.

The data doesn’t give much comfort to a community reeling from news of an artist being gunned down in broad daylight while painting a mural to beautify the area.

Nor are they of much comfort to people in the Whittier neighborhood, which has the dubious distinction of having the most gunshot victims so far this year in Minneapolis — 27, including eight fatalities. That compares with just one homicide in 2019.

Stories like that, coming in what seems like an all-too-regular barrage, make people feel like crime is up — that it’s getting worse and encroaching upon their lives — no matter what the statistics say. Fear of the kind of offenses committed against communities are certainly part of what citizens and voters are talking about as the season’s campaigns for elected office unfold.

That drives an urgency to do what it takes to bring the violent crime stats down even further.

Better policing is part — but only part — of the answer. The Minneapolis Police Department has been operating with too few officers for too long, though it’s a situation that’s set to improve as new officers are recruiting and trained. And the MPD is working to live up to reforms that are and will be required through the ongoing consent decrees with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice.

And because many, but not all, of the young people involved in crimes — both as perpetrators and victims — are people of color, grassroots groups point out that more boots-on-the-ground preventive work is needed. As several African American organizations such as A Mother’s Love and Mad Dads note, more adults need to participate in efforts to meet young people where they are and try to get to them before they use guns or commit other violence. Communities and families also should do more to keep track of younger kids and keep them off the streets.

Certainly, the community needs additional secure facilities for repeat young offenders, where they can get the help they need and where society can be protected from them. And work must continue to clear the city of homeless encampments in humane and compassionate ways. Minneapolis police analysts estimate that 22% of all shootings in the Third Precinct this year have occurred within 500 feet of an encampment.

University of Minnesota sociology Prof. Michelle S. Phelps emphasizes the importance of various public safety experiments outside of policing. The author of “The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America,” she serves on the community advisory board for a behavioral crisis response program.

In a recent Star Tribune commentary, she wrote that those experiments can help “reorient” society’s response by sending in support and resources in lieu of handcuffs and criminalization where possible. That can serve, she said, as at least a partial way to find justice for what happened to George Floyd.

”Minneapolis residents need to push for the broader vision of public safety demanded in summer 2020,” she said, “that not only builds a better model of policing but more holistic approaches to suffering. In a city in which mental health professionals, violence prevention specialists and public health administrators are called in alongside the police to respond to crisis, we all have a better chance of getting the answer right.”