The numbers are in for 2007 and it appears Memphis has experienced a significant downturn in crime this year. Murders are down by 11% and all part I crimes are down about 5.5%. I believe much of this is due to the Blue Crush Operation and CyberWatch. Blue Crush is taking a lot of bad folks off the street, and CyberWatch is making the citizens aware of what is happening around them. One precinct commander has told me his burglaries are down by 25% and he attributes it to CyberWatch.
We will get even better once the Real Time Crime Center is open and we expose even more information to the general public. The more information we can get out to the public, the more likely they are to help us in our fight against crime. We've had nothing but positive feedback on the CyberWatch program, but we've only scratched the surface of what we will be making available to the citizens.
Even with all these things in place, we will still need new legislation, if we are to continue this crime abatement. The MPD can arrest people all day long, but it will be to no avail, if we can't take the repeat and serious offenders off the street. Mike Fleming (WREC Radio) and I will be focusing on this more and more as we get ready for the legislature to reconvein. I'm asking everyone to contact their legislators and express your concern over this issue. We need a sentencing matrix that helps change the criminal's behavior and the legislature is the only place that can happen.
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I can't seem to find this stat anywhere, but with your resources I'm sure you have it.
What was the TOTAL number of homicides in Memphis/Shelby County for 2007?
What was the TOTAL number of murders in Memphis/Shelby County for 2007?
I think the MPD released those numbers the other day and several of the tv news outlets put it up on their blogs. I'll dig around and get the exact numbers, because my numbers excluded the last day or so and I think their were a few more homicides.
The percentages won't change with a few cases though.
There were more justifiable homicides in 2007 than in 2006, and some postulate that it is because people are defending themself more and more. We also have thousands of people with "carry" permits, which I encourage everyone who can to get. It's not the gun, it's the trigger actuator.
Channel 3 had the story. Here's a quote and a link
2006's murder total was 160. 11 were justified. The FBI does not count justified killings as part of a city's murder rate resulting in a total of 149.
That number dropped in 2007 to 132 with 31, possibly 32 justified killings. A murder rate reduction of 12 percent.
http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?s=7569998
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