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Crime and Graduation

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Having written so much about crime, and education on this blog in its first few years of existence I rarely return to them as topics. Sometimes contemporary events and their reporting cause me to return to them in order to remind readers, and myself, of what the most significant issues are. 

Starting with crime and the perception of danger two follow-up stories to homicides were particularly enlightening again as to the bias of the media when it comes to urban crime. In Springfield a man was arrested for murdering his wife in a domestic dispute. The arrest was made immediately after the discovery of the body and an explanation as to motive was immediately revealed to the public. As a follow up a local news outlet published this piece:

In another case of suspicious death, but this time in a rural area, with 4 people found dead in their home under what the police are calling “suspicious circumstances”, requesting information on anything anyone may have seen occur in the area in recent days, and advising the public to be vigilant regarding their homes and their families this piece is published:

Any references to fear? Anyone being quoted as “locking their doors” or changing their behavior?

So a man stabs his wife and is arrested…be afraid, lock your doors, think about how dangerous your neighborhood is; also note no comment on sorrow for the victim. But 4 dead bodies are discovered under suspicious circumstances, without motive, or a suspect, officials warn people to keep their eyes open and be alert…but no one is even a little bit concerned about their own safety? Really? Or is the media pushing the narrative in one way or another because it suits them?

On the education front, I can’t help but recall an article from long before Rational Urbanism existed which was discussing the Springfield Public Schools in some way and mentioned, in passing, that 4th graders in the city were reading at the national average, and that Black students in Springfield scored higher on standardized tests than in any other urban district in the state. Talk about burying the lead! 4th graders reading at the national average in a majority minority system with 90% of kids on free/reduced priced lunch and and an enormous number of English language learners; “I took a middle school hockey team to the Olympics, but they only won the bronze medal”. Black students scoring highest in this particular city? Maybe something worthy of further investigation, I don’t know.

In any case, this week it was announced that NOT ONLY had Springfield graduation rates risen 8% in the last year and 20% in the last 5 years, but that African American students were now graduating at a higher rate than White students. That fact wasn’t even mentioned in the article actually. The data was there, but it received no comment. The White graduation rate had increased from 76% to 83%, but he graduation rate of Black students had leapfrogged that in going from 73% to 85%.

Further investigation is warranted of course, and a piece of data consisting of just one year of information is subject to relatively broad swings; there may even be explanations regarding White students and Charter Schools which skew the data as well, but in an age where the achievement gap is an enormous topic of discussion and a very similar nearby district, Hartford, has taken a completely different path in an attempt to reduce the enormous differences in graduation rates between White and minority students this certainly warrants further examination. Or at least a mention.

No Exit

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It’s easy to be negative about the media. For me anyway. That’s mostly because I’m a contrarian living a contrary lifestyle and writing a blog thereon. So when I read a news item that inverts all my negative expectations it raises my hopes tremendously.

Here it is.

Not only is east-west rail up for a some serious study but connecting the valley from north to south is in the negotiation phase of actually being put in place in conjunction with the brand new Hartford Line of CT Rail! It only makes sense, but that’s the point. 

Connecticut’s budgetary woes aren’t helped by the outlays required for the expansion of commuter rail from New Haven to Springfield. Obviously, if any part of the line needed to suffer cutbacks, the Massachusetts spur would come first. The Commonwealth coming up with some money to throw Connecticut’s way to run some extra trains north to Greenfield both gets the Bay State piece taken care of for less than if MassDOT had to put together the whole thing from scratch, (Keeping in mind that the newly renovated station in Springfield, the brand new station in Greenfield, the recently added platforms in Holyoke, and Northampton, and the modernized rails themselves have already been not only paid for but completed) and can reaffirm the Nutmeg State’s commitment to the program as it extends north of Hartford by making it worthwhile financially.

As I have written here on a number of occasions, as much as connecting to Boston would be beneficial, history and current data both demonstrate that Springfield is more closely related to Connecticut than greater Boston.

The icing on the cake of the article is the dismissive attitude of the state official to talk of expansion of highway exits on the turnpike. The state understands, I think, that encouraging sprawl in the Hilltowns would end up costing Massachusetts millions of dollars in infrastructure expansion, all the while negatively impacting both the rural and agricultural hinterlands and the urban areas, where billions have already been invested in infrastructure the use of which will not be maximized if the population decants to the hills.

Conspicuously Absent

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It’s late January and the usual “Homicides Are Up; run for your lives” or “Homicides Are Down: don’t be worried though, Springfield is still dangerous” article hasn’t yet appeared. The 5 year rolling average for murder is 15 and last year came in at 14 with the city being homicide free now for 3 months. It’s an increase of two over 2016.

I wonder if the storyline has become tiresome to the editors or if future advertisers MGM have suggested that they’re  not too keen on supporting a publication which hypes violence in the community where they will need to attract hundreds of thousands of out-of-towners in order to make a profit. My wife thinks that my message is getting through. If so, I’m sure it’s indirectly. I somehow missed homicide 14 and was preparing to write this assuming 13 was the magic number for last year. On the WWLP “Springfield Homicide Tracker” (map included!)they listed 14. I did a search for the victim’s name on Masslive and, sure enough; 14. What also came up was an article about a person of the same name being arrested for possession of heroin with intent to distribute: coincidence, I’m sure.

Sarcasm aside, it isn’t at all that I want anyone to be murdered, but years and years of experience demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of victims are engaged in gang activity, drug activity, or were in a violent relationship. That doesn’t mean they deserve to be killed but it does mean that living in a city is less the danger than the behavior they engage in and the people with whom they interact, in a city or not. 

Still conspicuous by its absence is any “Motor Vehicle Death Tracker” anywhere in the media. It’s a phenomenon which is: more causally connected to place than homicide; impacts more people in this region; and is more random in its distribution in terms of race, age, and gender.

Media Darlings

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Peruse my back catalog a bit and you’ll see that much of my initial energy on the Rational Urbanism website was focused on media criticism. That culminated last year with the Death Race feature at which point, perhaps at a subconscious level, I felt that I had said most of what needed to be said. Nothing has actually changed of course, I’ve just already commented on it. For that reason I want to take just a snapshot of this week in my media world and make some brief comments. I will link to older pieces which elaborate the ideas more completely should anyone find themselves in need of more examples or a more thorough examination of the topic.

The Valley Advocate continues to love our dysfunction. Click on the  “Springfield” tag and you’ll get these stories:

Just last week I debunked the “Food Desert” concept as it relates to Springfield. Bottom line, the whole idea relates only to people without a car and without a lot of cash, and the BEST place to be in the region if you are without an automobile and want to buy food is, absolutely and without any possible argument, Springfield: the hub of our regional transit system. The city has more food outlets than any other community and provides the means to get there. Most of the derisive focus in the SWAT article is aimed at other towns actually, but it’s informative to note that nothing else has been written about Springfield in the months since this article was published.

In their end of year Halos and Horns feature only the celebration of Springfield dysfunction gets any halos:


Anyone or anything actually succeeding in Springfield gets placed in purgatory or worse:

Notice that MGM is criticized despite supporting the same policy as the Valley Advocate. It wouldn’t be hard to see critics of casinos pointing to the loosening of restrictions on ex cons in the gaming industry as an example of why MGM needs to be watched carefully.

Richie Neal is the most interesting case. Here is a congressman, senior democrat on the House Ways and Means committee, from Springfield who consistently gets funding for things like Union Station for example, which not only help the poor and the elderly, but which also make serious inroads regarding climate change. Crickets. He doesn’t spend enough time talking to the White folks in the hinterlands of his district! Rural poverty sucks; the isolation stemming from the great distances one needs to travel to get food, health care, social services…all by car (bad for the environment) because mass transit isn’t cost effective with such diffuse population. It’s almost as though the poor, the sick, and the elderly ought to live in more urbanized places if they need services. Hmmm.

Then there’s this:

Yeah, WWLP and WesternMassNews, if you’re going to promote “sensationalist, racially charged stories”, make sure they focus on Springfield and Holyoke like responsible journalists!


Here’s one from last week:

Take in the headline. As you read the article, however, you see not only that greater Springfield has added jobs at a higher rate than Worcester and Boston, but that in terms of raw numbers Springfield is blowing Worcester away despite the latter’s proximity to Boston. I also enjoy the fact that the economist quoted in the article specifically mentions that Springfield’s regional strength comes from giants like Mass Mutual (Headquartered in Springfield) and Baystate Medical Center (headquartered in Springfield) and that the future looks bright for employment based on the opening of MGM (in Springfield) yet somehow the article’s main spin is that the city is the weak spot of the region; which it is ONLY if you ignore WHERE the jobs are.

I understand that we count employment and unemployment numbers by where people live and not where they work; perhaps because, while the unemployed do not work ANYWHERE they have to live somewhere…and where are unemployed people going to live? Telling us a greater percentage of the unemployed in the region live in Springfield is, essentially, telling us that poor people tend to live where the poor people live. 

A more interesting data set would be to tell us how many jobs each community provides in relation to the people in the workforce from each community. Springfield, I think, would comfortably lead the way in the surplus of jobs it provides to the region. 

The most upbeat treatment Springfield has received of late came courtesy on the Boston Globe as this article describes how seamlessly the Springfield Public Schools have added over 500 new students from Puerto Rico in the last 3 months. The insight that the schools here have been able to accommodate twice the number of any other district in the state with less obvious impact is that the Puerto Rican community is so broadly integrated into every neighborhood that every single one of Springfield’s schools have seen students arrive from Puerto Rico in the aftermath of hurricane María, but none has received more than 2 dozen. Also mentioned was the city’s overall affordability. 
Someone gets us.
 

Here’s what I’m on about

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At the conclusion of the podcast on the Death Race 2016 feature Chuck asks me what I would have media do differently. In my convoluted response I arrived at the idea of balance. Balance in the way of explaining that the dangers of urban violence tend to not be distributed randomly, but rather accrue to people based on relationships and behavior, and balance in addressing other dangers apart from urban crime; like automobile crashes.

Behold:


A long form piece on the horrors of being a Springfield homicide detective. A new homicide from 2017 or a case from 2016; which is it, I wondered? A sad case of a young woman whose body was found in a dumpster not a block from my house last year. Horrible. Wait. I just told Chuck on the podcast that the only female homicide victim of 2016 was the 16 year old shot by her boyfriend. Were there 14 homicides in 2016? Did I miss one? Oh, wait, no. This is a story about someone who died from a heroin overdose, not likely to be ruled a homicide unless the autopsy report brings to light some new information in a case about a woman known to have been an addict at a time when overdose rates are skyrocketing.

Why not do an in depth story, if you’re doing a story on homicide detectives, on a known homicide? Perhaps the victims aren’t sympathetic enough. Springfield’s murder numbers dropped precipitously last year and it is yet to have its first murder of 2017, by comparison Hartford, a city with tens of thousands fewer people, just had its 6th murder of the new year; maybe your focus should be elsewhere right now. While the data is showing crime is at its lowest point in decades, automobile death rates are climbing again. Perhaps the recent tragedies involving 4 high school kids might spark some interest in a feature on the trauma of being a first responder to car crashes?

I don’t know, just a thought.

Nuance is Back!

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The primary goal of Rational Urbanism is to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to issues of city living in not so fashionable municipalities. While there are dozens of themes which are discussed in that regard crime and schools are by far the most significant and for that reason I have written dozens and dozens of posts on those topics. 

Because of the demographic and economic trends of the last 40 years in the United States in general and in the Northeast in particular my hometown has gone from being a solidly middle class and working class White community to a relatively poor “majority minority” city. An isolated city consisting increasingly of the poor, and disaffected minorities in late 20th century America is likely to have a certain level of social dysfunction leading to endemic crime; Springfield is not the exception.

The critique here is that, real as the crime problem may be, it ought to be put in the proper perspective by people contemplating establishing themselves and their families in such a city. Chris Martenson of PeakProsperity.com makes the argument that any rationalizing regarding crime is in effect an attempt at self deception and that dysfunction of this sort is the primary indicator of a community which should be avoided. My response to that assertion is twofold: first that there are other dangers, automobiles and suicide in particular, which are as positively correlated to rural living as crime is to the city; and secondly that since he and I both see a major economic discontinuity on the horizon, that my community has already entered “collapse” and therefore what I am witnessing is a response thereto that his currently very prosperous rural community is only just starting to experience and therefor it is impossible to know how this economic reversal will impact behavior in those heretofore prosperous, and I would add “logistically dysfunctional” (Read “places not having a car really sucks”) exurbs.

I should clarify that I do live in a very high crime area. There are any number of places in Springfield where the problem of crime really could be waved away as being absolutely no more significant than in any other place in North America, but I live at the confluence of three official “neighborhoods”, two of which really do have high rates of crime. On any given weekend the streetwalkers I see from my front window are more than likely just junkies looking to buy heroin a block or so away from here. I live perhaps 50 feet from the corner of Maple and Union streets. Any Google News search of those streets in Springfield will give you a handful of articles on just such criminal activities.

This is what prostitution looks like here:

Would that it were not so. This beautiful, historic neighborhood, with world class museums, spectacular restaurants, authentic Italian pastry shops, cafes, and delis, a great library, and stunning architecture has a crime problem. But the problem is not what most people think it is. I don’t live in fear of being shot; I’m annoyed by the constant attempts to grift me when I’m just trying to buy a grinder. I don’t worry so much that my home will be invaded as that my backyard will be used as a place of refuge for drug use and sex. Parsing those differences and discussing the compromises one makes living in this Heaven and Hell situation are the point of R.U..

That said, homicides were down nearly 30% in Springfield last year. It’s actually not a significant number. Homicides are the best barometer for comparing crime between more or less “like” communities, but it must be done skillfully. It works well as reference point because there are relatively few differences or difficulties regarding the definition of the crime, and reporting is nearly 100%. Other crimes, particularly in places where police and community relations are strained, or where the police are viewed as ineffectual, are less likely to be reported and can heavily skew data and lead to enormous errors in comparing communities. Because homicides are relatively few in number, the best way to use them is in a rolling average of a handful of years.

That is why last year’s drop from 18 to 13 murders, while not bad news, is more or less within the expected range: it reduces the rolling average from 16.8 to 15.4 homicides per year. 

What is entertaining is the entirely predictable response of the media to these yearly fluctuations. Over the last 5 years (going backwards) homicides have numbered 13, 18, 13, 22, and 11. At the close of two years with the numbers at the higher end series of articles have been written about the scourge of violence in the city with headlines proclaiming enormous spikes in the murder rate specifically naming SPRINGFIELD as DANGEROUS. In the three years clustered at the bottom of the range the much fewer articles published on the topic do not have Springfield in the headline at all and go to great pains to explain the nuanced and accurate idea that homicide data tends to fluctuate.

So, when homicides went from 13 to 18 we got this:
But when they went back down to 13 from 18 we get this:
Understatement is back in vogue!

You Need 5 for BINGO

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As the Death Race feature nears its end the numbers continue to show that most people not involved in gangs, drugs, or relationships with violent people have much more to fear from being on the road than being on the street. There was a spectacular example this week of just why it is that most people do a bad job of assessing danger regarding those two things. In investigating a horrible story about a young man who died on his skateboard while trying to bring gasoline to a friend whose car had run out of gas I noticed that the Hartford Courant had in its “Breaking News” section 4 stories in a row about pedestrians being killed by cars. 

And not one story linking them.

If two people get shot in Hartford in a week you can guarantee coverage and follow up coverage, and linking follow up coverage, and follow up linking coverage, and references to the number of people who have died in the city and how many siblings they had and how hard it is for their friends to go on without them…

But four stories in a row about pedestrians getting crushed and dismembered by motor vehicles and there will not be one linking story between them. How many people have died on Route 5 in Enfield after being hit by cars? At least two just this year. But I only know that because I’ve been personally keeping track. 

The Hartford and Springfield media markets overlap in more than just geography.

Update: The magic number is 7! Now we know.

http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-east-haven-fatal-hit-1205-20161204-story.html

20161204-164052.jpg

A Murder in Orange

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A random murder takes place in an isolated home in a small, sparsely populated community and the media’s primary response is to focus on the tragic nature of the incident, which is to be expected. Another murder takes place in an urban location with sufficient indications that the crime was by no means random, but rather a targeted act of revenge and the media asks people in the community just how much MORE they fear for their lives; sadly, also to be expected. Keep in mind that any analysis shows that the first crime is filled with clues as to how the very location of the crime was a driving force in its coming to pass whereas in the second it is clearly behavior which marks the victim.
Official reports documenting the rural home invasion state that entry was gained to the home via the garage and that the home was targeted because the perpetrators sought an older vehicle so as to avoid the location technology present in newer cars. The wheelchair bound 77 year old and her 95 year old spouse apparently still had a car and needed a car because they lives miles and miles from any food outlets on streets without sidewalks. Had they not owned a car they would not have been targeted, had they not had a garage or driveway in which to park the car the passing criminals wouldn’t have known to associate that particular car with their home, had they not had a garage to enter through entry might have been more difficult for the assailants, and had they not lived in a detached home their gruesome torture might not have lasted for “hours”.

On the other hand, the “victim” of the urban homicide had 10 pending charges dropped in district court due to his status as deceased. The testimony of witnesses to the murder and the violent nature of the allegations pending in court against the victim certainly leave very little doubt as to the lifestyle of the late 28 year old. 

The conclusion from the media ignores all of this and runs with the idea that city residents should live in fear…whether or not they’ve attempted to murder someone in the last year…and most of the time it’s perfectly safe for a wheelchair bound 77 year old and her nearly centenarian husband to live an isolated auto-dependent life. 

The truth is, if Yonaides Pichardo had been in Orange, Mass last week he’d probably still be dead, but if Thomas Harty had lived in Springfield, or even in “downtown” Orange, he’d still be alive.

Leave Us Out Of It

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My wife was interviewed for a news story a few weeks ago on air pollution in the greater Springfield area. She was walking through a neighborhood near Forest Park and the reporter begged her to stop and talk. She was interviewed for 10 minutes on camera and about 15 seconds made it on-air; the reporter was obviously looking for her to say one or two of a small set of things which could neatly fit into the news package she was going to create. Once she got them she could go back to the studio and edit in order to put together the pieces she had accumulated.

It was idiotic, of course, to ask my wife her opinion about the state of air pollution in the region when it was the reporter who had the scientific data:

-Scientists say 2 + 2 = 4. But what do you think?
-I don’t see it that way, definitely 5, I mean, look around, 5…ya know.

They did this on a story a few years ago regarding religiosity; a survey showed this region as among the least religious in the country. (Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!) In response a reporter asked people coming out of churches on Sunday if they agreed. They didn’t. In their experience the region was very religious, I mean, look at all those people walking out of that church!

Genius.

Fast forward to yesterday when some dude apparently stabbed a 76 year old woman to death in an apartment in Plymouth. Yes, that Plymouth. The one with the rock and all. It’s an hour and a half east of here at least. The police identified a subject and, later the next day, his car was found parked by a well-known bridge close to his home town of Montague, around 45 minutes north of here. 

The reporter had obviously done a lot of work putting together a story with clips from a sister station near Plymouth, on-location shots from the bridge, and interviews with people in the town where the manhunt for the alleged murderer is still taking place despite suspicion that he may have jumped from the bridge to commit suicide. So, what does the reporter choose as the closer for this story about a murder committed in Plymouth and the manhunt playing out in Gill?

  

Like we do. It’s always “stabby, stabby, kill, kill” ’round here. If a 76 year old lady moves in next door I just assume I’m supposed to kill her if no one else has done it in a few days. And runaway murderers? Don’t ask, you can’t swing a dead 76 year old woman without hitting one! On the other hand I remember that one time there was a report of bestiality in Springfield and the reporter asked someone around here about it and I remember the interviewee saying “well, you expect that sort of thing in Gill or Montague, but not around here…we have sex with people.”

Again, I’m sure the reporter had 20 minutes of footage from various people, and he was looking for the “it’s a quiet little town…how shocking that something is happening here” quote. The totally gratuitous Springfield reference was just a cherry on top. Next time, though, maybe just leave us out of it.

(Where I was in Springfield last night…though the photo is from a concert from last season)

  
 

Avoiding Accidentally on Purpose

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The stories we tell ourselves matter. They don’t need to be accurate, or rational, or true in order to inform us as to how to perceive the world and how to respond to it. One of the most popular stories told in this country is that “freedom” is merely one manifestation of the proliferation of the ownership of private weaponry, so when it’s claimed that George Washington said:

“…a free people should be an armed people. It ensures against the tyranny of the government.”

We don’t respond; “Well, isn’t it interesting what genocidal, slave owners thought about guns a quarter millennia ago,” we respond as though it made sense that the changes in overall disparity in weaponry between a citizenry and its military in the most militarily advanced nation of all time hasn’t made that concept obsolete whether he said it or not! (And this is a “pro gun rights” essay of a sort!)

You see, perception is reality, and any meaningful gun control plan in this country would have to involve confiscation and, due to the beliefs expressed above, that would start (exacerbate?) a second Civil War. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue trying to work at as much limitation as we can short of causing rebellion, it just means that the “scourge of gun violence”, intentional and accidental, is with us for the long haul.

That said, there was an accidental shooting in Springfield on Thursday, statistically speaking it was probably one of 5 times in the United States this week in which a child accidentally shot, and in this case, killed another child. News reports made clear from the beginning that the police were aware that the shooting was likely accidental. But not one of the local news outlets saw fit to place that information in their headline. Or in their sub-headline. A quick search of other stories involving other accidental shootings revealed this headline:


And this one:

And this one:


And these where variants of the word “accident” are used more than once in the headlines alone(!):

But the Springfield event got this one:


The police car is a nice touch.

Imagine a story about two kids in a farmhouse in Vermont “playing around” with a gun when the gun “accidentally discharged” and having the story headlined: “Vermont Crime”. Ridiculous. It wouldn’t happen. “Vermont Tragedy” maybe. And are you going to tell me that leaving the word “accidental” out of the headline was an accident on the part of the reporter and/or editor? Even more ridiculous. As a matter of fact, despite quotes from a police spokesperson which were available in other media accounts stating that the working assumption of the police was that the shooting was accidental, the MassLive reporter only mentioned the possibility of the shooting being accidental in the third paragraph of the story.




The obfuscation had its desired effect. In an exchange in the comments section one commenter, upon having the facts pointed out, responded that the specifics in this case didn’t matter anyway because Springfield is “a crime ridden cesspool and only getting worse and worse”. Exactly. For these people the facts don’t enter into it. Crime in Springfield is down by more than half since the early 90’s, murders are down nearly 80% just this year compared to last year…with that the trolls and media are getting desperate and this tragedy was just a bell for the media to ring in order to make sure that the learned response of spewing hatred for an entire community anytime violence occurs isn’t forgotten.

That’s what bullies do to their targets. Springfield is an easy place to pick on. Sure we provide most of the region’s high quality jobs and much of its best in the way of culture, but we also have a population which is disproportionately poor and significantly Black and Hispanic. Some bullies pick on their targets because, like the media, it makes them more popular. For the media that means a few more clicks, a few more shares, a few more viewers. Others, like trolls, do it because deep down inside they are missing something; empathy, humanity, who knows? But they justify targeting the weak because they tell themselves that their target is morally at fault for for something and therefore worthy of reproof; in attempting to humiliate their target they justify it by claiming it will alter the victim’s behavior or serve as a warning to others not to go down that path.

Together they criticize the residents of the city for living amongst the metaphorical lepers, and the literal criminals and prostitutes. I reject their criticism. I am proud to live where I live. How odd that in this country many of those who would most firmly (and erroneously) claim that this is a Christian Nation, would reject the idea of helping the neediest of their fellow men and, most of all, of living among them.