Finally ... A Crime Plan

At a press conference today, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey lamented on his one flaw: he hates bullshit. So in releasing his crime plan today, he admits that, “it’s nothing fancy.” And he’s right. Because most of this long-awaited crime-fighting strategy is basic common sense: redeployment, community policing, and other things we could have and should have done 500 murders ago.

Among Ramsey’s goals are to:

• Reduce homicides by 25%
• Reduce the number of shooting victims by 20%
• Increase the number of guns taken off the street by 5%
• Increase the homicide clearance rate to 65%
• Reduce the backlog of 6,000 pieces of ballistic evidence waiting testing
• Reduce the backlog of outstanding warrants.
  

And “the how" includes more of the obvious:

• Focusing on areas where crime occurs: specifically the city’s nine most violent police districts, which cover parts of Southwest Philly, North Philly, West Philly, Southwest Philly, Germantown, Port Richmond and Kensington.
• More cops: 200 more officers on the street by May 1.
• Surveillance cameras: expand the existing surveillance camera program from 26 to 250 cameras by Dec. 31
• And using that pesky stop and frisk to get illegal guns off the street.
  

Such basics worked for Ramsey in Chicago and D.C. And as he points out, his plan isn’t some cute little initiative. It’s basic policing.

Gee, imagine that.

(Photo credit: Jeff Fusco)