I have some family from Ohio and they’ve reported that crime in the Cleveland metro area is getting really bad. The word was that companies are asking employees not only to avoid travelling alone, but to be in groups bigger than two; no one stays late without others; etc. Is it really getting that bad? I cannot seem to find any relevant articles (I trust my family as an objective news source not at all), but my google-fu is pretty weak when it comes to current events. Is it happening, and if so, is it related to the economy or has crime been increasing for some time now?
FBI uniform crime report shows better '08 numbers for Cleveland than the '07 numbers.
Maybe it got worse in the last 2 months?
I haven’t heard anything about this from any of my family in Cleveland. It could just be that one or two companies are tightening up their security procedures, and you happen to just be hearing about those companies.
I talk to my family in Cleveland on a semi-weekly basis. No one has mentioned anything about the crime rate being on the rise.
Just curious. Where do the live, exactly?
I think crime, in general, tends to rise with a weak economy, but I haven’t heard anything specific to the Cleveland area.
Where exactly do your family live? There’s a big difference between the inner city and an upscale suburb.
Ok, it was a guy who works next to the justice center, who is a friend of my mom, that said there was this issue.
Well, now that it’s clarified that your guy is downtown, I googled up “crime” and “downtown cleveland” and got this:
“East 12th Street shooting victim Jory Aebly starting to walk with assistance”
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/east_12th_shooting/
Looks like there was a shooting on Feb 22nd that has people upset.
Let’s see, here’s an article discussing crime as a topic:
Residents, workers believe downtown Cleveland is safe
Why is the Plain Dealer pretending this is a blog? These are proper newspaper articles AFAICT.
Oh well. My cynical take is “white guy got shot, people freak out”.
People always pay attention to individual crimes, but it’s rates that make a difference.
I’ve seen this happen before. One well-publicized crime makes more of an impact on public opinion than dozens of poorly-publicized one.
As I read the OP, I thought this was probably the motivation for the “feeling” that crime had suddenly increased in Cleveland.
Thanks!
I live on the East Side, near Shaker Square, and work in downtown Cleveland. It’s a great city, although not perfect, and I don’t think crime has gotten any worse in recent years. Every big American city has a notorious crime every year or two, it seems, and we’re no different. Anyone with a modicum of common sense who doesn’t go looking for trouble is going to be fine, though.
This is basically it.
The last time I was in Cleveland the crime controversy was over a white lawyer (I think) being mugged by some black hoodlums in a traditionally mixed, boho area of the city.
Mugged and very badly beaten up, yes. Just a few blocks from where I live. The last of the codefendants just pled guilty this week, as a matter of fact.
Perception of crime is a funny thing. There have been several murders in my locality in recent years including one on the green behind my house. A mother was shot on her doorstep. A man was kicked to death. All of these were in recent years. There have been other violent or misadventurous deaths in the last few years too. However, I feel perfectly safe in this town and would walk around most parts any time of day or night on my own.
I live in Westpark, a neigbourhood of Cleveland’s west side, and usually take long 2 am walks.
Everything looks good to me. I just went downtown Sunday night to see a show and walked around for a bit about 10 pm before driving home. Nice and quiet.
Yeah. I suspect the same people don’t watch the evening news, or only pay attention to crimes with white victims.
There isn’t consistently a murder every week, but there is certainly a “young black man stabs, shoots or shoots at young black man” story on the evening news at least once or twice a week. Some weeks it seems like it’s every day.
This incident isn’t even a scenario that matters in cases of “advice to workers” at normal jobs anyway. This one went down in that “bars just closed” timeframe on the weekend. Any idiot knows that wandering around aimlessly in a big city at 2 AM on the weekend needs to be done carefully… or not at all…
I live in the western suburbs and work downtown, and I’m a girl, and I feel perfectly safe walking around downtown alone during the day. Heck, I’ve even walked a few blocks by myself at around 11 pm, though I made sure to walk fairly close behind another group of people heading the same way. I also sometimes work at a far west suburban mall (Midway, in Elyria) and in the past three days they’ve had a carjacking and a mugging in broad daylight. the manager and i were joking about how downtown Cleveland is MUCH safer that the suburban malls!