Crime in Madison

[MidwestRedux]

Here are the crime stats for all of Madison through 2012:

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime...Wisconsin.html

While there is some crime, these numbers are very low compared to most other comparably sized cities.

[badger74]

Crime Comes to a Madison Neighborhood

[Milwaukee City]

With Dane County's population now at 510,000 it's natural that you are going to have more crime. The good ol days when population was around 350,000 and you had 1-2 murders a year if that and very small crime you are now starting to hear and see stories of more brazen and crazy crimes that you just never heard of before in madison. Even with that said Madison is still a very safe place to live and while most people won't give the crime rate a second thought, madison will continue to out grow it's mayberry image. When most people outside of madison bring up crime and traffic it is usually met with a laugh but cities change and you cannot grow without pain.

[gmdm]

Do keep in mind the motives that some folks tend to have when discussing crime rates... the media (especially online media) is incentivized to sensationalize crime-related news to drive page views and thus advertising dollars. The police are incentivized to exaggerate the perception of crime rates (more crime means more funding for law enforcement). And various people view crime as another way to push their own political views and agenda, whatever those may be.

[Drover]

Or, it could be that some people are "incentivized" to shine a light on crime in order to help address and reduce crime. But I suppose technically that's an agenda too.

You think police departments have an incentive to look ineffectual? That's the exact opposite of the standard charge against police agencies, namely that the cook the crime stats to minimize crime to make themselves look more competent.

[ranger17]

to me, crime is crime. Sure certain groups can push the #s one way or the other for their agenda (right or wrong) and the media can report on certain areas more then others. But a theft is a theft, and an assault is an assault. So if a map shows more crimes happening in a fixed location, it's an issue that needs to be looked into by both potential residents as well as those in charge.

Even when i was down in SC, the amount of press a major crime rec'd could seem to vary based on location, who did what, even race and economic status......
Husband kills his wife? Unfortunately it could be nothing more then a short blip on the news. But when that family lived in an upscale neighborhood and had a more affluent background, it's literally national news.

That in itself should be a concern.

just my .02

[gmdm]

Drover - realistically, they need to strike a balance. If they look too ineffective for too long, heads will roll, sure. But I don't think that's the position Madison is in here. Keep in mind, if they really start "winning" the war on crime, then there's less need for officers, less need for new police cars, less need for shiny new toys. The police start to look less important, which reduces the amount of political power they (the departments and the unions) can wield. It really shouldn't be that surprising.... follow the money. The police get paid to fight crime. If there's less crime to fight, then there's less money people are willing to spend to fund the police.

But I think this is getting into a different conversation... the point I was trying to make (maybe not very effectively), is that dots on a map can't possibly tell the whole story when considering a broad topic like "crime." Bias in the data being presented is one reason. But you definitely also need to look at factors such as the behavior that the victims were engaging in at the time of the crime; whether the crime was targeted or random; etc. I think Madison is generally a safe city, with an effective and professional police force. Much (but not all) of the criminal activity we see here is not random - it ends up being a result of pre-existing drama between two parties previously known to each other. Or its related to college shenanigans that you're unlikely to be directly affected by unless you hang out in college bars or live immediately in student housing areas.

Bottom line - yes "crime is crime" - but its a more complicated issue if you're considering the likelihood that YOU will be the victim of a crime in a particular neighborhood.

[Drover]

The way they "strike a balance" is to report crime statistics accurately.

[Allan Trafton]

From crime comes to a Madison neighborhood posted by Badger74:

One woman off Hammersley Drive—“Don’t call me a racist! I’m married to a black man”—marvels: “The young people walking across my lawn are using the ‘F word,’ waking up my kids, walking in the middle of the road, not moving for us to drive by, and are loud and disrespectful. They throw garbage and refuse to pick it up, and they come into my driveway to look into my car.


This couldn't be anymore spot on. A subset of the current young generation that is beyond selfish. They only care about themselves and what's in it for me, or as they put it "I gonna get mines". They really have no respect for anyone or anything. It's really sad and where stuck with it. With their poor interpersonal skills, lack of education and lack of ambition it looks bleak.


This isn't just Madison's problems, it the entire nation.

[TrueGrit13]

There is a good amount of crime in Madison due to the fact that we get all of the trash that Chicago and Milwaukee don't want. A lot of the crime is shielded by the media here as they want to showcase this as a pristine city to live in.

In all honesty crime isn't nearly as bad as comparable cities and of course there are areas that you want to stay away from such as allied in the southwest, northport in the far north of the city, magnolia and surrounding areas in the south and Bayview in south central. Downtown is actually not that bad until the early morning hours when all of the drunk college students are pouring out of bar time.

There are a lot of great areas in Madison but the powers that be here love to take a chunk out of any nice neighborhood and dedicate it to section 8 and low income housing for the throngs of above mentioned trash that come here for the benefits which also brings crime elements where there previously were none.