Crime in Madison.... (schools, camp, live in)

[Careless]

Originally Posted by Frau Kartoffelkopf

Well, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't actually live there maybe I can add a different view/opinion. In South Bend (nearby, but I don't live there) there is a murder or two daily. When I was searching for cities I was comparing crime rates to South Bend. Comparably, according to statistics Madison is paradise. I had to find a city like that because my parents (one has never left the Indiana-country and the other has lived in several large cities) want me to go someplace safe. The only big city we have a lot of experience with is South Bend, so if it is as bad as South Bend or worse, there's no way I'm going there.

Back to Madison. Statistically compared to South Bend, it is leagues safer. But using common sense I know that all cities have crime, and a city the size of Madison is going to have bad neighborhoods, which is why I joined these forums.

Madison, last year I have on record, had 8 murders for a murder rate of a little under 4. South Bend had a murder rate of 12 point something. South Bend has half the population of Madison, which means it had 13 murders that year.

And the murder rate in Madison has essentially doubled in less than 20 years. Yes, it's still under 10 murders per year and Madison is still a relatively safe city, but that is a very bad trend.

[ryanj0]

Alright, I'm not trying to downplay the crime in Madison (which, compared to any other city I have ever stepped foot in it's size is the lowest you get), but I have to call a spade a spade here... Madison's crime is not on an upward trend.... In fact, (data for 2009 has yet to be released), but Madison crime DROPPED at a rate higher than the national average in 2007 and 2008.... Violent crime rates dropped at a national average of 1.8 percent in 2007, in Madison, 15.6%....

In 2008, they dropped above the national average as well, per the Madison Police Department over the phone and are expected to have dropped again in 2009... Statistically, violent crime in Madison is on a downward trend.... Facts are facts, and this statistic takes into account all violent crime not just murders... Sure, Madison isn't safer this year than it was 20 years ago, name 1 city (of any size) that is....

That is just the way the US works that makes it less safe than it was 20 years ago... That does not constitute a trend, in fact the trend, in violent crimes, has gone downward.... PERIOD! Crime is bad everywhere, heck there was one year when this little town in Colorado had a much higher murder rate than we did... You will never have 0 violent crimes anywhere with more than 100,000 people... Crime can happen anywhere at any time and that's just life....

But some people exagerate crime as well as others downplay it... That's life too.... We can all agree crime is bad, and it happens in Madison (although not too common in my opinion).... The question you have to ask is "Is there anywhere in Madison that you would be in true imminent danger without provoking it in any way yourself (i.e. starting fights, not keeping to yourself, etc.)? My thoughts would be no... You can have a dumb group of teenagers maliciously jump you for no reason in Madison and hey, it can also happen in Belleville too...

And stop this talk about gangs... Madison gangs are a joke, please.... Madison gangs are groups of dumb kids trying to pretend their tough and starting trouble... They don't know what a real gang is.... In the past 5 years, how many violent crimes were even thought to be gang related?? Real gangs, the kind that are more than just posers doing dumb stuff to try to get attention, don't exist in Madison... The kind that have gang wars and rob banks and businesses and kill people for little or no reason... Those don't exist in Madison... Sure, to people who have never seen a real gang, you could call Madison's bunch a gang... But to those who have seen or lived the real gang life, you will know why Madison "gangs" don't walk around the city proclaiming themselves as such... Because trust me, if they did, they would be killed by a real gang from Chicago...

Once Madison starts having real gangs, then we have MAJOR trouble... Crime will go spiraling upwards and fast and people will actually have to fear for their lives... Eventually this may happen, but I sure hope not, and I believe we are far out from that...

2007 Crime Source: http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/1589
2008 and 2009 Crime Source: Per calls to MPD

[Careless]

Originally Posted by ryanj0

Alright, I'm not trying to downplay the crime in Madison (which, compared to any other city I have ever stepped foot in it's size is the lowest you get), but I have to call a spade a spade here... Madison's crime is not on an upward trend.... In fact, (data for 2009 has yet to be released), but Madison crime DROPPED at a rate higher than the national average in 2007 and 2008.... Violent crime rates dropped at a national average of 1.8 percent in 2007, in Madison, 15.6%....

Ok, but that's a) small and B) irrelevant compared to the long term trends. If Madison has a lowered crime rate for another 5 years, you can point to that. The fact is that I used their murder rate from 2008 as a 100% increase. that's a huge upward trend over 20 years, especially if you're claiming it came at a low point for violent crime

[ryanj0]

Originally Posted by Careless

Ok, but that's a) small and B) irrelevant compared to the long term trends. If Madison has a lowered crime rate for another 5 years, you can point to that. The fact is that I used their murder rate from 2008 as a 100% increase. that's a huge upward trend over 20 years, especially if you're claiming it came at a low point for violent crime

Well here's the problem with citing Madison's murder rates.... It doesn't show an upward trend.... Not from one year to the next... Because Madison has, for a long time, had up and down murder rates year to year... One year you'll have 8, the next year you'll have 4.... It has to continue upward for quite some time to constitute a trend, and in Madison it doesn't do that.... Look at the last 6 years murder rates, you'll see what I mean... It just goes up and down every year or two...

Plus, if you are going to go off murder alone you must dig deeper into those murders... How many were random? Not saying any action justifies killing another human being, but maybe all but one have been targeted as the result of some sort of dispute or provocation... That's over the last 6 years.... Sure, this year you had random shootings out a window, but that has stopped.... Just a few incidents do not constitute an upwards trend.... A few incidents are serious, true... All crime is serious.. But we are not debating whether it is serious or even an issue, we are debating on whether it is an upwards trend and statistically, whether you measure it by murders or violent crime overall, it is not.

And comparing crime from 20 years to now, a 100% increase is not much of an increase... Actually that is VERY small compared to almost any city, if not any city, of Madison's size... That's like comparing apples to oranges, it was a different world 20 years ago, EVERYWHERE...

[Careless]

A 100% increase over 20 years might not be a huge increase if we're talking about, say, inflation. On the other hand, violent crime and murder rates are down by a third over those same 20 years in the United States as a whole.

edit: at this point I should point out that at least half of my first post here was to point out that South Bend was not, in fact, the murder capital of America. The post I was responding to showed perfectly how a handful of murders can make it seem like they're happening all the time.

[ryanj0]

Actually, the national murder and violent crime rate was at a low point in 1989... What I am saying is you can't make generalizations like you are. A 100% increase over the last 20 years doesn't make any sense in Madison... Madison murder rates go up and down.. For instance, if you take 2005, there were 2 murders, so you could say a 50% decrease... You cannot just take one year and another year, there is no consistent pattern with Madison, which is good... To say there is 100% increase, that is skewed, because to do that you are taking into account only 2 years, which does not at all show a pattern....

That aside, I agree with your logic on South Bend... Coming from Detroit, which is on most years considered the murder capital of the country, I understand what you were saying in regards to them.

[Nala8]

I've been finding this thread to be fascinating. I can see both sides really. Moving back to Madison from New York City this weekend, I'm sure the level of crime will seem like nothing to me once I settle in. On the other hand, I have been the victim of random incidents of crime in Madison: being punched in the arm by some drunk/high student at the Memorial Union because he didn't like the fact that I was there with my boyfriend, who happens to be White. I also had someone (a stalker) try to break into my apartment. This was back when I was a UW student and back when I was a teacher, respectively. I was in shock, having been under the false impression that Madison was completely safe in terms of criminal activity.

I had a friend back when who worked for the Rape Center in Madison, and my goodness, some of the stories she told me... Need I say more? I've been receiving crime reports for about a year now via the Marquette Neighborhood Association's yahoo group postings, but I don't think that the level of crime in Madison is any way on the par of, say, New York City (or Houston, where I grew up in part). On the other hand, I also know that none of us should be complacent.

Here's what I think at this point: Don't go looking for crime where there is none, keep it real, stay calm, stay awake, and stay aware. One thing that thirteen years of living in New York City has taught me is that criminals tend to look for victims who seem fearful, aggressive, lost, or unaware of their surroundings.

Hmmm... Don't tell me I'm going to have to take some more karate classes in Madison? lol. Oh well... A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do.

[Chelito23]

Once again, I see posters taking comments out of context. I never said the gangs here were the breeding grounds for the Vice Lords and Crips and Bloods. I said it is a new and emerging problem, and people who do not have kids in local schools tend to not be aware of this. By calling the police when asking for stats about crime, ask about gangs. They will verify this.

I have attended community workshops and gang task force pilot programs in Madison, and trust me, they are a growing problem here. No, they aren't as organized seeing they are branches of the main network. But...they are here and pose a threat, like it or not. Burying your head in the sand will not make them go away or less of a threat either. They may not be carrying out bank robberies, but we have anonymous citizens that already do that (does that make gangs or bank robberies less of a problem?)

As I stated before, if there is a problem in Madison, it is downplayed. If we have gangbangers here, locals call them "wannabees". If this were any other city, they would be gangsters. Call a spade a spade and no more convenient labels. It is just unrealistic to excuse our issues yet we "call them as we see them" in other places (like when you notice your friend's kids are brats, but yours are misbehaving because of some justified reason. It's the other kids who are out of control, not yours!). Of course the gangs here aren't the same as in Chicago, but would you want your child to be friends with these gangsters ooops "wannabees"? I doubt that.

Let's stop saying trends elsewhere are trends and here they are flukes or the numbers don't mean anything. When crime went down from 2007 to 2008, someone said that was a good trend, yet when someone else said crime went up over 20 years, another poster tried to discredit those stats and said that wasn't a trend. That is exactly what I am referring to, that people cast a blind eye to our problems, but the rest of the world seems so much scarier and dangerous.

Also, people continue to compare Madison to other places, why bother? Every place is unique and you can't compare like that. However, someone asked, what city hasn't seen crime go up from 20 years ago? Well, NYC, their crime went down. It became safer and more liveable. Most cities' crime went down over that period because many cities got their acts together and reinvented their downtowns.

I guarantee you, most people in other places do not live in fear or view their communites as the vortex to hell either. Some people on this forum like to wear rose colored glasses regarding local crime, and when most of us have been victims of or know someone who has been a victim of "isolated, random incidents", then maybe it isn't sooo isolated or just a fluke. Our personal experiences are familair to us, so they are less scary. Yet if it happens in South Bend OOOOOOOHH watch out. Give me a break already...

[ryanj0]

I am sorry, I have yet to see a trend... In ANY city that has numbers that fluctuate like Madison's do and have for several decades, I cannot call that a trend... Madison is not the only city like this, it just happens to be the one we are discussing... For instance, let's say that we had a graph and we placed a mark for each year where the murder rate was. Madison's graph would be a bunch of zig zags, it would look like a ryhthm strip of Torsades (google image search it) which is not a graph, but a heart rythm, yet that would be what it would look like.

Constant ups and downs over 20 years, never staying high never staying low either, just a zig zag. A trend would look like an upwards or downwards line depending on what the trend was. That is what I am saying... You can take any two years, and that does not mean a trend. I am not saying that crime is not an issue in Madison or any other city, I am saying it is not a trend and can back it up, per the explanation above. As far as "gangs" in Madison go, I never said it wasn't a problem.

I was merely saying to watch how that word is used. The people who read these forums are from all over. Many are from cities that have real gangs, like the kind that kill people. They may see the word gangs and think that Madison has what they have. Is what you call a "gang" a problem, yes it is, I will give you that. Any group of wannabes that get together and cause trouble is a problem. Is it a gang? I do not believe so. Nevertheless, it is a problem and no, I do not think we should push this unruly group under the rug, no.

Do I think Madison has the potential for real gangs? Further down the line, yes. I just want you to watch how you use the word gang, because it can be misconstrued. To some, a lot of those who have experienced gangs in real life, just the word implies a certain level of felonious activity that Madison's problem comes nowhere near. I am included in this group, and so are some others who read these boards I am sure.

To some, what Madison has could be considered a gang, but to others it would not. It just depends, I think, on how you interpret the term, I just don't want people interpreting that Madison has real actual gangs as opposed to dumb kids calling themselves that and being up to no good. I think the police do need to keep up on the groups of wannabe's that call themselves gangs though. In time, if not treated properly, a group of wannabe's can turn into a gang. So don't misinterpret my words and think I do not consdier it a problem, because it surely is. I just don't consider it a gang, and I am sure there are plenty others who would feel the same. Unfortunately, most of them probably browse these forums and rarely post and make up their mind based on what they read, and the word gang is never a good thing to read.

[ryanj0]

Originally Posted by Chelito23

Let's stop saying trends elsewhere are trends and here they are flukes or the numbers don't mean anything. When crime went down from 2007 to 2008, someone said that was a good trend, yet when someone else said crime went up over 20 years, another poster tried to discredit those stats and said that wasn't a trend. That is exactly what I am referring to, that people cast a blind eye to our problems, but the rest of the world seems so much scarier and dangerous.

Give me a break... Unless I said both things, that 07-08 was a good trend and the 20 year numbers were not a trend, this is just wrong.... No, I do not believe 07-08 was a trend either, simply because a trend needs more than that... Madison does not have an upwards or downwards trend in regards to crime, every year is different... Some years it's up some years it's down... You try to point out a contraindiction here, but you are foolish... You cannot put the words of someone else in my mouth... There has not been an upwards (bad) or downwards (good) TREND in Madison... And there are many other cities I am sure that I could say the same about, I just don't pay attention to stats in other cities...