Why is crime so high in Atlanta? (White: 2013, city hall)

[SLIMMACKEY]

Originally Posted by SAAN

Criminals have cars now, they can drive to whatever county they want to do their dirt. Look at the issues in Buckhead, where people will follow people 30-40 minutes North to their homes or came 20-40 minutes there to do whatever they had planned.


This is the main thing I really hate of metro ATL now compared to the past, in which crime was pretty much just specific areas compared to now where it can happen anywhere. Still a big diffidence of crime happening anywhere vs it being a common occurrence in some areas.

Criminals always had access to transportation. Its no more convenient now to commit a crim than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

[SAAN]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I read that DeKalb has now surpassed the city of Atlanta in murders.

Yup, because the city of Atlanta closed its projects and gave them vouchers to go to Dekalb and Clayton

[glovenyc]

Originally Posted by bu2

The idea that selective policing is why poor neighborhoods have vastly more crime is just ludicrous.
You don't have to assume poorer people are morally inferior to believe they commit more crimes.

Wait...is that what you read?

I'm saying there is a need for community policing here in Atlanta, from Buckhead to Bankhead.

[SAAN]

I guess the easiest way to sum this up is, The City of Atlanta, along with many other big cities closed their housing projects and then flooded those people out to the suburbs. The news articles will read City of Atlanta crime, or other big city crime has gone way down and pat themselves on the back, like they really did something big to make this happen, other than flushing their problems elsewhere and then not mention how crime has now skyrocketed in the metro areas where those people went. Same issue has happened in Chicago, NYC and many other metro areas

South Dekalb County & Nothern Clayton Counties were never this bad until the last 10-15 or so, and used to be very nice and had decent schools. You take the hurricane Katrina situation where folks were being told they could get a giant house in Stone Mountain and the East side with these vouchers, along with Atlanta flushing out its problems was the beginning of the problems with bad schools, drugs, blight and high crime in these neighborhoods.

City of Atlanta isnt the hellhole it used to be in the 90's before the Olympics in a majority of its neighborhoods, but it still does have a few very high crime areas.

[DreamerD]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

there are just a lot of inaccurate assumptions in this thread that people are indirectly stating. it's really difficult to unpack because everyone's saying it, but not saying it. things like:

• more police = safer
• poor people are more likely to be criminals
• whiter neighborhood = safer neighborhood
• violent crimes are being randomly committed to victims who don't know the perpetrator
• all of this is happening in a vaccum and the underlying economic and political structure is irrelevant to individual actions

among other things. which is, like, what the media portrays. so people who don't have real life experience believe these things. but they're not really true. they are only true in the context in which we define them.

for example, the first point. everybody wants to be safe and people want there to be people out there looking out for them. if you are white and middle/upper class, the police have always been these people. for everyone else, not so much.

the second point, poor and uneducated people aren't more likely to be criminals. they're just more likely to be caught because they commit crimes in more direct ways rather than hiding it behind layers of illusion that turn it away from the police and into civil court.

Thank you so much for pointing these things out. I will comment that I'm a survivor of a crime that was committed in Atlanta (not Atlanta but you know). My employer ripped me off (wage theft) and was not charged criminally for it. She did not have to pay any fines and did not have to face jail time. She also did not get a criminal record. The fact that we have a justice system where if someone steals money from me on the street and gets a record but someone steals from me at work and does not get a record, shows how immoral and flat out stupid our justice system is. The fact that we allow our justice system to be ran like this shows a lot about us as a people.



I don't feel safe around police in Atlanta, nor any other major city. They are taught and trained to discriminate based on race/ethnicity. Thanks for posting the bit on poor people more likely to get caught. White, Jewish, Asian, etc., commit crimes all the time but they aren't called criminal crimes and so they aren't demonized/penalized/pursued as street crimes are.



And let me share something with you posters/readers. A record can prevent you from getting into any field that requires state licensing, can make traveling to many countries (so basically you are forced to stay in the U.S. similar to being in prison) impossible, I think serving on a board, loss of student aid, loss of employment, etc.



So when discussing high crimes rates in Atlanta, be careful how you're demonizing people because if night were turned into day, you wouldn't like it. You think you're safe...just watch. Once the powers that be finish enslaving black and Hispanic people, you're next.

[chiatldal]

Ok let try this again

Originally Posted by Space_League

Make no mistake - the region is booming economically. Tons of new investment and development in ATL. You would expect that this would lead to a much safer city, however it doesn't seem to be the case.

Cities like Boston, New York, Los Angeles, have seen their crime rates plunge in the past decades. Atlanta, like DC, has improved but still has a ways to go.

What are the reasons for this ?

It doesn't matter if Atlanta crime hasn't fallen to rate of New York the fact is Atlanta crime rate since the 90's late 80's has significantly fallen. So " the region is booming economically. Tons of new investment and development in ATL" has lead to a safer city.

So your really not asking why hasn't Atlanta crime fallen "it has" your asking why isn't it the same as New York which is a different question entirely. It also mean "high crime" is changing goal post. What I mean is..... Your right Atlanta crime rate was higher than NY in the early 90's and it's higher than NY now, how ever not only is Atlanta crime rate significantly lower than it was in the 90's but it's ironically significantly lower than 90's NY. In fact the Atlanta's current rate is closer to NY current rate than it is to either cities rate in the 90's.

But honestly I don't see the good that come out of this thread I can easily imagine this thread talking a wrong term and open up with people stating ignorant or prejudice views to why they think their crime. If people knew the Answer, their wouldn't be crime in the first place but the important thing is Atlanta crime a has drop and Atlanta should continue this directions.

[SEAandATL]

If the Westside areas get gentrified the the Eastside, then the crime rate will drop lower. In fact there's a lot of development planned around the new Westside Reservoir Park area, so that could be a step.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by SEAandATL

If the Westside areas get gentrified the the Eastside, then the crime rate will drop lower. In fact there's a lot of development planned around the new Westside Reservoir Park area, so that could be a step.

comments like this make me think that "crime" is really a code word for poor/black.

Originally Posted by chiatldal

But honestly I don't see the good that come out of this thread I can easily imagine this thread talking a wrong term and open up with people stating ignorant or prejudice views to why they think their crime. If people knew the Answer, their wouldn't be crime in the first place

i think it's already there tbh this thread is full of dogwhistles. this happens every time the "crime" issue is brought up which is why i wince whenever people start talking about it to me because i know where they're going with it.

[JoeP]

Crime is high?

[Forhall]

Originally Posted by SEAandATL

If the Westside areas get gentrified the the Eastside, then the crime rate will drop lower. In fact there's a lot of development planned around the new Westside Reservoir Park area, so that could be a step.

I agree with this, and it can be verified by the statistics. The Atlanta crime stats are separated by zones, and consistently the zones on the east side are notching the lowest rates. Out of 80-90 murder annually, zone 6 (which covers almost the entire east side) contains less than 10% of these. Meanwhile the westside zones rack up them up quickly.

For 2018, there were 88 homicides in Atlanta. Zones 1,3 and 4 which encompass the SW side of the city had 65 of these. Zone 1 alone, which is the traditional "West side" had 30 homicides, more than 1/3 of the entire city homicides. Zone 6, the east side, had 3 total.

Years ago, zone 6 homicides were very high as well. Gentrification has brought it down considerably, and zone 6 now has the lowest homicide rate. Gentrification of the west side will bring down crime especially in zone 1, which will drastically lower overall city of Atlanta crime rates.