How Can we Curtail Senseless Acts of Violence in our Region (Pittsburgh: 2014, renting)

[SteelCityRising]

I'm literally crying right now. Sure, I've been accused of being a drama queen before (and perhaps rightfully so on some occasions), but after reading about several stories this evening of precious young lives cut short by cowardly acts of violence I'm enraged.

1.) Yesterday a seemingly upstanding 18-year-old from the Hill District was shot and killed. I teared up as I watched a video of his grandmother being interviewed by WPXI:


RAW: Victim's grandmother delivers emotional message to shooter | www.wpxi.com

Teen fatally shot in Hill District; Family makes emotional... | www.wpxi.com



2.) Earlier this week a 15-year-old girl in Duquesne Borough was shot in the abdomen as she answered a knock at her door. The bullet struck and killed her unborn child, and she remains hospitalized and suffering from physical and emotional trauma.

Family prepares to bury unborn child killed in shooting as... | www.wpxi.com



It seems like there has been violence daily recently in and around our fair city, and I'm wondering if there's anything that can be done to stop it.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

It seems like there has been violence daily recently in and around our fair city, and I'm wondering if there's anything that can be done to stop it.

Difficult to say whether anything can be done to stop it or not.


If these were shootings connected with the drug trade, the answer is probably an unfortunate "no".


When there are disputes in this kind of enterprise, the pushers and the customers can't take their case before small claims court, violence is about the only way they can settle their differences.

I suppose if the mafia bosses came back and were willing to do sitdowns, make decisions that the parties would honor, it might cut down on the amount of street violence- but that isn't going to happen.

[UKyank]

A good start would be very long mandatory sentences whenever a crime is committed & a firearm is present (whether used for not) as most of the people involved in these killings have a long rap sheet & who should have taken out of society long before they kill.

[Hopes]

Witnesses need to start speaking up!

[Tallysmom]

Here- the violence has been going on for decades, no end in sight. As I've gotten older, I've gotten hardened to it. It's sad to say that, and the kids are getting younger, and it's more and more it's the second or third son to be shot and killed.

I used to think it was education -- I still think that -- but it's parenting and cultural, too. It's going to take a cultural shift.

It's not just a black issue, or an inner city issue -- the whack a doodle in Sandy Hook -- white and privileged. The whack a doodle in Santa Barbara was not only white and privileged, he had parents who were concerned and did everything right -- and it still happened. And while this could sound like a gun rant -- there's enough info out there to make all sorts of bombs -- so if people want to kill, they will kill.

[Uptown kid]

Also can't forget drive by left two shot in "Uptown" Wilkinsburg and there was another gang related shooting in Mount Oliver that day. This is going to be a long and violent summer, but at least this year had been relatively quiet for a notable stance.

The only way to stop this problem is education and oppertunity. Yet the clear solution will likely never be found. Its all too deep seated.
For example, the Bedford Hills Mixed-Income Apts @ Memory Lane were created to better than the slum of rowhouses that they preceded. Yet ever since the complex was constructed murders have been occurring and only teens have been dying. One killing at the complex in 2013 was- an innocent teen from Duquesne/McKeesport who simply was killed for allegedly speaking to a young girl and not being from the Hill District. The whole cycle and culture is so deep seated that the dying 18 year old might not have told that lady his potential shooters name!

These are two people who didn't deserve to die, but these types of murders will simply keep happening. In Duquesne an innocent person getting murdered has litteraly been the norm since at least 2008.

[FreightTrainRunning]

It's not like this is a new thing. Violent crime has existed in Pittsburgh for as long as it's existed. I can't quickly find historical data on Pittsburgh but nationally crime rates have been dropping for twenty years and in Pennsylvania for at least the last six years.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

Also can't forget drive by left two shot in "Uptown" Wilkinsburg and there was another gang related shooting in Mount Oliver that day. This is going to be a long and violent summer, but at least this year had been relatively quiet for a notable stance.

The only way to stop this problem is education and oppertunity. Yet the clear solution will likely never be found. Its all too deep seated.

Education and opportunity could certainly reduce the violence among the youths now engaged in it, but I think that would just migrate the problem to others. As along as the drug trafficking and other gang activity continues, we'll see enough of this.


Ditto with witnesses coming forward- one of the reasons why this kind of violence is so prevalent in some areas is that the residents are frightened or otherwise disinclined to snitch on their neighbors. If this changes, it just means a change of venue for the violence, not its elimination.

What's really disturbing to me is the collateral damage, babies or other innocents being killed. I certainly sympathize with the parents of a teenage or young adult gangster who lose their child in this way. But this is the life they've chosen, can't say that about the babies or bystanders that are sometimes killed.

[FreightTrainRunning]

Here are the homicide rates in Allegheny County for the last seven years from the P-G's interactive homicide page:

2008: 119
2009: 88
2010: 104
2011: 78
2012: 96
2013: 91
2014: 33 (as of May 30)

This year looks especially quiet so far but summers are usually the worst season so we'll see. Obviously there's no uptick in violence and possibly a slight decline but it's been too long since college stats for me to do an analysis and create a linear projection.

[Geeo]

As others have commented, the long term solution is education and keeping kids in school. Shorter term, I have no idea how to stop it, since the cycle has already started with these young people who see no opportunity in their lives.

Throwing everyone in prison doesn't seem to help, most of them are back in prison within three years. And prisons are very costly. In the late 60s, PA had nine prisons and today it has more than 20. Each cost about $200 million to build and cost about $50 - $60 million per year to run. For the last 40 years in PA, we've increased the prison population by more than 1,500 inmates each and every year, and corrections and their attendant costs are now chewing up a larger and larger share of the state budget, while human services programs are cut. Human service programs, ironically, help families and try to keep kids in school, so we're either going to pay now in prevention or long term when they drop out and end up in the criminal justice system. It would be cheaper in the long run to fund services now, but state politicians don't think long-term, just until the next election cycle.