Mayor Williamson announced in his 2006 State of the City address, “In 2005 we saw major crime reduced. The rate of crime also was reduced. And we solved more crimes in 2005.” However, FBI statistics posted on the City of Flint website don’t support that claim.

From 1995 to 2004, crime was on a downward trend. Under Williamson’s watch, it increased for the first time in almost ten years—a seventeen percent increase, and again in 2005 with a twelve percent increase. With a mayor who refuses to acknowledge the increase in crime rates, and a council president simply asserting that the “Police are doing a fine job,” it is hard to believe this troubling trend will be addressed in the foreseeable future.

So what is the solution?

A common thought today is, ‘If Flint only had more officers, we could make Flint safe.’ The police have, after all, lost officers over the years through budget cuts. It seems logical to think that if we have higher crime, we need more officers to fight it, right? Well, there may be some things we hadn’t thought about; that while the number of officers was reduced, so were the number of citizens in Flint. The City Council decided to gather a panel to look into crime, its causes, and how to combat it in Flint. As of yet, we do not know any hard facts they’ve discovered except that the Flint police didn’t have a contract for almost ten years. So, let us do some analysis to see what we really need.

What is the manpower other cities have in their departments to combat crime? How did they turn their crime rates around? What do safer cities have that we don’t? Amherst, New York is one of the safest cities in the US to live in, while Flint is number two most dangerous. Maybe Amherst has more resources, i.e. police. Amherst has 117,000 citizens with 154 sworn officers and supported by thirty-five full and part-time civilian employees. So how does that compare with Flint? This information has been elusive. Calling the Flint police department to inquire, citizens will hear, “It’s classified.” To which the citizen may think the officer is joking, maybe trying to be funny or personable, but as it turns out, no one seems to know exact numbers. The city budget already allows for 263 officers, but obtaining actual numbers may take an act of Congress. The current 2007 budget proposal calls for 259 in 2006 and 267 in 2007. Either way, it doesn’t really make that much of a difference. The point is, Flint has a population of approximately 120,681, and we have a hundred more officers than the safest city in the USA, with about 3,000 less citizens.

Let’s look at Lansing, Michigan. Lansing’s stats are also above the National Average, and the population is just under 119,000, very comparable with Flint. The Mayor’s office points to Lansing as reasons to up the pay of appointees and department heads, so comparing Flint to Lansing should prove legitimate. Lansing’s crime stats are nothing to jump up and down about, nationally speaking. However, Flint isn’t even close to their stats. If Flint were close to theirs, we wouldn’t have the second-highest crime rate or be the fourth most dangerous city in the US to live in. Lansing has 240 sworn officers (less than Flint) with a budget that will probably hit $32 million before the end of 2006.

How does Flint go about fighting crime? Flint has classified crime into two categories, “Higher priority” and “Crime.” Police will only investigate “Higher Priority Crimes.” There are many reasons for this. The main reason always seems to be lack of manpower. Actually, could it be that “Crime Doesn’t Pay?” Criminals are a drain not only on society, but on the budget. So unless we can find a way to make money off the crime, nothing is going to be done. The City of Flint has actually found a way to do this. If a citizen’s car is stolen in Flint, it will cost them a minimum of $150 to get it back from the city impound. Will the police do any investigation into who stole it? Not in Flint. The outlying departments in Genesee County will, but not in Flint. Flint is making money off stolen vehicles. It is not in Flint’s best interest to catch car thieves.

Just look at how Flint handles the graffiti problem. Experts say, “The best strategy is to clean it up fast and as many times as necessary. The faster you get it done—they will eventually move on, or quit.” However, other areas in Genesee County take a different approach; they find and prosecute the offenders.

Look at how Flint handles the siding thefts. “The thefts are brazen, sometimes happening in broad daylight…one thief stole a screen door and hauled it away while riding a bike.” Some citizens have even reported making videos of people stealing the siding and offering the footage to police. One article even mentions that the junkyard “Requires driver’s licenses from sellers, who are recorded on security cameras.” Yet, police cannot find these individuals or arrest them. How hard is it to chase down a criminal on a ten-speed carrying a screen door, or to view a driver’s license? Instead, Flint wants an ordinance to prove citizens have the right to remove the siding from their own house, or make it burdensome on the businesses that deal with scrap, instead of arresting and prosecuting the criminal stealing the siding.

How does Flint fight home invasion or car break-ins? Police do ask for a list of what was stolen, and serial numbers, but they do not consider it a high enough priority to actually do any investigation. They claim they take the information so they can compare it to pawnshop records. In Flint, pawnshops are required to take license information, and turn in lists of pawned items to the police department, but no one seems to actually compare this information to those lists. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to go into a pawnshop and find your property for sale. What is worse, if you inform police that your property is at the pawnshop, they still do nothing.

So what determines the priority of the crime? If a known felon on parole breaks into a house, and this felon steals guns, does that make it a priority? One would think so, but not in Flint. If Police know the felon broke into a house and stole assault rifles, police still won’t do anything about it. But the Mayor will offer a reward if you turn the rifle in after it’s used in a crime. Police wait until after the weapons are used in a crime—that is a higher priority.

The only high enough priority crime in Flint worth investigating is murder. Yet when Flint has too many murders, Flint obtains outside help from the State Police and FBI. Why doesn’t Flint at the very least take fingerprints at crime scenes? Other Police Departments in the area take fingerprints when cars have been broken into. Mundy Township does, and they have far fewer officers and resources than Flint. Why does Flint only have one officer that works one shift to take fingerprints? Crime happens on all shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

A simple review of the sentencing listed in the Flint Journal every Monday is proof enough that crime is caused by the same people over and over. These criminals have been conditioned by the judicial system to believe nothing of consequence is ever going to happen to them. Based on this, how can crime ever do anything but increase? Criminals and young wannabes don’t believe for a minute that there are any consequences for their actions severe enough to warrant changing their behavior. Because of this, Flint does little to actually solve crimes. They do little to investigate lower priority crimes, thereby giving the criminal a sense of security that he can do whatever he wants. Breaking into a car and stealing a stereo later becomes stealing the car. Because no one was concerned with catching him for the first crime, why would they for the next crime? Breaking into a house and stealing a TV, eventually becomes stealing a gun. Eventually this will become armed robbery or murder.

In Flint, we have about fifty-seven percent more officers than cities the same size with much lower crime rates. We spend almost nine percent more on Flint’s Police Department than cities with more officers. Smaller departments with less manpower and resources in the Genesee area put more effort into investigating and capturing criminals than Flint police do. How come everybody with less do so much more?

Flint needs leadership. It’s been lacking since the new Mayor took control. We have yet to hire a police chief. When you go downtown or call the police department, the officers are rude, obnoxious and disinterested in helping the people. Walking the halls of the police department it seems that there are plenty of officers at a desk, but please do not disturb their discussion of last night’s game, or what they are now getting paid, like you just ruined some big investigation they were working on. Citizens should at the very least receive the police’s full attention when they come to the station to make a complaint. You have to wonder, what is really going on?

A lack of leadership causes a lack of discipline, which creates loss of morale. This brings us to Flint’s lack of accountability and the increasing crime wave, which began in 2004. It is not the number of officers in Flint that will curb crime. It’s what these officers are being allowed not to do; it is accountability or a lack thereof. Where does the buck stop? It stops with the man who writes the checks. As Ms. Poplar stated in Council meeting, “Nothing in Flint is going to get better until we solve the crime problem.” Until Flint realizes this fact, Flint will never see good paying jobs return. The time for excuses is over. The smoke screen of low manpower is gone. Until Flint holds elected officials, and the police department’s leadership accountable for what they are actually doing, nothing will change.