Crime & Punishment
Believe it or not, I actually do enjoy news conferences. I was at Alberto Gonzales’ on the west side of Indianapolis Tuesday afternoon. As you know he announced $2.5 million in crime fighting grants for Indianapolis. During the event, Gonzales said the city’s rising crime rate last year was one of the reasons it got the grant. It’s funny. I talked about this last year and was accused of being a rabble rouser and trying to scare the public because the crime wasn’t that bad. It looks like I was right, again. Imagine that.
We are good on jail beds. Kevin Murray, counsel for Sheriff Frank Anderson says there is enough space in both the public and private jails. Last time this year we were laying the ground work for disaster. Murray says the Criminal Justice Planning Council is working diligently to make sure there no repeat of last year.
The Mayor’s Office is pointing its finger at Republican State Senator Jim Merritt as the cause of no fire consolidation and costing the city $15 million. They say Merritt could have signed a conference committee report that would have consolidated the city and township fire departments and saved the issue of trustees and assessors for a later date. I think they should have spent more time at the General Assembly, because I don’t remember it happening exactly that way during the 12-15 hour days I spent there at the end of session.
Speaking of Mayor, Bart Peterson admitted Tuesday that this current violent crime spree is more worrisome than last year, particularly of the randomness of several of the more notorious public crimes. I completely agree with the Mayor on this point.
Also Public Safety Director Earl Morgan says the city will look if an ordinance to give ex-offenders a second chance by tying some city contracts to the hiring of ex-offenders fits the requirements of one of the grants given to the city by the U.S. Attorney General. The proposal has been sitting on the shelf since last year. If anyone in this town was serious about hiring ex-offenders, someone would have done something by now. But now that there is free money involved, something might actually happen.
Oh, this isn’t a crime but one African-American elected official recently got some racially inflamatory material sent to them at their home and office. Nice to know in 2007 some things never change.
