<p>In 2002, speaking at an NAACP convention, Mayor Street said:</p>
<p>“The brothers and sisters are running the city. Oh yes, the brothers and sisters are running this city. Running it! Don’t let anybody fool you, we are in charge of the City of Brotherly Love. We are in charge! We are in charge!”</p>
<p>A disproportionate number of the victims of murder in the City of Brotherly Love have been African-American.</p>
<p>Sueinphilly,
I certainly here what you are saying about nyc being safer that philly, and congratulate your S on his acceptance and future matriculation at nyu! The only part of downtown philly that is relatively “safe” to visit at night is olde city, and that’s because it’s a hot spot with lots of trendy restaurants, shops,lots of people, etc. - and First Friday is fairly popular, from what I understand. Other than that, philly just doesn’t appeal to me.</p>
<p>My son is a Penn student. While he was on a school sponsored trip to another university several states away he witnessed a murder. Not in Philadelphia. While he and I were driving recently through Baltimore we listened to the NPR station where they have a daily recount of the murders the night before. Not in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>This is an old story…I lived 1 block from my son’s current apartment 25-28 years ago. I was wise to be safe then, he is wise to be safe now. If you don’t want urban, don’t do urban-but don’t fool yourself that NYU or any other urban campus is in essence different than Penn. There is an inherent degree of risk, either it is doable for you or it isn’t.</p>
<p>Philly is a smaller city than NYC, and the murder rate is higher. I like urban. I’ve lived in many cities. I simply find it distasteful that Mayor Street can’t seem to get control of a city this size. I’d probably feel the same way about Baltimore, but I don’t live near Baltimore.</p>
<p>There is a huge difference between the homicide rate in NYC and Philly, relative to their populations, apparently:</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate</a></p>
<p>The first 10 minutes of local Phila news is depressing, especially on the weekends when a lot of these murders take place. What gets me is so many innocent bystanders gunned down simply for being in the way, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 10 year old kid or a grandmother raising her grandchildren. They need Mayor Street out of there (won’t be long). For the news stations (at least Action News which I watch out of habit), it’s oddly almost like a contest, keeping track of the murder total, staying ahead of one per day average. Can we beat last year’s 400+? </p>
<p>Penn area is safer than others and I wouldn’t hesitate sending one of my kids there. Still, although it’s been a while, I had my experiences (plural) with crime as a Penn grad student, and I know current and recent students who have also had encounters. Still nowhere near as bad as a Kensington or North Philly. </p>
<p>I feel FAR safer visiting my S in Manhattan than I do in Phila. Maybe it’s the narrow streets in Philly; I feel closed in in center city although I like it. Agree the sheer # of people on the NYC streets may be a deterrent.</p>
<p>For a decade (and a decade of worse crime rates than now), I lived a lot more than three blocks west of Penn, and the worst thing that happened to me was that two kids tried to steal my car one night and were immediately arrested by the undercover cops who had been tailing them for several blocks. Lots of Penn undergraduates – then and now – falsely believe that the neighborhood gets terrible if they venture west of 40th street, but in reality there is a relatively affluent, racially mixed neighborhood extending to 49th Street and beyond (although in the northern quadrant, west of Drexel, the neighborhood gets poorer a bit closer in).</p>
<p>Of course, it’s possible to get mugged on the Penn campus. It’s very integrated with the city and open to it (more like NYU or Harvard, say, than Columbia or Yale). But it just doesn’t happen that often.</p>
<p>As for “doing something about it” – of course people are trying to do something about the horrible murder rate. That’s why the Inquirer makes such a big deal about it. The presumptive future mayor (whom everybody loves: an African-American Wharton graduate with a background both as a municipal finance wonk and as a popular club DJ in the 80s) is talking about major curbs to civil liberties. (And, by the way, the smoking ban was his initiative, not the current mayor’s.) There is a massive push to install closed circuit TV cameras in high-crime areas, both because they’re the only thing that helps catch killers and because they deter crime.</p>
<p>Most of the murders, as with murders elsewhere, seem to involve (a) dispute resolution in the drug business, (b) dispute resolution among teenage boys (who may be in small ganglets, but there haven’t been a lot of Crips/Bloods-type megagang wars here since the 80s), and (c) disputes between couples about whom they should be having sex with. Sometimes, tragically, any of the three can produce innocent third-party victims.</p>
<p>The big challenge in Philadelphia (as elsewhere, but it seems to be especially bad here) is getting people to tell the police who committed the crimes. Usually dozens of people know, but the “stop snitching” culture remains strong despite constant efforts by politicians, community leaders, teachers, and the (African-American led) police to encourage cooperation. It doesn’t help that there have been a few highly publicized cases where witnesses who came forward have been murdered.</p>
<p>Philadelphia has the worst murder rate by far among “major” cities, but Washington D.C. and Baltimore (both of which are a lot smaller) have similar rates. And London, which has many fewer murders thanks to Britain’s tough gun control laws, has a significantly higher violent crime rate.</p>
<p>My S graduated from Penn in 2004. Almost every night before I went to sleep (around midnight Pacific time) I would check whether he had turned off his computer by looking for his username on my IM buddy list. If he had signed off, then I knew he was at least alive. I did the same by checking on his cell phone usage online.</p>
<p>I constantly reminded him to exercise caution when walking back to his apt (around 42nd St.) from the library in Huntsman past midnight. I doubt that he listened.</p>
<p>I am so glad he’s out of Philly.</p>
<p>NYU’s campus is the city, because the classroom buildings, dorms, etc. are all over, and not just in one specific area, so it’s different from Penn, because Penn has a more concentrated campus. Having grown up in Philly, we’re well aware of what’s going on here in terms of crime. My elderly mother actually had to move out of her own home (and the home that I was raised in) in which she lived for 45 years, because the neighborhood got so bad. Our kids have friends who go/went to Penn, and we know people who live in the area, and they’re watching their backs all the time - but you would want to do that anywhere, not just in Philly. You just have to be street-wise and savvy at all times just like in any big city. In nyc, however, there is safety in numbers, so it doesn’t feel as ominous.</p>
<p>I went to visit Penn and specifically Wharton a few years ago during the day. At lunchtime, the nicest areas were crowded with homeless crackheads screaming obscenities out loud. I don’t want to attend a school where I’m surrounded by people who should be institutionalized, but because the health care system has failed my life is at risk. No matter how much they money they pour into the school until the city takes care of the homeless and the crackheads I have no interest in going near the place!</p>
<p>I’m surprised nobody mentioned a Penn student was shot on campus last year.</p>
<p>cry me a river coffeenchicory1.</p>
<p>and that shooting took place very far away from penn campus.</p>
<p>I am repulsed by that nihlist “don’t snitch” nonsense. However, the recent (last 10 years or so) felonious behavior of the Philadelphia Police Department dosen’t help matters. Framing innocent citizens and lying in court, for example.</p>
<p>Yes Coffee, the crackheads who swarm over the Penn campus are an unfortunate situation. Not treating them is probably a conspiracy on the part of the government, who want people to continue to buy properties 3 hours from where they work in the exurbs (as opposed to the city) so that they can continue to send profits to car, oil, and homebuilding companies.</p>
<p>In other news, the homicide tally has now surpassed 200 - and that’s just so far this year. <a href=“http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20070629_Grievous_milestone__Citys_200th_slaying.html[/url]”>http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20070629_Grievous_milestone__Citys_200th_slaying.html</a></p>
<p>I guess even Yale is not immune from crime…</p>
<p>Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
(More News articles)
Spike in crime hits campus
Yale Summer Students worried by five recent robberies</p>
<p>Charlotte Martin and Lea Yu
Staff Reporter, Staff Reporter</p>
<p>A recent spate of crimes targeting Yale students has prompted YPD officials to release e-mails warning students of what they said is an “ongoing threat.”</p>
<p>The same day that undergraduate dorms closed, a graduate student was the victim of an attempted armed robbery near the intersection of Mansfield and Sachem Streets. Four other robberies were committed recently - one on Cedar Street and two in the Dwight-Kensington neighborhood on May 31, as well as one on the walkway between Morse and Stiles Colleges on June 3. At least three of those incidents were armed robberies.</p>
<p>While the YPD generally does not inform students of every incident that occurs around campus through e-mail, YPD Sergeant Steven Woznyk said in this case students should be informed of the incidents as the latest rash of crime seems to indicate the possibility of a continued threat.</p>
<p>Woznyk said the rise in crimes affecting Yale students has kept pace with a general increase in violent crime across New Haven. During the weekend of June 2-3, six shootings and one homicide occurred in the city, he said, suggesting that Yale students are not being singled out for robberies.</p>
<p>Most crime in summer of 2006 was perpetrated by youths on bikes armed with pellet guns and knives, but Woznyk said “boys on bikes” have had nothing to do with the recent Yale robberies. One graduate student was mugged in late June of last year and two more students were targeted in late August.</p>
<p>And while YPD Chief James Perrotti’s e-mails attributed increased student vulnerability to warmer weather and longer periods of daylight, Woznyk said he could not offer an explanation as to why crimes rates have increased this summer.</p>
<p>“I’d almost venture to say we didn’t see [a significant rise in crime] last year we can’t even say why it happens,” he said.</p>
<p>Yale Summer Session counselor Esteban Tapetillo '09 said non-Yale students enrolled in Yale Summer Session have not been properly informed of necessary safety precautions in New Haven and facilities like 2Walk and blue phones, making them more susceptible to crimes. The college student attacked between Stiles and Morse was not a Yale student, another YSS counselor said, and the robber may have detected an easy target and seized the opportunity.</p>
<p>While many students said they responded to the e-mails with shock and fear, they also said the e-mails were necessary for informing students about crimes and for crime prevention. The e-mails can also dispel stereotypes about New Haven crime, YSS student Robert Kruse '09 said, and allow students to realistically understand crime at Yale.</p>
<p>He noted, however, that the e-mails could be more informative. While Perrotti’s emails usually report whether or not a crime involved weapons, his June 4 e-mail failed to mention that the Jock Walk robbery occurred at gunpoint, a fact that Kruse only heard through his summer counselors.</p>
<p>“[The point] was not mentioned in Chief Perrotti’s email, but may have well been implied,” Kruse said. “Still, I feel clarity in discussing important topics such as student safety is necessary, and that Perrotti should have mentioned it.”</p>
<p>Perrotti’s e-mails also mentioned crimes occurring in the East Rock area. East Rock resident Stephen Silva '09 said that in spite of the recent upsurge in crime, he is not concerned for his safety because the YPD does its job to protect students.</p>
<p>“I only skim [Perrotti’s] emails. I am not too concerned because I know that street crime is a reality in a city,” he said. “Crimes happen most in places where there’s mal distribution of wealth.”</p>
<p>Woznyk said the robberies have spurred closer collaboration between the YPD and NHPD in terms of both patrol and investigations. In the areas where the robberies took place the YPD has dispatched its “community impact divisions” of one sergeant and two officer, he said, and NHPD plain-clothes officers are also supplementing uniformed officers in the affected areas.</p>
<p>“[The community impact division] is out there anyway and they’ve been very effective over the last few days,” Woznyk said.</p>
<p>Perrotti’s e-mails comply with the 1990 federal “Jeanne Clery Act,” which requires all United States colleges and their security departments to inform students about crime on and around campuses. According to the act, schools must warn the campus community of crimes representing an “ongoing threat,” as well as publish annual reports disclosing campus security policies and crime statistics.</p>
<p>Or Harvard, for that matter, where someone was shot in the middle of Harvard Square recently (right where a student was run over and killed a few years ago) and <a href=“http://www.stalcommpol.org/data.html[/url]”>http://www.stalcommpol.org/data.html</a> shows a continuing problem. Even Cornell had a spate of muggings and assaults last year. All schools, whether urban or rural, have occasional crime incidents. Luckily, though, most of the top schools are not located in cities that have had 200 murders just so far this year.</p>