Let’s recap crime in the city over the past few weeks:
1. The chief of police gives a long response regarding a stupid Research Bureau report that no one will pay attention to. But he cannot comment on any open investigations.
2. When murders occur in people’s houses at night, the response is foot patrols during the day.
3. We just had a vice squad sweep of Main South that netted four women and two men. Because obviously women are the problem.
4. Since May 15, I count 7 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) stabbings. Which tells me that the knife ordinance has been really effective!
…
I used the UCR tools to create a spreadsheet of Worcester crime statistics from 1997-2010. (Note that 2010 is the last full year reported to UCR.)
According to the Telegram, “the number of uniformed positions in the Worcester Police Department is down 11 percent since the late 1990s, with 64 fewer positions since 1998, a decline of 11 percent.”
When I look at UCR, Worcester also declined in violent crime by 11 percent between 1998 to 2010. Property crime was down nearly 24 percent between 1998 and 2010.
…
Statistics don’t tell the whole story, and they can be unreliable.
And I don’t really have a lot of patience for wholesale police-bashing or “WORCESTER IS A CRIME-RIDDEN HELLHOLE” Telegram.comments.
But our decision-makers would do well to move away from the typical knee-jerk responses when it comes to police staffing levels or responses to multiple homicides in the same vicinity.
Nicole, Worcester 
Did the knife ordnance ever pass?
Yes — see the latest ordinances, and scroll to Possession of Knives and Similar Weapons (Ordained January 6, 2009 – 9221), which is page 143 of the pdf and page 142 in the numbering of the document.
Also — see p. 274 of the pdf to see the revised wording.
I totally missed that passing (was out of town that month). For years now, I have been telling people “At least the City Council was not stupid enough to pass that knife ordinance they were talking about.” I guess I was the stupid one to think that.
They did heavily revise it; it did not, for example, limit knives to two inches.
[…] stART on the Street is Sunday on Green Street.[9:09] WCUW show: Wormtown Ska.[9:50] Nicole runs some local crime stats.[18:32] In Baltimore, trees prevent crime.[21:55] Worcester Film Works will be screening […]
Could you do a spreadsheet on the Chief’s and Deputies” saleries { leadership} on these same years, {1998-2010}