| Final Report Prepared for:
The Honorable Kansas City, Missouri City Council
Submitted by:
Stacey Daniels-Young, Ph.D., Chairperson
Compiled by:
Tracie L. McClendon, M.P.A., J.D.
Commission on Violent Crime
June 19, 2006
Dear Mayor Barnes, Mayor Pro Tempore Alvin Brooks, and City Council
Members:
This report has fortuitous timing. First, the document is extremely
timely, in that a national report has
just cited that across the United States violent crime rose to its
highest rate in 15 years in 2005,
principally spurred by the surge of killings and other violent attacks
in several Midwestern cities,
(e.g. Milwaukee (up 40%), Cleveland (38%), Houston (23%), Phoenix (9%),
and Kansas City (41%).
It is important to note that this Commission was well underway, long
before the release of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for
2005.
Moreover, Kansas City is remarkably "cutting edge", simply because no
other Midwestern city
reacted to the nationwide homicide escalation trend, as we did. Thus,
this preparatory undertaking
should vault Kansas City into an envied leadership and collaborative
role in addressing the pervasive
and elusive issue of violent crime. For this, we can definitely be proud
of our continued "frontrunner"
status.
Secondly, since the Commission began it works last October, there has
been a remarkable 30%
reduction in the homicide rate over the last twelve month period. While
we should be guarded in our
understandable optimism, we should nonetheless celebrate the
collaborative anti-violence activities,
which have been instituted solely as a result of the formation of the
Commission, itself. Week after
week, law enforcement, citizens, and agencies worked together, and
actually implemented some of
the recommended actions, well in advance of the release date. This is
significant of the trust,
knowledge, and commitment of those on the Commission.
In 2005, violent crime reached epidemic proportions in Kansas City. When
Mayor Pro Tempore /
Councilman Alvin Brooks visited the site of Sajid Mirza’s murder, at the
gas station near the
intersection of Independence Avenue and Olive Street in October, he was
bombarded by citizens
demanding, “What are you [the city] going to do to stop this violence in
our community?” The
murder of Mr. Mirza was the city’s 96th homicide, and the catalyst
prompting Mayor Pro Tempore /
Councilman Brooks to introduce the resolution which passed unanimously,
convening the
Commission.
The Commission provided an opportunity for residents of Kansas City who
were affected by crime
and experts interested in crime and its solutions to give concentrated
attention to the topic. The
amount of information and opinions digested by this group was nearly
overwhelming; it is laudable
that over 1,100 person hours were devoted to the Commission’s work.
The Commission’s analysis reveals how waning assets created the
pathology of homicide seen so
often in the city. The Commission concluded that long-lasting solutions
to violent crime in Kansas
City are found in a combination of the City Council approving and
adopting:
1. New, Cutting Edge Approaches
Providing more resources for Critical Incident Reviews by the police
department;
Developing policies to affect neighborhood apathy, such as landlord
and pawn shop
legislation;
Establishing a workforce revitalization demonstration project; and
Creating a regional detention and treatment system.
2. Resurrecting Formerly Effective Approaches
Constructing truancy and out-of-school suspension alternatives;
Crafting quality afterschool programs such as intramurals; and
Consolidating comprehensive youth and family development planning.
3. Extensions of Some Existing Approaches
Targeting efforts of the Neighborhood Improvement Program in “hot
spot” locations;
Supporting and evaluating promising activities such as P.O.S.S.E.;
Expanding the delivery of mediation/conflict resolution services; and
Addressing predatory lending practices.
The convening of the Commission is only an initial step toward
interdicting violence in our city. It
would be remiss for any decision making body to rely solely on the
efforts of law enforcement or
educational systems to resolve violent crime.
The unabated advancement of violent crime in the form of homicide
captured the attention of much
of Kansas City in 2005, but did not result in a unified sense of urgency
for the metropolitan area.
This is apparent by resources committed to ameliorate the problem and by
attention given to
homicide in ways other than the sensational. For some the tally of
homicide actually led to wagers on
its final year-end number. For others, the incidence of homicide in
Kansas City was ignored as
something to which those outside the affected area simply could not
relate. For those who lived in
affected areas, homicide commanded a unique attention as it touched
families repeatedly or
unexpectedly, but always with tragic pain.
Thus, it raises an essential unanswered question: How important an issue
is homicide in Kansas City,
Missouri? Amazingly, to many outside the urban core the answer is “not
very.” This is inexcusable.
Violence is a regional public health and safety issue demanding economic
collaboration and human
capital investment from not only government but also the philanthropic,
educational and business
communities.
This region should no longer tolerate systemic poverty, poor education,
apathy and violence. If this
community continues forward with relatively no change, blindly refusing
to address the systemic
troubles festering in our hot spot neighborhoods, then, we will suffer
the harm reverberated in 2005,
again. It may not occur in 2006, but assuredly, in another five to ten
years, it will.
As the City Council is closest to the people, your acceptance of this
report in its entirety is crucial.
After careful review and discussion, the Commission urges the City
Council to accept, adopt and
implement the Commission’s Final Report.
You, the City Council, are poised to aggressively spearhead the
necessary regional interventions to
interdict the cyclical ills of violence from destroying the destiny of
our future generations to live,
work, and prosper in the area.
In short, Kansas City will benefit from its ambitious, and yet
practical, far-sightedness in forging
ahead, despite those who cannot not see the vision. We trust that our
City will embrace and endorse
the vital "next steps" in our essential work.
Respectfully submitted,
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Commission on Violent Crime
Stacey Daniels-Young, Ph.D.
Chairperson |