21 ms·

Another problem with Baltimore is that the crime starts to leak out into the surrounding counties, so the effective crime rate is actually higher than what is r

by dx87 8y ago

Another problem with Baltimore is that the crime starts to leak out into the surrounding counties, so the effective crime rate is actually higher than what is reported for the city. Public transit was added that travels between Baltimore and some malls in the surrounding counties, causing areas that previously had little or no crime to experiencing an increase in break-ins and a couple of murders. You end up with counties trying to shut down the bus and train stations because the residents are tired of people from Baltimore riding out of the city, robbing stores and homes, then hopping back on the train to get away. It's obviously not everyone using the public transport, but it's enough that I don't go to the same malls I used to.

gamblor956 8y ago
Baltimore must have wonderful public transportation if criminals are able to use it to make their getaways. In most places you'd need your own car for that sort of escape...
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Classic suburbia perception. When I lived in a place with a similar thought process, they were putting undercover cops on busses to find the (black) high school kids burglarizing homes during the day. It ended up being a methhead painter who grew up in the neighborhood.
- web007 8y ago
  I can't speak to murders or other violent crime, but it was called the Loot Rail because of the prevalence of shoplifting after the line was opened into the suburbs.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    Even without a train line, I know of a dry suburban township that got a Walmart -- and its crime rate got much larger just because of all the people driving from out of town shopping at the Walmart.
    - lenticular 8y ago
      What is the evidence that (1) this rise in crime rate occurred, and (2) was due to people conveniently combining their shopping trips with their crime trips?
      - SamReidHughes 8y ago
        (1) The crime rate increased -- like, Walmart-related crime was a big proportion of the crime rate. This was a community whose raunchiest establishment was an AMC theater. (2) They weren't making "crime trips" -- they just came to shop at Walmart and crime happened. For example, shoplifting, on impulse. Some fights and such. The point is, the crime caused by the train line may also partly be of this sort -- impulsive shoplifting, rather than deliberate shoplifting trips.
        lenticular 8y ago
        So the presence of a store lead to people shoplifting in said store? I suppose if the Wal-Mart were not there, the shoplifting wouldn't have happened. Perhaps we shouldn't have stores then. Do you have any evidence of a crime increase aside from the existence of a store allowing people to shoplift from the store? I'm not asking for your perception here, because it has little to do with what the real crime rate is.
        SamReidHughes 8y ago
        The shoplifting would have happened at other stores, in the townships where those people live -- other ones. What do you mean evidence? I'm stating as an established fact that the township's crime rate increased. With people from out of town that were shopping at Walmart. The police keep track of this information.
        lenticular 8y ago
        You said the crime increased. It has in most places in the last few years, not just where there is Wal-Marts. It also fluctuates everywhere constantly. There was understandably an uptick of shoplifting at the Wal-Mart due to its existence, but how does it follow that that : (1) The Wal-Mart caused an increase in total crime. Any place where people congregate will have more crime. The existence of the Wal-Mart may have displaced crime and shoplifting from elsewhere. The existence of the Wal-Mart means that crimes occur there, but that doesn't tell you anything one way or the other. (2) If the crime was due to the Wal-Mart, it was mostly due to people coming in from out of the area. How many of the people caught were not from the area? How does this proportion differ from when the Wal-Mart wasn't there? The claims you are making would be very hard to show for a hyper-local area from the rates of crime and the demographics of the perpetrators. It requires actual evidence, including a very large effect to offset the noisy small sample.
  - lenticular 8y ago
    Was this documented statistically, or just something people perceived, along with an increased presence of dark-skinned people?
    - web007 8y ago
      It's documented somewhere, but I can't find it with a few minutes of searching. It's wildly racist and classist, but almost certainly true if you ignore "per capita" or other qualifiers. Higher numbers of people in a location lead to more crimes occurring in that location, so "crime went up when the rail arrived" is almost a statistical certainty. It doesn't address the fact that crime may increase by 10% while the transit population goes up by 50%.
bobthepanda 8y ago
The buses and trains leave on a schedule. It's kind of a crap getaway car if the police can identify which bus or train you're trying to take out.
- lenticular 8y ago
  I'm always fascinated by the latently-racist claims that public transit brings crime. There's never been any evidence for it, but that doesn't matter.
  - slowhand09 8y ago
    You call crime racist? I used to work in Owings Mills also. And the mall was the bomb. it was nice, clean, had every store you could want. I'd walk over for lunch regularly. After a few years... nope. Last time I walked thru that mall I was afraid of being mugged in daylight. 1/2 the stores closed. Somebody was killed between the mall and the light rail when it was just a path. While this was going on, the local business base increased. More companies moved in. More housing was built. But the crime overtook that. Everyone I knew that lived there sold and moved out. They kept their jobs there, but they left after work.
jrochkind1 8y ago
I really don't believe this is a thing. I think it's a myth. But here's a case where some people from the COUNTY killed a family member, then came to Baltimore to pin it on a made up homeless person, because they figured everyone would believe it cause of everyone's assumptions about Baltimore. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-jacquelyn-smith-killing-effects-20190303-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-ja...
lohszvu 8y ago
With section8, criminals can get housing outside of the city. Look at Columbia. IRS overrun
pharaohgeek 8y ago
That's one of the things that destroyed Owings Mills. The mall there used to be the more expensive mall in the area. Slowly but surely, the metro station led to an uptick in crime. Stores shut down. Entire wings of the mall were empty. By the end, there were more homeless people sleeping in it than there were actual shoppers. The crime that led to that eventually spilled out into other areas of Owings Mills. And, coupled with a huge number of foreclosures in the area, the entire development has suffered. When I lived there, I was the lowest-class guy in the neighborhood, and I had a well-paying technology job for a defense contractor! It was full of middle class families from all backgrounds and races. By the time I left, though, the neighborhoods were falling apart. Houses deteriorating and empty. Shots being fired at the local community pool. You would have 30-40% of the houses on a given block either in foreclosure or on the brink. It's sad what became of that area.

by dx87 8y ago

gamblor956 8y ago

Baltimore must have wonderful public transportation if criminals are able to use it to make their getaways. In most places you'd need your own car for that sort of escape...

Spooky23 8y ago
Classic suburbia perception. When I lived in a place with a similar thought process, they were putting undercover cops on busses to find the (black) high school kids burglarizing homes during the day. It ended up being a methhead painter who grew up in the neighborhood.
web007 8y ago
I can't speak to murders or other violent crime, but it was called the Loot Rail because of the prevalence of shoplifting after the line was opened into the suburbs.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  Even without a train line, I know of a dry suburban township that got a Walmart -- and its crime rate got much larger just because of all the people driving from out of town shopping at the Walmart.
  - lenticular 8y ago
    What is the evidence that (1) this rise in crime rate occurred, and (2) was due to people conveniently combining their shopping trips with their crime trips?
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      (1) The crime rate increased -- like, Walmart-related crime was a big proportion of the crime rate. This was a community whose raunchiest establishment was an AMC theater. (2) They weren't making "crime trips" -- they just came to shop at Walmart and crime happened. For example, shoplifting, on impulse. Some fights and such. The point is, the crime caused by the train line may also partly be of this sort -- impulsive shoplifting, rather than deliberate shoplifting trips.
      - lenticular 8y ago
        So the presence of a store lead to people shoplifting in said store? I suppose if the Wal-Mart were not there, the shoplifting wouldn't have happened. Perhaps we shouldn't have stores then. Do you have any evidence of a crime increase aside from the existence of a store allowing people to shoplift from the store? I'm not asking for your perception here, because it has little to do with what the real crime rate is.
        SamReidHughes 8y ago
        The shoplifting would have happened at other stores, in the townships where those people live -- other ones. What do you mean evidence? I'm stating as an established fact that the township's crime rate increased. With people from out of town that were shopping at Walmart. The police keep track of this information.
        lenticular 8y ago
        You said the crime increased. It has in most places in the last few years, not just where there is Wal-Marts. It also fluctuates everywhere constantly. There was understandably an uptick of shoplifting at the Wal-Mart due to its existence, but how does it follow that that : (1) The Wal-Mart caused an increase in total crime. Any place where people congregate will have more crime. The existence of the Wal-Mart may have displaced crime and shoplifting from elsewhere. The existence of the Wal-Mart means that crimes occur there, but that doesn't tell you anything one way or the other. (2) If the crime was due to the Wal-Mart, it was mostly due to people coming in from out of the area. How many of the people caught were not from the area? How does this proportion differ from when the Wal-Mart wasn't there? The claims you are making would be very hard to show for a hyper-local area from the rates of crime and the demographics of the perpetrators. It requires actual evidence, including a very large effect to offset the noisy small sample.
- lenticular 8y ago
  Was this documented statistically, or just something people perceived, along with an increased presence of dark-skinned people?
  - web007 8y ago
    It's documented somewhere, but I can't find it with a few minutes of searching. It's wildly racist and classist, but almost certainly true if you ignore "per capita" or other qualifiers. Higher numbers of people in a location lead to more crimes occurring in that location, so "crime went up when the rail arrived" is almost a statistical certainty. It doesn't address the fact that crime may increase by 10% while the transit population goes up by 50%.

bobthepanda 8y ago

The buses and trains leave on a schedule. It's kind of a crap getaway car if the police can identify which bus or train you're trying to take out.

lenticular 8y ago
I'm always fascinated by the latently-racist claims that public transit brings crime. There's never been any evidence for it, but that doesn't matter.
- slowhand09 8y ago
  You call crime racist? I used to work in Owings Mills also. And the mall was the bomb. it was nice, clean, had every store you could want. I'd walk over for lunch regularly. After a few years... nope. Last time I walked thru that mall I was afraid of being mugged in daylight. 1/2 the stores closed. Somebody was killed between the mall and the light rail when it was just a path. While this was going on, the local business base increased. More companies moved in. More housing was built. But the crime overtook that. Everyone I knew that lived there sold and moved out. They kept their jobs there, but they left after work.

jrochkind1 8y ago

I really don't believe this is a thing. I think it's a myth. But here's a case where some people from the COUNTY killed a family member, then came to Baltimore to pin it on a made up homeless person, because they figured everyone would believe it cause of everyone's assumptions about Baltimore. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-jacquelyn-smith-killing-effects-20190303-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-ja...

lohszvu 8y ago

With section8, criminals can get housing outside of the city. Look at Columbia. IRS overrun

pharaohgeek 8y ago

That's one of the things that destroyed Owings Mills. The mall there used to be the more expensive mall in the area. Slowly but surely, the metro station led to an uptick in crime. Stores shut down. Entire wings of the mall were empty. By the end, there were more homeless people sleeping in it than there were actual shoppers. The crime that led to that eventually spilled out into other areas of Owings Mills. And, coupled with a huge number of foreclosures in the area, the entire development has suffered. When I lived there, I was the lowest-class guy in the neighborhood, and I had a well-paying technology job for a defense contractor! It was full of middle class families from all backgrounds and races. By the time I left, though, the neighborhoods were falling apart. Houses deteriorating and empty. Shots being fired at the local community pool. You would have 30-40% of the houses on a given block either in foreclosure or on the brink. It's sad what became of that area.