The Justice Department released 2005 crime figures yesterday. The numbers indicate that violent crime in medium-sized cities, especially, is rising. Among some smaller cities, it's the murder rate that's risen fast. It was the
first big rise in crime in three years.
You will see that towns like Allentown, Pa.; Aurora, Colo.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Greensboro, N.C.; all had roughly twice the number of murders in 2005 as they did in 2004. I
was interested that, despite the huge influx of Hurricane Katrina
evacuees, Baton Rouge's and Houston's violent crimes stayed fairly flat. In fact, I suspect if you factored in crimes according to population density, they would have declined.
In Hartford, murders jumped a little more than 50 percent. Murders soared from 59 to 104 in Birmingham, Ala., a 76 percent increase. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., recorded a 44 percent increase; Kansas City, Mo., noted a 42 percent rise; Milwaukee reports a 40 percent jump; Cleveland had a 38 percent increase in murders last year.
Be careful with these
figures because sometimes reporting methods and city
boundaries/annexations make year-to-year comparisons suspect.
The study found:
- Increases in three of the four violent crimes from the previous year's data.
- Murders and non-negligent manslaughters rose 4.8 percent.
- Robbery offenses increased 4.5 percent.
- Aggravated assaults were up 1.9 percent.
- Forcible rape was the only offense among the violent crimes that decreased in volume in 2005, down 1.9 percent from the 2004 figure.
- The exception to the trend is in the largest cities (more than a million people) where violent crimes dropped 0.4 percent.
- Cities with 500,000 to 999,999 populations saw the greatest increase in violent crimes, 8.3 percent, and cities with populations of 10,000 to 24,999 saw the smallest increase, 0.5 percent.
- Cities with populations ranging from 100,000 to 249,999 had the greatest increase in the number of murders, up 12.5 percent.
Resources:
Ring Tones that Adults Can't Hear
Not long ago, I told you about a British security company
that was using high-frequency tones to annoy young people who hang
around businesses. The young people can hear the tones, but older folks
cannot. NPR reported
that the young folks are using the same technology to strike back, by turning the noise into ring tones for their cell phones, so they won't get caught checking their phones in class. (I
suppose they could just switch their phones to "vibrate" and get the same
result, couldn't they?)
The young people call the ring tone the "Teen Buzz" and British kids, who were the original target of the high-pitched buzz, are passing the tone from phone to phone.
The New York Times reported:
In settings where
cell phone use is forbidden -- in class, for example -- it is perfect for
signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an
elder of the species.
"When I heard about it I didn't believe it at first," said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan.
"But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could."
The technology, which
relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear
high-pitched sounds, was developed in Britain but has only recently spread to America -- by Internet, of course.
Listen to the tone.
I cannot hear much, but my youthful editor, Meg Martin, can. She says it sounds like the high-pitched buzz that she hears when she plugs her phone in for recharging.
The Times used a great graphic to explain why adults cannot hear the tone. Be sure to check it out.
Death on the Tracks
The Chicago Sun-Times
ran a great piece on deaths at railroad crossings. The story's main
character is a train engineer who has endured three fatal crashes with vehicles. Daily, he said, he sees drivers trying to beat the train. Five hundred
people die at railroad crossings every year in this country. About every 90 minutes, a train and car collide in the U.S.
Illinois, California and Texas lead the country in railroad-crossing fatalities. Click here for the name and contact information of the Operation Lifesaver coordinator in your state. This program's goal is to improve railroad-crossing safety nationwide.
What Lunch Hour?
Ask
any television news producer about his or her "lunch hour," and you'll get laughed at. When we teach the Poynter "Producing Newscasts" seminars, we
almost have to force the participants to go to lunch. They are
apparently like the majority of Americans, who do not know a lunch hour.
KFC (the chicken people) surveyed more than a thousand adults and found:
When it comes to eating lunch, workers concentrate on other things:
- 62.7 percent of workers consider the 60-minute lunch hour the biggest myth in office life.
- 57.9 percent eat lunch at their desk while continuing to work.
- 55.6 percent multitask during lunch (28.9 percent eat and run errands, 26.7 percent eat and e-mail or shop online).http://us.mentos.com/
- 51.8 percent take 30 minutes or less for lunch.
- 21.9 percent eat at a restaurant or other eatery.
- 20.2 percent eat in the company cafeteria.
By the way, the results are not much different than what the company's lunch survey found in 2000.
What Happens When You Combine Mentos and Diet Coke?
Better yet, how about 200 liters and 500 Mentos mints? Now this is some high-quality online storytelling/science.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas,
edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites,
as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes
directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be
provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends
upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors
and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
Al, Might want to warn folks not to listen to...
