How to Lower Philly’s Murder Rate (Skip This If You’re Joey Vento)
Can’t say I read the Philly-based quarterly The Next American City very much, but I came across a piece in their current issue about why some big cities — including one whose name rhymes with, ahem, Killadelphia — are seeing serious spikes in murder and violent crime.
Well, I didn’t exactly read the entire piece (mostly because it’s way long and talks more than anyone ever should about Phoenix), but here was the part I found fascinating: According to some criminologists, Philadelphians may be whacking each other like it’s going out of style because we don’t have enough immigrants:
Several criminologists are finding that cities with high legal immigration rates — including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami — have stagnant or declining crime rates, whereas crime has increased in cities with a low legal immigration rate, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and
Detroit.
One of those criminologists is Penn crime guy Larry Sherman (star of Philly Mag’s controversial murder piece last fall), who has a theory:
Sherman argues that what drives immigrants to the country is hope for the future and that hope is infectious. The contagion of hope, hard work, and investing in education represents a new generation of people who are starting new enterprises or working for start-up companies … as Sherman suggests, rather than tighten immigration laws making it harder for immigrants to come into the country, high crime cities should provide incentives for immigrants to inject their skills, start-up money and work ethnic into otherwise stagnant low-income communities.
I considered calling Geno’s xenophobe Joey Vento for comment on this, but decided he was too much of a lunkhead to bother with. (Love your steaks, though, Joe.) — Tom McGrath
Photo: AP
November 15th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I think you could also make the case that crime in these other cities is low because they are prosperous, which then makes these cities more attractive to esurient immigrant types, legal or otherwise.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
“…crime has increased in cities with a low legal immigration rate, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Detroit.”
The converse of a low legal immigration rate is a high illegal immigration rate.
Large numbers of illegal immigrants = Large numbers of murders.
Thanks for clearing that up.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Given that three of the cities listed were NYC, LA and Miami have huge spanish speaking populations, I’m going to assume (safely, I think) that not all of them are legal.
Generally, illegal immigrants flock to places where there is a demand for cheap labor. The aforementioned three cities have huge populations and more vibrant economies than Philadelphia and Detroit.
I would think it’s immigration (legal or otherwise) in general. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Inquirer leads me to believe that most of the killings in Philadelphia are happening in North Philly, which tends to be homogeneous trending black, or as Mr. McNabb would say, ‘black on black crime’.
As an aside, it’s terrible that Philly and Detroit are now used in the same sentence.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
How is Joey Vento a “xenophobe”?
You just like calling names. Most likely, the “xenophobe” label is nothing but projection on your part, Tom McGrath.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Vento only believes in organize crime. Is funny how Italian politicians keep blaming and demeaning Hispanics for crimes on the other hand they have being committing crimes and stealing from working people for years. They refer to their crimes as organize crimes, Their cowardly killings and fraudulent deals get glorified by the media and the movies, their crimes create celebrities.
One question for Joe Vento, How come you only take cash? no credit card nothing. Hopefully the IRS will investigate.