Posted by Bob on 8/29/2007, 11:54 am ...in part because criminals, finding life difficult in cities that President Bush is visiting New Orleans to mark the second anniversary of The White House will probably release a fact sheet detailing how many The Democrats, no doubt, will call for more money and action. Here's hoping at least Then, according to New Orleans police, It was the neighborhood's second such crime in two weeks. Previously, gunmen had murdered a couple, Anjelique Vu and Luong Nguyen, leaving their "Several crews of gunmen . , . have robbed and shot workers . . . and homeowners Also last week, gunmen lined up six laborers and shot three, killing El Families trying to make a home in this environment live in fear, even while many have Indeed, Mr. Nguyen and his parishioners seemed to treat the After Katrina, neighbors fixed up Mr. Residents of many other neighborhoods--white, black, and Asian--have done Over and over again during my Criminals graduate from The police, and Mayor Ray Nagin doesn't try to fix things, The state of Louisiana, meanwhile, But just as the Residents have no
72.243.26.154
Criminals graduate from
petty crimes to burglary to drug-dealing to carrying illegal weapons to gang
robberies to murder, and face few consequences at any stage....
enforce the law, have returned to the Big Easy in numbers disproportionate to
those of law-abiding citizens.
Hurricane Katrina, as are Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama, John
Edwards and Hillary Clinton, and Republican candidates Mike Huckabee and Duncan
Hunter.
billions of dollars the government has spent on Gulf Coast recovery.
one political visitor will be brave enough to say the truth: that while many New
Orleans residents are courageously taking the initiative to rebuild their homes,
they cannot build an effective police and prosecutorial force on their own.
To understand how New Orleans is doing two years later, consider a few recent
stories. This past weekend, seven family members and friends were enjoying a
quiet evening outside their home in a tranquil neighborhood on the city's east
side, which was badly flooded by Katrina.
gunmen forced them into their house, robbed them, and shot them all, killing
two.
infant and toddler unharmed.
"The slayings . . . were the latest in a series of armed home invasions and
robberies in eastern New Orleans," wrote the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
in the area, where many residents are rebuilding their flood-damaged homes."
Salvadoran Julio Benitez-Cruz. (New Orleans has experienced a post-Katrina
influx of Hispanic laborers, both legal and illegal, who are tempting targets
for criminals because they carry so much cash from contracting jobs.)
~~~~~~~
In fact, since Katrina, New Orleans's murder rate has been higher than that of
any First World city. Depending on fluctuating estimates of the city's returning
population, it's perhaps 40% higher than before Katrina and twice as high as the
rate in other dangerous cities like Detroit, Newark and Washington.
taken to rebuilding their homes with their bare hands.
As the Rev. Nguyen The Vien, pastor of one of eastern New Orleans's churches,
told me earlier this year, "We're here and we're rebuilding"--with or without
federal assistance.
subject of government help almost as an afterthought: it may help pay the bills
if it ever arrives, but it's not expected.
Nguyen's church under his direction so that they would have a "home base" for
eating, sleeping and showering. Then they set to work rebuilding houses, one by
one.
the same. As New Orleanians have found out the hard way, the work is
backbreaking, but not impossible.
What individual New Orleanians can't do by themselves is fix the city's
long-broken attitude toward criminal justice.
February trip to New Orleans, I heard how demoralized residents feel when they
buy and install new appliances, pipes and furniture for their flooded-out
houses, leave for a day or two, often to temporary homes--and return to find
their hard-earned new handiwork ripped out and stolen.
For generations now--and this is the city's deepest problem--New Orleans has
hobbled along without a real law-and-order presence.
petty crimes to burglary to drug-dealing to carrying illegal weapons to gang
robberies to murder, and face few consequences at any stage.
especially the prosecutors, are ineffectual. Since Katrina, things have gotten
much worse, in part because criminals, finding life difficult in cities that
enforce the law, have returned to the Big Easy in numbers disproportionate to
those of law-abiding citizens.
perhaps because, as he often says, he believes crime is a social problem, rooted
in a lack of opportunity for poor youth.
The Bush administration has deployed extra federal law-enforcement agents to try
to get the worst criminals off the street.
has sent the National Guard to patrol half-empty neighborhoods.
U.S. military can only do so much in Iraq when Baghdad's local government is
ineffective, the federal government can't do much in New Orleans until the
city's local government changes its attitude and behavior.
reason to think that criminal behavior has predictable negative consequences,
because Mr. Nagin and District Attorney Eddie Jordan have failed to make clear
that people who commit crimes in New Orleans will be prosecuted.
~~~~~~~
But President Bush can use federal dollars to try to convince them to do it. In
his speech in New Orleans today, Mr. Bush should announce that he's ready to ask
Congress for $500 million over two years to overhaul New Orleans's police and
prosecutorial forces. But he also should say that the money is contingent on a
pledge from Messrs. Nagin and Jordan that their city's No. 1 priority will be
law enforcement. Mr. Bush should also tie the federal money to measurable
results: rational arrests (from quality-of-life crimes all the way up to
homicide), effective prosecutions and, ultimately, fewer crimes.
It's an enduring mystery why Mr. Bush hasn't used the Katrina disaster to show
the world that America can rebuild a major city using a bedrock conservative
principle: law and order first. Democrats are welcome to propose the same idea,
of course. Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton have all mentioned New
Orleans's crime problem in their recent speeches. But they often tie it to a
lack of staff and equipment in the city after Katrina--as if it's a question of
rebuilding something that was lost, instead of building from scratch the most
essential component of any city's success. Until politicians understand that
basic difference, spending more money--or bragging about past billions
spent--while tolerating intolerable conditions in a first-world city is nothing
short of disgraceful.
Ms. Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal.
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