Crime down in Camden, comparatively
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
The new police force actually appears to be working, a little.
Blake Bolinger via Flickr Creative Commons
It appears that Camden's new police force is working out the way the state hoped. The Associated Press reports that crime in Camden has dropped "significantly" (as in 46 shootings since January 1, 2014 as opposed to 88 over the same period last year) since the city disbanded its old force and assembled a new one with more officers and different methods:
After years of doing little more than responding to emergency calls, police are on intensive neighborhood patrols, a move that has sent drug dealers scattering. But residents, advocates and officials agree that law enforcement alone can go only so far to heal a city that is also among the nation's most impoverished.
The story of what happens when industry abandons an industrial city, like has happened in Camden, Detroit and so many other cities, is complicated and sad. For a good read on what the situation was like in Camden a year ago, its systemic causes and what the new police force is trying to do to make it less of a disaster, check out Matt Taibbi's "Apocalypse, New Jersey," one of his last big pieces for Rolling Stone before going to work for Glenn Greenwald.
