I plan on moving into the city of Baltimore and Running for City President (head of the city council) to fix what is currently the 2nd deadliest city in the United States with a homicide rate of 50 per 100K. Saint-Louis Missouri is number 1 for those wondering. 1. Police Sweep of the city- Go section by section and have the police go house to house finding the illegal guns. If the homeowner/renter has a legal gun license, their house/apartment's will not be searched, if they don't they will be searched. No one will be arrested unless they have a pending warrant. This is simply to get rid of the illegal firearms from the city. After which punishments will come down hard. 2. Create 10s of thousands of Jobs- Through infrastructure, house/apartment's renovation, and general updating (from Gas to electric and renewable energy and other stuff) allowing for good government paying jobs that will put money into residents pockets in a non inflationary way while forcing private businesses to increase pay and benefits so that they don't run to the new government jobs. 3. Buy up all the worn-down/cheap properties- Have the city government buy up all the houses that are unlivable, and all the cheap land on residential areas and use that to buying affordable housing then rent it out to at $600 per month insuring any person facing homelessness or doing crime to get by can afford a house/apartment's at 1/4 the minimum wage ($15/h) and give a constant revenue source to the city government. 4. Fix the schools- Spend a year renovating the schools, so that children can actually learn. They can go back to online learning while the schools are improved, and considering the functional literacy rate in some schools is 7% its not like they'll be any worse off. 5. Increase the number of police- With all the socioeconomic solutions those who wish to continue to commit crimes will be hunted down and arrested by the larger police force aided by a surveillance system of putting cameras on every street corner to use as evidence to get quick convictions. Once they know they won't get away with their crimes they will stop. 6. Decriminalize Drugs- Institute city mandated rehab, safe centers to get drugs so they don't overdose, and expungement of all stand alone possession charges in the city. 7. Give special police powers to supermarket security guards- Allow for them to detain, peruse and if need be use firearms to gain compliance of shoplifters since they create food deserts.
I marked “some of them,” but I don’t support most of them. It seems like you think that throwing money at problems will fix them. Increasing the number police and supporting them is about the only thing that works for me. It’s a shame that great ideas, like the Baltimore Convention Center and the Inner Harbor areas, are going down the tubes because of violent criminals. My wife and I went to a number of conventions there and enjoyed meals in the Italian section. We won’t be back because of crime.
Looks like you put in a good bit of thought in your post. Good for you. Here's my reply . . . Number one -- How would you define an illegal gun? You do know the Constitution protects the people from illegal search and seizure. You take away my "illegal" gun and next week I'll have another "illegal" gun. Same way I got the first one. Number two -- You're going to "force" private companies to increase employee pay and benefits? No comment. Number three -- You want the government to become a slum lord? Number four -- A renovated school will make kids learn??? The problem is not the buildings. Kids will learn with good teachers, comprehensive curriculum, and strict discipline. Number five -- I support this suggestion. But the judges need to get tough also. Number six -- Only a drug addict can help themselves. I would support early education on the horrors of drugs. Get to the kids early and scare the jeepers out of them. Take 'em on field trips to show the results of drug addiction. Number seven -- That's fine with me. Bottom line -- go after all criminals.
Most of the problems can only be effectively addressed in one day---chase away the poor people. Enabling them just brings in more. I know that is all politically incorrect, but it is the harsh reality.
simple ideas like that one could get you elected president. then your remaining citizens would complain that there was no one to clean up or take care of their children.
Illegal gun is any gun that is either outright illegal under Maryland law or any firearm owned by someone who does not have the proper licenses/registrations to own said gun. Most of the guns come from outside of Maryland it wont be as easy as walking to the store and buying another one. No they won't be "forced" to do anything, what will happen is the city government will create 10s of thousands of new jobs for the population of 600K people that will have good pay and good benefits. If the private employers refuse to adjust pay and benefits they will lose their lower paid workers when they quit to take the government jobs. No they aren't a slum lord? The houses will be updated and renovated and then rented for a cheep price, the literal opposite of a slumlord. The revinue will go towards helping the city, not into the city councils pockets. The Schools have good teachers, the issue is that the schools are worn down, have lead water, are cold and lack basic heating and AC. Students need to feel not only safe but like they aren't in a jail. A new school that looks like it belongs in the 21st century would likely make kids want to learn more than an old brick school. Addicts often use drugs to mask the pain or despair in their real life. If you give an addict help, and a change at a better future they will be less likely to relaps. If they can not afford to feed their family, live in a nice house, see their community improving, having spending money left over, just general life improvement they will not go back to drugs. Very few people want to be addicted to drugs.
The better solution on a state level, is to ban all felons from becoming state residents. If you were a state citizen/resident when you committed the crime this doesn't apply to you. If you were not a state citizen/resident when you committed your crime, its now a crime to even enter the state and you will be arrested on your next in counter with law enforcement. You're not becoming our problem.
The geek rose up in me just off of reading the title and before I even looked at the thread into my head came, "I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I forgot that there are still people who are not communist, capitalist or other major ideologies but are Utopians. They ride in on their Unicorns, and wave their wands of goodness over the land, and all is well. I don't have time now but I will tell you one quick story I know about Baltimore. Back in the 60's the city took control of a large portion of Baltimore's run down subsidized housing and closed it down They had built new housing and moved the tenant's into it. 5 years later the new section wasn't much better than the old section.
That still happens in varying degrees. My city's war on blight pushed a lot of bad area residents into the working class neighborhood beside mine and all the bad stuff that came with them. One of the most obvious signs of that is litter. Before they came, it wasn't something you saw a lot of, now it is trash everywhere on the streets. You also see the police going in and out of there more regular than they used to. Probably the only thing that is going to save that neighborhood and eventually mine from the same fate is the housing boom is going to price the rents in that area out of reach of those type people. Those houses are now selling three to four times assessed value but a lot of that has to do with our proximity to a new resort/conference center/entertainment venue under construction. I am a mile or so away. That hood is a half mile away and probably will be where a lot of its workers land, fueling crazy speculation purchasing. My neighborhood is a ring around the white collar neighborhood (lot of small business owners and supervisor level government employee types) so hopefully we don't get priced (and taxed) out of reach in the process.
Unconstitutional. You would have to get a judge to issue a search warrant for each and every household you want to search. You could always start by having police go door to door to ask for a voluntary search, but anyone would be legally able to refuse it. But then you would be able to not have to submit for a warrant for those that comply. Problem is that you need a valid reason based upon evidence to get a search warrant. As Mayor or Council President or whatever, you cannot just issue warrants yourself, nor order a judge to issue them. First question: Where are you getting the money to pay for all these new jobs? Think about this. For every one government person, at a 10% tax rate, you would need on average 10 already working people to make their wage alone. And that is rough math. The actual number would have to be higher most likely. And that is before looking at the fact that they are already paying federal and state income taxes. Increase the taxes too much and you will drive working people AND businesses out of the city, when you are trying to bring them in. This is a reasonable premise, but I'm not so sure about your methods. First, you have to have the land owners willing to sell. You might be able to invoke eminent domain, like was done in CT, but there will be a big fight on that which will cost the city even more money. Then you need the money to buy the properties in the first place. You might be able to pass abandonment fines and as such places liens and eventually seize the property that way. Still costs, but not as much. Then there is the cost of building the housing. And then there is the maintenance costs, which will probably exceed the $600 a month. Since you are renting it the city is responsible for repairs even while occupied, which means a maintenance crew dedicated to the housing, which will have to be quite large. Of course that does go towards your job creation goal. That's only a partial solution, and again, where do you get the money? Especially with all the other money eating projects you are planning? I won't deny that poor buildings are not a factor in the education problem, but it won't be a solution. For the school issue, I would suggest that you restructure the education process to be more like that of Norway, where they work towards the children's learning styles and testing styles. IOW, if the child shows he can better display his or her knowledge verbally, but has issues with written test, they are tested verbally. They are also shuffled around until they find a teacher whose teaching style is one that the child learns best under. Cameras = more expenses. More police = more expenses. You will probably need to take some duties away from the police to begin with. Part of the problem is where they are overworked doing more than law enforcement duties. But with this you need to better your training as well. We already have too many issues with police exceeding their authority and assaulting citizens. There needs to be more accountability in place before you can raise the numbers. Otherwise, you will continue to lose tax paying citizens from the city. It has been shown that treating drug addiction as a medical problem rather than a criminal problem cost less overall. Just make sure you are following those guidelines. Emptying the prisons of non-violent offenders is also a good move. That's added expense. But make sure that you are not using private run prisons, especially ones that have inmate minimums in their contracts. ONLY if they have the full out police training. Giving police authority to non trained personal is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention that there are many rights that would be violated simply by allowing a person to be detained without evidence or probable cause.
Also unconstitutional. Especially since the concept is that they already paid the price of their crimes. Further, often times if they are going to make a fresh start, moving to a new state is what will enable it.
How about allowing lethal force in defense of property. That put a quick end to the theiving and as most of the murders are drug dealers stiffing drug dealers we just make it legal, sort of. Let the fire burn and eventually it will go out by itself.
This would require a search warrant for each house. Search warrants are issued upon probable cause that a crime has been committed. So if there is an illegal gun in a house, but the police have no specific knowledge that there is, there is no probable cause upon which to base the search warrant. The Bill of Rights protects all citizens against "unreasonable searches" and permits searches with a warrant based upon probable cause. Probable cause is a set of facts, not mere suspicion, not speculation. A city government cannot overrule the Constitution. Where is the government in Baltimore going to get the money for that? You are talking about spending hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. And, all of that infrastructure and renovation requires engineering and skilled labor. People with these skills already make far more than the minimum wage. The unemployed and underemployed in Baltimore are not people that possess these skills. Again, you're talking about spending tens of millions of tax dollars. Where is that going to come from? A huge percentage of homeless people are drug addicted, and drug addicted people are unemployable until they get off the street drugs. How are they going to pay rent? But another thing we've learned about the chronically homeless is that most do not want to get off the drugs. Also, they tend to trash the places they live in. A better idea might be for the City to buy a cheap property, rehab it and put a small home on it, and then sell it to an investor for its market value. Then use that money to do it again, and again, and again. At least that way, the investor would be supporting the City with property taxes, and he would be renting to people who could actually work and pay rent. Safe, modern, well equipped schools with good teachers is a noble goal. But again, you will need a lot of new tax dollars to do that. You will have to get your voters to approve new, additional taxes to do this. Not a bad goal here. Each new police officer is going to cost somewhere around $80,000/year or more factoring in salary and benefits (medical, retirement, etc). 12 police officers would cost around $1 million per year plus overtime costs. Assuming the police run 3 shifts per day, that $1 million would buy you 3 officers per shift (9) with 3 on days off. Police officers also need training, equipment and vehicles, building space, and supervision. All of that costs a lot of money on top of salary and benefits. An additional 3 police officers per shift is not going to put much of a dent in crime. To really impact the crime rate, you're going to need to put a lot more than that out onto the street. You might be able to add 100 police officers (25 per shift with 25 on days off) to your police department for around $10 million. That would help reduce crime, but you'll need to come up with an additional $10 million to do it. And again, you'll need to raise the tax dollars for that. How do you "mandate" rehab? What we've seen in Portland, OR, is that the chronically drug addicted homeless simply do not choose to rehab even when that service is offered for free. "Safe centers" for drugs would probably save lives from overdose, but those centers would have to be run by medical professionals and support personnel with security provided by armed police. Again, this all costs a lot of money, and that money has to come from somewhere. The problem retailers have is not that they can't hire security guards, even armed security guards. Also, security personnel already, technically, have the power to stop people from committing crimes and to make arrests. The problem for the retailer is that if someone is wrongfully arrested, if too much force is used, the retailer is civilly liable. In other words, they can be sued for millions. Their only answer to that problem is to not attempt to stop the shoplifting because all it takes is one "bad stop" to wipe out any savings they get by reducing shoplifting. No one wants to pay out $1 million in an excessive force lawsuit which started out as the theft of a six-pack of beer. Some post security guards as a deterrent but with instructions not to do anything. And shoplifters know this. The only way you're going to get retailers to agree to physically stop shoplifters is to pass laws that make it impossible to sue them. So when a security officer makes a mistake and uses force to arrest someone for shoplifting who is innocent, there must be no way that person can sue the retailer or the security company. If a security officer uses excessive force and wrongfully injures someone, there must be no way to sue the company. If, god forbid, an armed security officer accidentally or negligently shoots an innocent person or bystander, there must be no way to sue the retailer. Your State Legislature would have to enact these laws that would make retailers immune from civil liability, otherwise they are not going to stop shoplifting. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. I applaud you for wanting to do something to improve your city. But your "police sweep" for guns is unconstitutional. And most of the rest is going to cost massive amounts of money, and I don't know where you're going to get it.
I do appreciate that you are trying to think of something. But many of those ideas have been tried and tried and tried again.
@Sackeshi I know nothing about Baltimore, but these all seem like generalist ideas anyway; 1. I'm pretty sure that would be unconstitutional on multiple grounds and would certainly be highly resisted (even by the legal gun owners you theoretically not impacting). It'd also be grossly impractical. It would probably take half a dozen officers several hours to thoroughly search a typically home (and grounds) so it would take massive resources and/or time to achieve. The "illegal" guns would be being replaced before you'd even finished. 2. That is more of a target than a plan. You'd need a better idea of where these good permanent jobs would be coming from. You also have the core issue of how you'd pay for them all 3. That one isn't a bad idea in itself and plenty of local governments around the world do exactly that. Don't fool yourself in to seeing it as a net revenue though. The reason rents are so much higher than that is because of the cost of maintaining and managing rental properties (especially at the lower end of the economic spectrum). It'd be a good thing, but it would need money, not make it. 4. Ensuring school buildings are in a good state of repair is important but I very much doubt it is a major factor in any poor education outcomes in the city (or anywhere else). And again, you'd need to source money to do that. 5. I don't know what police numbers are like there but more is usually not a bad idea in itself. Adding technology can certainly help with catching criminals but it isn't necessarily a time or resource gain. So yet again, you need to work out how you're paying for all that. 6. A valid proposal in general, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to do limited to a single city scale. It is also difficult to get all of the pieces in place and working together to actually achieve the possible benefits. So, it would need a whole load of careful planning and implementation effort and, again, none of that would be cheap. 7. Not entirely clear what you're proposing here. Even with "police powers", guards wouldn't be allowed to "use firearms to gain compliance". I think you'd also find problems with both the security guards and the store owners not wanting that level of liability. Just because you allow it doesn't mean they will. It would also need training and monitoring, and I hope you'll have spotted the pattern by now. So, if you really want advice, I'd suggest that point number one needs to be a solid funding and budget plan because without that, you have nothing else.
Will never work: 1. You need search warrants signed by a judge. No judge will sign that type of a search warrant if there is no PC. 2. Ok. How do you create jobs? Someone is going to have to pay for the renovations and new homes/apartments. they ware not going to suddenly appear like some Jetson Cartoon. It sounds nice, but lacks detail and depth. 3. Again, how is that going to be paid through the property and/or sales tax system? It won't. The city does have the right to condemn property if that property does not meet certain standards. Usually, these are abandoned, dilapidated properties that not even the best DIY flipping house gurus will touch. 4. Okay, how? Through bond packages? Any bond package has to be approved by the voters and then you run the risk of defaulting on said bonds if the new jobs don't come through. 5. Okay, again how? They fill out the forms, take the entrance exam, go through a psych test, and so forth. Once they graduate from the academy, then you look at a year of training. But how will this all be paid? By increasing the property and/or sales tax revenues? 6. that will have to occur at the state level for decriminalization. But I don't think it should be with all illicit drugs though.
You don't know much about how fire is contained or spreads, do you? And if you have strong winds to combat with, it can spread quicker if you are not careful or know what you are doing. With self-defense, lethal force is already part of state law in most states as long as you reasonably believe your life is in danger or serious harm. But you cannot initiate the confrontation either or this to apply.
Your drug policy is garbage. Nowhere is that working. Bring back mental institutions to nget these people off the streets and a proper path to re enter society.
We do controlled burns every few years so I think I know a little about fire. If you start it on the downwind side it burns hotter and more completely. And I wasn't talking about lethal force in defense of life and limb. I was talking about lethal force in defense of property. The gang bangers are already practicing this, so let them. Make it legal.
you have seen way too many movies and shows. For controlled burn, you do know you have a constant vigil for that to work and have backup plans if the wind gusts up all of a sudden. Some of the California wildfires, for instance, got out of control from a controlled burn. As for the defense of property, that is only congruent if your own life is at risk. However, when it comes to the gang bangers who do this, eventually someone talks and they generally do get caught, but not all of them.
I'm not in California. California's problem is woods and they don't do enough burns. My problem is canary grass in my meadow - burn if from creek to ditch. All the cool stuff grows back faster than the grass. But thanks for your concern.
