Wedding Woes

Has crime increased where you live because of the pandemic?

Over the last few months, I have become increasingly troubled with what seems like a big uptick in crime that New Orleans has been seeing.  Stolen cars are up 20% from a year ago (pre-pandemic).  There has been a rash of catalytic converters being sawed off people's cars.  Like, right in front of their house or in the driveway because it can be done in minutes.

But even worse, car jackings are rampant.  Broad daylight.  Hitting the same gas station more than once within the same hour.  One carjacking happened at a red light (also daylight), at an intersection less then one mile from my house.  I drive through that intersection multiple times a day. 

For reference, I'm not a "pearl clutching, afraid of shadows" kind of person.  New Orleans has historically ranked low on the safety scale compared to other cities.  But, other than avoiding some areas at night and staying extra alert when I'm out and about, I've never felt unsafe here.  Now I do.

I also have a white-hot anger at the city administrations that feels like it eats away at my soul sometimes.

I don't even want to live here anymore.  To an extent, that's been true for awhile.  But the increase in violent crimes has just exacerbated that feeling.  I'd like to think this is temporary and crime will get back to its normal "not so great", but tolerable for me levels.  But another part of me just wants to pick up my marbles and go.  But the gazillion factors and unbelievably enormous undertaking that would be, feels almost impossible at this time.

And now to the question in my title.  Would it even matter to go somewhere else?  No doubt there are places safer to live then in NOLA.  But is that only relatively speaking?  Has crime increased everywhere?  Is it rampant in most/all medium or large cities?

As always, thanks for listening to my troubles.  I'd appreciate whatever thoughts you all have.  
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Re: Has crime increased where you live because of the pandemic?

  • That is scary, especially being so close to home with things in broad daylight. 

    I found this which might be interesting (I haven't read it) https://covid19.counciloncj.org/2021/01/31/impact-report-covid-19-and-crime-3/
  • I haven't really researched crime here, but I don't think covid has had a major impact. 

    I do think that things are going to get worse here because of political division. There's such a huge divide between the extreme right white rural areas and the left leaning city, and irresponsible leadership is doing anything they can to make it worse. The massage parlor murders a few weeks ago are not likely to be isolated. 
  • kvruns said:
    That is scary, especially being so close to home with things in broad daylight. 

    I found this which might be interesting (I haven't read it) https://covid19.counciloncj.org/2021/01/31/impact-report-covid-19-and-crime-3/
    Thanks!  That was great aggregate data to look at.  And what I suspected.  For the most part, crime has increased everywhere (sigh).

    You have to click to the main report to see what 34 cities were included in their data.  But I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice smattering of cities of different sizes and in different parts of the country.
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  • edited April 2021
    I'm sorry S&S. All of that is very upsetting and scary, and I can totally understand why you feel the way you do. 

    I live very close to NYC, and crime has increased in scary ways. Even in my little NJ town, there have been multiple gas stations robbed in broad daylight, multiple car chases that have ended in crashes. And I live in a town with a very large Asian community, and while I haven't heard anything happening in my town, we're so close to NYC that it might was well be happening right here. 
  • I'm sorry @short+sassy. It's happening here in Houston too. Increases in robberies, gun violence, and other crimes are going up. We have a big Asian community too.
  • mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
    Knottie Warrior First Answer 500 Love Its 10000 Comments
    edited April 2021
    IDK, Indy's always been kinda violent and we have a high crime rate per capita.  This is inside the 465 loop.  The suburbs have always been pretty low crime.  If a crime happens in the 'burbs, it's huge news. 

    However, it's a lot of shootings here.  IDK about carjackings or stolen cars. We've had a few carjackings become the subject of AMBER alerts because the car was stolen with kids inside. 

    I honestly don't read a ton of news because it's one of my 'self-care' things. DH does enough hand-wringing over the news and violent crime.  So if something significant comes up, he'll say something to me.  

    I do feel more tension in the air in general.  I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but IDK where it's coming from.  
     
    Anyway, that's my ramble.  I'm sorry it's so scary around your area, S+S.  It's got to be very unnerving. 
  • I don't watch the news or specifically pay attention to crime rates in the CHI area, but I can say that just about every news post from Chicago that i've seen recently is about a shooting.  Like, every single day at least once.  It's scary and awful.  
  • The closest city to me is Chicago so.... it’s hard to tell why the crime is going up.  It always goes up.

  • mrsconn23 said:
    IDK, Indy's always been kinda violent and we have a high crime rate per capita.  This is inside the 465 loop.  The suburbs have always been pretty low crime.  If a crime happens in the 'burbs, it's huge news. 

    However, it's a lot of shootings here.  IDK about carjackings or stolen cars. We've had a few carjackings become the subject of AMBER alerts because the car was stolen with kids inside. 

    I honestly don't read a ton of news because it's one of my 'self-care' things. DH does enough hand-wringing over the news and violent crime.  So if something significant comes up, he'll say something to me.  

    I do feel more tension in the air in general.  I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but IDK where it's coming from.  
     
    Anyway, that's my ramble.  I'm sorry it's so scary around your area, S+S.  It's got to be very unnerving. 
    I'm almost sorry I discovered NextDoor.  There are all kinds of major crimes that happen that the local media doesn't even report on.  it seems very random on what they do/don't report on crime-wise.  But if even someone's plant was stolen off their porch, it's talked about on NextDoor.

    That was where I heard about the carjacking at the intersection I referred to.  The local online newspaper had one article about car jackings in a totally different neighborhood.  Nextdoor has reported over a dozen in nearby neighborhoods.  Sometimes by the person who was the victim.

    On the one hand, it's stressed me out more now that I know.  But, on the other hand, I guess it also keeps me safer and more aware.  For example, I sometimes audit gas stations for a gig job.  One station a few miles away from me had a nice bonus on it.  Normally I would have jumped at that.  But, because of Nextdoor, I knew there had been multiple recent car jackings at that specific station so I avoided it like the plague!
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  • Yeah I can see how Nextdoor is a good thing AND a bad thing.  You want to see it, but you don’t

  • We have had an increase in violent crimes here.  More homicides by firearms mostly.  I think we've already had more homicides here so far this year than we've had in past years, but I'm not 100% sure about that, I just know the number is way up.

    We've always had a meth problem and a domestic violence problem.  My county has the highest domestic violence and child abuse numbers in the state.  My state vies with California for it's meth problems.  I live in our downtown area and I would always leave things for the homeless:  food, clothing, etc (I wasn't the only resident that did either).  I stopped doing it because I've never felt unsafe with our homeless population, but lately there've been a few new ones that make me very uncomfortable and I don't want to encourage them around so I've shifted back to donating to agencies for help.  It looks like other residents have stopped as well, it's been a long time since I've seen any food or water out by the dumpster.

    I do feel like there's a lot of tension in general.  This is a very red state and the MO state legislature is a dumpster fire, that willingly engages in overturning the people's votes.  I honestly think they're traitors and should be tried as such, when they pass legislation that specifically goes against the vote of the people (there's an issue with our Medicaid expansion AGAIN).  The gun laws out here are ridiculous and getting more so.  The political division is real.  We still have a few Trump pop up trailers, we were one of the places the FBI put signs up to find the Capitol rioters, there've been a few locals arrested for being there, etc.  I mean hell, GREITENS is running for the open Senate seat.  That MFer resigned in disgrace b/c he was about to be arrested for stealing money from his charity and for photographing a naked woman without her consent.  
  • mrsconn23 said:
    IDK, Indy's always been kinda violent and we have a high crime rate per capita.  This is inside the 465 loop.  The suburbs have always been pretty low crime.  If a crime happens in the 'burbs, it's huge news. 

    However, it's a lot of shootings here.  IDK about carjackings or stolen cars. We've had a few carjackings become the subject of AMBER alerts because the car was stolen with kids inside. 

    I honestly don't read a ton of news because it's one of my 'self-care' things. DH does enough hand-wringing over the news and violent crime.  So if something significant comes up, he'll say something to me.  

    I do feel more tension in the air in general.  I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but IDK where it's coming from.  
     
    Anyway, that's my ramble.  I'm sorry it's so scary around your area, S+S.  It's got to be very unnerving. 
    I'm almost sorry I discovered NextDoor.  There are all kinds of major crimes that happen that the local media doesn't even report on.  it seems very random on what they do/don't report on crime-wise.  But if even someone's plant was stolen off their porch, it's talked about on NextDoor.

    That was where I heard about the carjacking at the intersection I referred to.  The local online newspaper had one article about car jackings in a totally different neighborhood.  Nextdoor has reported over a dozen in nearby neighborhoods.  Sometimes by the person who was the victim.

    On the one hand, it's stressed me out more now that I know.  But, on the other hand, I guess it also keeps me safer and more aware.  For example, I sometimes audit gas stations for a gig job.  One station a few miles away from me had a nice bonus on it.  Normally I would have jumped at that.  But, because of Nextdoor, I knew there had been multiple recent car jackings at that specific station so I avoided it like the plague!
    I get that.  I also feel like crime is one of those things that is 1) over and under-reported at the same time and 2) is always a perception vs. reality thing. 

    Self-reporting is hard to judge because there's no way to know if the cops *had* shown up, if they would have called it a crime.  However, it would be nice to have a concise database of calls and whether or not it ended in an arrest, ticket, or some other determined infraction.  But also, I feel like there's an over-reporting of non-violent crimes that gets lumped in to some stats to make areas or cities look worse. 

    And you can look anywhere and see crime, so two people could come to two different conclusions on how 'dangerous' an area is.  If enough people have a perception, then regardless of the levels of crime it's always going to be viewed that way.  

    I'm not discounting any reporting or people's experiences, but I definitely feel what's reported on a wider scale is picked and chosen and there's bias in it all the time.  Everyone's chance of coming across crime, violent or otherwise, is not a net of zero.  
  • I don’t live in an exceptionally good area even pre-pandemic. I used to work two minutes away and could have walked to work but it wasn’t safe. There have been shootings in my neighborhood and there were several times I would come out of work to see cars in my work parking lot on blocks because all of the tires had been stolen. But it does seem like there has been an uptick near us. Catalytic converters are being stolen left and right. My car got vandalized on my hike a few weeks ago. I definitely don’t think the pandemic plus political climate has helped anything. It’s just frustrating. 


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  • mrsconn23 said:
    mrsconn23 said:
    IDK, Indy's always been kinda violent and we have a high crime rate per capita.  This is inside the 465 loop.  The suburbs have always been pretty low crime.  If a crime happens in the 'burbs, it's huge news. 

    However, it's a lot of shootings here.  IDK about carjackings or stolen cars. We've had a few carjackings become the subject of AMBER alerts because the car was stolen with kids inside. 

    I honestly don't read a ton of news because it's one of my 'self-care' things. DH does enough hand-wringing over the news and violent crime.  So if something significant comes up, he'll say something to me.  

    I do feel more tension in the air in general.  I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but IDK where it's coming from.  
     
    Anyway, that's my ramble.  I'm sorry it's so scary around your area, S+S.  It's got to be very unnerving. 
    I'm almost sorry I discovered NextDoor.  There are all kinds of major crimes that happen that the local media doesn't even report on.  it seems very random on what they do/don't report on crime-wise.  But if even someone's plant was stolen off their porch, it's talked about on NextDoor.

    That was where I heard about the carjacking at the intersection I referred to.  The local online newspaper had one article about car jackings in a totally different neighborhood.  Nextdoor has reported over a dozen in nearby neighborhoods.  Sometimes by the person who was the victim.

    On the one hand, it's stressed me out more now that I know.  But, on the other hand, I guess it also keeps me safer and more aware.  For example, I sometimes audit gas stations for a gig job.  One station a few miles away from me had a nice bonus on it.  Normally I would have jumped at that.  But, because of Nextdoor, I knew there had been multiple recent car jackings at that specific station so I avoided it like the plague!
    I get that.  I also feel like crime is one of those things that is 1) over and under-reported at the same time and 2) is always a perception vs. reality thing. 

    Self-reporting is hard to judge because there's no way to know if the cops *had* shown up, if they would have called it a crime.  However, it would be nice to have a concise database of calls and whether or not it ended in an arrest, ticket, or some other determined infraction.  But also, I feel like there's an over-reporting of non-violent crimes that gets lumped in to some stats to make areas or cities look worse. 

    And you can look anywhere and see crime, so two people could come to two different conclusions on how 'dangerous' an area is.  If enough people have a perception, then regardless of the levels of crime it's always going to be viewed that way.  

    I'm not discounting any reporting or people's experiences, but I definitely feel what's reported on a wider scale is picked and chosen and there's bias in it all the time.  Everyone's chance of coming across crime, violent or otherwise, is not a net of zero.  
    Agreed that statistics, in general, and especially crime stats need to be taken with a major grain of salt.  Along with unverified Internet sources.

    I don't remember all the details, but the New Orleans PD was investigated a few years ago for under-reporting violent crimes to make our crime stats look better.  The criminals would be arrested for the all of the correct charges.  But the event, for categorical purposes, would only be listed under only one of the non-violent charges.  Or, if all the charges had violence, it would be the lowest level one.

    I really agree about perception!  Not counting the current uptick, I've always heard...a lot of time from coworkers who live in the suburbs...how they could never live in NOLA because it's too dangerous/too much crime/unsafe.  I'm not saying they were wrong.  But, at the same time, "dangerous and unsafe" wasn't my perception either until fairly recently.  

    And, let's be real.  While it is true the suburbs (in general) have lower crime stats, that's also the more PC excuse for people who don't want to live in a city where the majority of the population are POC.  It's the opposite in the suburbs.
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 5 Answers 500 Love Its
    edited April 2021
    VarunaTT said:
    We have had an increase in violent crimes here.  More homicides by firearms mostly.  I think we've already had more homicides here so far this year than we've had in past years, but I'm not 100% sure about that, I just know the number is way up.

    We've always had a meth problem and a domestic violence problem.  My county has the highest domestic violence and child abuse numbers in the state.  My state vies with California for it's meth problems.  I live in our downtown area and I would always leave things for the homeless:  food, clothing, etc (I wasn't the only resident that did either).  I stopped doing it because I've never felt unsafe with our homeless population, but lately there've been a few new ones that make me very uncomfortable and I don't want to encourage them around so I've shifted back to donating to agencies for help.  It looks like other residents have stopped as well, it's been a long time since I've seen any food or water out by the dumpster.

    I do feel like there's a lot of tension in general.  This is a very red state and the MO state legislature is a dumpster fire, that willingly engages in overturning the people's votes.  I honestly think they're traitors and should be tried as such, when they pass legislation that specifically goes against the vote of the people (there's an issue with our Medicaid expansion AGAIN).  The gun laws out here are ridiculous and getting more so.  The political division is real.  We still have a few Trump pop up trailers, we were one of the places the FBI put signs up to find the Capitol rioters, there've been a few locals arrested for being there, etc.  I mean hell, GREITENS is running for the open Senate seat.  That MFer resigned in disgrace b/c he was about to be arrested for stealing money from his charity and for photographing a naked woman without her consent.  
    I don't know if you read the link @kvruns provided, but homicide was the main crime that had increased the most over the pandemic. It doesn't seem like that's true in New Orleans, but it could be and I'd guess probably is after reading that study.  From my impression, It's the theft, burglaries and robberies (including at gunpoint) that I'm hearing about a lot more often then before.

    Drugs are a problem here like they are anywhere else.  I haven't had the impression it's worse, comparatively speaking, but it probably is.  We have a higher than average poverty rate which usually seems to go hand-in-hand with drug use and higher crime.  Heroin is the drug of choice here.

    Early in the pandemic, I remember reading a heart-breaking article that with most people stuck staying at home, domestic violence and child abuse skyrocketed and victims had nowhere to go.  It was chilling to think about.  I'm sorry to hear your area is such a hotbed for that anyway.

    This last election cycle really felt like the year when some Republicans stopped even pretending that we live in a democracy where the majority rules and everyone eligible to vote SHOULD HAVE ample opportunity to do so.  I'm sorry the MO state legislature doesn't have their people's best interests at heart.  I very much understand your anger.
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  • We are in a more quiet town but we've seen an increase in the crime typical for the area.  There are more break-ins into cars parked outside that are unlocked especially in areas where houses are close together and there's easier in and out spots on streets.  

    There are far more warnings of "lock your cars people," and hopefully I'm not jinxing myself when I say that seems to be the major issue. 

    Out of curiosity what's the economy and real estate like in your area?  FWIW, I look at the housing market periodically in case something is enticing.  There are four houses on the market that would fit our family and 3 are already under contingency offers after being on the market for single digit days.  
  • GBCKGBCK member
    Knottie Warrior 500 Love Its Name Dropper 5000 Comments
    purely anecdotal, but there's a lot of stupid shit where people are screaming at e/o in the stores right now.  The Mr's friend had a gun pulled on him whie driving and even w/ ridership down, the Mr says he feels less safe at work.  

    I don't think my little town is any different.  I don't think there are upticks where I work.  But....I"m glad I'm not still working in Flint too.
  • banana468 said:
    We are in a more quiet town but we've seen an increase in the crime typical for the area.  There are more break-ins into cars parked outside that are unlocked especially in areas where houses are close together and there's easier in and out spots on streets.  

    There are far more warnings of "lock your cars people," and hopefully I'm not jinxing myself when I say that seems to be the major issue. 

    Out of curiosity what's the economy and real estate like in your area?  FWIW, I look at the housing market periodically in case something is enticing.  There are four houses on the market that would fit our family and 3 are already under contingency offers after being on the market for single digit days.  
    The economy has never been very good in New Orleans.  We have always had a higher percentage of people living below the poverty line then the national average.  And because one of our biggest industries is tourism, we were especially hard hit by the pandemic.  Though, with that said, even for very entry level jobs like working in fast food, they have perpetual and permanent "we're hiring" signs that also advertise their starting pay is $11/hour (most of them).  

    NOLA is a MCOL city.  I'm going to take that $11/hour as an example.  A person would have a hard time living here on that wage, unless they had a roommate or living with a SO also making at least that much.  A long standing personal finance guideline is that people should not spend more than 30% of their gross wages on housing.  As such, a person making $11/hour shouldn't spend more then $635/month on housing.

    You can find studios and one-bedrooms in that range, but most of them start in the $700 range even for cheaper areas.  Two bedrooms typically start in the $850-$900 range.  Three bedrooms at least $1,000.  But those are all the low end of ranges.  The averages are higher.

    I'm not as knowledgeable about the market pace and prices for single family homes (SFHs).  Pre-pandemic, it seemed like it was at a healthy level.  The average time for a property, all residential properties not just SFHs, to sell was 60-90 days.  But that also includes the time all the way to closing.

    I just investigated a little on realtor.com.  It seems like it is brisker then that now, but not a crazy amount.  There are lots of nice looking 3-4 bedroom, 1500-2000 sq ft SFH ranch homes for $150K-$250K.  Caveat, those are for houses in safe, suburban-feel neighborhoods, but cheaper neighborhoods.  They are within NOLA city limits, but aren't near the city core.  They are much newer parts of town that didn't even exist until the oil boom of the 70s and 80s.
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