Every morning when I come to work there awaits for me a daily report of significant crimes from the day before. This report gives us a synopsis of these crimes, which in turn allows our commanders to focus resources on emerging hot spots.
This morning's report contained an entry that caught my eye. I thought it might be of some interest to the public because it further illustrates the impact of a crime victim's behavior on their victimization. My edits for clarity are in parentheses.
"On 02/02/09 at 1935 hours (7:35 PM), victim reported he was inside an unknown room (of a local motel) buying crack (cocaine) for the second time in the day when the 2 B/M occupants battered him and stole $60."
Further investigation revealed the victim was robbed of his money when he pulled out his wallet to purchase the cocaine and the two suspects noticed he had a considerable amount of money. They battered him numerous times, possible with a baseball bat, before taking his money.
Every victim deserves our best investigative efforts to solve their crime. And while it can be argued this victim needs some type of drug counseling or rehabilitation, we have to ask how many resources should be allocated to this case when the victim put himself in the position to be robbed?
While the public can get the false perception of high crime rates if you just look at raw numbers, we believe it is important to dig deeper and understand the root causes of crime, such as this case where the victim bears a tremendous responsibility for being victimized in the first place. We will forever carry this UCR crime statistic as a personal robbery regardless of the victim's own criminal behavior in the first place.
In these tight budget times with too few resources at our disposal, our detective bureau will prioritize the crimes based on a variety of solvability factors and do what we can to clear our cases. I just wish we could not claim this crime stat because of irresponsible behavior by the "victim."
Welcome to the deeper reality of crime.
- Asst Chief Bill LePere
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