On the B-N-B show this morning, Greg was preparing listeners for the Mayor’s monthly visit at 8 AM Tuesday (I guess we need to get our adult diapers and barf bags). The topic? The rise of violent crime in Sioux Falls (can’t wait to hear the softballs Greg throws Mike).
One of the reasons my newest obsession is listening to B-N-B‘s show is because of the ‘wisdom’ his listeners dole out. It usually has me in stitches. A caller this morning did not disappoint. This person called in this morning and was talking about the drastic increase in STD’s in young adults (15-25) in Minnehaha and Brookings counties, and at first it sounded like he had some good arguments to make. Then he asks Greg, “Why do you think there has been this drastic increase?” He told Greg it was because of the lack of ‘God’ in young people’s lives.
While a good moral compass isn’t a bad idea, he couldn’t be more wrong. The problem is the lack of education and awareness. When AID’s was running rampant in the homosexual community, they started educating and the rates went down.
The same could be said about crime in Sioux Falls. One of the biggest factors is drug dealing. The community needs to be educated on what to look for, we also need to be getting to young people sooner about drug use. We also need to go whole hog on creating neighborhood watch programs that don’t cost taxpayers diddley, and guess what THEY WORK!
But if I had to take an educated guess as to why crime has increased so drastically in Sioux Falls over the past 5 years, I think it is much simpler then we think;
• Officer retention has been very bad, and SF police officers QUIT at a record rate last year. Not giving a decent COLA didn’t help matters.
• Drug use is going up (happening across the country) and with the lax gun control laws in our state, it is much easier for people to have (get) guns and use them (violently).
• The recession caused a lower class of working people, which tend to commit more crimes, especially when it comes to domestic and drug matters.
• The Boomtown campaign to get people to move here wasn’t well thought out. I don’t think this campaign helped to get professionals or higher income blue collar workers to move here, it got people who were already desperate and suffering where they lived to move here, and let’s face it, wages are not stellar here. In fact, if anything professionals are leaving faster then we are bringing them in. Don’t believe me that lower income workers raided our city? Then why have we seen our food banks and shelters expand so dramatically over the same period of time? While we asked people to move to Sioux Falls, we were not to specific of who we wanted really coming here.
• Also, as a caller this morning pointed out, our core neighborhoods in Sioux Falls are deteriorating, Why? Because we have thrown so much money at big development and urban sprawl, not just tax dollars in the form of TIF’s and Federal dollars but banks have been investing more in the ‘big projects’. How is it that we continue to break building permits each year, yet affordable housing in Sioux Falls is disappearing so fast?
• Lastly, our past and current police chief along with their boss, the mayor, have ignored all the warning signs, and the continue to ignore them.
As we continue to ignore our lower income workers and not pay them better wages, they begin to get desperate, and with desperation comes criminal activity. Maybe we need to hand out more Bibles?