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According to the F.B.I.’s 2006 (the most recent) Uniform Crime Report, the national murder index is 5.7 per 100,000 population. In contrast, Jacksonville suffered 110 murders or 13.8 per 100,000 population in 2006. Jacksonville’s overall crime index is 512.3 per 100,000 population compared to a national average of only 323.2 crimes per 100,000 population.
Certainly, a “can-do” attitude is required to solve any problem. However, Jacksonville’s crime problem is not the result of losing “Super spirit,” as Peyton suggests. Michael Hallett, head of University of North Florida's criminology department, nailed it when he said “tears in the social fabric have more to do with municipal spending priorities than a lack of Super Bowl excitement.” It is not a stretch to say that the Super Bowl and the Jaguars have contributed to the current crime wave.
Ever since Jacksonville acquired the Jaguars, city budgets have been skewed. Like imperial Rome, our city has chosen circuses over bread in recent years. The Better Jacksonville Plan exemplified this. The new baseball stadium, municipal arena, and the football stadium expansion were built before the new library and courthouse. While expensive sports and entertainment venues were improved, city budgets for libraries, social services, parks, community centers, youth programs, and mental health care were cut.
Jacksonville continues to lag behind other cities in the number of police officers, despite population increases, some of which were the result of the Super Bowl. Sheriff John Rutherford is correct to say, “We cannot arrest our way out of this crisis.” There is a direct correlation between the number of police per population and crime prevention.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) may be able to patrol its way out of this crime wave through more pro-active community policing. It worked in the latter half of 2006. Operation Safe Streets (OSS), which funded overtime for JSO officers to do more proactive policing in high crime neighborhoods, saw a “38% decline in murder the second half of 2006 when compared to the first half of the year, which had no OSS overtime.” Helping the decline was “the tens of thousands of citizen contacts that were made and the resulting increase in crime tips those conversations produced” through OSS.
Sheriff Rutherford proposed “the hiring of 225 sworn officers” over a three-year period in his "July 2008 Sheriff's message to the Community." The Law Enforcement and Deterrence Subcommittee of The Jacksonville Journey “recommended the addition of 101 patrol division officers to increase proactive policing levels and help deter crime.” In June, City Council unanimously approved the hiring of 40 additional sworn officers to the JSO in 2008 and another 40 in 2009.
As of 2006, Jacksonville had 1,690 officers or only 2.16 per 1000 population. The U.S. average for officers per 1000 population is 3. The Census Bureau estimated the population of Jacksonville in 2007 was 805,605. These 90 new hires will bring Jacksonville’s ratio of officers to population to about 2.2, still well below average, and a mere .04 increase over the current level. For the city to have 3 officers per 1000 population, we should have an increase of 727 or 2,417 sworn officers.
The Florida Times-Union cites Raymond Sauer, a Clemson University economics professor, “Super Bowls come and go while towns remain much the same after some temporary hoopla. ‘If there's a big event, there's a lot of civic cooperation,’ he said. ‘But for a change in the social fabric, it has to be something on a repeated basis. The Super Bowl doesn't come to town often enough.’"
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