Countdown to the Election

This was a question I was asked in preparation for an interview on my candidacy. Responding to a question on crime in our community is a very sensitive matter. The root causes of crime are complex. As a businessman, I would like to look at baseline data that shows the type of crime and geographic location. Then, instead of trying to resolve the problems by adding more law enforcement officers at targeted areas, I’d develop a group of interested citizens to get the neighborhoods involved: but not only in high crime areas. Has any one ever asked why certain areas have low crime rates? What are they doing right? Can we turn their “best practices” into a new program to emulate in a high crime area? I certainly respect the job of the law enforcement professionals, but enforcement is a knee-jerk reactive response to a problem. We need to get pro-active and reduce or eliminate the environmental attributes that allow for crime to exist.