Officials in Atlanta are trying to combat crime trends that have spilled over from last year, as well as continuing high numbers of repeat offenders.
In 2021, the city experienced a 30-year record in homicides after 158 murders, Fox News reported Monday:
So far in 2022, homicides are up 43% compared to the same time period in 2021, with 20 total homicides reported this year compared to 14 at the same time last year. Rapes are up an astounding 236%, with 37 reported so far this year compared to 11 at the same time in 2021. Other violent crime, such as aggravated assault, is down year-over-year.
Meanwhile, the City of Atlanta Police Department said Thursday that “repeat offenders continue to plague our city” in its announcement regarding arrests of suspects involved in property crimes.
“While processing many of these suspects, we continue to notice a glaring reoccurring factor- many of our arrestees are repeat offenders,” the agency wrote in a social media post:
No matter our tenacity and/or our success in making these arrests, we are clear that we cannot arrest our way out of this dilemma. Police alone cannot fix the repeat offender or crime problem. We arrest them, and we will take them to jail, but that isn’t enough. The entire criminal justice system and the community must work together for change to occur. If not, the revolving door will continue to rotate and the daily scene, which oftentimes looks and feels like “GroundHog Day” (the movie), will continue in perpetuity.
Las week, the city’s law enforcement officers were looking into four shootings that occurred in just under two hours. One of them involved a six-year-old child, according to Fox 5.
Approximately 75 percent of voters think defunding police was a “major” or “minor” reason behind the violent crime wave spreading across the nation, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll.
“The survey results come as Democrats largely back away from the ‘Defund the Police’ movement,” Breitbart News reported.