Crime and cops on election day
For a crime reporter, today is usually a vacation day. It's the one day of the year when crime doesn't matter, a day when the political reporters work overtime. But what does happen with crime on election day? Is there more or less? Is it safer than any other day? Or is the election itself really the crime?
Baltimore police will have more cops on the street today than on most days. Department spokesman Sterling Clifford tells me that this year, as in years past, all leave is is cancelled. Cops are assigned to each polling place; there are 298 of them scattered about the city. And officers typically escort the ballots from each polling place to election headquarters to be counted. Of course, nowadays we use computers for that, but cops still escort whoever takes the machines and whatever contraption is used to store the numbers.
That said, I was unable to determine whether you're more likely to be mugged on election day then on any other day. True, schools are closed so kids are out. Crime typically goes up on those days, is Election Day any different than any other holiday? There are more cops out, but most are preoccupied at polling places and ensuring order of the electorate. It could all depend on the weather.
Pulling stats would be time consuming and would take too long. So I did what any good reporter would do, I hit the streets to do some shoe-leather reporting. No, actually, I did the next best thing (other than searching the web). I called an expert. I got Arnett W. Gaston, an adjunct professor of criminal justice at the University of Maryland College Park, which lists him as an expert in psychology of crime, psychological profiling of criminals, prison policy and management and gangs in prisons.
I figured the "psychology of crime" part would be of help to me. It wasn't. "Even it did go up," he said, referring to crime, "it would probably be environmently driven. Never in all my years have a I ran across any trend that associates election day with crime."
He suggested the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That's a research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, and keep track of things, like, well, "What's new in homicide trends," but a spokeswoman said there are no stats on violence on election day.
Even without data, Clifford, the police spokesman, assured: "Everything will be covered."
Baltimore, of course, has a long history of election-related violence, and I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you the Election Day Riots of 1856:
bars are open
From Baltimore Sun columnist Jacques Kelly, who wrote this in 2006:
Until 1859, Baltimore had no paid, municipal fire department. We did have organizations such as the New Market Fire Company, a volunteer outfit that sat opposite Lexington Market and whose members maybe set more fires than they put out. The fire company - and the youths who "ran with it" - knew no law. They fought with other volunteer companies over who got the insurance money when a fire was successfully extinguished. Street fights were a common sight.
It grew so intolerable that "merchants claimed that their trading partners in other cities were so worried about the violence in Baltimore they were reluctant to visit."
A brawl outside Battle Monument Square (Calvert and Fayette streets) drew onlookers from Barnum's and Guy's Hotel: "The balconies of the two principal hotels in the city were filled with strangers, and the exhibition was not of a nature to impress them favorably with our manners and customs," the papers reported.
Municipal and national elections were hotly contested; the city murder rate climbed around the times of these elections, because the Plug Uglies did the dirty work for the politicians who belonged to the American Party. The city's gangs regularly got the vote out and controlled elections. They were not big on immigrants and once set a German-born man's beard afire.
In the election of 1856, when Thomas Swann (a former Baltimore & Ohio Railroad president) ran against Robert C. Wright (president of the Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad), a three-hour battle mixing the Plug Uglies, Rip Raps and New Market Boys broke out in and around Lexington Market. "The fighters ducked behind boxes and hid in stalls, fired shots from behind piers and then ran to the fire house for more ammunition." That fall, election rioting claimed the lives of 19 persons.
Here's how the New York Times described it:
"Individual combats and minor affrays occurred during the afternoon at a number of the polls: and at two, the Twelth and Eighteenth, serious riots, leading to loss of life and serious injuries, resulted from the high state of excitement originated between the aforesead contesting parties."
The dispatch continued, noting a fight between the New Market Fire Company and the "Rip Raps" and other political clubs. After the Democrats at been repulsed, The Times said, "the aggressors retreated to the engine house, and armed themselves with muskets and revolvers: they then took their position in the market-house and began a heavy discharge of musketry directed towards the polls." The fight, the newspaper said, "continued for a long time without interruption."
A number of people were killed, the Times said, including an Irishman who was shot in the left breast at Paca and Lombard streets "whilst stooping to pick up a brick. ... A man named Charles Brown was also killed while peacefully walking along the street."
Comments
I think you have raised a fascinating question, Peter.
Perhaps, with the help of John Willis at the Shaffer center @ UB, the data could be collected and supplemented with news reports from the three Baltimore dailys of old.
Posted by: Bruce Robinson | August 22, 2009 10:21 AM