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It's hard to know whether Chesapeake's new program rewarding tipsters for information on people carrying illegal guns will have a discernible effect on the city's crime rate. But it's certainly worth a try.
As The Pilot's Kristin Davis reported last week, the department will soon start offering $100 cash to individuals who relay details leading to the seizure of illegal firearms. The program is funded through a $10,000 federal grant and will kick off in South Norfolk, a section of the city where violent crime occurs far too often.
Illegal firearms - whether altered, stolen or carried by a convicted felon - play a significant role in crimes committed across the region. This program targets those weapons, and the people who carry them, as part of an effort to cut down on more serious offenses before they happen.
Police Chief Kelvin Wright said his officers typically seize as many as 200 illegal firearms every year. Half are in the possession of someone who isn't legally permitted to carry one.
Of course, anonymous tips alone should not - and according to Wright, will not - be sufficient for officers to stop a person or obtain a warrant to search their home.
Instead, the information will provide a starting point for patrols and observations, and the program itself will establish a means for witnesses, neighborhood watch group members and others to report a crime without fear of being identified.
Police have used this approach, in the form of the Hampton Roads Crime Line (1-888-LOCK-U-UP), successfully for years, and this new program appears poised to build on that.
Gun-rights advocates have long argued that the firearms laws on the books are adequate and need only to be enforced. This effort, if it works, should go a ways toward testing that idea.
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Reporting lawbreakers
Do those responsible for this editorial advocate for only certain laws encroachments being reported to the authorities? Would they be in favor of illegals being reported to the police or the Feds as well?
They won't even get it
100 $ for every illegal immigrant I turn in...Rent money money!!!
Solving the wrong problem, as usual
So, Chesapeake is targeting "illegal guns" although, what it is really doing is targeting guns in the hands of those who cannot legally possess one. That is better than simplistic gun buybacks, to be sure, but it is still not the best course.
In the same issue of the paper, we read about a murder in nearby Suffolk of a young athlete at the hands of a long time thug who was on probation for a violent felony using a firearm only a few months ago.
With the full support of gun rights advocates, Virginia passed mandatory additional sentences for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, yet Commonwealth's Attorneys routinely plea bargain away those charges and return violent felons to the streets on probation, where too often they commit additional violent crimes.
We passed those mandatory sentences for felonious use of firearms to take those who misuse firearms off the street, yet they are the first charges to be plea bargained away. We gave the courts the tools to solve the problem, but judges routinely approve these plea deals, frustrating the intent of the law.
Another Waste of Our Money
It continues to amaze that the Pilot’s staff doesn’t have realistic knowledge about how little policing has to do with reducing crime. There exists “a large body of evidence that police activities have, at best, only very modest effects on crime (Point Blank: Guns and Violence in American, Kleck, 1991, p 121).” This $10,000 federal grant and all others like it will do nothing to reduce crime. To the Pilot’s editorial staff: think! If policing (and other government programs) reduced crime there would be more police (and more government programs) where there is less crime. There are always less police (and fewer government programs) where there is less crime and more police were there is more crime. Policing isn’t the answer.
You suggest that...
...police departments cause crime? That statement seems indefensible. You state in your post, "There are always less police (and fewer government programs) where there is less crime and more police were there is more crime." Please explain.