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PB CRIME PRESENTS CHALLENGES

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Saturday, September 12, 2009 9:57 PM CDT

Pine Bluff has one of the highest crime rates for comparably sized cities anywhere, according to City-data.com, which contains buckets of statistics on all cities — large and small — in the country.

City-data.com reports that the crime index from 1999-2007 for Pine Bluff averaged 884, which is more than two times the national average of 321.

Hot Springs ranked right behind Pine Bluff with 838 average crimes per 100,000 people, West Memphis has 778 and North Little Rock 763.

“Sometimes these numbers are adjustable, and that’s one of the things you have to be concerned about,” said Steve Sumner, a former Pine Bluff police officer who currently is the coordinator of the Public Service Technology Department at Southeast Arkansas College, and a criminal justice instructor there. “We take a hit because they compare our numbers against Chicago for example.”

“You’ve got 50,000 people here, and they’ve got three and-a-half million up there, so naturally the numbers are going to be out of whack,” he said. “If you’ve got one person in a town of 200 that gets murdered, you’ve got a massive crime rate, and it’s only one person.”

Misleading numbers

Pine Bluff Police Lt. Bob Rawlinson, who has been with the department for almost 18 years and is currently public information officer, agreed with Sumner that the numbers can be misleading.

“The statistical things say that Pine Bluff is a dangerous city to live in, but a lot of those numbers are skewed because of the (Metropolitan Statistical Area),” Rawlinson said. “It’s not just Pine Bluff. A lot of the things you read, even the FBI when you open up their statistics book, they will tell you that this may not be correct and those online accounts that you get on crime rates are definitely not correct because here in Pine Bluff it covers three different counties and 11 prisons, and every crime that’s in all three of those counties is attributed to Pine Bluff.”

Both the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) caution against comparing crime rates, noting that factors such as economic conditions, the availability of jobs, educational levels, and ethnicity can affect the amount and types of crimes that occur.

Economic factor

“If I can’t afford to buy a stereo, I’ll go get the one next door … so the burglary rate goes up,” Sumner said.

Prosecuting Attorney Steve Dalrymple has spent most of his adult life involved in the criminal justice system, as a deputy prosecutor, then municipal judge (now called district judge), and is in his fourth term as prosecuting attorney for the 11th Judicial District West, which includes Jefferson and Lincoln counties.

“I think to a certain degree, crime follows low- income levels and poverty levels,” he said. “There’s nothing new about the fact that crime and low income and poverty go hand in hand.

“We have a population that over a 10-year period has diminished, which is reflective of economic conditions, and as the economic conditions go down, crime goes up,” Dalrymple said.

Regarding employment, the unemployment rate for the Pine Bluff MSA for May was 8.6 percent, which was lower that the national rate of 9.4 percent, but higher than the state rate of 7 percent. It was also the highest in the state when compared to other areas.

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