The Defies the Imagination

March 15, 2009

Cons commit crimes after early release

Sentencing guidelines enable repeat offenders

By Jennifer Brooks
THE TENNESSEAN

A college student is kidnapped, brutalized and murdered. A mother looks up from changing her baby's diaper to find a gun pointing in her face. A 62-year-old man is bludgeoned with a baseball bat in a mall parking lot.

The http://data.tennessean.com/v2/bin/crimeMap/display/index.php">crimes share one trait, aside from their brutality. In each case, the person charged with the offense was anhttp://www.tennessean.com/article/20090222/NEWS03/90222027">ex-convict, out on probation or parole — a situation Tennessee prosecutors and law enforcement leaders say is all too common because of how the state sentences its convicted criminals.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090226/NEWS03/902260358/1009/NEWS02">Deshaun J. Lewis, 21, was convicted of felony aggravated assault in June 2008 and of felony vehicular assault in October. He was out on probation in February, when he snatched 18-year-old Tennessee State University student Racquel Johnson as she was leaving work at Starbucks. Police found her body a week later. Lewis admitted the crime to police.

Amanda Sue Kelley, 19, was arrested seven times last year on charges that ranged from drug possession to domestic assault and theft. In January, police say, she wrenched open the door of a parked car, pointed a gun at a woman changing her 13-month-old daughter's diaper in the back seat, and demanded cash.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090306/NEWS03/903060354/1017/NEWS01">Robert Tice Jr., 21,was released from prison in January after serving three years for burglary. Police say he and several accomplices attacked 62-year-old Robert DeMoss Jr. in the Mall at Green Hills parking garage earlier this month. Tice is accused of wielding the baseball bat.

Every time a repeat offender re-offends, the cry goes up: Why were these people on the street?

"These people don't deserve to walk the streets," said Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas. "Look, we're not saying lock them all up and throw away the key. Let's take the most dangerous ones and put them away."

Tennessee has the second-highest violent crime rate in the nation, according to FBI crime statistics. Serpas and fellow members of the Tennessee Public Safety Coalition, a statewide association of law enforcement officials and prosecutors, say at least part of the reason why lies in the state's sentencing practices.

"If we concentrate on (locking up) the repeat offenders and the most violent offenders, the crime rate will go down," said Knox County District Attorney Randy Nichols, who joined the public safety coalition in Nashville this week to push the legislature for tougher sentencing for at least a few categories of violent crime.

High cost is a concern

But longer jail terms come with higher costs. The legislature estimates it would cost $160 million to implement the modest sentencing changes the coalition is pushing. Just eliminating the possibility of parole for first-time convictions for armed robbery could cost $73.7 million, by the lawmakers' estimate.

The counter-argument, of course, is that allowing violent, repeat offenders to stay on the streets could come at an even greater cost to the state: in lives and property lost, and in a growing sense of insecurity that can frighten residents and scare away new business for a community.

Tennessee has made some notable changes in sentencing laws in recent years. It toughened penalties for domestic violence and passed a "crooks with guns" bill in 2007 that has drastically increased the penalties for weapons-related crimes.

But none of this answers the question of why someone like Deshaun Lewis was out on the streets, even after two felony convictions in a single year. The answer is: he was out on the streets because that's the way Tennessee's sentencing guidelines currently work.

If Tennessee locked up every person who broke the law for the duration of their sentences, there wouldn't be enough jails or beds in this or in the surrounding states to house everyone.

One out of every 40 Tennessee adults is either imprisoned or out on probation or parole, according to a survey by the http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/report_detail.aspx?id=49382">Pew Center on the States, which is studying state correctional systems.

The majority of convicts in the correctional system are out on the streets, not behind bars.

By the Pew Center's estimate, in 2008, there were 10,617 parolees — former inmates who had done prison time and been released by the parole board; and 47,850 people on probation — on supervised release in the community, rather than imprisoned.

In the same year the center counted 23,590 adults in Tennessee prisons and 19,248 in local jails.

Whether someone gets probation is a matter for the courts, and the sentencing guidelines. Lesser felonies almost always mean probation. Getting parole is trickier — the parole board only approves about 30 percent of petitions in a given year, and most offenders have to serve at least 30 percent of their time before they are eligible to ask for parole.

Some turn lives around

There are violent, unrepentant, irredeemable criminals out there. But that's not every ex-convict. Robert "Bo'' Irvin, executive director of the Tennessee Bureau of Probation and Parole wants the public to know that there are plenty of ex-convicts who have turned their lives around, and plenty of community-based programs in this state that exist to give them the help they need to do it.

"It can be very frustrating, but at the same time it can be the most rewarding job you've ever had," Irvin said. "To see an offender home with his kids, providing for them, that's something."

Tougher sentencing guidelines don't necessarily mean more people behind bars. New York changed its sentencing guidelines and has seen a sharp drop not only in its violent crime rate, but in the number of people incarcerated. Other states, including Texas, Arkansas, Michigan, Alabama and Mississippi have rushed to follow the New York model.

The Pew Center for the States has been tracking criminal justice trends. In a recent report on state sentencing practices, researchers concluded:

"Serious, chronic and violent offenders belong behind bars, for a long time, and the expense of locking them up is justified many times over. But for hundreds of thousands of lower-level inmates, incarceration costs taxpayers far more than it saves in prevented crime."

It costs about $63.90 a day to keep someone behind bars in Tennessee. A day monitoring someone's probation or parole costs $2.95.

"We really need to do a better job of sorting our offenders by risk," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. "This is less and less an issue of being tough on crime or soft on crime and more an issue of giving the taxpayers a better return on their dollars."

In the past year in Davidson County, 40 percent of the people arrested and charged with homicide or attempted homicide had previous felony convictions — almost 20 percent had a prior conviction for a violent felony.

Metro police, who keep a running tally of repeat offenders, can break the numbers down by individual offenses: 24 percent of the rape suspects they arrest have prior convictions; 40 percent of robbery suspects; 28 percent of those charged with aggravated assault; 40 percent of those charged with burglary; 46 percent of those charged with auto theft; 59 percent of those brought up on drug charges.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090315/NEWS01/903150386

Racial Profiling within Community

We normally read of racial profiling and drivers. Here we have

allegations of profiling by community policing. Video capability 

with small devices is starting to heavily impact citizen/police

interaction.

March 13, 2009

Priest’s Video Contradicts Police Report on Arrest

By CHRISTINE NEGRONI

EAST HAVEN, Conn. — Latino merchants in this New Haven suburb have been complaining for months that they get a disproportionately large share of attention from the local police. Officers, they say, have harassed them and their customers by lingering outside shops, stopping cars and demanding to see driver’s licenses.

But their complaints were largely confined to grumbling among themselves and at a local church until Feb. 19, when a white American priest was arrested.

The priest, the Rev. James Manship, who was videotaping a police visit to an Ecuadorean-owned grocery store on Main Street when he was led off in handcuffs, has become an unlikely symbol of racial profiling, charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with the police.

On Thursday, more than a dozen East Haven residents joined the priest at a news conference in New Haven to release the brieftape he made of the encounter.

Father Manship, who had been advising the merchants, was in My Country Store taping two police officers as they confiscated the owner’s collection of license plates. In the arrest report, Officer David Cari said he grew concerned when the priest approached the officers and failed to identify an object cupped in his hands. Officer Cari wrote in the report that he felt “unsafe.”

But in the 14-second video, which can be seen on the Web site newhavenindependent.org, the officer can be heard asking the priest: “Sir what are you doing? Is there a reason that you have a camera on me?” Father Manship replies, “I’m taking a video of what’s going on here.”

Officer Cari approaches him, saying, “Well I’ll tell you what — what I’m going to do with that camera.” Then the taping stops.

Father Manship, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in New Haven, was documenting police action on behalf of several members of his parish, including the store’s owner, Wilfred Matutet, and his wife, Marcia Chacon, who owns the beauty salon next door.

The number of customers at the salon, said Janet Ortiz, a stylist, has dropped drastically in recent months, as police officers lingered in cruisers across the street.

Over the past 20 years, the Hispanic population of this working-class town has nearly quadrupled to about 1,900, or about 6 percent of the population, according to census estimates. Businesses, many of them owned by Ecuadoreans, have expanded.

In January, Pedro and Adriene Gutierrez moved here from Long Island to open Gut’z Bakery. Within a week, Mr. Gutierrez said, he noticed the police checking the licenses and car registrations of his customers. His daughter, Marley Gutierrez, said she had called the Police Department, telling a police supervisor, “This is a problem — did we do something wrong?”

“He said, ‘Well, this is how we do things in East Haven,’ ” she recalled.

No record of the complaint seems to have been registered, said Hugh Keefe, the lawyer for the Police Department. “If somebody legit calls the mayor with a specific complaint formally or informally with a date, time location, I assure you it will be investigated,” he said.

Mayor April Capone Almon said on Thursday that she had dined twice at Gut’z Bakery, but that no one had told her about problems with the police. “We investigate and look into all concerns, but no formal complaints have been filed,” the mayor said. “How can I do anything if I don’t know?”

Father Manship said he and the merchants had been assembling a case to document their stories, and videotaping police action. His arrest suddenly made the effort public.

Town officials said Father Manship might be getting in the way of a resolution. “I know he is trying to get his name in the paper,” Mr. Keefe said. “I know he wanted to get arrested.”

He added: “I don’t want to hear him talk about discrimination without backing it up with places, dates, times and arrest records.”

Toward that end, merchants, religious leaders and young lawyers from Yale Law School’s law clinic have been gathering at St. Rose Church. “We’re continuing working with the community to collect stories. Many people now, instead of keeping this hidden, people are now talking about it,” Father Manship said.

The mayor said she feared further division. “One always has to be careful about who they are choosing as their messenger,” she said. “The front page of the paper, press conferences — they alienate us from one another.”

 

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Street Code and Youth Violence

Street Code' Study Sees Youth Violence Link

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A new government-funded study, "The Code of the Street and African-American Adolescent Violence," indicates that economic disadvantage, separation from mainstream society and racial discrimination encountered by some young blacks may lead to anti-social attitudes and to violent behavior. The research for the federal Office of Justice Programs was conducted in Philadelphia by Elijah Anderson. (The weblink connects with a pdf version of the research.)

Anderson said his "code of the street" theory involves an unending cycle of gaining and losing respect and reputation. The research integrates the environmental and cultural factors examined in many previous studies of urban violence. Anderson said the stress of living in a poor and violent environment can cause young people to adopt the code of the street as a lifestyle guide. This, in turn, is a powerful predictor of violent conduct, amplified by the effects of negative neighborhood characteristics.

Office of Justice Programs

Sexting

Teens caught 'sexting' face porn charges By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY A growing number of teens are ending up in serious trouble for sending racy photos with their cellphones. Police have investigated more than two dozen teens in at least six states this year for sending nude images of themselves in cellphone text messages, which can bring a charge of distributing child pornography. Authorities typically are notified by parents or schools about so-called "sexting." This week in Spotsylvania, Va., two boys, ages 15 and 18, were charged with solicitation and possession of child porn with intent to distribute after an investigation found they sought nude pictures from three juveniles — one in elementary school. "It's absolutely becoming a bigger problem," says Michelle Collins of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Of the 2,100 children the center has identified as victims of online porn, she says, one-fourth initially sent the images themselves. She says some did it for fun and others were tricked into it by adults they met online. "They may not realize the danger they are exposing themselves to," says William Shaw, district attorney for Clearfield County, Pa. "When they put it online, they lose control." Last month, Shaw filed a juvenile petition against a 15-year-old girl for sending nude photos of herself over the Internet. He says his objective isn't to jail her but to get her counseling or other help. The 27-year-old man who enticed her to do it has been sentenced to 10 years for having sex with her. Lawmakers are debating penalties. On Wednesday, the Utah Legislature passed lighter penalties, from a felony to a misdemeanor, for sexting. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Juvenile Court Judge Thomas O'Malley struggled to figure out what to do with eight teens, 14 to 17, caught trading nude cellphone pictures of themselves. He says the father of one of the girls found the images. If the 17-year-old who sent the nude photos to an ex-boyfriend were convicted of a child-porn charge, he says, she would be a registered sex offender for 20 years. "These kids have no record, not even a parking ticket," says O'Malley, a father of four teens. He required each to do community service and to ask peers if they knew sexting was a crime. They told O'Malley they surveyed 225 teens; 31 knew.

Find this article at:  http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2009-03-11-sexting_N.htm

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Differences in Parole and Probation Practices in US

• :45 P.M. ET

States Urged to Improve Probation, Parole Programs

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The number of offenders on parole and probation across the U.S. has surged past 5 million, complicating the challenges for fiscally ailing states as they try to curb corrections costs without jeopardizing public safety, according to a new report.

The Pew Center on the States report, released Monday, says the number of people on probation or parole nearly doubled to more than 5 million between 1982 and 2007. Including jail and prison inmates, the total population of the U.S. corrections system now exceeds 7.3 million -- one of every 31 U.S. adults, it said.

The report also noted huge discrepancies among the states in regard to the total corrections population -- one of every 13 adults in Georgia and one of every 18 in Idaho at one end of the scale, one of every 88 in New Hampshire at the other extreme. The racial gap also was stark -- one of every 11 black adults is under correctional supervision, one of every 27 Hispanic adults, one of every 45 white adults.

The report notes that construction of new prisons will be increasingly rare as most states grapple with budget crises. It said improved community-supervision strategies represent one of the most feasible ways for states to limit corrections spending and reduce recidivism.

"Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes," said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Center on the States.

At present, according to the report, prisons consume nearly 90% of state corrections spending, even though two-thirds of offenders under supervision are on parole or probation. Costs per year for a prison inmate average nearly $29,000, while average costs for managing parolees and probationers range from $1,250 to $2,750 a year.

Adam Gelb, director of Pew's Public Safety Performance Project, stressed that violent and incorrigible criminals need to be locked up, but contended that many prison inmates could be safely overseen in their communities at far lower cost.

"New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back," he said. "Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn't. It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more imprisonment."

Among the report's recommendations for strengthening community corrections:

-Base intervention programs on sound research about what works to reduce recidivism.

-Use advances in supervision technology such as electronic monitoring and rapid-result alcohol and drug tests.

-Create incentives for offenders and supervision agencies to succeed, and monitor their performance.

-Impose swift, certain sanctions for offenders who break the rules of their release.

The report cited a probation program in Hawaii as a positive example. Under that program, which offers extensive counseling and treatment, failure to comply with random drug tests, office visits and treatment requirements is met with immediate sanctions -- typically a few days in jail. Participants have proven far less likely than others on probation to be arrested for new crimes and sent back to prison.

Arizona was praised for a law enacted last year that creates performance incentives for offenders and the county-based probation supervision system. For every month that an offender complies with the terms of supervision, the length of probation can be shortened by up to 20 days. Slip-ups result in a loss of the earned time.

Kansas has made headway in curbing its prison population by offering grants to community corrections programs that cut down on the high number of probation and parole rule-breakers being sent back to prison solely for such rule violations.

The Pew report says strong community supervision programs for low-risk offenders not only cost much less than incarceration but, when properly funded and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30%. That could be a huge boon to the states, which, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, spent a record $51.7 billion on corrections last fiscal year -- up 300% over two decades.

The five states with the highest rate of adults under correctional supervision were Georgia, Idaho, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio. Those with lowest rates were New Hampshire, Maine, West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota.

Georgia, although only the ninth most populous state, had more people on probation in 2007 -- 435,631 -- than any other state, according to the report. The state Department of Corrections said the number might be inflated by double-counting of some offenders, but it has previously acknowledged that its probation population is the highest per capita in the country.

One consequence, according to the department, is that Georgia probation officers have had a caseload far higher than the national average.

Copyright © 2009 Associated Press

They need to find another way

Multnomah County's drug court faces budget ax
Posted by Aimee Green, The Oregonian March 10, 2009 21:26PM

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian

A county department that funds a world-recognized drug rehabilitation program is offering to sacrifice it to help balance Multnomah County's budget.

Officials come from across the nation and around the globe to learn from the county's Sanctions Treatment Opportunity Progress court program -- the second-oldest of nearly 2,000 drug courts in the United States -- yet county officials say their funding outlook next fiscal year is so dire they must cut somewhere.

County budget feels the pinch

Multnomah County residents are getting the first glimpse of massive cuts coming to county services because of a projected $45 million gap in the coming budget. Department heads have submitted suggestions on how to slash 12 percent from their budgets. Here are some of cuts on the table for the spending plan county Chairman Ted Wheeler will put forth in April.

• The county's last gang prevention program would end, and the sheriff's office would no longer participate in the multiagency gang task force.

• More jail beds would close, though it's unclear how many.

-- Nikole Hannah-Jones
Those close to the county's drug-court program, which offers people caught possessing drugs a chance to avoid a felony conviction if they become drug-free, say that eliminating funding for the $1.4 million program would be a costly mistake.

It would not only hurt addicts, but their children and society in general because some addicts will resort to crime to fuel their habits, they say.

"There will be an increase in drug overdoses, babies born drug addicted and child-welfare cases," said Rick Berman, program director at InAct, the Volunteers of America drug treatment program where most drug court offenders enroll.

"The bottom line is people who desperately need treatment won't be able to get treatment," Laurie Hoyt Huffman, division director at InAct. "And that's bad news for everyone."

Officials from the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, however, say there are no easy choices and they must follow a county mandate to slash their budget by 12 percent come July 1. And so they've recommended eliminating funding for the program.

That would mean hundreds of defendants addicted to meth, heroin, cocaine or other illegal drugs would flood Multnomah County's traditional criminal justice system. If convicted, many would be given probation and ordered into drug treatment. But because of an already overtaxed system, many would get no more than an occasional letter asking them if they'd followed court orders.

"They can go through their entire probation without doing anything at all," said Spencer Hahn, a public defender with Multnomah Defenders Inc..

Since its inception in 1991, Multnomah County's STOP court has won the praise of prosecutors, defense attorneys and treatment providers and served as a model for some of the 1,900 drug-court programs that have sprung up across the country since, including courts in Clackamas, Clark and Washington counties. Visitors from as far off as Azerbaijan have sat in to learn by example.

The court keeps a watchful eye on hundreds of addicts who enter it each year. To enter the program, defendants must be charged with a nonviolent drug crime, chiefly possessing drugs or forging prescriptions. They also must plead guilty or no contest, with the understanding that their cases will be thrown out if they graduate. That means consistently going to treatment, taking random urine tests and enrolling in school or getting a job.

Those who flunk out are convicted.

At periodic graduation ceremonies, those who succeed get a lease on a new life, applause and a judge-ordered look at the often scary, angry or haggard-looking mug shots that were taken when police brought them in.

During a STOP court session earlier this week, Circuit Court Judge Christopher Marshall encouraged a 22-year-old woman who'd lost her job at Clackamas Town Center, then turned to meth. To show her how far she's come since last getting high in July 2007, he offered her a sneak peak of the mug shot she will see at graduation.

"Oh my God, that's so bad!" she exclaimed, a big smile breaking across her face.

Marshall offered kudos as he saw defendants with clean urine screenings and perfect attendance at drug treatment. He gave an unemployed and extraordinarily thin 28-year-old man a stern warning because he skipped out on more than four months of court dates and went on a drug binge.

This is your last chance, the judge told the man.

"You cannot miss another court date," Marshall said. "Cars get flat tires. Children get ill. Catch the bus that gets you here an hour early."

Although some drug court participants are homeless, unemployed or work minimum-wage jobs, others are white collar. The court has seen elementary school teachers, lawyers, dentists, doctors and plenty of college students.

The Department of Community Justice included STOP court along with a handful of other programs recommended for cuts, including a proposal to reduce drug treatment spots and the number of juveniles who are brought before a judge after being picked up by police.

Under the last proposal, fewer youth offenders would be found responsible for their crimes, ordered to do community service and apologize to victims. Instead, more juvenile offenders would simply receive letters after their arrests.

Jason Ziedenberg, a spokesman for the department, said department leaders think STOP court is successful, but they've placed a priority on the most dangerous offenders. In large part, that means devoting resources to sex offenders and other violent felons who've been released from prison.

The proposed cuts have been sent to Multnomah County Chairman Ted Wheeler, who will compile a proposed budget in April. Commissioners must agree on a new budget, effective in July.

Drug courts in Clackamas, Clark and Washington counties aren't planning cuts to their programs at this time.

-- Aimee Green; aimeegreen@news.oregonian.com

©2009 Oregon Live LLC. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance

Headlines and Reality

Headlines and Reality  The headlines make the residents believe that crime is high, but according tothe police commissioner this is not the case. See what you think results from crime headlines March 1, 2009 As Hard Times Loom, Will New York’s Streets Get Meaner? By AL BAKER With each crack of gunfire, with each new homicide, the trajectory of public safety in New York City is being measured. Headline: A 15-year-old boy in the Bronx is shot on Monday in a dispute over graffiti.  Headline: A 21-year-old woman is shot dead on Wednesday on a street in East New York, Brooklyn, a neighborhood once known as the “dead zone.”  Headline: A 53-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl are fatally shot on Thursday night inside an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. If a shrinking economy, soaring jobless claims and a troubled financial sector are not angst-producing enough, the threat of increased crime is leading many conversations toward a nagging and persistent question: Will the bad old days of record numbers of murders and ubiquitous street muggings be far behind? “If you’re nervous, some noise can make you jump,” said Dennis C. Smith, a professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, who has studied the New York City Police Department’s strategies to reduce crime. “And I think we are understandably very, very nervous.” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, for his part, said he has heard this all before.He said similar worries were being voiced as he took over in 2002 for a second stint as the city’s top police official: Things were headed in the wrong direction, the economy was devastated after Sept. 11, 2001, and there were predictions that crime would increase. Instead, overall crime has dropped nearly 30 percent in the last seven years, he said, and in 2007 the lowest number of killings was recorded since the city started keeping what it considers reliable records, about four decades ago. “There’s a lot of predictions that crime is going to go up as a result of the economic crisis,” Mr. Kelly said on Friday during a news conference to announce an arrest in the fatal beating of an Ecuadorean immigrant in December.“The fact of the matter is that hasn’t happened,” Mr. Kelly said. “The fact is we’re down 14 percent, and we’re down in every category across the city.” “We’ve met these challenges before,” he added. Criminologists warn that it can be misleading to analyze crime data for short periods of time and say that clusters of murders can occur during periods of overall crime decreases. Still, after the first two months of 2009, Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said that murders in the city are down slightly. As of Feb. 25, there were 55 homicides in the city, Mr. Browne said, compared with 66 in the same period a year go, a 17 percent decrease. Despite a recent surge in violence, crime in East New York, which is part of the 75th Precinct, is mirroring the citywide trend: It is down 14 percent.“It is flat in every category,” Mr. Kelly said. “It is actually flat, as far as homicides are concerned. It is down as far as shootings are concerned.” But crime statistics and people’s feelings about public safety “are not perfectly correlated,” Professor Smith said.“People have had this longtime misconception that crime came down in New York City because the economy improved, and I have been telling people that it is just the reverse — the economy improved after crime went down,” Professor Smith said.  “Hotel occupancy went up after crime went down. Airport arrivals went up after crime went down. Employment went up after crime went down.”Thomas A. Reppetto, a police historian and a retired commander in the Chicago Police Department, said a city becoming less safe because of a sputtering economy was not something that would occur quickly. Even if stores were going out of business and being boarded up, reversing the revitalization of certain neighborhoods, it would not happen “overnight.” A key issue is whether the city, facing a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, would be able to sustain the Police Department’s size or be able to provide money for hiring or overtime costs. Mr. Kelly said he would like to have more officers, and expressed hope that the federal stimulus package would contain grant money for new hires. Mr. Reppetto said he believed crime would continue declining this year. “For 2009, if the police receive some additional things because of federal money, and if they continue to carry out the strategies they have carried out, you will not see a significant rise in crime; indeed, it will probably go down,” he said. “But if there is going to be a prolonged depression, recession, then we have to think about other scenarios.”Mr. Reppetto said predictions about “the fall of the Big Apple” were made in 1990, when homicides hit their peak at 2,245, and, “murder gangs with machine guns” roamed the streets. “I got calls galore,” Mr. Reppetto said. “Is this the end of New York? Is New York finished? The BBC wanted to know what was going on.” In Bedford-Stuyvesant, outside 117 Van Buren Street, where two people were killed late Thursday, residents said it was hard to tell if they were at the threshold of a new era of lawlessness. But they spoke of their anger over crime and those responsible. “The kids around here don’t feel like they have any other choice,” said Renee Taylor, 21, who works as a security guard. “There’s definitely more robberies lately. That’s getting popular now. People will knock right on the door with a gun. You can tell them some sob story about being broke, but they’re just going to get mad at you.”A friend, Jessica Paige, 21, offered a simple theory about why people turn to crime: “It’s a money thing.” Colin Moynihan contributed reporting. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company