Violent crime spikes after Camden halves police force

Yahoo ^ | 03/07/2011 | By Liz Goodwin

[Responsibility2nd]

Two months after Camden, NJ, laid off 160 police officers, city prosecutors have released a sobering report showing a dramatic rise in violent crime in the drug-and-crime-ridden city of 80,000 residents.

Aggravated assaults with firearms jumped 259 percent in January and February compared to last year, and violent crime over all is up 19 percent, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Murders and robberies, however, were down for the period.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I’ve heard that Camden is the extreme, in that, almost all of the middle class and almost all businesses moved out years ago. So the only people left are the very poor, the thugs, gang members, and other assorted people with social pathologies. How can Camden, or any city, survive when everyone who is productive has moved on???? With no tax base and no taxpayers, that’s a recipe for disaster. The pictures tell a sad story.

[kearnyirish2]

The “tax base” becomes the county, state, and fed government. These places also have a lot of illegal aliens, since without them the school district and apartment rentals such as they are would completely dry up. Other cities in NJ have laid off polie as well (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson); this doesn’t just reflect an exodus of taxpayers and corporations, but also the fact that a lot of illegals live in these places. They are invisible in terms of the census, they are no W-2s issued for those that work, and they contribute nothing to the tax base by stacking in apartments or simply living in undeclared (illegal, untaxed) apartments.