On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti will ask voters to send him back to City Hall. But that effort could be complicated by growing perceptions that he lacks a sense of urgency when it comes to fighting rising crime.
The city’s violent crime rate rose for the third consecutive year in 2016 following a 12-year period of decline. Property crime was up for the second year in a row, with car thefts in double-digit territory.
This isn’t a problem unique to Los Angeles. Numerous cities throughout the state are reporting similar trends. Law enforcement is blaming an increase in homelessness and gang activity, as well as a series of statewide criminal justice reform measures, including Proposition 47, which downgraded certain felonies to misdemeanors.
But there is a sense that L.A.’s mayor isn’t taking the problem seriously.
“I want to know what Garcetti’s plan is for the LAPD and crime,” an exasperated Brent Page, head of the Southwest Area Neighborhood Development Council, recently told the L.A. Times. “It’s something that we need to look at during budget time.”
The mayor seemed to reinforce that perception when he skipped an opportunity to update the public on 2016 crime statistics in January. His decision not to hold a press conference was due to a scheduling conflict his office said, pointing people to the LAPD’s website instead. Mayoral candidate Mitchell Schwartz pounced, accusing Garcetti of avoiding the issue during the election season.
If it seems like there’s a lack of urgency, it may be because of what the trend lines actually show. Experts continually point out that the public is far safer than it was in the 1980s and 1990s when L.A. once saw nearly 1,100 violent deaths in a single year (there were 294 in 2016.) However, that’s no consolation for the homes and businesses that have been hit by rising crime in the past few years—many of them in parts of the city that were once deemed “safe.”
Garcetti hasn’t been totally silent. The mayor’s deputy for public safety said he intends to add more officers to housing units in South L.A. this year and that he will continue working on anti-crime initiatives that have proved successful in the past. Asked about the figures through Feb. 18, which show a 1.2% jump in overall crime compared to the same period last year, the mayor acknowledged “we have more work to do.”
Will that be enough to satisfy voters on Tuesday?