Michelle Hennessy – News Writer
NEW HAVEN, Conn — Setting down his coffee and leaning back in one of the chairs around the conference table, Chief of Campus Police, Joseph Dooley, explained the different strategies used in the area to try and combat crime.
Once a week local police hold CompStat meetings, a method that helps to lower crime rates by comparing data from different areas and creating focus points from there, according to Dooley.
“By having a more data-driven approach and looking at what the trends are saying, it’s a pretty simple formula,” said Dooley. “You’re going to have increased awareness and a better distribution of forces where you need them and then crime will go down.”
“I often tell people,” said Dooley, “we do more than just drink coffee, like the stereotype suggests. There’s a method to our madness.”
Though Dooley said crimes have been falling in recent years in the area, New Haven still struggles with gun-related crime. In a report by the Connecticut Association for Human Services, nearly 70 percent of all gun crimes in Connecticut take place in New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport alone.
The report showed in 2010, 62 of the 92 homicides using a firearm in Connecticut were in these three cities. It said the rate of murders involving firearms is nearly six times higher than Connecticut as a whole.
With notorious cases such as the Sandy Hook shootings, America’s gun laws have come under increased criticism in recent years, with President Obama now advocating tougher laws when it comes to gun control, according to the White House.
In reaction to the Newtown shootings, an article on the White House’s website titled “Now Is
The Time” states that even if one child’s life can be saved, then something must be done.
“Now is the time,” states the website, “to do the right thing for our children, our communities, and the country we love.”
Southern students like Alexander Polaco however said they don’t think the liberal laws are to blame for the gun crime rate the US faces.
“I think (the laws are) fine now,” said Polaco. “I wouldn’t want them to get any tougher. The people with guns who commit the crime have them illegally so I don’t think toughening the law would make any difference.”
According to the Small Arms Survey, the United States has the highest number of civilians to legally own a weapon, with between 83 and 97 percent of the population owning a firearm, making up 35 to 50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns.
For Polaco though, these figures don’t make him feel any more vulnerable to gun crime.
“(It makes me feel) more safe because then people can defend themselves,” said Polaco.
A poll by ABC News and the Washington Post found 51 percent of adults nationwide believe having a gun in the house makes it safer, compared to only 29 percent who said it would make it more dangerous.
Special education freshman Alexandria Noxon from Meriden says she also prefers the number of civilians who own a gun.
“I’d definitely say it makes me feel more safe,” said Noxon. “Let’s say there was someone who came in (the Student Center) and started shooting up the place and someone else had a gun, then they could stop them.”
Noxon and her friend Ireishka De Jesus, a social work sophomore also from Meriden, both say they feel a lot safer at home than they do in New Haven.
“I don’t think there’s as much crime there as there is here,” said De Jesus. “I think (New Haven) is known as one of the more dangerous places to be.”
While some American students at Southern may say the high level of gun ownership in the US helps make it a safer place, exchange student Anna Goetsch from Germany disagrees.
“A friend of mine who’s also in Connecticut and me were joking one day that we should get bulletproof vests or something!” said Goetsch. “I don’t feel as safe in America as I do in Germany.”
She said it’s not only down to how many people own guns, but also the kinds of people
with access to them that makes her feel unsafe. SP 16.
“People are using the guns that aren’t educated to use them,” said Goetsch. “I think some people get guns because they don’t feel safe anymore.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, nearly 68 percent of homicides in 2010 involved a firearm in America; in Germany, less than 27 percent. SP 2
The contrast is consistent with a lot of the rest of Europe with countries like Spain, Finland, the UK, having significantly less homicides involving a firearm in 2009, according to the UNODC. SP4 It showed in Spain less than 23 percent of homicides involved a firearm, less than 20 percent in Finland, with it dropping to less than 10 percent in the United Kingdom.
Whatever the feelings are outside of the US, most Americans think having stricter gun control laws would not help reduce the amount of gun violence in the country, with 61 percent voting against it helping in a CNN/Time/ORC poll.
After taking a second to think about it, Chief Dooley said he didn’t think there was a correlation between the amount of people who carry a gun legally, and the rates of gun-related crime in America.
Sitting forward in his chair, the Chief said: “America is a great country. People can speak freely and the Second Amendment is something that was put in place for a reason; the right to bear arms is a right that people care for.”
