It’s been a disturbing week for crime statistics and events. First, the guy who kept his dead mother in the freezer and shot at his neighbors regularly gets sentenced to 7 years, then the stats for robbery in Minneapolis along with a bunch more stats come out and show that robberies are set to outpace every year since 1997 and continue a trend in increases since 2003. And to top it all off, the stats article quotes Third Precinct Inspector Scott Gerlicher saying that, “there is a roving group of young thugs in his precinct in south Minneapolis who strike as a victim is nearing home.” Great.

What’s being done about this kind of thing? I’ll let this stat speak for itself:

“According to the force’s human resources department, the number of sworn officers began to steadily decline after 1998, when there were 930 officers. There were 798 sworn officers as of Oct. 21.”