EDEN PRAIRIE COMMUNITY & CITY COUNCIL SPEECH
Very glad to be here.
I want to give you updates on three things and then answer whatever questions I can.
The four things are community prosecution, truancy prevention, mortgage fraud, and crime trends.
Community Prosecution
When I ran for County Attorney, I firmly believed that the County Attorney’s Office needed to work far more closely in partnership with members of the neighborhoods and communities we serve.
Once in office, we began the practice of sending attorneys in our office out to community meetings on a regular basis. Those meetings provide immeasurable benefits.
- We have a better understanding of what is important to the communities we serve.
- Communities learn about the criminal justice system.
- They learn both what we can do, and barriers to using the criminal justice system in the way the community might want. Some barriers involve rights of the accused, some are financial, some are lack of understanding or creativity. Some we need to live with, some we can overcome or eliminate. It is helpful to know which are which.
- We form very productive partnerships.
- Sometimes we are looking for a sentence that is longer than a judge might otherwise give. Community impact statements can be quite helpful.
- Sometimes we need to bring the neighborhood perspective to the table when policy is being set.
- Drug task force - first time people from neighborhoods particularly hard hit by the drug trade were brought to the table on statewide drug policy. Input was enormously valuable.
- legislative example – some crazy ideas at the legislature to back off commitment to public safety funding. It was very important to have community members say to legislators “we have been working like crazy to get our neighborhoods and communities under control, don’t abandon us.”
- Prosecutors who meet with community members are just more effective.
- It is one thing to prosecute drug cases, some big and some small. It is another thing altogether to understand how much damage drug dealers do to neighborhoods and neighborhood businesses. Such an understanding increases the urgency and quality of our prosecutions.
Thank you for supporting our office members. We look forward to continuing and expanding our relationships with you. Your Community Prosecutors are: APD – CHRISTINA WARREN (612-348-3104); Property team – DIANE KRENZ (612-348-6919) and Juvenile – CHUCK WEBER (612-348-6391). Call with your problems, questions, issues.
Mortgage Fraud
You all know firsthand the terrible toll mortgage fraud has taken on our communities. You may have heard less about the efforts of our office to hold fraudsters accountable. In the last two years, we have charged 25 defendants with mortgage fraud related offenses including racketeering, theft, identity theft, forgery, and conspiracy. Those charges involved 210 properties with 152 located in Minneapolis and the overwhelming majority of those located on the northside of Minneapolis. The charges involve over one hundred million dollars worth of fraudulent loans.
Recently, a jury found Larry Maxwell guilty of 12 counts including RICO. The trial consumed countless hours of investigator and prosecutor time. The trial has taken seven weeks.
I don’t need to tell you that this is hard work. It can also be pretty daunting. On the northside alone, there are something like 800 vacant and abandoned properties; each one a target for vandals and a potential home to drug dealers and pimps.
But we are making progress and will continue. In 2006, Minnesota was ranked 5th in the nation in terms of the prevalence of mortgage fraud. In the most recent study, we have dropped to 14th. More importantly, I want to report to you that we are applying for a federal grant to help us not only expand investigation and prosecution, but also to use the existing nuisance laws to hold current owners of foreclosed properties accountable for maintaining the properties so that they do not become a bigger blight on the neighborhood. I am hopeful that our grant application will be positively received.
Education Neglect Initiatives
Work with youngest truants.
Crime trends
Finally, I want to talk about the past and the future in terms of crime rates. I do so with some trepidation because the overall crime rate does not really matter to a person who has been victimized or to a neighborhood that has experienced crime first hand. For victims, we need to acknowledge that one crime is one too many.
We also need to acknowledge that there is no longer much mystery as to the ingredients that go into creating safe communities. And here is the good news, those ingredients are largely the same ones that we all would choose for our communities whether crime were an issue or not.
- Children are in school, engaged and learning.
- Families are strong and caring.
- People treat each other with respect and take care of civic institutions.
- Public spaces are clean, orderly, and well cared for.
That said; it is important to look at what is working and what holds promise. It is important to recognize that in nearly all categories, overall crime and crime rates in Hennepin County, in Minneapolis, and on the north side are down dramatically. For example, in the fourth precinct of Minneapolis, by this time of year in 2007, there were 14 murders, 181 robberies, and 245 aggravated assaults. So far this year, there was 1 murder, 113 robberies, and 201 aggravated assaults. These are dramatic decreases. Overall, Adult flat for us; Juvenile down 15-25%.
Most encouraging is that after making the serious mistakes of essentially disbanding the juvenile investigative unit and in taking Minneapolis Officers out of schools, Minneapolis, and in particular Chief Dolan, took corrective action. They not only took corrective action, they did so in a very principled and cooperative way. Juvenile crime is down more than 25 percent in the last year in Minneapolis and that drop is on top of a big drop the year before. School crime is down dramatically as well. A great deal of this decrease is due to focus on the most serious juvenile street crime, combined with an approach in schools in which the MPD school officers are working with school personnel to confront bad behavior early, before it gets out of hand. The proof is in the numbers, juvenile and school crime is down county wide, but it is down far more in Minneapolis.
That is not to say that we can rest. We are still producing juvenile gang members, robbers, and burglars at way too fast a rate. To stop that trend, I think we need to focus on two areas in particular.
First, we need to focus on school attendance. The research is now way beyond question. Huge numbers of juvenile delinquents get started as truants. Worse yet, most truants get started as little kids whose parent can't or won't get them to school. As a community, we need to set the expectations. Kids on the street during school time should look wrong to all of us. They should be so rare that it draws our attention. My office has focused on the little kids first. We know what works. We have proved that we can dramatically improve school attendance. We are also ready to start focusing on the older kids. It costs money now, but the savings in the future are huge in terms of fewer crimes and court cases and more taxpaying, productive citizens.
The second area is what I call civility. Working with the Metropolitan Transit Commission, we created a campaign designed to get people to show a little respect for others on the buses. We need to build on that. By now, I am sure you all have heard of the broken windows theory of crime. That is that if we take call of smaller so-called "livability" crimes and keep our neighborhoods cleaned up and graffiti free, more serious crimes will decrease as a result. We need to keep in mind that we all are part of that environment. Our children are watching us. If we act with civility and treat others with dignity and respect, if we set that as the norm, overall behavior will improve. As leaders in our community, we all have a role and a stake in creating a more civil community.