May 25 2021 - how Dangerous is Niagara?

 

What an interesting question pops up in Google:  Is Niagara dangerous?  And the answer? Niagara Falls is in the 9th percentile for safety, meaning 91% of cities are safer and 9% of cities are more dangerous.  The rate of crime in Niagara Falls is 65.71 per 1,000 residents during a standard year.  People who live in Niagara Falls generally consider the southeast part of the city to be the safest. Is that New York or Ontario's Niagara's Falls?  It turns out to be Yew York:  Niagara Falls, N.Y. has a D- overall crime grade.  Violent crime grade F, Property crime grade A+ and Other Crime grade D-.  The overall crime rate is 83.33 - very high.  This number comes from numbeo.com - the world's largest cost of living database.   How about Niagara Falls, Ontario?  The retrieved answer is:  there is virtually no crime in this area.   The crime index says 36.95 and safety index 63.05.  Level of crime is rated as low, but crime increasing in the past 3 years is rated high.  These numbers come from numbeo.com too. The overall quality of life index says very high.  That is higher than Hamilton at high, and Toronto at very high.  And if you compare Niagara Falls, N.Y. with Buffalo, it has more crime there too.  The overall crime index for Bufalo is 44.36, and the safety index 55.65. It's level of crime is considered moderate. When we were children, it was our understanding that Niagara Falls, Canada with its tourist industry was considered a city with more organized crime than in St. Catharines or other nearby towns.  I don't know how we as children got this sense.  Maybe it was the newspapers reporting on criminals who vanished in the area.  That was the case with Peter Mitchell in 1959. Or other reports such as MacLeans article on organized crime's grip on Ontario.  Maybe someone can tell me how we got these ideas. Here's what is interesting.  Canada is generally so safe that I hadn't considered looking at these numbers, or asking the Google pop up question. Here's my most frequent view of Niagara - the greenhouses.

Dec 3 2020 - Organized Crime

 

How did 'organized crime' get its name?  This has a sense of being MBA-talk of the 20th century.  Is it?  This sense of groups of criminals - such as pirates - has been with us a long time.  "Barbarian conquerors, whether Vandals, Goths, the Norse, Turks or Mongols are not normally thought of as organized crime groups, yet they share many features associated with thriving criminal organizations. They were for the most part non-ideological, predominantly ethnically based, used violence and intimidation, and adhered to their own codes of law." So what I think distinguishes this expression is the sense of organization structure and functioning. The website ResearchGate has the answer from Klaus von Lampers in his paper:  Not a Process of Enlightenment: The Conceptual History of Organized Crime in Germany and the United States of America von Lampers says that the content and meaning of the term "organized crime" has undergone various changes since it was first coined in Chicago in 1919 and entered the criminal policy debate in Germany in the 1960s. He relays the historical origins of the expression. "The term organized crime first came into regular use among the members of the Chicago Crime Commission, a civic organization that was created in 1919 by businessmen, bankers and lawyers to promote changes in the criminal justice system in order to better cope with the crime problem. In the pronouncements of the Chicago Crime Commission, organized crime referred not to criminal organizations but in a much broader sense to the orderly fashion in which the so-called criminal class of an estimated 10,000 professional criminals in Chicago allegedly could pursue crime as a business. The discussion centred on the conditions that seemingly allowed criminals to gain a steady income from crime, in particular property crimes, under virtual immunity from the law.  In the eyes of the Crime Commission, the city authorities were to blame for incompetency, inefficiency and corruption, while the public was criticized for its indifference and even open sympathy towards criminals. This characterization of organized crime as an integral part of society apparently reflected the perception of Chicago by the old established Protestant middle class as a city that, after years of rapid growth and cultural change, seemed to be drowning in crime, corruption and moral decay." Here's his summary of the evolution of this term in the U.S. history:  "In essence, over the last 80 years the American perception of organized crime has evolved from an integral facet of big city life to an assortment of global criminal players who challenge even the most powerful countries. In other words, the original systemic view of the relation between organized crime and society has been replaced by a dichotomic view that in recent years has been carried to extremes with the concept of global mafias." And how do we conclude? With an organized crime joke! Barry's job was to write articles for a massive online news site run by the mafia.  He absolutely hated his job, but he had to stay because they would kill his family if he left. He had to write articles about the mafia’s crimes, and because the company had all the lawmakers bribed, they were untouchable even though they openly admitted to their crimes. The editor-in-chief walked over to his desk one day, and leaned on the side of his cubicle. He said, “Barry, we’ve got the senator’s daughter held hostage. Thing is, we can’t do our usual schtick and demand money because we think the feds are onto us. Gimme something good for the headline and we’ll let you off early.” So Barry, knowing exactly what was at stake, wrote the standard ransom article asking for fifty million dollars, but this time he changed the title:  “Senator’s daughter to be released safely only upon reception of $50 million in precious metals’. Barry felt very proud of himself, and sure enough a week later the ransom had been paid and the company was rich. The editor-in-chief came back to his desk. “Great job, Barry! It worked! Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, after you change the title so the feds can’t hold it against us?” Barry agreed, and within five minutes the article title read: “Edit: Thanks for Gold!” I am thinking that Dilbert would appreciate this joke, wouldn't he? Here's something from the garden  after the snow.

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The Exception

I am usually seeing headlines that want me to click to see the top 10, the most beautiful, the best, etc.  Today there's a headline that is an exception: 12 of the work places to live in the U.S. This article made their list considering crime reports, annual median incomes, air quality, climate, poverty levels and unemployment rates.  Their list included St. Louis.  Here are the "worst" 5: Memphis, Tennessee New Haven, Connecticut Cleveland, Ohio Detroit, Michigan Camden, Jew Jersey Forbes has had Camden on their list of "America's Most Miserable Cities" for years. It is known for urban decay and political corruption. Its median household income is $18,000 and 45% of residents live below the poverty line. Its crime rate is 560% over the national average.  I thought:  Maybe in perspective, we'll find that the U.S. is not in dire straits.  So I spread the net to the most dangerous cities in the world.  St. Louis comes up number 13 for murder rates. The 12 cities ahead of it are in Mexico, Venezuela, and Brazil.  I thought, I'd look broader to find the 'most horrible' places in the world.  Even there, we see U.S. cities:  Dhaka, then Mumbai, Detroit, Karachi and Hackensack, N.J. Every day I learn something new:  I could never have guessed these statistics. Today's image shows a beautiful meandering road in Colorado.