Chapter Five: Crime

A major concern for the Trinity Court and Pritchard Park communities is safety. Their reputations as the two worst housing assignments in Chapel Hill are due to the perception that there is more drug activity and crime in Trinity Court and Pritchard Park than in any of the other Chapel Hill public housing communities. This chapter will discuss crime at the state and county level in order to frame the situation and assess the current criminal activity in Trinity Court and Pritchard Park. An important distinction that must be drawn is that the data collected at the state, county, and town level differ from those of the local police report from the Chapel Hill precinct for Trinity Court and Pritchard Park. Crime activity at the state and county level is assessed by an Index Crime Rate measure. Index crime includes the total number of murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts. While arson is considered an Index crime, the number of arsons is not included in the calculation (N.C. Department of Justice, 1998). At the town level, Chapel Hill reports the number of crimes in each of the categories for the Index crime, but does not calculate a rate. Without a known denominator, it is impossible for our purposes to create our own rate. At the Trinity Court and Pritchard Park level, crime is assessed through police complaint records, which do not indicate whether any arrests were made. As a result, we will not directly compare Trinity Court and Pritchard Park numbers to state, county, or town level rates. Instead, we will analyze the significance of the Trinity Court and Pritchard Park numbers to the communities themselves.

The Index Crime Rate for Orange County is lower than that of the state of North Carolina as a whole - 5,238.3 and 5,591.3 per 100,000 respectively (N.C. Department of Justice, 1998). However, the crime rate increased in 1997 from the previous year in Orange County while decreasing in the state as a whole. Breaking the Index Crime Rate into Violent Crime Rate and Property Crime Rate⁵ , the rates are similar between the state and county for property crimes, but the rate for violent crime in Orange County is much lower than that of the state (Table 7).

TABLE 7. CRIME RATES BY STATE AND COUNTY FOR 1996 AND 1997

Source: N.C. Department of Justice (1998)

The Chapel Hill Police Department reported a 12% increase in the total number of major crimes (from 2,493 to 2,784) in 1997 (Town of Chapel Hill, 1998). Motor vehicle theft rose by 28.5% from 119 to 153. During this time period, there were no reported homicides. The "clearance rate" for personal major crimes cleared by arrests or exceptional means dropped from 86% to 55%. Finally, the clearance rate for property crimes remained about the same at 16%.

In 1997, there was an 11% increase in the number of arrests for drug law violations in Chapel Hill. In the previous year, there was a 90% increase due primarily to the work by officers in the Community Oriented Policing program that focused on street-level drug activity. These officers work actively in Trinity Court and Pritchard Park, as well as the Craig/Gomains, Lindsey Street, Airport Gardens, and South Estes neighborhoods (Town of Chapel Hill, 1997). In 1997, the number of citations for driving while impaired decreased in Chapel Hill from 446 to 409, or by 8% (Town of Chapel Hill, 1998). The number of most violent and property crimes remained stable from the previous year.

Turning to the Chapel Hill Police Complaint Log for the Trinity Court and Pritchard Park crime report, there were six arrests made in the same time period of 1997-1998 (Chapel Hill Police, 1998). The report, unfortunately, does not specify who was arrested, so it is not possible to determine if it was the arrest of a resident or an individual from outside of the community. In addition to these arrests, there were seven assaults, four gunshots, one sex offense, one stabbing, six breaking and entering, nine fights, and 13 drug informants. There was also one missing person, one overdose, one runaway, two suicide attempts, and two acts of vandalism. The police report on Trinity Court and Pritchard Park is alarmingly different from a police report on other residential parts of Chapel Hill (Service provider, personal communication, December 9, 1998). Within the course of one year, it would be unusual to find even 10% of this activity in most neighborhoods in Chapel Hill. A Community Police Substation was established in the Family Resource Center. However, following the reassignment of officers, the Substation was vacated in October 1998. The presence of the Community Police Substation in the Family Resource Center reinforced the idea that the safety level of the residents is different from other sections of town. The assignment of a police officer implies that the neighborhood is at a higher risk of crime, and therefore needs to have an officer on site to subvert possible criminal acts and to respond more quickly to miscreant acts.

Another aspect of public housing and crime is the "One Strike and You're Out" statement from President Bill Clinton. This statement includes a trespass policy and explicitly states that there is "zero tolerance" for drug activity and a trespass policy. The latter includes a list of individuals involved in criminal activity and other restrictions, which prohibit them from entering any public housing complex. Residents are not permitted to host any individual from the list in their apartments (Chapel Hill Department of Housing, 1996). This is perceived as an unfair law, against which the residents struggle. Many individuals barred from the communities are fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands who are not allowed to "trespass" into their own families' homes (Service provider, personal communication, October 12, 1998). The Trespass Law is intended to protect the residents, but it is a law viewed as unjust by many residents. The purpose of the Law was to maintain a safe environment in all public housing sites. The government has not yet measured its success. Residents' reactions to the issue are discussed in further detail in Chapter Eleven: Safety Concerns - Myth vs. Reality.

CONCLUSION

There are a greater number of police complaints in Chapel Hill made from Trinity Court and Pritchard Park than other areas of town. It is not possible to determine the involvement of Trinity Court and Pritchard Park residents in the number of crimes reported because of the way in which crime statistics are reported to the Town of Chapel Hill. We can conclude that the crime problem cannot be easily resolved or explained because there is a higher frequency of disturbance and misconduct, as well as an information gap between the different levels of reported crime.

⁵Violent Crime includes the offenses of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.

Chapter Four: Community Profile

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Chapter Six: Health