Baltimore, You're Really Asking For It

In her continuing effort to make me look like a fool, Baltimore continues to break records. As the article states, the most recent string of homicides makes Baltimore the 2nd most dangerous city in the nation, just behind Detroit. What I find even more troubling than the rising murder rate (which is rising all over the country, just not as fast as it is here) is the somewhat dismissive attitude of the BPD spokesman quoted in the Baltimore Sun yesterday:

"Baltimore is becoming an increasingly safer city for law-abiding citizens but has become an increasingly dangerous city for those that live outside the law," Jablow said. "We see it over and over with our homicide victims and suspects: They're people who've been arrested, five, 10, 15 times. We have to get these people off the streets for longer periods of time."

I find the distinction between "law-abiding," citizens and outsiders crass in light of the very circumstances this spokesman is supposed to be commenting on. Wasn't the cabdriver shot and killed yesterday a "law-abiding," citizen? How much of an outsider was the 4-year-old who was shot in the foot? I'm sure some of the thirteen juveniles killed this year in Baltimore some were involved in drug-trafficking, but I'm equally sure that some were innocent bystanders. Implied by Jablow's statement is the idea that if you are involved in a homicide you somehow deserve it, and this tradition of blaming the victim is as damaging to our city as gun violence.

I spent my undergraduate years studying psychology, focusing on the psychology of aggression and violence. As the first article states, two years of homicide rate hikes is not enough to establish a pattern. However, a recurring theme in my research is that outsiders, "those that live outside the law," those that do not necessarily enjoy the benefits society has promised them are the canaries of society as a whole. We would be remiss to ignore this phenomena, or to pretend that it has nothing to do with us.