Court Dud
So my court visit was a dud.. I woke up early, dressed nicely, braved the early morning downtown traffic, put a whole dollar into the parking meter, spread my arms and got swiped by a metal detector wielding police woman, sat in a stuffy courtroom, and then, after 30 minutes, was informed that the hearing wouldn’t be happening, because the sheriff ‘forgot’ to bring the defendant over from the workhouse. Thats what I get, after 8 months of waiting for this damn thing to go to trial. When I had my original meeting with a prosecutor 8 months ago, he said that things take a long time to go to trial because of all the crime they need to process. On one hand, thats very true. St. Louis was recently rated the most dangerous city in the US, so the courts sure have their work cut out for them. But on the other hand, little things like ‘forgetting’ to bring the defendant, of all people, makes me think that the lumbering bureaucracy has a few other problems besides a simple work overload.
Speaking of which, if you search for ‘bureaucracy’ on Google, this is what comes up as the first link. Beautiful.
Monday 16 Dec 2002 | Sam | Personal
That report has been highly questioned. St. Louis reports its crime statistics far more accurately than most of the other cities included. Also, most of the other cities included their counties as well, and obviously, crime will be less prevalent in more affluent areas. Add to that the fact that their statistical method is one that has been consistantly questioned about giving accurate results, and I wouldn’t put much stock in the “most dangerous city” tag. From a cbsnews article: “University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Scott Decker called the St. Louis-related rankings misleading, arguing they fail to point out the city’s 60 percent drop and the steady decline of overall crime here over the past decade.”
Thats very true, and something I try to keep in mind with stats like that. However, the fact remains that in 20 years of living outside of St. Louis, I had never been robbed, but after a little over a year in st. louis, I had my vehicle stolen twice, and an attempted third theft. Even rankings aside, st. louis ain’t no iceland when it comes to crime…
Sam, I totally understand. However, as any local will tell ya, it’s block by block in the city, and you just need to know where to live, really. Crime in this city exists in neat little pockets, and doesn’t generally go out of that too much. It’s really not as bad, crime-wise, as it may seem to you after the theft attempts. It’s certainly no Washington D.C. or Chicago or Detroit.