My column in the February Advocate (on your doorknob now) did not start out to be what is in the magazine. Instead, I was going to write about crime entrepreneurs — a rapidly increasing group, both locally and nationally, who see a way to make money by selling crime-related information like real-time statistics.
What struck me was: Why was this happening now, given that crime in this area is the least bad it has been since I moved to Dallas in 1984? In some ways, given how bad the situation was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it’s almost bucolic around here. I can’t remember the last time I heard a stray gun shot.
Yet these new companies see a demand for this service, which led me to the column. Are we safer? The statistics say we are. But many visitors to the blog don’t think so. So why don’t we think we’re safer? And how will that attitude affect the decisions we make about fighting crime?
