Police chiefs & mayors converging here to confront crime patterns

Soaring gas prices, rising unemployment and mounting home foreclosures are taking a toll on the nation's police chiefs.

Top cops and mayors, gathering in Philly today for a crime forum sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said that they are seeing an increase in crimes that they attribute to economic hardship - like shoplifting or the theft of metal to sell as scrap.

And gas prices are hurting police budgets, forcing chiefs to think about creative ways to deploy cops, like foot patrols, bicycles or Segways.

"It's costing us all a lot of money," said Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, president of the Conference of Mayors. He also noted that similar crime problems are happening across the nation.

"Apparently it's happening everywhere, from people stealing manhole covers, from people breaking into foreclosed homes," Diaz said.

Diaz said that today's discussion at the Westin Hotel will include economic issues, a topic the cities were polled about ahead of time. They'll also discuss crime-fighting strategies that would benefit from federal investment. Diaz hopes to come out of the forum with a list of recommendations for the next president.

"I think one of the overriding things is that I'm interested in bringing crime to the national agenda," Diaz said.

This afternoon Diaz, Mayor Nutter, Miami Police Chief John Timoney and U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., are scheduled to hold a news conference to discuss the group's crime agenda.

The forum, attended by officials from San Francisco; Boston; Oakland, Calif.; Providence, R.I.; Trenton; and Miami, is the first in a series of five sessions on urban issues that the mayors conference will hold around the country over the next few months.

Timoney said that he has seen some crime patterns change recently. He said that the rising price of metal has likely contributed to more thefts - a Miami man recently tried to steal a lamppost and turn it in for scrap.

"Something that two years ago wouldn't have been worthwhile, now it is," Timoney said. "The prices have doubled and tripled. The prices that are driving the crime are making it worthwhile to engage in this kind of thievery."

Timoney also said that burglaries in Miami have risen, as people break into homes or building sites to steal copper. And gasoline theft is on the rise.

Michael Chitwood, chief in Daytona Beach, Fla., said that he, too, has seen an increase in thefts of gas and copper, as well as more shoplifting.

"In my opinion, the guy that gets laid off from GM doesn't get a gun and do an armed robbery, but you're seeing people doing shoplifting that don't really have a criminal record," said Chitwood, who is not attending the forum.

While scrap thefts have recently been reported as a growing problem here, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey was cautious about blaming the economy.

"I guess you could draw that conclusion," Ramsey said, but he said he wanted to see more data, noting that in previous economic downturns it took more time to establish the impact on crime. "It took a year or two before you saw it show up in actual crime. Who's the person stealing bread, stealing food?"

Ramsey said that he hadn't seen any major jumps in other types of crime.

Gasoline prices are immediately being felt by police departments. Both Timoney and Chitwood said that they were spending far more on fuel this year.

In Philadelphia, the Police Department spent $3.7 million on fuel in the 2007 fiscal year versus nearly $4.4 million in the 2008 fiscal year, said Finance Director Rob DuBow.

Nutter said that the cost will "cause us to at least think about different types of strategies that don't involve fuel. We have to buy the stuff like everybody else." *