Crime
In 2002, Wilmington became what was thought to be first city in the U.S. to have its entire downtown area under surveillance.
Also in 2002, the Wilmington Police Department started a program known as jump-outs in which unmarked police vans would patrol crime-prone neighborhoods late at night, suddenly converge at street corners and temporarily detain loiterers; photographing and fingerprinting the detainees. Along with apprehending anyone with drugs or weapons, it was thought that this program would improve the police's database of fingerprints and eye-witnesses for use in future crime investigations. Some citizens protested that such a practice was a violation of civil rights.
In 2010, Wilmington had 27 homicides, which exceeded the previous record of 26 set in 2008. In 2011, community mobilization against crime was reported to be on the rise in the city.
In 2012, Parenting magazine cited Wilmington as the nation's most dangerous city on a per capita basis.
Read more about this topic: Wilmington, Delaware
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)