Living in Salinas has become more and more dangerous. Young people, especially now, prefer to stay inside their homes playing Call of Duty instead of going outside. The crime in our city has escalated every year and brought our city’s reputation down.

After a terrifying 2014, people, with their annual optimism, were expecting 2015 to be the year that the crime would finally drop and we would finally feel safe from the crime haunting our city. Instead, we saw the highest crime in Salinas’ history with 40 people killed.

Most people would agree that a majority of people getting killed are gangsters and would even be happy knowing that the gangsters are killing each other. The sad part, though, is that people do nothing or care little about these crimes. Innocent people are killed too by the drive-bys and shootings. Innocent children, mothers, fathers that didn’t have to die. It’s like people have become immune to the violence.

According to Areavibes Crime Rates & Statistics, 1 in 26 people are likely to be a victim of crime in Salinas. For every 100,000 people, there are 10.87 DAILY crimes that occur in Salinas.

People, especially the poor, don’t get involved. This is a problem because people just say they want things to change, but if they don’t go to City Hall to talk about the problem, it will never get solved. Schools should really motivate students to grow up to be active participants in local government.

At Alisal, for example, government teacher Ruben Pizarro, has encouraged his students to present a comment at one of the weekly City Council meetings. Putting pressure on the city to improve the police department is what people should do for changes. A lot of the crime is due to the ignorance of our community, but a lot of it goes to the police department as well.

The police department has a staff of 171 sworn and 55 non-sworn personnel, 130 being patrol police officers, as well as an annual budget of $18.5 million. The department also received funds through Measure G in 2014. This proposition was designed to give more funding to the Salinas services. The police department, specifically, got 54.1% of the revenue which was $3,863,900. According to Sergeant Heath Johnson, head of the Community Service Unit, “The police department is in the process of rebuilding.” This means that the police has been at a low point due to funding but it is slowly and effectively rebuilding its units to bring back crime to its knees. He says that a major problem is hiring police officers, “The current climate in the country is not really favorable towards police officers, so many young people think, why should they risk their lives for a public that really does not appreciate them.” This makes it really hard because people don’t want to become police officers since they are viewed very negatively. We as a community should help out the police by supporting them and respecting the police. Our community should end their mindset of the police being the answer to all our problems.

I go out on runs almost everyday and would love to continue running without the fear of being shot. The best way for us, as a community, to feel safe is to have more patrol officers in our communities. Most people would feel safer by having both foot and drive patrol. A foot patrol is effective because officers wearing police uniforms through the city would deter crime simply through their presence. With patrol officers, more people would go out to run and go to parks without the fear of getting shot.

With these ideas, and a little ganas, Salinas might finally get a year when crime is finally significantly reduced. We must put our fear aside and get involved to help our local officers fight crime. It is all to us to unite as a mass to push for changes for our community to leave a better future for future generations.

Sources:

Salinas, CA Crime and Homicide Map: 2014-2015

The Californian: Salinas tax Measures G & H both win handily

City of Salinas website

areavibes.com