INDIANAPOLIS -- Conditions on the Near Eastside are creating "communities of disorder" – and in turn attracting criminals, according to one city-county council member.
Democrat Zach Adamson represents Indianapolis City-County Council District 17, which covers the Martindale-Brightwood Neighborhood and parts of the Near Eastside.
Last year, District 17 saw 34 criminal homicides within its borders – nearly twice as many as the next highest district.
Adamson, who previously served as an at-large council member before being elected to represent District 17 in 2015, says the district faces persistent issues with household incomes, economic viability and violence.
"We've got a lot of conditions that are lending themselves to creating communities of disorder, and when communities are in disarray and disorder, criminal elements seek those communities out to set up shop," Adamson said. "And I think the larger the likelihood that you have a community of disorder, you're going to find that crime will gravitate to those areas."
Census data shows the majority of households in Adamson's district saw their incomes fail to keep up with inflation between 2000-2014. Even worse, parts of the Near Eastside saw their income actually drop, in some cases by as much as 36 percent.
And the Near Eastside began 2017 on a rough foot as well. The very first homicide of the year happened in the neighborhood on Tuesday, when a 38-year-old man was fatally shot on the 1100 block of Jefferson Avenue.
Adamson, elected to represent the area, says the city could do a better job working with all of the many private citizens who are working to turn things around.
"There have always been people on the Near Eastside and in Martindale-Brightwood, the two hotspot areas there in the city, that have been standing up and been ready to work with the city," he said. "I think our biggest challenge has been: How do we create a system that capitalizes on all those community folks who are ready and willing to stand up?"
Part of that, he said, is being more proactive about dealing with quality-of-life issues that don't necessarily rise to the level of criminal activity.
"Oftentimes when a resident is being vigilant and making calls, watching out for their neighbors, the response from the city isn't always in a timely manner, especially when we're talking about quality of life issues, which I think is going to be one of the major things we're going to have to address," he said. "Not just with abandoned housing, but things all the way down to noise ordinance violations."
As for the City-County Council itself, yesterday leaders from the Ten Point Coalition challenged them to allocate more money to the annual crime prevention grants program. Adamson took a slightly different approach, saying he'd like the council to be more proactive in determining how those grants are distributed.
READ MORE | Ten Point: We must act to address 'unacceptable' public safety crisis | Ten Point: 'Front-line' groups need more funding in fight against violent crime
"I think the largest issue that we as councilors are going to face is exactly what measurement are we going to use to determine how successful the usage of our crime prevention dollars have been thus far?" Adamson said. "I have been one who has been a big supporter of diversifying how we spend those crime prevention dollars to at least encompass a greater percentage of programming that actually prevents crime. Currently an enormous portion of our crime prevention dollars goes to post-crime programming. So, recidivism issues – which is very important – dominate those crime prevention programs with a definite deficit going toward actually preventing crime. I would like to see us diversify that a bit more to spend at least half of our crime prevention dollars actually preventing crime. I think we would see a great impact on that."
