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Efforts at improving crime rates successful

Violent crime in other areas of the United States is showing no signs of slowing down.

Police officers in Chicago, for instance, are finding themselves amid an ongoing gang war that apparently has not played itself out yet. Monday, officers there were issued warnings about gangs armed with high-powered, body-armor-piercing weapons. A shooting early Sunday had left one man dead. Two others were killed and eight people were injured in a spray of more than two dozen shots from two guns while attending a makeshift memorial for him. Chicago police suspect the victims all were shot by members of a rival street gang in the same neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side.

By contrast, violent crime in Warren has been on the decline since 2009, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Ohio Incident-based Reporting System. Warren recently experienced its first homicide of the year, meaning it went nearly four full months before a life was taken at the hands of another.

The right number, of course, is zero. But for a city that not very long ago was being tattooed with a reputation of being dangerous or unsafe for visitors, these declining crime numbers are important steps in the right direction.

Statistics show the number of Warren’s violent crimes like murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault have dropped from 349 in 2009 to 261 in 2016.

Granted, the decline has occurred in tandem with the city’s population decline, but it still is meaningful for those who live, visit and work in the city.

At a time when the national media has been focusing on the outrageous number of murders last year in Chicago, it makes us take notice of the incredibly low number of murders Warren experienced last year and the previous few years.

Caution, of course, should never be thrown to the wind in any community. Still, declining crime numbers can be appreciated, and city police should be applauded for their daily efforts to make the city a safer place.

editorial@tribtoday.com

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