TWO BIG PROBLEMS CAUSE RISING CRIME

Minneapolis police Sgt. Jeff Jindra of the Metro Gang Strike Force
has one of the toughest jobs in the city. I don't mean dealing with
dangerous criminals. Today, one of the roughest parts of Jindra's job
is talking to neighborhood groups that are at their wits' end over
rising crime.

"We had 27 gunshot wounds and 48 aggravated robberies in the Fourth
Precinct [north Minneapolis] in April and May alone," says Jindra.
"People give me an earful; they want answers. I do my best, but I
have little in the way of good news for them."

Recently the news got worse.

Violent crime was up 15 percent in Minneapolis in 2005.

While this figure isn't as high as the FBI initially reported, it's
still six times the 2.5 percent national increase. Violent crime in
St. Paul rose only 1.5 percent.Jindra, a 23-year veteran, agrees with
the conventional wisdom that Minneapolis needs more police. But he
believes a larger force won't help much if two intractable problems remain.

First, he lays significant blame on the Hennepin County Drug Court.
Launched in 1997, it was intended to be an innovative approach to
getting budding narcotics abusers into treatment. But Jindra says
it's gone too far.

"Drug Court is killing us on the Gang Strike Force.

Drugs are behind a lot of the crime in this city. But today, we
arrest drug dealers, and they're right back on the street."

He gives the example of a well-known drug dealer in the Fourth
Precinct. Since December 30, 1999, the man has been convicted of five
drug felonies, and was repeatedly ordered into treatment. The total
time served behind bars for his drug crimes? Four months.

"There's a whole crowd of guys like him," Jindra adds.

Judge Kevin Burke, who initiated the Hennepin County Drug Court, says
the court operates less effectively today than when it was set up in
1997. "It's slower to get people into treatment or serving time," he
says, "and there's less drug testing and probation oversight." Burke
says that the jails and prisons are full, and that the private sector
needs to provide more jobs for low-level drug offenders.

Jindra's second reason for escalating crime?

"The incentives to do aggressive police work have been taken away,"
he says. Today, thanks to the focus on "racial profiling" in law
enforcement and to "overreaching" by the Minneapolis' Civilian Police
Review Authority, which reviews claims of police misconduct, it
sometimes seems that police rather than defendants are on trial, he says.

The result is that police may hesitate to investigate some suspicious
behavior for fear of complaints of racial bias or brutality.

"As a cop, you don't have to make traffic stops, which helps get guns
off the street, or go the extra mile in proactive policing," says
Jindra. "In fact, it's easier not to. But if cops don't do these
things, neighborhood safety will suffer."

Today's lax environment emboldens criminals, Jindra says.

"It used to be people would steal VCRs or pass bad checks to get
money for drugs. Now they rob people in broad daylight; stick a gun
in their face in their own driveway and grab their wallet. The fear
factor has gone up tremendously."

In short, while there's a ton of pressure on our police, no one's
putting real pressure where it counts -- on the criminal.

It sounds like Jindra's community meetings won't be getting easier
any time soon.