The Portland police sent out a statement today noting that crime in the area surrounding Occupy Portland has increased 18 percent since this time last year.

EGADS! Another installment in the daily swaying of public opinion, which is sure to cue another crime-ridden Occupy Portland story. So what’s going on here to cause the increase in crime?

There seem to be four basic factors to explain the increase:
1) There are more police in the area. The bureau usually staffs the three districts around Lownsdale and Chapman Square with nine police officers over the course of 24 hours. With Occupy there, they’ve beefed up the patrols with an additional six officers over every 24 hour period. With more officers on the street, we’re going to see an uptick in both reported crimes (people coming up to the police saying they’ve seen something) and people being ticketed or arrested.

2) There are more people reporting crimes in the area. The camp doesn’t just have attention from the police, there are lot of eyes are on Occupy right now. With lots of people walking through the area to check out the camp or see what’s going on, you’re going to have more eyes on the street and more crimes reported.

3) There are more people! “There’s an increase in density in people committing crimes,” says police spokesman Pete Simpson. “Those parks are empty most of the time, now you have a couple hundred people in a two square block area.” More people means more potential criminal violations, especially when a good number of them are dealing with mental illness and addiction issues.

4) There actually are more crimes occurring—especially in the “dumb shit” categories. Check out the list of crimes (pdf) in October 2010 versus this month. There are 90 more cases of criminal activity this year than last year, with increases in drinking in public, bike theft, disorderly conduct, trespassing and shoplifting, among others. There’s also an uptick in assault, which is legitimately scary.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

16 replies on “What’s Behind This Occupy Portland Crime Spike?”

  7. I haven’t slept there, but I have spent time at the camps in what normal people might call the “wee hours”—I think you’ll find that I’ve said at various points that, yes, the feeling of the camps has changed.

    However! We’ve also taken pains to note that occupiers are trying to manage, as they see it, something that government and good citizens like us maybe haven’t managed: Dealing with ill, difficult people without dehumanizing them.

  9. There’s something to be said for setting the record straight, and then there’s simply serving as PR. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference.

  12. What do you expect? Decades of negligence, systemic disenfranchisement, and brutish treatment have borne fruit, in every manner of social illnesses — homelessness, mental illness, et al. People don’t change overnight, but people are changing at OPDX. Everyone is changing, growing, learning from each other, finding new ways of being. Don’t be afraid of what’s already happening. It can’t be stopped now.

  13. People need to take into consideration why the mentally ill are roaming our streets. I’m old enough to remember that, at one time, the state actually housed these individuals and assured them of care on all levels.

    While some here will immediately think “Damish” and “Cuckoo’s Nest” (i.e. “snake pit”) there was something going on with “managed care” a few decades back.

    *In the cost-driven medical marketplace, psychiatry and, more broadly, mental health have suffered more than the rest of medicine. Private health insurance benefits have been cut significantly, and the public mental health system is in a state of collapse that varies only by degree from state to state.* ~ http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=84430

    And that quote/article is from many years after “they” unlocked the doors of state run mental health care facilities.

    With all the advances in mental health, can we all now start to talk about reinstating state run care instead of demonizing those who’d seek to welcome and assist this forgotten segment of our population?

    I’m probably just assuming here, but isn’t that what Occupy is all about – making society more humane again? Am I wrong?

  14. @ Sarah, What I’m hearing is that the spike in crime is due to crime spiking.

    @ JWalker: Occupy isn’t about fixing every problem all at once, it’s about demanding that real political efforts are made at addressing the root causes of an absurd and accelerating national/global wealth distribution gap that is having a profoundly warping influence on nominally democratic political systems at home and abroad.

    If Occupy allows its energy to be co opted by becoming the expertise-free wards of the chronically homeless/addicts/mentally ill, it will collapse and fail to accomplish anything.

  15. What is unfortunate is that since we as a society haven’t figured out a way to deal with this “troubled population” of homeless, mentally unstable, and addicted (often all of the above) people, OPDX has sprung up as their best and/or only hope. Of course there is more crime – drug addled, psychotic people tend not to worry to much about obeying those pesky laws while they seek out ways to quiet the voices in their head.

    Quit bitching that these poor dissenters aren’t able to “manage” themselves. If we can’t figure out how to deal with the problem as a society, why should we expect a tidy resolution in a few short weeks in those two parks downtown?

    The way I see it, OPDX has done a better job interfacing with PPD, homeless services, and others than we should have expected. Meanwhile, they are also doing a great job keeping things from blowing up while still getting out a message around the plight of the 99%.

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