It seems obvious that Carbondale does not have the manpower it needs to cover all the problem areas in town. An initial step in at least temporarily alleviating the problem would be to increase the police presence, hiring more officers, if need be. More patrols would mean less areas of town left unwatched, and at least hopefully, less opportunity to commit violent crime. The underlying reasons for crime are not so easily addressed, nor is a permanent solution for Carbondale's crime problem likely to be reached at any point in the near future. Economic conditions are worsening across the country, not just in the struggling region of Southern Illinois, and usually, when economic conditions worsen, the poor get poorer, and the crime rate goes up.
Desperate people do desperate things.
Of course, a worsening economic climate does not necessarily explain robbing a pawnshop for a couple of guns, nor does it explain the idiocy that is evidenced by shooting bullets into the door of a church. From poverty to the gang influx from Chicago and St. Louis to people shooting up churches, Carbondale has problems, and ignoring them will not make them go away. The city needs to come up with a plan to get crime under control, and let its residents know what it plans to do so that people aren't afraid to walk the streets at night, and so Mom and Dad don't fear sending their sons and daughters off to school in the newly violent and dangerous town of Carbondale. This document may be distributed electronically for personal use only, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. We encourage you to create links to our pages and ask that you do not duplicate our pages on your own site.