Sheriff Jesse Bane appeared on the WAMD 970 AM morning show Thursday, discussing a variety of topics including progress on the county’s livability code, local crime rates falling to a historic low for a second straight year, meeting law enforcement demands with limited resources, and more.
The full clip of Bane’s appearance can be heard here.
On the need to improve the county’s livability codes:
“The biggest issue we have right now in the county, when it comes to fighting crimes, are the areas of the county where there are absentee landlords or don’t really seem to care who the tenants are as long as they pay their rent.”
“If we had some way to get landlords to assume more responsibility not only for the tenants but for the conditions of the housing they’re providing, it would go a way toward fighting crime in Harford County, it would help us tremendously.”
On the county’s crime rate falling to a historic low for a second straight year:
“We have more than cut the crime rate in half from when we started in 1975…I think it’s a lot of things, some of it is that nationally there is a trend for crime to go downward, contrary to what people think, studies have found that dips in the economy may very well contribute to crme decreases.”
“The myth is that when the economy is bad, crime goes up. The price of gasoline goes up you get people stealing gasoline. This time around, the price of gasoline, when it was hitting $4 per gallon, we really weren’t experiencing people stealing gasoline like we were in the 70s when gasoline was much less than it is now a gallon.”
On the department’s resources and increasing demands:
Nationally, the ratio of police officers per thousand population is 2.7. In the state of Maryland the ratio of police officers per thousand population is 2.7. In Harford, the ratio of police officers per thousand population is 0.8. So we’re not even a third of what other law enforcement agencies have in terms of what the national and state average are.”
“You sit back and wonder, how are we doing that with so few people. But you know sooner or later that’s going to catch up with us, because more and more people coming into the county, more and more demands on our service, and our rubber band is stretched about as tight as it’s going to get.”
Jesse, get a life or perhaps just a clue. Your failed efforts are an obscene joke on the citizens of Harford County and anything you do seems to just keep costing you credibility. From censoring anonymous posts to holding the DAGGER hostage with that insane Diane Smith case, nothing you seem to do can bring peace to our county. People are not reporting crimes because there is nothing your inefficient police force can do to stop the crime. Please don’t run for reelection, our community can’t take another two years of your command!
Does that ratio take into consideration the state police and officers from three municipalities that oversee and handle calls for service in their jurisdictions?
Funny, looking at the same Unform Crime Report (UCR) data that Bane loves to quote on those crimes that are down, the population and officer data does not equal 0.8 officers per 1000. The fact that “Wasting my Time” is very astude to, Jesse doesn’t want to give credit to other agencies in the county that serve the citizens. From UCR, here are the numbers, HCSO – 292 sworn deputies, MSP – 54 troopers, HDG – 35 officers, Bel Air – 31 officers, Aberdeen – 45 officers, and Harford County’s population – 246,347. This equates to a ratio of 1.85 officers per 1000 citizens.
Does anyone think Jesse is getting ready to ask for more deputies and raise our taxes some more.
Aaron/Maynard,
Lets see if Bane can back up his “facts”. Should we be concerned that he is the one reporting crime numbers that are down????????
Thanks for the truthful information. It’s too bad Bane doesn’t know the truth or that he wants to mislead us.
He makes a very good point about the culpability landlords have in leasing irresponsibly to people who would otherwise not be able to follow through on a lease. A couple from Harford County leased an apartment in Rosedale and were evicted in March 2009. The then leased a rental property in Havre de Grace, and although the landlord attempted a background check, the female gave them a friend’s number to lie about her reliability. When I called the rental office in Rosedale, they told me they could not give a reference without a release from the couple – I then informed them that they had a current judgment against the couple for nearly $2000 that they were hoping to collect. They left their second property before the lease ended, and the second landlord is currently collecting on $3800 owed on the unfulfilled portion of the lease. They then moved into a new property in November 2009 and have subsequently defaulted on the lease for that property – I met the sheriff that served the eviction notice in April 2010. They have now leased a fourth property that they more than likely will default on because she is unemployed and so reportedly is her now husband. She married him after he got out of jail for trying to pass a forged prescription for controlled substances. This information is all available in MD Case Search. What is not available is any record of repeat evictions for these offenders – instead you have to wait until a prior landlord files a case against them. Why a landlord would choose to NOT share information on a delinquent and disreputable tenant can only be speculated about. I have no idea if section 8 figures into this and the state pays for any losses incurred as a result of renting to dead beats. More could be done to identify these people in order to protect us from becoming victims of them.
Section 8 at the housing agency requires criminal checks, it won’t however release if a tenant has been evicted before as this is a matter between a tenant and a landlord. As a general rule, tenants under Section 8 must comply with their lease or risk losing their voucher is evicted for non-payment of rent, utility shut off or criminal activity in the home. Other reasons for termination of assistance usually are in the form of other program violations which can be proscecuted in court and people either have to pay restitution or serve jail time if found criminally responsible. You can check with the court system regarding some of these cases.
Thank you. That was extremely informative.