Gun violence in Lewiston is a crisis, but the word ‘crisis’ is not a policy
The city’s leaders are using the right words, but not the right solutions.
The story
A New England city with a large refugee population faces a youth gun violence crisis, with 35 gun incidents this year, 22 involving juveniles. No official data links the violence to a specific group.
Source: www.foxnews.com
Our reading
The city’s police chief calls the gun violence ‘one of the most serious public safety challenges,’ which is a phrase that sounds like it was pulled from a list of generic crisis descriptors. It’s not that the situation isn’t serious—it’s that the phrase is so generic it could be used for a citywide shortage of napkins. Meanwhile, a local official says the system is broken, but the only thing that seems broken is the ability to say anything specific about the problem. The mayor’s office is funding more police overtime, which is a solution that’s been tried in every American city since the 1970s, and it’s always worked… until now.
