Declining Houston crime doesn't justify politicized rhetoric

Crime in Houston is substantially down, reports the Houston Chronicle's Bradley Olson ("Houston crime is down but not the fear of it," May 4), but demagoguery by media and politicians about crime is on the rise:

In the words of a statistician, the decrease in criminality appears to have an inverse relationship, at least for now, with political rhetoric on crime, which has ramped up in recent months.

“It’s probably very difficult for any politician to acknowledge that the problem of crime is decreasing, because that undermines the importance of the issue,” said Dennis Longmire, a professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University who has studied public attitudes toward crime. “Politicians use a fear of crime to garner support and get voters’ attention.”

Former Houston police chief and Mayor Lee Brown told the paper, “This always happens ... It becomes a political issue, rather than the reality of what a city is going through. It appears to be as if [the politicians] haven’t looked at what the reality is … The objective is to draw attention to themselves and get voters.”