Recent posts here on tree vandalism, new apartments and a toy store closing have attracted so many comments that we’re, frankly, astonished.
One thing all the posts have in common is the Northgate area. And many of the comments allege that policing, particularly of juveniles and young adults, is lacking there.
We don’t have numbers on that. But we CAN tell you that more – a lot more – juveniles are arrested at Northgate Mall than any other place in the city.
About a half-year ago we spotted a story in the SeattlePI.com on juvenile crime “hot spots.” According to the piece, Seattle City Council members were told: “In the past 14 years, half of the reported crime in Seattle occurred on less than 5 percent of street segments or blocks.”
The point of the story was whether focusing police resources on those hot spots could reduce juvenile crime. But when we saw it we wondered, “where are those hot spots?” And asked for the numbers.
Some of them we expected. Fourth and Third avenues downtown were in second and third place in numbers of juvenile arrests. Broadway Avenue and University Way were high on the list, as was Aurora Avenue North.
But in only one place did arrests rise into five digits. Between 1989 and 2004 (the years of the study) police made 11,051 juvenile arrests at the mall. And another 4,225 in the 300 and 400 blocks of Northeast Northgate Way.
This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. “Malls and movie theatres for example, are well-known ‘hang outs’ for youth, and indeed such businesses seek to draw young people as customers,” according to “Hot Spots of Juvenile Crime: A Longitudinal Study of Arrest Incidents at Street Segments in Seattle,Washington,” a paper that looked at the local reports.
Moreover, because such activity spaces will attract large numbers of not only potential offenders, but also potential targets, we might expect large concentrations of juvenile crime in such places. For example, several researchers have found that juvenile delinquency is strongly associated with time spent socializing in unstructured activities with peers in the absence of authority figures .
Sgt. Peter Verhaar, with the Seattle Police crime analysis unit, pointed out that although there is undoubtedly some spillover to the surrounding neighborhoods, “the large majority of the crimes affect the retail businesses at the mall.” Think, shoplifting.
When we mentioned all this to Terrie Johnston, Seattle Police crime prevention coordinator, she said, “of course,” and asked if we knew which city has – by far – the state’s largest number of crimes per capita, year in and year out.
“Tukwila,” she said.
Sure enough, according to state crime statistics, Tukwila – home to Southcenter Mall – had 189.5 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2010. For Seattle, that number is 65.
Regarding the skate spot at Hubbard Park, it is overdue a year but has always been a go.
“Parks is putting the 8000 foot skatespot project out to bid in early 2012. Funding for the skatespot construction comes from the savings realized due to the competitive bid Parks received for construction. The skatespot construction will be complete by late spring 2012.”
It would probably be a hard sell to get another at the reservoir since the community gave a ton of push back on the Hubbard one. The Community Center is doing its best to keep teens busy but has received severe funding cuts. Tell City Council We need more teen leaders there,
@Terry. Please contact the Seattle PD. Post here, by all means, but let them know, too.
A reminder that northgate mall is not in the maple leaf neighborhood. Also, there have only been 3 residential burglaries in the past 3 weeks in maple leaf according to the SPD crime map. Crime happens in the city, but it is low in maple leaf compared to most other neighborhoods. And the kids in the park aren’t the ones doing the residential / home burglaries. It is a group of adult professional thieves who move from one neighborhood to the next. A few weeks ago it was the wedgwood / view ridge area getting hit hard, now they have moved on to their next neighborhood.
@Terry: that’s a hilarious theory.
@Anonymouse: Why wouldn’t you want a skate park at the reservoir? I don’t understand.
You’re fooling yourself to think people that rob houses are hiding out in parks and doing it on foot. If you’ve had your house robbed like me, you’d know they would need a car to carry away the loot. They drive by and look for houses without a car in the driveway, then get out and knock and see if anyone is home, if no one is, they kick in the door and rob you. Then load up their car with your stuff and move on.
The kids in the parks are just kids doing what most of us did in highschool, looking for places to smoke pot, drink beers and meet girls. I was one of those kids 25 years ago and I never robbed a house and turned out to be an upstanding citizen. I don’t think you should fear the kids or vandalize the trees thinking either have much to do with home break ins.
The wooded area, just off the parking lot of the Pac-Med building, at N.E. 104th street and 5th Avenue N.E. is a no man’s land; when it gets dark.
On a recent walk by there, you could hear people on the foot bridge, over Thorton Creek, shouting and talking so loud, they could be heard from 5th Avenue N.E. In fact, you could still hear them by the time you got to where N.E. 105th intersects the avenue.
People have wondered where the burglars come from, who have been ransacking apartments and homes, in the area, of N.E. 104th Street and 8th Avenue N.E. Look to that bridge over Thorton Creek as the base of operations.
No car is necessary for such thieves. They can catch a bus over by the mall, coming and going.
It might serve the community well if the Seattle Police Department would do a sweep through those woods, at least every other night. The mall is the proverbial low hanging fruit, just a way to look busy. The action is in those woods.
“There is not really much productive for young people to do around the Northgate area.”
NO LIBRARIES?? Minimum wages have taken away youth employment.
@Chris, “There’s a near complete lack of youth-oriented programming in the Northgate area.”
The community center has teen programs. The library even has gaming nights for teens. Some CC gyms accommodate roller skating. A teen night with popular R&B music would be very successful if you had good sound and lighting. Nothing against skateboarders but I really don’t want a skate park at the reservoir. Another pool maybe, but not a skate park.
Is there any movement on a Skate Dot for the maple leaf reservoir park?
There is a group of people working on getting a skate park in Lake City.
There’s a near complete lack of youth-oriented programming in the Northgate area.
There are no skate parks in the area either, except for the new park at Green lake.
There is not really much productive for young people to do around the Northgate area.
Tukwila’s population is approximately 18,000 (compared to over 600,000 in Seattle). While there is plenty of juvenile shoplifting and other crime associated with Southcenter Mall, per capita statistics for Tukwila will always be skewed due to the low residential population.