They may not be perfect, but they did the right thing by the guys that were activated.

Lucky bastard

Hiring more police is not the answer. The NJNG is not the answer. Until politicians realize that permanently removing the trouble makers is the answer, there will be no peace or safety for the law abiding folks.

Let me get this straight. Corrupt and bankrupt Camden was forced to lay off a bounty of police officers because of NJ state cuts. OK, got that. Now the proposed solution is to send in the National Guard to serve some level of policing, and I say that in terms of watching, role because citizen soldiers have no arrest capability. So what's the plan? Have the citizens soldiers spot the crime and the remaining LEOs process it? This is absurd! Our corrupt and bankrupt state cannot appropriately manage our tax dollars as it is. Now they want the National Guard in, which is fully funded by the Federal government, so our Federal tax dollars from NJ residents... Anyone else feel the shaft?

 

axeman, I have respect for you but your percentages of City of Camden residents is not correct. If you consider commuters that work in the City at the Port Authority, Aquarium, hospitals, etc., the commuter "swell" workforce will get you there. However, that is not Camden residents. This is fact as we have had to study the statistic when formulating community outreach.

 

The place is such an armpit that for a project I have within the City limits, we had to hire officers to clear the Site and watch over the crew each workday. I had an excellent Lt (now retired), two Sgts (one fella was enormous), and two officers assigned, and we gladly paid for their service because during a 45 day stint, there was a rape, 4 muggings, 1 stabbing, 39 junkies removed, 23 bums removed, car theft, car vandalism, stolen property, and 5 police pursuits! Great City huh? I cannot tell you after enjoying the right to carry in other states how utterly naked working in that armpit I felt!

 

My mother was born and raised there and worked at Sears Roebucks on the Boulevard. That was a long, long time ago and a very different City!

Waste of time and money. I really do believe the people here saying that 90% of the people in Camden are decent working people and that they'd like to see the city get better. But what have they done to help? The "stop snitching" attitude is poisonous. Gangs can shoot at each other all day long in broad daylight, but when the police come... nobody saw anything. I understand they're afraid of retaliation from the gangs, but at some point good people need to be brave.

I wouldn't say it's even close to 90%

It was obvious, to me at least, in 1997 that it was going to take more than state police to handle Camden. I'd be surprised if the national guard saves Camden. It would take the national guard, the state police, and a way to keep the criminals in prison for their entire sentence. Maybe a way to relocate anyone arrested to a remote area of Alaska or something. That might work over the course of 5 or 10 years. The only other solution would be to abandon the city and wall it in.

gonna be a tough battle. God bless our troops

We need another australia (as in a continent to drop criminals off on) that's the only way to fix Camden. A 1 way ticket out of the USA

We need another australia (as in a continent to drop criminals off on) that's the only way to fix Camden. A 1 way ticket out of the USA

 

Your in it

Lol you may be right

I wonder when was the last time this happened and how did it turn out?

 

In jersey?...Newark. 60's....it never ends well

Camden is an odd case. The city has a rough population of 77,344. That's about as much as Cherry Hill, which is right next to Camden. So why is Camden poor and Cherry Hill wealthy?

 

I don't think it's a question of poor schools. Your school can be fantastic, but your diploma is worth nothing unless you can get a good job in your town afterwards. There aren't many factory jobs left in Camden, so that door is closed.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and so some dime-store sociology and estimating.

 

Why does a bus run from my neighborhood, the Woodcrest section of Cherry Hill, to the Walter Rand transportation center in Camden? This is the 451 route and it goes all the way to Voorhees Town Center.

 

Do all of the Jewish mother want to hop on the busy to go shopping in downtown Camden? No, but all of the maids in Cherry Hill take that bus from Camden every day.

 

Why does that bus stop in Westmont and Haddonfield? It's to let off all of the Hispanic kitchen workers to staff the restaurants in Haddonfield and Collingswood and the workers for Voorhees Town Center.

 

If you are a lawyer in Cherry Hill, do you cut your own grass? No. You pay somebody else to cut your grass, because your time is a unit of production that would be better used at producing more of what you know: practicing law. That hour you spend cutting grass may be worth $150 in billable time to you. It's cheaper to pay somebody $20 to cut the grass for you.

 

Every society needs a core group of people to perform labor for minimum wage. Camden exists because Cherry Hill, Haddonfield Collingswood and Voorhees have a demand for inexpensive labor.

 

Camden is poor because we need it to be poor.

 

We need it to be poor because we need the residents of Camden to perform the labor that wealthier residents don't do.

 

Now, for all intents and purposes, dealing drugs is a minimum wage job. The hours are long, and the payoff at the end of the day is not very good. So technically, that corner drug dealer is not making much more than the restaurant worker at the end of the day. So where is that drug dealer going to live? He's going to live in Camden - the cheapest place he can afford.

 

Camden also serves another purpose. Let's do the math. If we have 24,177 estimated housholds in Camden. The median income of Camden is $23,421 per year. This means that the theoretical maxim purchasing capacity of the entire city of Camden is $566,249,517 per year. Ok, so we have about a half a billion dollars to play with.

 

Let's take a look at Voorhees, Haddonfield, Cherry Hill and Collingswood.

 

Voorhees has a maximum purchasing capacity of $717,468,578 million.

Cherry Hill's is $2,292,029,984 billion.

Collingswood's is $270,405,025 million

Haddonfield is $390,576,512 million.

 

Add it all up and you have $3,670,480,099 billion dollars in purchasing capacity surrounding Camden. This is 6.4 times the purchasing capacity of Camden.

 

Supply doesn't exist without demand. Are these drug dealers in Camden dealing drugs just to their neighbors? Some of them, maybe. But something tells me that lawyer that payed his landscaper to cut his grass bought some weed from him as well. I have neighbors who enjoy a little toke at night in the sunroom after they put their kids into bed. If you were a drug dealer, who do you want to sell your product to? Somebody on the streetcorner with $10, or somebody who makes $100,000 per year?

 

Demand for drugs is part of the problem.

 

So how do you "fix" Camden? Well, the first thing you have to realize is that Camden isn't broken. It's simply the last rung on the economic ladder. We need Camden because we need the cheap labor. But the residents of Camden also deserve better. Nobody deserves to be told that they don't have a chance in life of becoming anything other than a dishwasher, landscaper, or a drug dealer purely because of their birthplace.

 

Would CCW fix Camden? Maybe. But I think that much of the crime comes from drug dealers killing each other. If the median income for a Camden resident is $23,421 per year and Glock 19 costs about $600, are we going to tell a Camden resident to spend 2.6% of his yearly salary on a gun? Oh, and by the day, take a day off of work as well so you can go down to MorphoTrak and wait to get fingerprinted. No, that's a cruel joke. CCW may have prevented the problem, or reduced it a little if it had been introduced 30 years ago. I could certainly see how arming black and Hispanic business owners could help, but CCW would be like putting a band-aid on arterial bleeding at this point. Nobody has the money to buy a gun except for the business owners.

 

The real way to help Camden would be to increase Section 8 housing vouchers, so that the poor could live in the wealthier communities near where they work. This would help reduce the cycle of poverty. Reduce the exposure to drug dealers, and you reduce the chances your child will become one. This does nothing about demand, and dealers will always gravitate toward demand. Only legalizing drugs would fix the demand problem and that won't happen any time soon.

 

I think I'm one of the token liberals on this forum, my neighbors are good liberals too. They are all for building aquariums and concert centers in the name of economic development, even if that money is wasted. They talk a great game about economic injustice, but they would become apoplectic if Section 8 housing was zoned in their neighborhood.

 

So unfortunately, the very thing that would fix the problem would never, ever happen.

 

So what are we left with? Build more jails and hire more police. We try to hit the supply side so that drug dealers decide that it simply isn't worth it to continue in business. Will it help? No. It's the worst and most expensive option. But it's the only one that is politically viable.

^^^^ Great post Mcbethr

 

The only way to solve problems in these areas is to bring wealth into the area some how. To twist a popular phrase "When you have something to live for you won't risk dying for nothing".

 

It's really amazing how our government and many others continue to pound a screw with a hammer. Sometimes you need to make a change, such a legalizing marijuana. If for no other reason than the war on drugs is a complete failure. A small part of this equation, unless of course we put the marijuana growing facility in Camden and staff it with residents. Let's face it, they know the business and no other area in the state wants the facility.

Wow, you came up with the very reason why attacking this with liberalism would never ever work, and has not worked. Putting section 8 in other towns is definitely the way to ruin every other town by taking the crime and spreading it out. I'd feel much better about contributing toward Camden by lowering their extremely high property taxes, and by getting rid of the majority of the politicians that are ruining that city year after year. Money can't move in to Camden because nobody wants to pay crazy high property taxes on a burned out hulk in a neighborhood full of crime.

Lower property taxes, people take risks on buying property, they care about their neighborhood, then they don't allow their kids to crap where they eat.

As I said on another forum when this came up a while ago, we should just wall it off Escape from New York style and let the problem solve itself. Anything else is just a waste of time and money.

 

Maybe we should relocate Donkey's cheesesteak shop first though.

 

This is coming from a guy who is unfortinately too familiar with Camden, as I have had a car stolen there, conducted several Sheriff's sales there, I have a few friends who grew up there but escaped, and one who still lives there.

Something draws buyers into other areas that sucked at some point. Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Long Branch, they're still on their way up. People need to believe that government is behind them in their efforts. Even a hint at the government helping in Camden. At the same time the national guard goes through the worst areas there has to be construction starting in the better areas.

It's through incentives and concentration on the good points, like location and history (although purhaps not the last 30 or 40 years of Camden history).

Moving section 8 into better towns is the worse idea ever. They put a complex in woodstown and it's going very badly. Crime is up, trash all over. Now the tax payers are up in arms. They keep trying to build one in my town and we keep voting it down.

Ryan is right that the only way Camden solves itself is to depopulate itself. I watched Atlanta explode in yuppies and gen xers when they pushed all the poor out into other areas. It's what happens...

 

The wealthy need the poor (see border control issues) but the poor need safety as well. This is not just criminal on criminal violence, alot of it is senseless, needless violence on innocent victims.

 

It needs to be condensed, rehabbed and rejuvenated. To bad the best view of Philly is from Camden...

Also, city and state workers as well as most companies have military time that is paid.

At Bank of America, an employee that enlists gets paid for the first 90 days of service. Then for the remaining service, up to 5 years, they will receive differential pay. Unless I get a NICE promotion before leaving, the differential pay won't get me anything as I'll be paid more when I get in. The 90 days is damn nice though.

Legalize drugs and completely devalue the entire black market that fuels the drug lords.. crime.. and violence.. sit back and watch the confusion the following morning...

Mcbether,

 

I have to disagree with you. While your neighbors sound a little like hippies (I am not being derogatory either, if you are being responsible citizens I don't judge you), I do not believe that most of Camden county is getting high and buying from random thugs in Camden. What happens is more likely to be a few hundred thugs with exuberant amounts of drug money in cash in their project housing pushing to smaller dealers who deal locally in Cherry Hill or whatever, while the single mother next door struggles with a minimum wage job might also buy $10 worth occassionally. Those buying in the richer areas are kids, plus the few exceptions like your neighbors.

 

IMO, there is no quick fix for Camden. I go to school in Newark and study it a LOT, and it took years to get where Newark is and it is still crappy. The only way to fix Camden is to create jobs and hire enough police so that employers do not die on the job. Bust the gangs and major drug dealers, and invest like hell in creating lower level jobs. Newark has gotten a lot better and safer over the years, but nobody simply cares about it to do anything. Too much corruption.

 

Those who can afford it already found the true fix for Camden and Newark: move.

crime.. is fueled by drug dealers...

drug dealers are fueled by the inflated black market the illegality of drugs brings...

making drugs legal removes the inflated black market..

thus removing the value from drugs..

thus removing the power from drug dealers..

 

hard to justify shooting up your neighborhood and going to jail.. over a bag of weed that is now essentially worthless due to a complete market collapse..

 

think speak easies... think alcohol runners.. think prohibition.. think organized crime..

 

you can't win the drug war.. all it does is inflate the value of an otherwise worthless item.. legalization while dirty.. and scary... IS a pretty quick fix..

I'm just gonna leave this here....it pertains very much to Camden's plights....

 

http://stuffblackpeo...e.blogspot.com/

crime.. is fueled by drug dealers...

drug dealers are fueled by the inflated black market the illegality of drugs brings...

making drugs legal removes the inflated black market..

thus removing the value from drugs..

thus removing the power from drug dealers..

 

hard to justify shooting up your neighborhood and going to jail.. over a bag of weed that is now essentially worthless due to a complete market collapse..

 

think speak easies... think alcohol runners.. think prohibition.. think organized crime..

 

you can't win the drug war.. all it does is inflate the value of an otherwise worthless item.. legalization while dirty.. and scary... IS a pretty quick fix..

And what did the criminal organizations do when Prohibition ended? It's not like they said "oh, theres no money in bootlegging now. I guess we'll go get jobs."

And what did the criminal organizations do when Prohibition ended? It's not like they said "oh, theres no money in bootlegging now. I guess we'll go get jobs."

 

Some went back to doing what they were doing before the Prohibition (gambling, racketeering, etc) but most bootleggers either got busted, killed or went "legit".

No offense, but more Law Enforcement is not the answer. That's the paradigm in NJ, that the people are like so much helpless cattle to be protected. I find it insulting and degrading.

 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. How come it was so obvious 230 years ago, but today we can't seem to figure it out?

 

The reason that Camden is such a mess is because the law-abiding citizens are disarmed and the criminals are armed and, therefore, able to operate with impunity. Well, what did they think was going to happen? Allow concealed carry in Camden and the problem will correct itself a lot faster than any other method.

 

 

Yea, well that's all well and good and in an ideal NJ, this would have allowed this issue never to occur. Now, if you put your reality hat on, you'll understand this is not the case, hasn't happened and may not happen in our lifetime. That being said what do you suggest can be done, with our current resources and laws, to fix the city of Camden. Harping on what could have, should have is not going to solve anything other than to possibly save the next city from going into the sh*tter like Camden and it's neighboring towns.

I absolutely agree that the "90% good people in Camden" is very overly inflated. I'd venture to guess that less that 20% of the Camden citizens are hard-working, law abiding citizens that want a better city for themselves. That's why I suggested moving these very few to a temporary safe-zone and wiping out the remaining. Obviously, this will never happen, but I feel it the only solution to Camden's blight right now.

crime.. is fueled by drug dealers...

drug dealers are fueled by the inflated black market the illegality of drugs brings...

making drugs legal removes the inflated black market..

thus removing the value from drugs..

thus removing the power from drug dealers..

 

hard to justify shooting up your neighborhood and going to jail.. over a bag of weed that is now essentially worthless due to a complete market collapse..

 

think speak easies... think alcohol runners.. think prohibition.. think organized crime..

 

you can't win the drug war.. all it does is inflate the value of an otherwise worthless item.. legalization while dirty.. and scary... IS a pretty quick fix..

 

I agree with most of your points but fear that in NJ if pot was legal it would be extremely expensive (because that's how we do) and the black market would likely still exist.

 

That raises an interesting question for gun ownership though. If drugs are legalized can a drug user qualify for ownership of a firearm? Would there be a distinction between user and abuser?

Has anyone noticed that none of the popular media outlets have a story on this?

 

Google search turns-up nothing. The links posted on several boards are dead-ends.

 

*sniff, sniff* Cover-up?

I agree with most of your points but fear that in NJ if pot was legal it would be extremely expensive (because that's how we do) and the black market would likely still exist.

 

That raises an interesting question for gun ownership though. If drugs are legalized can a drug user qualify for ownership of a firearm? Would there be a distinction between user and abuser?

 

I don't know. Cigarettes are legal and heavily taxed, but when was the last time you heard of someone buying black market cigarettes? I suppose someone could drive down to North Carolina, fill up their car with cartons, and sell them in NJ, but is the reward worth the risk? I think the same thing would happen with soft drugs if they were legalized.

 

I think that a recreational drug user would still be able to qualify for a firearm the same way that a recreational drinker still does. I've never smoked marijuana, but I usually have a glass of wine with dinner, a beer with my steak, or some bourbon with my cigar. That doesn't make me an alcoholic. Although I think smoking marijuana as an adult is immature and foolish, I think that there is a difference between a guy who has a joint with his wife after the kids are in bed and a guy who is living in the gutter with a needle in his arm.