The rising crime rate in Harrisburg

I'm not one to worry much about crime most of the time. But the recent rash of shootings in Harrisburg is beginning to concern me. In the past, cities with notoriously high crime rates also have had problems with rouge police officers. In cities like NY and New Orleans, bad cops have been known to take up with some in the criminal element, and taken payoffs in exchange for turning a blind eye to gambling, prostitution and drugs. The end result, of course, is more crime. I'm beginning to wonder if that might be at the core of Harrisburg's problem, too. Could there be bad cops out there taking payoffs? I'm just suggesting that such behavior tends to be linked to some of the problems we are seeing. I hope the Police Chief and the Mayor have a good internal investigations unit looking for this sort of thing. Now, the Mayor has been calling for tougher sentencing and urging us to hold district magistrates to the fire when it comes to releasing defendants back onto the streets. I hope he is likewise looking at his officers and checking their arrest rates and response times for problems. And cameras in all the patrol cars wouldn't hurt, either.