Crime in New Orleans

New Orleans is a city that has a history of violence and police corruption, but shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit it seems that the crime rate, after a major departmental shake-up in the police department in the 1990s, had declined. But compared to other major American cities, New Orleans's murder rate was still high: In 2004, it was 59 murders per 100,000 population compared to New York City's rate of 7 per 100,000 population. Post-Katrina, New Orleans's population had been reduced by half to roughly 220,000. Still, its murder rate soared. In the year following the hurricane, 161 homicides were committed with only one conviction resulting from those murders. According to the FBI, New Orleans was, once again, the murder capital of the USA.

Dr. Peter Scharf is the Executive Director of the Center for Society, Law and Justice at Texas State University in Austin, Texas. Dr. Scharf is a nationally recognized leader in criminal justice training, technology and education. In April 2007, he completed and presented a report entitled "Katrina Impact on Crime and the Criminal Justice System in New Orleans" to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives.

{ Read Dr. Scharf's Report}