New Jersey murder map - and how the media can distort it

If you look at the murder map on Google Maps ( http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100430255326859206461.00046c0c8bf50984defdd ), you’ll notice there’s been a big and better change. I’ve made the decision to extend the murder map to the entirety of the state, in every county, including the hot spot of Camden, as well as less dangerous cities like Trenton, Asbury Park, Atlantic City and Bridgeton. My reasons were that 1) murder is the most serious of crimes, and deserves to be covered statewide, 2) murder happens relatively infrequently compared to other crimes, so tracking all the state’s murders won’t be too tedious, and 3) the arbitrary borders I had before showed murders in some counties, ignoring murders in others, which dehumanized the victims into nothing more than statistics.

So now the murder map covers the entire state, since May 1. The rural center of New Jersey has few murders, with heavy concentrations in Newark/Jersey City, and murders dotted around the border, at Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Camden and Trenton. Further inwards though, murders still do occur, but without the influence of drugs and organized crime.


Here are some statistics on homicides in NJ. This includes a police shooting, which is labeled as justified; though some might disagree, it’s still the intentional taking of a life, which differentiates it from the manslaughters and drunk driving crashes that also killed, but which aren’t included on the map.

Homicides
Newark – 9
Jersey City – 5
Camden – 3
Caldwell – 2 (1 justifiable)
Mansfield – 2
Trenton – 2
Asbury Park – 1
Atlantic City – 1
Bridgeton – 1
Bridgewater – 1
Cherry Hill – 1
East Orange – 1
North Brunswick – 1
Paterson – 1

If I’m missing any on this list, feel free to contact me.

Some statistics on the murders:
The youngest victim was 1, the oldest 96. Out of the thirty-one homicide victims, there were twenty-three blacks, four Latinos, and four whites. Twenty-four men were murdered, and seven women were murdered. Three of the murder victims were minors: a 1-year-old girl, a 13-year-old girl, and a 16-year old boy. There were many, many other cases where the victim was only 18 or 19 though.

Shootings accounted for twenty murders, stabbings four, beatings two, strangling two, and arson two. Looking at the map it’s easy to see where the most violence is concentrated, but in some ways it distorts the true picture. Paterson has had a tremendous number of shootings, but only one murder; suburban Caldwell and rural Mansfield have two murders each, which were rarities for those towns. Looking at the map, I was surprised that urban Union County had no murders, despite its proximity to Newark, and the major cities and industrial areas that encircle Elizabeth and the Woodbridge-Edison area. Nevertheless, the murder map is still a useful tool and an interesting addition to the North Jersey crime map concept.

My crime map still covers only North Jersey, it’s only murders that extend to the entire state. This blog might occasionally cover murders in other parts of the state if they’re exceptional enough. A 13-year-old girl gunned down at a block party in Trenton by gang members that spray twenty rounds into a huge crowd is exceptional in a way that a teenager shot while standing on a Camden street corner is not.

It’s the media, however, that distorts the picture the most. When a white middle-aged woman is raped and killed in a suburb like Bridgewater, the press is all over it, constantly covering it, providing updates on the cases; the majority of New Jersey’s population, who tend to be middle-class and white, relate to it. However, when gang shootings and outbursts of violence leave nine dead on the streets of Newark, the press barely bats an eye, providing minimal coverage relative to the more high-profile crimes. Occasionally a Newark murder will be highlighted as a microcosm of the troubles of the city – such as the pointless murder of Alonzo Canty, a wheelchair-bound elderly man who was shot in the crossfire between two gangs. But in general, the death of a poor black teenager has become so commonplace that the media apparently can’t afford those victims the same attention they give to suburban whites. Though their lots in life aren’t as good, their suffering and deaths are no less meaningful and painful for their families.

Out of thirty-one homicides, only four had white victims: one in Atlantic City, two in rural Warren County, and one in Bridgewater – none in North Jersey. This got me thinking about how crime in North Jersey is sometimes seen by the media and culture, through the lens of the Mafia. I looked back to the first season of the Sopranos, which for many people created an idea of what North Jersey was like.

In the first season of the Sopranos, ten people were murdered over the course of a summer and into autumn in the show. Seven were white, two Latino, and one black – almost a reversal of what the murder rate in New Jersey is really like. If today a white suburban man was shot to death in Secaucus (like Chucky Signore) or North Caldwell (Mikey Palmice) there would be a media uproar. Considering the attempted assassination of the main character Tony Soprano on a crowded Montclair street that left one man dead, it would become the top story for weeks. In the show, the media almost brushes the gang violence off, and though they recognize organized crime, they downplay it.

In reality, murder in New Jersey affects mostly the poor and minority, not the affluent and powerful, despite what the Sopranos depicts. In North Jersey, you are most likely to be killed if you are young, black, live in an urban area, and have organized crime connections. The kind of targets that the show depicts, and the locales in which they occur, just doesn’t happen in the actual North Jersey.