Douglas W. Johnson - There's a crime wave????

I keep hearing that there's a crime wave here in Fairbanks, but when I look at the police blotter, I see the new jacked up police department arresting people for a lot of minor offenses, made possible by an aggressive stop-and-frisk program that has me absolutely disinterested in shopping downtown. It's also augmented by an aggressive car stopping program.

It's not that crime has increased, but that the police forces have become so militarized that they are now enforcing jay walking and escalating broken taillights into arrests. Meanwhile, according to the FBI stats, actual crimes has been on a 15-year downward trend except in really big cities where personal protection has been outlawed.