The Rotary Club listens to a group of panelists discuss “Crime in Chattanooga: Perception vs. Reality” on Thursday at the Chattanooga Convention Center. The panelists included Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox; Kenneth Chilton, president of The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies; Helen Eigenberg, department head of the criminal justice program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; and Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd. Tom Griscom was moderator.While some people believe crime is a growing problem, local experts in crime and justice issues said Thursday that crime actually has gone down in the last decade.
What’s changed is that people are more aware of crimes because of better technology and media coverage, the officials said at a Thursday panel discussion hosted by the Rotary Club of Chattanooga.
The discussion followed a video introduction showing some residents’ perceptions of crime as well as data on shootings.
“Eighty to ninety percent of our violent crime is targeted. The rest of it is domestic. Some of it is self-inflicted,” Chattanooga Police Department Chief Bobby Dodd said. “Most of the violence we have is gang member on gang member, drug dealer on drug dealer, or some combination of that.”
Chattanooga had 100 shootings in 2012 with 117 victims, according to a database kept by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Chattanooga police say they counted 88 shootings with 106 victims, including 17 that were ruled homicides. The discrepancy couldn’t be explained Thursday.