We hope those businessmen who funded a Chattanooga crime study from the New York-based Manhattan Institute within the last year feel they got their money’s worth.
The final study, in our eyes, didn’t break much new ground or add a lot to the primary knowledge that public officials, police and ordinary citizens already have.
The findings from the think tank noted that overall crime, including violent crime, is down in the city, that police were doing well but always could benefit from help, and that the public believes crime is a major issue.
The study did comment on two areas, homelessness and beautification, that aren’t crimes as such but the presence of which, or lack of which, respectively, can add to a perception of crime.
When the Manhattan Institute presented its initial findings here in the spring, we wrote this and stand by it today: