“The Haitians are usually the victims of violent crime,” said Chris Armstrong, president of the Springfield Police Patrolmen’s Association. “We’re not seeing them being a whole lot of suspects.”
But he said the city needs to staff up the police and fire departments to keep up with the growing city.
“The city’s growing ... and there’s no plan to increase the police department or the fire department,” he said. “(That) affects everything. It’s going to affect the health of the police department, the response times, the safety of the community.”
National pundits and politicians have tried to use crime statistics to bolster arguments about the impact of the Haitian immigrant population on Springfield.
“Thanks to (Vice President Kamala Harris’) open border, murders are up 81% in Springfield, Ohio,” Sen. JD Vance said in September on the campaign trail to become vice president.
Homicides in Springfield indeed increased, doubling from five to 10 from 2021 to 2023. But Republican Clark County Prosecutor Dan Driscoll told CNN: “During the time that I’ve been with the prosecutor’s office, which is 21 years now, we have not had any murders involving the Haitian community — as either the victims or as the perpetrators of those murders.”
The larger crime picture is more complicated because of lagging population numbers and crime statistics, and a change in how crimes are tracked. But an analysis by the Springfield News-Sun suggests the per-capita crime rate may have declined in recent years.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
The numbers
First we need to nail down the population. The city’s population was 58,662 in the 2020 census. Vance cited city officials saying that since then the population increased by 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested the number could be 30,000.
This fall, city and county officials, relying on data from Job and Family Services and the Health Department, are estimating that 12,000-15,000 Haitians now live here.
If the city’s population increased by only 10,000 Haitian immigrants, that would be a population increase of 17%. If 15,000 Haitians moved to Springfield since 2020, that would be an increase of more than 25%. If the city has gained 30,000 Haitian immigrants, that’s an increase of more than 50%.
The methodology the Springfield Police Division uses to track crime and report it to the FBI changed in 2021, making any comparison with prior years impossible. But since 2021, the city saw a 4% increase in violent crime incidents, from 696 to 725.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Reported property crimes increased 18%. The biggest increase is from motor vehicle thefts, which corresponds with an increase in car thefts nationally because of a design flaw in certain types of vehicles that made them easier to steal.
Reported rapes spiked, matching a high last seen in 2014. Laura Baxter, executive director of the Clark County rape counseling center Project Woman, said the demand for her agency’s services has been increasing since before the COVID-19 pandemic. “It increased exponentially just before and then again after the pandemic,” she said.
“We are seeing some cases from within the Haitian community, the migrant community in general, which is broader than just people identifying as Haitian. We are responding to cases, intimate violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, from within that population. But not at a greater rate than the general population,” Baxter said.
City responds
Springfield’s population had previously been on the decline prior to the arrival of Haitian immigrants, city officials have said. Violent crime was on a downward trend from 2014 to 2019, though some years saw some small spikes.
Springfield Police Division Chief Allison Elliott said that the FBI and city changed how it tracks crime in 2021 to make the data more accurate. The old system didn’t count as many offenses, so it could appear that crime has increased more than it has since 2020 if you just look at the numbers.
City and county officials agree that Haitian immigrants are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators. Asked to check in mid-November, they said there was only one Haitian immigrant in the Clark County Jail. Asked the same question two months earlier, county leaders said at that time the jail population of 199 people included two Haitian immigrants.
Credit: Marshall Gorby
Credit: Marshall Gorby
Elliott said there have been concerns about crimes being perpetrated against Haitian immigrants, and some crimes not being reported.
“I am concerned that there is apprehension to report maybe just out of fear altogether, and that’s where we just continue to reiterate, especially with our community leaders, to get the word out and reassure people that us as a police division and fire responders, we’re here to serve everyone,” Elliott said. “We’re here to deliver services to all people in our community, and so we want everyone to feel comfortable to call us and report when they’ve been a victim of a crime or if they’ve been a witness to a crime as well.”
Last December, a Springfield man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court and Clark County Common Pleas Court to committing crimes against Haitian nationals in the city. Izaye Eubanks’ charges stemmed from assaults, robberies and a carjacking in January and February 2023 of Haitian individuals because of the victims’ actual or perceived national origin.
Court documents said that Eubanks would travel throughout Springfield looking for people he thought were from Haiti and attack them, usually by punching them and knocking them to the ground before robbing them of their money, cellphones, and other personal belongings, and in one case a vehicle.
Police staffing
But while the city’s population increased in recent years and reports of crime followed, the number of police officers on the streets dropped, according to an analysis of police staffing data provided by the Springfield police union. That data says the number of commissioned offers dropped nearly 9% from the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2023.
The police division started 2021 with 123 officers, according to data provided by the union, and ended 2023 with 112 officers.
The city charter requires a minimum of 124 sworn officers, with up to 130 being allowed, Elliott said. SPD currently has 119 sworn officers and has some interviews scheduled in the next two months, so that number may increase, she said.
Local attorney Paul Kavanagh in October sent a notice to the city threatening a lawsuit if police staffing is not increased, arguing that the city charter and a tax levy passed in 2017 mean the city must maintain a full-time police force of 130 officers.
“They have never reached those numbers of 130,” said Armstrong, with the union, arguing the per-resident numbers have gotten worse as the city’s population has grown.
“If they got 15,000 increased (population) in the community, roughly 25%, then you would need an increase in the police staffing of 25%, to keep your ratios even,” he said.
City officials say they are working to increase police staffing. Recruiting law enforcement officers is a challenge faced by departments across the state and nation.
SPD has retained officers for the last year-and-a-half or so, Deputy Director of Public Safety Jason Via said.
The police department has added testing cycles to better accommodate everyone who wants to take the test to become a police officer in Springfield. SPD also uses the National Testing Network, allowing people to take a proctored test online, Elliott said.
“We offer additional testing times, multiple testing times and options, and then we offer makeups,” Elliott said. “We try to recognize and understand that people may be traveling, they work, they have families. We want to be understanding of that because that’s who’s going to be coming into our workforce.”
SPD has also removed its age cap for new officers of 34 years old, opening the division to another pool of candidates, like people who finished their military careers but still want to serve their community through law enforcement, Elliott said.
Via said these changes were all made without reducing the department’s policing standards, understanding that one “wrong” hire can lead to “disaster.”
As SPD grows its force, Elliott said she hopes to bring a K-9 unit back to Springfield, as well as a D.A.R.E. program (Druga Abuse Resistance Education) and an expanded community response team.
Crime rate, staffing
Cedarville University criminal justice professor Steve Meacham said when a population increases, the number of crime incidents typically increases, but this does not necessarily mean the crime rate will follow precisely.
“In a general sense, when the population increases, we have higher amounts (raw numbers) of crime, but the rate (per-capita percentage) may stay the same,” Meacham said. “Even though we have higher crime because the numbers mean there’s going to be more crime, but that doesn’t mean a higher rate of crime.”
If indeed the population of Springfield grew by 10,000 or more people from 2021 to 2023 because of Haitian immigration, then the rate of violent crime per 1,000 residents actually decreased. If it grew by 15,000 residents, the rate of property crime decreased as well despite the increase seen in other areas from motor vehicle thefts.
When a population increases, typically the police force should follow suit, Meacham said. He said if there is a struggle for resources, it is difficult to “put a dent into the crime picture,” resulting in less solved investigations and slower response times. “Proactive” policing leads to quicker response times and higher solve rates, Meacham said.
“If we can have enough officers out there to be proactive to, not just merely taking reports and having slow response to incidents because of the backlog, we want to be proactive if we want to have enough staffing to be able to respond in a quick fashion whenever there is a report of a crime.” Meacham said.
Credit: Marshall Gorby
Credit: Marshall Gorby
Meacham said statistically, crime tends to be intra-racial, meaning people commit more crimes against other members of their own race, rather than against another race.
Police recruitment and staffing is a challenge nationally, Meacham said, pointing to a variety of factors, including the nature of the job and the need for capable people, negative attitudes toward police and budget cuts. There have been a lot of retirements, and some police officers have become discouraged by their arrests not resulting in prosecution or sentencing that makes sense for a crime.
“When individuals come to an understanding that they can’t get away with crime, that helps.” Meacham said. “When, on the street people know that if they commit a crime that they’re actually going to get arrested and prosecuted and there’s going to be some teeth in the law and ... there would be consequences for their behavior, I think that’s important that that message is sent to the lawbreakers who are actually committing crime ...”
