Congressman Cartwright
U.S. Congressman Matt Cartwright says he has been more effective than he expected and is still focused on bringing family-sustaining jobs to the region. Cartwright said his goal since he took office in 2013 has been to give Northeastern Pennsylvania the best representation he can. He is currently seeking a second two-year term. Finding jobs and bringing them to his district remains Cartwright’s top priority.
Cartwright said he feels he has been more effective than he expected, noting he managed to get one bill signed into law: House Bill 3547, which was part of the $1.1 trillion appropriations bill. It calls for a 1 percent cost-of-living adjustment ($1 million) to 1,809 non-salaried Tobyhanna Army Depot employees and other blue-collar federal workers.
Having gotten involved with finding a solution to the crime problem associated with Sherman Hills in Wilkes-Barre, Cartwright said that if new ownership takes over he expects a gradual improvement and the decline in violent crime.
In conservative public opinion he seems to be a little more interested in his re-election campaign then the problems currently at hand in Wilkes-Barre.
Crime & Law Enforcement
As for law enforcement, crime experts that were interviewed say a key solution lies in supplementing routine police work with dedicated analysis of cases to detect trends and patterns: why people kill, when and where they kill, how they kill. Studying those patterns can tip police off to previous incidents and animosities that are likely to escalate.
Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton said that is something the city is doing. “While it is impossible to predict when and where a crime will be committed, the city consistently monitors areas identified with higher crime rates through active investigations and Wilkes-Barre Police Records Department statistics to address these areas,” Leighton said in an e-mail.
Police Chief Gerard Dessoye also believes killings can't be predicted, and said that outsiders and drug-dealing are major contributing factors to the rise in violent crime. “We don't know who is going to kill who,” Dessoye said, calling this last years’ spike “another anomaly.” But before that can happen, still others insist Wilkes-Barre simply needs more police, a move city officials already have put in motion. Wilkes-Barre has made changes in response to this year's escalating bloodshed. “The City of Wilkes-Barre has recognized that there is an increase in violent crime and crime statistics in every category will vary each year,” Mayor Leighton said, and in the summer of 2013 he requested Dessoye increase staffing on the department's TAC or anti-crime unit from four to six officers. Since that was done in July of 2013, city police have teamed up with state police troopers with the vice and narcotics unit arresting multiple drug dealers and prostitutes. Mayor Tom Leighton called for the hiring of 10 additional police officers under his 2014 budget. Leadership says that this has aided in the “crime fight” in Wilkes Barre.
Problems & Solutions I believe that there are many changes that the CJ system of Wilkes Barre should make, but I will focus in on 2 that I believe are some of the most important and should come first before fixing others
A. The Organizational Model. The CJ system is currently a closed system and this means that they are set up more bureaucratically which means that they have numerous layers of management, cascading down from senior executives to regional managers to departmental managers, all the way down to shift supervisors who work alongside frontline employees. Due to the many layers of management, decision-making authority has to pass through a larger number of layers. The disadvantages to this are that these types of models can discourage creativity and innovation throughout the organization. No matter how ingenious a business owner is, it is virtually impossible