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Accounting Solutions on Myrtle Avenue is less than one-half mile from Baton Rouge Police headquarters. Not that the drug dealers care.

“I can be walking to my truck, and I park right in front of my building,” business owner Adrian Mayes says. “I can tell who’s the runner, and I can see them signaling to someone who’s hidden off in the bushes or behind a house, and then I can see a car drive by, and I’ll see somebody else walking to meet that car. And that’s obvious.”

Mayes used to call the police at least once a week. She seldom bothers anymore.

“After they’d heard my name several times they would send somebody out and they would do this big bust, but nobody ever went to jail, and they never found anything,” she says. “So is it really about trying to get these people off the street, or just to appease me?”

Mayes’ neighbors always seem to know who called police, which potentially puts her in danger. She’s never been directly threatened. Mayes maintains a solid business despite the crime, although clients are sometimes afraid to visit her, and walk-in traffic is rare.

Accounting Solutions is in a blight-ridden area, and most business owners don’t encounter crime so frequently or directly. At the same time, everyone is at risk to be a victim.

East Baton Rouge Parish officials are quick to say the overall crime rate has been declining in recent years. But there has been a well-publicized spike in violent crime inside the city. Even if every business isn’t in the line of fire, if Baton Rouge has the reputation as a dangerous city, the region’s long-term economic health will suffer.

“We cannot be ostriches and put our heads in the sand about the crime in this city,” says Richard Preis, a managing director with Morgan Keegan and a developer. “The problem is the politicians don’t want to talk about it.” Negative attention spurred by a rising murder rate could overwhelm the good press Baton Rouge’s economy has been receiving from BusinessWeek, The Brookings Institution and others, he says.

The only negative business news lately in a 2% drop in sales tax receipts, but the city remains far better off than most of its peers.

“It is not perceived by a lot of people,” Mayor Kip Holden says, “that crime is holding Baton Rouge back economically.”

How safe [or unsafe] are we?

For obvious reasons, murder receives the most attention of any crime. FBI statistics indicate Baton Rouge had about 30 murders per 100,000 residents in 2008 [67 murders against a population of 226,920], which reportedly puts the city seventh in the nation, between Detroit and Oakland, Calif. Forbes magazine, after counting several types of offenses per 100,000 residents, declared greater Baton Rouge the 12th most violent metropolitan statistical area in the nation.

It’s even worse this year. Statistics from the Baton Rouge Police Department indicate the first six months of 2009 are the city’s deadliest in the past decade. With 38 homicides through June 30, Baton Rouge is on pace for almost 80 this year.

Crime “rankings” are always controversial; the American Society of Criminology and the FBI itself caution against taking such lists too seriously. And many local officials say the federal government underestimates Baton Rouge’s true post-Hurricane Katrina population, which skews the per-capita crime comparison.

“For five consecutive years, crime has gone down,” Police Chief Jeff LeDuff says. “Crime is cyclical. Are we on an upswing this year? Yeah. Is violent crime up? Yes it is.”

But LeDuff stresses the violence is not random. In perhaps 75% to 85% of cases, the offender and the victim know each other. Usually, both have criminal histories. If you’re not involved in criminal activity or socializing with people who are, your odds of being a victim of a violent crime are slim, he says.

The area did see a post-Katrina increase in crime along with the surge of evacuees, although Sheriff Sid Gautreaux says the population seems to have stabilized.

“Our Census report showed that we had 428,000 people in the parish. I think that’s pretty accurate,” he says. “I don’t think we can blame any of our current crime rate on Katrina or the aftermath of Katrina.”

Whatever else Katrina did, LeDuff says the storm was a networking opportunity for criminals from Houston to Baton Rouge to Atlanta.

“Katrina put ill-intended people together,” he says. “You will have a criminal that now knows something about Baton Rouge. So if he commits a crime elsewhere, he has a safe haven to come back to. He’s made friends here. Our criminals, when they commit crimes here, they have places they can go.”

Gautreaux believes the Forbes report unfairly lumped the entire Baton Rouge area together. He says violent crime and overall crime have decreased in the parish’s unincorporated areas—his primary responsibility. The big exceptions in 2008 were robbery, up 23%, and burglary, up 12%.

Through the first quarter of 2009, the Sheriff’s Office reports 141 violent offenses—including 55 robberies but no murders—and 1,836 nonviolent offenses—including 462 burglaries and 1,298 property thefts.

“Certain areas, we’ve seen increases in thefts, the nonviolent crimes,” he says. “I think it’s crimes of opportunity, and I think it’s just more people. Perkins Rowe [for example] has really blossomed, and they get a high volume of traffic.”

Through July 2009, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office had 1,140 service calls to the Mall of Louisiana, compared to 185 for Perkins Rowe, which the sheriff’s office says reflects a greater traffic level. Many of those calls are false alarms.

Jones Lang LaSalle, the Chicago-based real estate firm that’s been running Perkins Rowe since lenders filed for foreclosure in July, has hired a private security service for the development, although a spokeswoman says the move was “proactive” and not in response to a particular incident. The firm also has banned unescorted minors after 9 p.m.

Rave Motion Pictures’ Mall of Louisiana location had been a problem area; as many as 200 to 300 teenagers would hang out in the parking lot, leading to a March incident in which a deputy broke his leg and dislocated his knee as he ran through some bushes while responding to a fight. Nine females, ranging in age from 13 to 18, were cited for “disturbing the peace by fistic encounter” among other misdemeanors.

At the Sheriff’s Office’s request, Rave’s Mall of Louisiana and O’Neal Lane locations now restrict when minors are allowed on the property. The policy is stated on placards in the box office: “No person under the age of 17 will be allowed to enter our building after 8 p.m. unless supervised by someone 25 years of age or older. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed into a ‘R’ rated feature after 6 p.m. [no exceptions].”

A Rave Motion Pictures official based in Dallas did not return a phone call seeking comment.

‘Perception is reality’

More than 40% of respondents to a survey for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s CityStats project say they don’t feel safe walking alone at night in their neighborhoods, and nearly 60% say they’re more concerned about crime than a year ago. BRAF released the CityStats report in March.

“It’s the way you ask a question,” Holden says. “The person who’s doing the survey has put in a question skewed towards getting a certain answer. Is there crime here? Yes. Is it to the extreme that the question painted? The answer is no.”

Baton Rouge Area Chamber CEO Adam Knapp says crime didn’t make the top 10 concerns in BRAC’s most recent survey of existing area businesses. As for new prospects, crime might be a big issue for new retail developments, but it’s less important to the export-driven industries the chamber recruits, he says.

“Violent crime and murder rates are up,” Knapp says. “If this rises to the level that it’s directly interfering with job creation, I would say we [BRAC] need to be more actively engaged. Right now, we’re monitoring it to be informed on the topic, but we’re not actively pursuing any initiatives on crime.”

Quality of life always is an issue when a firm considers a site for a new business or expansion, and crime is always part of that discussion, says Robert Price, director of Atlanta-based Herron Consulting, which provides site selection, business relocation and economic development services.

For example, if a small manufacturer expects to hire most of its staff locally, the area’s crime rate might not be that important. Prospective workers who are afraid of an area probably aren’t living there in the first place. But if a company hopes to attract white-collar or highly skilled workers from outside of the area, a high crime rate could knock a site out of the running pretty quickly.

“Knowledge-based workers tend to be more mobile than other workers,” Price says. “On the issue of crime, perception is reality. Their perception of crime will drive their decision.”

Dan Schuessler, who manages ExxonMobil’s local chemical plant, says professional employees often turn down transfers to Baton Rouge. He says crime is a secondary issue behind education, but people often make a connection between low-performing schools and crime.

“You have the employee, and then you have the spouse and the children,” he says. “Often the employee would like the career development opportunity in Baton Rouge, but the family, the spouse, the children, they’re concerned about education, crime and the quality of life.”

Businesses often say the idea of crime impacts their bottom line more than the reality. Cortana Mall is in the vicinity of some neighborhoods with spotty reputations, and media outlets sometimes use the mall—at Florida Boulevard and Airline Highway—as a geographic reference point in crime reports.

“[The public] reads that in the paper and they see that in the news and automatically tend to associate the businesses in the area with that crime,” General Manager Percy Singleton says. “A lot of times, it’s not true.”

Samuel Sanders, executive director of the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance, says businesses in his part of town sometimes complain about break-ins, although he doesn’t know of any business that’s been chased off by crime. Some people say fear of crime keeps customers away, although the thousands who come out for events like the White Light Night art hop undermine that claim.

“While we are not fooling ourselves to believe there isn’t a significant amount of crime,” Sanders says, “it’s not as bad as we believe [people outside the area] think it is.”

Calandro’s Supermarket on Government Street in Mid City has kept an off-duty police officer on its staff since they were held up more than 15 years ago, Charles Calandro says. People still try to shoplift, even with the security, but it’s not a serious problem.

The Government Street Calandro’s closes an hour earlier than the Perkins Road location because business dries up after 7 or 7:30 p.m.

“We don’t want to keep the [Government Street] store open that late,” Calandro says. “That’s just asking for trouble to keep it open into the darker hours of the evening. Our clientele is an older clientele, and they’re not shopping at 9 o’clock at night.”

But some of the area’s restaurants stay busy well into the evening, so it’s not like the fear of crime is keeping everyone home. Superior Grill, on Government Street just west of Jefferson Highway, maintains a uniformed police presence on its busier nights.

The fear of crime isn’t limited to businesses. It also plays a role in residential real estate.

“Baton Rouge is defined by being north or south of Government Street or Florida,” says A. Elsenia Young of the Young Real Estate Group. “If you take the same house in Capital Heights [just south of Government] and you put it on the other side of Government Street over by Baton Rouge High, the value of that house is going to go down by about $25,000 to $40,000.”

But that difference can’t be logically explained by crime, at least not entirely. Government is a street, not a moat, and criminals can cross it easily. Young initially says the “demographics of the area” are more to blame.

“It’s just blatant racism, to be honest with you,” Young says. But she’s finding younger buyers, compared to previous generations, don’t seem to care as much about the skin tone of their potential neighbors.

Chicken-or-egg discussion

“I think there are pockets of places in Baton Rouge that obviously have some issues, and some of those are in north Baton Rouge,” says Preis, who continues to develop the Howell Place mixed-use project at Harding Boulevard and Interstate 110. “The good news for me is those pockets of crime are pretty much south of Airline Highway. Does [crime] affect the perception when national people come into town? Without a question, the answer is yes.”

Preis says his insurance rates for the project were about 35% higher than they might have been elsewhere in the city, although the rates have come down recently. Some locals questioned his logic of investing in north Baton Rouge, but Preis says activity related to the airport discourages crime in the area.

“Activity and development lessens your crime issues,” Preis says. “But it’s a chicken-or-the-egg discussion.” In other words, communities need business investment to improve, but no one wants to invest until they see some improvement.

“I think there’s a happy medium,” says Eric Lewis, business development director for Sable International and board president of the Baton Rouge Black Chamber of Commerce. “The businesses that currently operate in these [high-crime] environments need to really be engaged with their neighbors and be a part of the process, and help take on a leadership role to bring these communities back.”

He says the broader business community can help by participating in government-funded job training programs, which theoretically provide opportunities for young people from poor backgrounds.

“We have to make sure people are taking advantage of the resources that are being offered,” Holden says. “We need a community approach to dealing with crime. That community is private, it’s public, and it’s personal in the families and the people that are living in those communities. … We cannot make a case to a business to come and locate in an area if the crime rate is high.”

Mayes, the accountant and business owner who did her part to fight crime for years, is tired of hearing that change is coming.

“They come out and they do these nice speeches, especially our chief of police,” she says. “He makes beautiful speeches, but I see little action in our neighborhood.”

But at least for the moment, Mayes isn’t going anywhere.

“I’m 54,” she says. “When I leave, I’m probably going home. I guess if I was much younger and not nearing retirement age, I would be looking somewhere else.”

Click here to read the sidebar, "Crime fighter."

Click here for a PDF of crime statistics in Baton Rouge.

AMERICA’S most dangerous cities

Earlier this year, Forbes magazine released a list of America’s Most Dangerous Cities. The ranking was based on the violent crime statistics from the FBI’s latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is comprised of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

1. Detroit

Metropolitan Statistical Area: 
 Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich.

Population: 1,951,186

Violent crimes per 100,000: 1,200

2. Memphis, Tenn.

MSA: Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark.

Population: 1,295,670

Violent crimes per 100,000: 1,218

3. Miami

MSA: Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla.

Population: 2,401,971

Violent crimes per 100,000: 988

4. Las Vegas

MSA: Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.

Population: 1,834,533

Violent crimes per 100,000: 887

5. Stockton, Calif.

MSA: Stockton, Calif.

Population: 684,406

Violent crimes per 100,000: 885

6. Orlando, Fla.

MSA: Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla.

Population: 2,020,346

Violent crimes per 100,000: 845

7. Little Rock, Ark.

MSA: Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, Ark.

Population: 659,776

Violent crimes per 100,000: 831

8. Charleston, S.C.

MSA: Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, S.C.

Population: 616,999

Violent crimes per 100,000: 824

9. Nashville, Tenn.

MSA: Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-
Franklin, Tenn.

Population: 1,492,983

Violent crimes per 100,000: 817

10. Baltimore

MSA: Baltimore-Towson, Md.

Population: 2,652,974

Violent crimes per 100,000: 791

11. New Orleans

MSA: New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner

Population: 1,026,639

Violent crimes per 100,000: 773

12. Baton Rouge

MSA: Baton Rouge

Population: 770,283

Violent crimes per 100,000: 728

13. West Palm Beach, Fla.

MSA: West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, Fla.

Population: 1,283,806

Violent crimes per 100,000: 726

14. Charlotte, N.C.

MSA: Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C.

Population: 1,635,133

Violent crimes per 100,000: 721

15. Philadelphia

MSA: Philadelphia, Pa.

Population: 3,880,695

Violent crimes per 100,000: 709

SOURCE: Forbes