Who's responsible for solving crime?

Filling in for Lincoln Ware on WDBZ today, Mayor Charlie Luken (file photo, above) gave a belated response to Hamilton County Prosecuter Joseph T. Deters' June 24 broadside putting the weight of the city's crime problem squarely on the shoulders of the mayor and City Council.

"We can debate that," Luken said. But he said Deters should also look at problems with the county's criminal justice system.

"If you would do that, you would ask yourself how does somebody like that -- 24 years old and with four violent offenses -- end up back on the street? While Mr. Deters has criticized City Council for not supporting the police, I would hope he would look at the probation and parole policies of Hamilton County and the state of Ohio," Luken said.

The back-and-forth between city and county governments on the crime issue is likely to escalate through November. It's already become a key theme in Democrat David Pepper's mayoral campaign.

While one of his opponents, Vice Mayor Alicia Reece, has focused on a reorganization within the Police Department as the solution to gang violence, Pepper has increasingly laid the problem on the doorstep of county government. Pepper advocates a citywide "Court Watch" program for neighborhoods to keep an eye on judges, tougher prosecution of gun crimes and putting more probation officers in neighborhoods. He told the neighborhood activist group Westwood Concern last week that expanding the jail would provide the single biggest boost to the city's crime-fighting efforts.

Luken also said today that he supports attempts by Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune to get Sheriff Simon L. Leis Jr. more involved in patrolling inside the city. "If it can be done in a coordinated way…. Why not?" Luken said, calling the sheriff's patrols in the city would be "unprecedented ... at least in my memory." (The sheriff did begin patrols around the county "campus" in 2002.)

City and county governments have only rarely been able to put aside political differences on development issues. Can the crisis of urban violence bring them together?

(Photo by Michael E. Keating/The Cincinnati Enquirer)