SALT LAKE CITY — Crime in the Ballpark neighborhood has reached crisis-mode, with the homicide rate in the area nine times higher than Salt Lake City as a whole, according to data from the Ballpark Community Council.
Businesses in the neighborhood, along with the council, are looking for solutions.
Lockhart Enterprises has been open since the 1970s and seen quite a bit of change during that time.
"There's prostitution and there's a lot of outside influences, a lot of people peddle dope here and a lot of people buy it here and that's a very big problem," said Lockhart employee Jason Marsh.
Crime nearby is so bad that Marsh said it has impacted the number of customers Lockhart regularly sees.
"All the walk in sales and just the general people that come in and buy things, they don't even stop in this neighborhood anymore, they just keep going," Marsh said. "We've considered moving many times."
The chair of the Ballpark Community Council, Amy J. Hawkins, has called the neighborhood home since 2013.
"Our violent crime has gotten palpably worse, which is a shame," said Hawkins.
Since 2018, Hawkins says the council has been keeping track of publicly available data when it comes to crime in the neighborhood. They use things like a map which details crimes that have happened in the area in the last four years, including the domestic violence-related homicide that took place overnight.
"There was a big spike in 2020, but we're still higher than where we were prior to the pandemic," added Hawkins.
Hawkins has also used comp-stat data from the Salt Lake City Police Department showing that five of the 18 homicides in both 2020 and 2021 were in the Ballpark neighborhood. That accounts for 28% in the Salt Lake area for each of those years.
According to Hawkins, about 6,000 people currently live in the Ballpark neighborhood; however, she points out that several longtime residents have moved away.
The question now is what solutions are available to combat the crime.
"We have a very active neighborhood watch group," explained Hawkins. "We have a group that meets to literally pick up trash and needles and other sharps in the neighborhood.
"If there are solutions on the table, we are aimed at them, we are trying to do everything possible."
Just like the council, Marsh hopes for real solutions that find real progress.
"I believe we need some tough love and the criminal element has to actually be punished for what they're doing."
