Ethics & Religion
June 8, 2016
Column #1,815
America's Safest City
By Mike McManus
On Sunday
The New York Times published a front page story on a weekend of crime in
Chicago with 64 people shot, six of whom died. With in-depth reporting
on four inside pages, the Times said "It is a level of violence that has
become the terrifying norm, particularly in predominantly black and
Latino neighborhoods."
The Chicago Police Department with 12,000 officers, the nation's second
largest, is so distrusted that witnesses of crimes say they cannot
remember what happened and victims drive themselves to hospitals rather
than call the police. In 2015 there were 470 homicides, few of which are
solved. By June 3, another 239 were dead. Since the start of the year,
Chicagoans have called the police 28,000 times to report gunfire.
Contrast this carnage with El Paso, a city of 679,000, a quarter the
size of Chicago. In 2010 El Paso had only five murders in the entire
year - compared to six in one Chicago weekend. El Paso had 23 murders in
2012, 11 in 2013 and 20 in 2014.
In fact, El Paso, America's 18th largest city, had the nation's lowest
crime rate of all major cities for four straight years.
Why is El Paso's murder rate a tiny fraction of Chicago's?
Does Chicago have a much bigger percentage of blacks and Hispanics in
its population? No. A third of Chicago is white compared to only about
12% of El Paso, where 80% are Hispanic.
The city also has a high poverty rate, high unemployment and many school
dropouts. It is also across the river from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico,
which suffered 3,500 murders in 2010.
I credit Barney Field, the leader of El Paso for Jesus, for the city's
success. He took two major initiatives 20 years ago that changed the
city. (Full disclosure: I was involved with one of them - the creation
of the El Paso Community Marriage Policy.)
Barney heard me interviewed on a radio show about our work at Marriage
Savers to help a cross-section of churches in a city to better prepare
couples for a lifelong marriage, enrich existing ones, and save those in
crisis. I asserted that if Catholic priests and Protestant pastors took
these steps together, citywide divorce rates fall.
I was invited to make a presentation to El Paso clergy in 1996. For
example, I proposed that all churches require any couples getting
married to take a premarital inventory in which the man and woman
indicated whether they agreed or disagreed with statements like these:
I suggested training couples in healthy marriages to discuss 150 such
items over six
sessions and teach skills to resolve conflict, and ask couples to be
chaste till the wedding.
In addition, I proposed that churches hold an annual event to enrich
existing marriages, such as "10 Great Dates," in which couples come to
church weekly, watch a brief DVD on such topics as "Resolving Honest
Conflict" or "Becoming an Encourager." Couples then go on a date to
discuss that item! It is a fun way to strengthen marriages.
For troubled marriages, I proposed the pastor ask the congregation, "Are
there couples whose marriages were once on the rocks, but who have
healed them? If so, meet with me after the service." When that was first
asked in Jacksonville, out of 180 people present, 10 couples met with
the pastor.
He asked them if they would share their stories with each other. Seven
did so, which trained them to tell their stories to couples in crisis.
Over the next five years, they met with 40 troubled marriages and saved
38 of them.
I suggested that if they agreed with such goals, that they sign an El
Paso Community Marriage Policy. Thirteen Catholic priests and 45
Protestant pastors took this step in 1996.
An independent study by the Institute for Research and Evaluation
reported that El Paso's divorce rate plunged 79.5% by 2001 - the biggest
drop of 240 cities that created a Community Marriage Policy. (On
average, divorce rates fall 17.5% in seven years.)
The second initiative Barney Field took in 1997 was to persuade The El
Paso Times to publish the entire New Testament with daily excerpts that
took five minutes to read. Also, any reader could write for a free New
Testament, and 70,000 people did so.
These initiatives to strengthen the faith and marriages of El Paso
transformed the city. Few kids became delinquent.
That's how El Paso became America's safest big city.
________________________________________________
Copyright (c) 2016 Michael J. McManus is President of Marriage Savers
and a syndicated columnist. For earlier columns go to
www.ethicsandreligion.com and hit Search for any topic.
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