Jason Schiffer

My name is Jason Schiffer. I'm the Chief of Police at Lehigh University. I worked as a police officer in the City of Bethlehem for 20 years and retired as the Chief of Police there.

The perception of crime, specifically in South Bethlehem, is far more than what the statistics show. I think a lot of people have the impression that South Bethlehem might even be unsafe or that there is a very large amount of crime that occurs in the in this area. But statistically, that's really not the case. It's still one of the safer cities in Pennsylvania, and we are far below the crime rate national average crime rate. So I don't know exactly where the perception always seems to come from, but that's something I think that we've 00:01:00battled here in the city and specifically on the south side for many years. I just don't see that the statistics really bear that out.

Numerically, the most common crimes are less serious crimes. Property crimes are certainly the most common. We have, I think, very few violent crimes against people and very few random violent crimes against people. It's not necessarily an unsafe place to walk around town, you know, it's not like we have robbed and that sort of thing out on the street. I'd say most crimes that are occurring against people are people that know one another or domestic type situations or situations where somebody has something against a certain individual.

There certainly hasn't been a crime wave. It has brought in a lot more people and traffic and things like that, and you're always going to have somewhat of an increase in activity and potential crime when you have just more people around. But it has not been a major change in the crime that we've experienced here in the city.

As far as the change over the past decade, again, I think we've had some increase maybe just in lower-level crimes because of the increase in the amount of people in the area. But really there hasn't been much of a change at all. Certainly I don't perceive it to be a negative change.

The theory would be people with gambling issues are resorting to petty theft to try to get money to gamble. And perhaps that has happened, but I don't think on any type of scale that would show up even statistically. There have been instances--and they're headline-grabbing type instances--you know. There is certainly times where people have done horrendous types of things, like left their children unattended in a car while they go into gamble. I think it when you look at numerically: how many people are coming through the casino on a regular basis versus the number of times that something like that has happened. Statistically, it's completely insignificant, although it's a very, very serious issue when it does occur. Again, I don't think it's been something that caused a lot of problems overall. That's not something that happens every day.

Perhaps, but I mean it's hard to imagine anything that could have come there that would draw as many visitors, even a full-scale shopping mall probably wouldn't bring in that many individuals. Although I think you'd have the same type of--if you have individual who would try to enter unlocked vehicles in a parking lot, they're going to do that whether it's a casino or a shopping mall or a restaurant. I don't know that that really would have changed. Certainly there is an element of alcohol that is involved in with the casino and then the event center, and you're gonna have crimes that that flow from that. But I don't 00:05:00see that the casino in and of itself has had created that many more, like I mentioned earlier, you know, some of those people that have left are their children your car to go and gamble. That's unique. I don't really see that-- if something else would have come there that drew that many people, I don't really think we're experiencing crime now that we wouldn't've with anything else.

Pennsylvania Law requires that all instances of crime on the casino floor are handled by the Pennsylvania State Police. There's a specific unit, and they have State Troopers that work there on the floor. They handle everything that might happen on the casino floor. There is definitely cooperation between the state 00:06:00troopers there and the Bethlehem police when it's required, but it's a very clear jurisdictional line. Like if it happened on the casino floor, it's theirs. If it's off the casino floors, it's the City of Bethlehem's.

Then you have Sands security. They're in the middle of both. They have obviously many cameras, and they have a quite a sophisticated operation there. They work very well and closely with law enforcement, whether it's the state or the City to help deal with anything that might happen on any of their property.

I think fortunately the way the laws were drafted in Pennsylvania--that really helped law enforcement. They wanted to make sure that you weren't allowed to have certain things in close proximity to the casino, like pawn shops and 00:07:00everything. It was very tightly drafted, the way that legislation was, to ensure that we wouldn't have a an area created around the casino that would attract a lot of crime. I think that helped law enforcement. We worked closely with all the officials from the casino prior to the casino opening and just trying to anticipate what might come, whether it's traffic-wise or crime related incidents.

I would say by and large a lot of the fears never came to be. Now whether that was because it was good planning or the crime never would have occurred, you know, from our standpoint it really didn't matter and the bad things just didn't seem to happen. Of course we have more traffic accidents because there's so many more cars and things like that, but nothing-- the world didn't come to an end

I think they have done a really good job of being a good partner with the community, so I'd like to see that continue or even increase. A lot of development has happened because of the casino, but there's still a lot that could be improved. You know, the No. 2 Machine Shop, and there's hundreds of acres of land that are yet to be developed. I don't think any of that would have happened and any of the shopping areas that are down there currently wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the casino. I'd like to see that continued partnership with the local community and local law enforcement and the expansion 00:09:00of the development that's already started. I'm kind of excited about that possibility. If it weren't for the casino, you know, I pretty much believe that that entire area where the Steel was would still be a dormant area, not contributing at all to our community. I'm excited about the possibility of new ownership coming in.