The Inquirer has done some independent analysis of the recommendations in Ramsey's crime plan: specifically, it has looked at where resources are being sent and why.

One big shock: Point Breeze and five other districts with among the worst crime rates in the city last year don't get any more police or money under the plan.

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who released his plan on Jan. 30, identified nine high-crime districts where he wants to shift 200 officers to patrol duty. The 17th District, which includes Point Breeze and Grays Ferry, was not among the chosen few.

The nine districts Ramsey selected for special attention are some of the city's most populous and account for nearly two-thirds of Philadelphia's homicides.

But six less-populous police districts - including the 17th - have higher crime rates than some of the districts Ramsey wants to target, according to an Inquirer analysis of the Police Department's 2007 crime statistics. Crime rates provide analysts a way to compare the number of offenses among areas with different populations - the higher the rate, the greater the likelihood someone in those areas will be a victim of a crime.

The apparent reason: Ramsey is committed to getting numbers down, and the more people who live in an area, the more cold hard crime numbers. Even if the crime rate by population is lower, as in areas like University City and Chestnut Hill--both of which are getting added resources.

Ramsey's chosen districts combined account for 55 percent of the city's population. Consequently, they have the highest number of violent crimes. And it is the total number of crimes that Ramsey is focused on reducing.

So this numbers game at least partly accounts for who is targeted for extra help, and who isn't:

Four of the districts Ramsey chose have better-than-average violent-crime rates - the city average is 1,456 incidents per 100,000 residents. They are the 14th District in Northwest Philadelphia, the 35th District straddling Broad Street in the north, and the 18th and 19th Districts in West Philadelphia. They include some of the city's most stable neighborhoods: Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, West Oak Lane, Wynnefield, University City.

Conversely, six districts that reported some of the worst violent-crime rates last year did not make the commissioner's list: the Sixth District, which includes eastern Center City and North Philadelphia; the 16th District, including Mantua and Powelton in West Philadelphia; the 23d District in North Philadelphia; the 24th and 26th Districts, encompassing Kensington, Fishtown and Port Richmond; and the 17th.

Stepping back, most of the reforms Ramsey has proposed are great because they touch on basic policing. If they are achieved, they will help every area in the city, even those that aren't targeted for extra resources.

However, there's one thing that is agreed upon by basically everyone who cares about and pays attention to the crime problem: we need to target resources to where the problems are. This holds for stop-and-frisk (use the data we have to focus on problem corners rather than casting a broad net), as well as where to send patrol officers on their rounds and where to put the money and bodies.

When we are talking about the murder rate, numbers are people, so any drop in that rate is a good in itself. However, this is a very calculated distribution of our limited resources, and that calculation doesn't take into account the desperate need of people in places like Point Breeze, where there are less people but more destructive crime.