Last year during Philadelphia's mayoral race, the city's crime rate was a major talking point for Michael Nutter and perhaps contributed to his landslide victory.
But while crime is a prominent issue in Philadelphia politics, it has been largely ignored on the presidential campaign trail this fall.
A reason for this lack of attention to crime, St. Joseph's University history professor and political analyst Randall Miller said, is that crime prevention is carried out differently within each city.
"Crime by and large is a local issue in terms of who's responsible," he said. "The reason it's not the most explicit is that people recognize it's a local issue."
Political analysts also note that in the wake of the financial crisis, the candidates' focus has inevitably turned to the economy.
"It would seem sort of weird to talk about crime in an election in which the economy is going down the toilet," said Penn Political Science professor Richard Johnston.
But economic issues also include urban concerns like crime and infrastructure, said Zach Friend, a spokesman for Democratic nominee Barack Obama's campaign.
"Clearly the economy has been dominating the discussion the past few weeks, as it should," he said. "However, these things are linked."
Other reasons for the lack of discussion about crime, Johnston said, are the decline in crime rates in many major cities and the fact that the issue can be racially charged.
"There's a racial subtext to the use of crime," he said. "It might be that this time Republicans are afraid to touch the issue because of the possible sensitivities around the Democratic candidate."
In Philadelphia, overall crime rates are about even with last year, Lt. Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia Police said. Homicides, however, are down nearly 19 percent from 2007.
Crime hasn't always been absent from the national political stage. In 1988, George H.W. Bush ran a series of ads indicting his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, on the issue of furloughs for prisoners.
But since then, discussion of crime on a national level has been confined to more indirect topics like the economy and urban issues.
Both Obama and Republican nominee John McCain have laid out plans for crime prevention.
According to Friend, Obama's plan focuses largely on funding the Community Oriented Policing Services program to add an additional 50,000 police officers to cities around the country.
"Local law enforcement is facing drastic cuts," he said. "Without [COPS] funding it's hard to pay for additional police officers that are needed on the street."
According to the McCain campaign's Web site, the candidate also intends to support state and local law enforcement. McCain's focus, though, would be on reforming the process for awarding that funding. The McCain campaign did not respond to a call for comment.
