Editing Pittsburgh (section)

==Government and politics==
===Government===
{{Main|Government of Pittsburgh}}
[[File:PittsburghCity-CountyBuilding.jpg|thumb|The [[Pittsburgh City-County Building]], the seat of government of the City of Pittsburgh]]
The [[Government of Pittsburgh]] is composed of the [[Mayor of Pittsburgh]], the [[Pittsburgh City Council]], and various boards and commissions. The mayor and the nine-member council each serve four-year terms. Since the 1950s the [[Pittsburgh Mayoral Chief of Staff|Mayor's Chief of Staff]] has assumed a large role in advising, long term planning, and as a "gatekeeper" to the mayor. City council members are chosen by [[plurality voting system|plurality]] elections in each of nine districts. The government's official offices are in the [[Pittsburgh City-County Building]].

The [[Pennsylvania Supreme Court]] holds sessions in Pittsburgh, as well as [[Harrisburg, Pennsylvania|Harrisburg]] and Philadelphia. Pittsburgh is represented in the [[Pennsylvania General Assembly]] by three [[Pennsylvania State Senate|Senate Districts]] and nine [[Pennsylvania House of Representatives|House Districts]]. Federally, Pittsburgh is part of [[Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district]].

===Politics===
[[File:The 2020 United States Presidential Election in Pittsburgh.svg|thumb|'''2020 presidential election by precinct''' <br /> '''Biden:''' {{legend0|#b9d7ffff|40–50%}} {{legend0|#86b6f2ff|50–60%}} {{legend0|#4389e3ff|60–70%}} {{legend0|#1666cbff|70–80%}} {{legend0|#0645b4ff|80–90%}} {{legend0|#002b84ff|90–100%}}<br />'''Trump:''' {{legend0|#e27f90ff|50–60%}} {{legend0|#cc2f4aff|60–70%}}]]
{{see also|Allegheny County, Pennsylvania#Politics}}
In 2006, Council President [[Luke Ravenstahl]] was sworn in as mayor at age 26, becoming the youngest mayor in the history of any major American city. His successor, [[Bill Peduto]], was sworn in on January 6, 2014. In November 2021, Pittsburgh elected its first African-American mayor, [[Ed Gainey]].

Prior to the [[American Civil War]], Pittsburgh was strongly abolitionist. It is considered the [[History of the United States Republican Party|birthplace of the national Republican Party]],<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=http://www.pagop.org/about/history/ |access-date=April 19, 2022 |website=Republican Party of Pennsylvania |language=en-US}}</ref> as the party held its first convention here in February 1856. From the Civil War to the 1930s, Pittsburgh was a [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] stronghold. The effects of the [[Great Depression]], combined with entrenched local GOP scandals, resulted in a shift among voters to the Democratic Party. With the exceptions of the [[Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1973|1973]] and [[Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1977|1977]] elections (where lifelong Democrats ran off the party ticket), Democrats have been elected consecutively to the mayor's office since the [[Pittsburgh mayoral election, 1933|1933 election]]. The city's ratio of party registration is 5 to 1 Democrat.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gmfus.org/template/page.cfm?page_id=481 |title=Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Transatlantic Cities Network |publisher=The German Marshall Fund of the United States|access-date=May 6, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619184138/http://gmfus.org/template/page.cfm?page_id=481|archive-date=June 19, 2010}}</ref>

Pittsburgh is represented in the [[Pennsylvania General Assembly]] by three [[Pennsylvania State Senate|Senate Districts]] ([[Lindsey Williams]] (D)-[[Pennsylvania's 38th Senatorial District|38]], [[Wayne D. Fontana]] (D)-[[Pennsylvania's 42nd Senatorial District|42]], and [[Jay Costa]] (D)-[[Pennsylvania's 43rd Senatorial District|43]]) and nine [[Pennsylvania House of Representatives|House Districts]] ([[Aerion Abney]]-19, [[Emily Kinkead]]-20, [[Lindsay Powell]]-21, [[Dan Frankel (American politician)|Dan Frankel]]-23, [[La'Tasha Mayes]]-24, [[Dan Deasy]]-27, [[Abigail Salisbury]]-34, [[Jessica Benham]]-36, and John Inglis-38).

Federally, Pittsburgh is part of [[Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district]], represented by [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] [[Summer Lee]] since 2023.

===Law enforcement===
[[File:Pittsburgh Police Vehicles.JPG|thumb|A [[Ford Taurus]] and a [[Chevrolet Impala]] belonging to the [[Pittsburgh Police]]]]
The area's largest law enforcement agency is the [[Pittsburgh Police|Pittsburgh Bureau of Police]], with close to 850 sworn officers. The city also has separate housing and school police departments. Other agencies also provide police protection within the city because of overlapping jurisdictional boundaries. The [[Allegheny County Sheriff]] focuses on jail and [[Allegheny County Courthouse|courthouse]] security. The [[Allegheny County Police Department|Allegheny County Police]] primarily patrols county-owned parks and airports, while providing detective/investigatory functions for smaller suburbs and the [[Port Authority of Allegheny County|Port Authority police]] patrols rapid transit. [[Pennsylvania State Police]] Troop B provides patrols for the city and immediate suburbs.

The county's lead law enforcement officer is [[Allegheny County District Attorney]] [[Stephen Zappala]] while the [[Allegheny County Medical Examiner]] heads forensics. Crimes of a federal nature are covered by the [[United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania#United States Attorneys|U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania]].

===Crime===
Pittsburgh annually ranks as one of America's safest big cities, in 2013 being named the 3rd "most secure" big city by Farmers Insurance.<ref>{{cite news |last=Schocker |first=Laura |title=What Pittsburgh Can Teach The Rest of the Country About Living Well |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/pittsburgh-health_n_4339476.html |website=The Huffington Post |date=December 18, 2013}}</ref> Among [[United States cities by crime rate|crime rates of the 60 largest U.S. cities]], 43 had more instances of property crime while 16 had less when compared to Pittsburgh. More instances of violent crime were reported in 21 of the largest cities while 37 had less. The FBI recommends against using data for ranking.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/caution-against-ranking |title=Caution Against Ranking |publisher=[[FBI]]|access-date=August 8, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/ucr/word.htm |title=A Word About UCR Data |publisher=[[FBI]] |access-date=October 12, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100923231201/http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/word.htm |archive-date=September 23, 2010}}</ref>
Per 100,000 persons stats (2012):
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!  !! Murder  !! Rape  !! Robbery  !! Assault  !! Burglary !! Theft  !! Motor vehicle  !! Total violent !! Total property
|-
| [[United States cities by crime rate|City]] || 13.1 || 15.1 || 363.3 || 360.4 || 812.8 || 2,438.2 || 174.3 || 752.0 || 3,425.4
|}<!--Metro:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/6tabledatadecpdf |title=FBI – Table 6 |work=FBI|access-date=June 11, 2015}}</ref> -->

At the end of 2019, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police reported 37 murders in the city that year.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/pittsburgh-homicides-hit-lowest-in-20-years/ |title=Pittsburgh homicides hit lowest in 20 years |website=Pittsburgh Tribune Live |date=January 2020}}</ref>

In Pittsburgh, the homicide rate for African Americans is seven times the national average.<ref name="Byrdsong-2015">{{Cite journal |last=Byrdsong |first=T. Rashad |display-authors=et al. |date=2015 |title=A Ground-Up Model for Gun Violence Reduction: A Community-Based Public Health Approach |url=https://www.ceapittsburgh.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/A-Ground-Up-Model-for-Gun-Violence-Reduction.pdf |journal=Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work |volume=13 |issue=1|pages=76–86 |doi=10.1080/15433714.2014.997090 |pmid=26151769 |s2cid=205889350  | issn=2376-1407}}</ref> Some people believe that over-reliance on law enforcement exacerbates homicide rates.<ref name="Byrdsong-2015" /> There is also concern regarding the effectiveness of law enforcement in solving these cases, as 97% of unsolved cases involved a black victim.<ref name="Benzing-2016">{{Cite web |last=Benzing |first=Jeffrey |date=January 16, 2016 |title=Pittsburgh's repeating tragedy of unsolved black homicides |url=http://www.publicsource.org/pittsburghs-repeating-tragedy-of-unsolved-black-homicides/ |access-date=December 16, 2023 |website=PublicSource |language=en-US}}</ref> This has led certain residents to believe law enforcement to be ineffective or apathetic.<ref name="Benzing-2016" /> This is despite an increasing police budget. In 2023, members of the Pittsburgh City Council approved an increase to the police budget by $6 million.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Koscinski |first=Kiley |date=April 27, 2023 |title=Pittsburgh City Council preliminarily approves funding to support new police contract |url=https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2023-04-27/pittsburgh-council-new-police-contract |access-date=December 16, 2023 |website=90.5 WESA |language=en}}</ref> About 6% of this money is expected to go to the Stop the Violence trust fund. This fund goes to improving parks and recreation, various non-profits, and to the office of Community Health and Safety, in effort to holistically improve the social pressures supposedly causing violence in Pittsburgh.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Felton |first=Julia |date=December 13, 2023 |title=Pittsburgh to use money from anti-violence trust fund on parks, recreation |url=https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-to-use-money-from-anti-violence-trust-fund-on-parks-recreation/ |access-date=December 16, 2023 |website=TribLIVE.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

Some people do not believe these efforts to be adequate. Certain studies, such as conducted by the Police Scorecard, rate the Pittsburgh Police Department at 37% quality (with 100% being the best). They rated Pittsburgh below the 50th percentile in the categories "police budget cost per person," "fines / forefeitures," "Police Presence/Over-Policing (Officers per Population)," "Force Used per Arrest," "Racial Disparities in Deadly Force," "Excessive Force Complaints Upheld," "Discrimination Complaints Upheld," "Criminal Misconduct Complaints Upheld," "Arrest Rate for Low Level Offenses," and "Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests." This is 10 out of 15 categories.<ref>{{Cite web |last=CampaignZero |title=Police Scorecard: Pittsburgh, PA |url=https://policescorecard.org/ |access-date=December 16, 2023 |website=Police Scorecard: Pittsburgh, PA |language=en}}</ref>