A University of Illinois professor helped write a study indicating bankruptcies and crime rose after casinos were built.
Professor John Kindt, who teaches business and legal policy at the university, said that basic math shows that crime would go up.
"Bankruptcies up 18 to 42 percent, crime increasing 10 percent -- once you bring in these gambling facilities, the crime rate continues to go up year after year," Kindt said.
The Ohio Fraternal of Police endorsed Issue 3 earlier this year. The FOP does not necessarily disagree about the statistics but doesn't blame casinos, 10TV's John Fortney reported.
"It's not the effect of the casino that creates more crime but the more populous that you have in a particular region, crime will go up," said Mark Drum of the Ohio FOP.
When the FOP came out against last year's casino issue in Clinton County, they said there was nothing in the issue that would keep criminals from working at the casino.
If the new casino is built at the end of Nationwide Boulevard, the FOP claimed that there was no guarantee that criminals would not be employed at the casino.
"I assure you, the FOP will not support felons being employed in these casinos and we will deal with the legislature as they develop the rules for the casino commission and that process," Drum said.
A 2000 study of six Midwestern cities found no single effect casinos have on crime. Kindt said the study is not broad enough.
"This is definitive -- your crime rate will go up -- and I don't care what some clinical observation is by a group of sheriff's or group of police persons here and there," Kindt said.
Voters will decide on Nov. 3.
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