More Homeland Security and Crime Plays

As crime has once again become a major concern in cities across the nation, the radical reductions in crime rates during the 1990s offer important lessons on how communities can regain the upper hand. While a variety of measures contributed to the successes of the Nineties, the single most important factor was a renaissance in crime fighting strategies for police, prosecutors, and other key players in the criminal justice system.

The most celebrated of these strategies is the "community policing" movement, which emphasizes the importance of community-based crime patterns and options for crime prevention. This approach focuses on preventing crimes from happening in the first place, and thus challenges the longstanding rapid-responsemodel of law enforcement.

The rise of community-based crime fighting coincided with two important developments. One of these was the Clinton administrations COPS initiative, which put 100,000 police officers in the streets of Americas cities. The second major development came when city and county police departments in many parts of the country began collecting and mapping crime data in more systematic and sophisticated waysand holding police personnel accountable for results.

"To make policing effective and responsive, mayors and police officials have to work hard to reconnect the police and the people." -- Mayor Dan Malloy, Stamford, Conn.

Unfortunately, the first of these two developments has not fared well under the Bush administration and a Republican-controlled Congress, which have foolishly abandoned their predecessors' commitment to helping communities improve police work. This reticence has fed a "cop crunch" in many major cities, even as crime rates have begun to rise. This shortfall has become especially acute as departments face new homeland-security responsibilities and must compete for personnel with a manpower-starved U.S. military.

Even in the absence of competent national leadership, many local elected officials continue to make progress on community-based crime-fighting strategies.

In Stamford, Conn., Mayor Dan Malloy has made a systematic commitment to community policing a top priority of his administration. Stamford officials credit the community-policing strategy with helping the city retain its status as one of the safest large (population of 100,000 or more) municipalities in the United States.

One especially noteworthy Malloy initiative has extended the neighborhood-based community policing model into schools. Police officers are assigned to work with specific schools throughout the school year and act not only in the traditional role of peacekeeper but run peer mediation programs and visit homes of at-risk children in the evenings. In addition, the city, in conjunction with a variety of community groups and businesses, operates a free summer camp for all middle-school students in which cops serve as coaches and mentors.

One of the pioneers of the community policing and police accountability movement, former New York police commissioner Bill Bratton, now runs the Los Angeles Police Department, for many years a bastion of the old rapid-response policing model. The LAPDs traditional approach had some serious drawbacks, notably a longstanding hostility between the department and many parts of the community it was supposed to be serving. Taking charge of the department in the midst of a red-hot crisis over gang-related murders, Bratton quickly adapted many of the initiatives he used so successfully in New York, including the CompStat system of computerized crime mapping, the key to the NYPD's accountability initiative. Murders in L.A. dropped 20 percent in the first 18 months following Bratton's arrival. This trend continued, as violent crime fell 38 percent and property crimes fell 17 percent from 2003 to 2005. In the first six months of 2006, murders dropped another 24 percent from the previous year, and gang-related murders went down by 32 percent.

Bratton's not the only community-based crime fighter in Los Angeles. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has been a strong proponent of "community prosecution" techniques, which involve redeploying prosecutors by geographical areas rather than case specialties. Under Delgadillo, the City Attorneys Office has set up a Safe Neighborhoods Division to house community-based crime-fighting efforts. Like community police, community prosecutors work with citizens, community groups, and other elements of the criminal justice system with the aim of producing broad-based reductions in crime, not just clearing dockets and closing cases.

Under Bratton and Delgadillo, Los Angeles is taking the next steps in community crime fighting. These include an overhaul of the entire criminal-justice system to focus on identifying crime patterns; addressing the conditions that create crime; and continuing to foster teamwork between police and the community.

Bratton has deployed two innovative community-based techniques for crime fighting: "e-policing" and the Crime Maps program. E-policing allows Los Angeles citizens to receive important crime updates and newsletters from senior police officials, allowing for better communication and connection between the police department and community. Crime Maps allow citizens to view up-to-the-minute crime statistics for their neighborhood; this service has already proved to be a valuable tool in reducing and preventing crime.

Resources for Action

"Law Enforcement Intelligence: A Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies," U.S. Department of Justice, November 2004
www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=1404

"A Conversation with Rocky Delgadillo on Community Prosecution," Blueprint, May 25, 2002
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=250298&kaid=106&subid=122

Additional Reading

"Bill Bratton's New Challenge: Los Angeles," Blueprint, February 11, 2003
www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=251223&kaid=119&subid=156

"Cop Out," Blueprint, April 8, 2003
www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=119&subid=156&contentid=251453

Dannel Malloy, "Getting Community Policing Right: It Takes Will and Skill to Renew a Police Force," The New Democrat, December 12, 2000
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?
contentid=2821&kaid=119&subid=156

Contacts

Mark Ribbing
Director Policy Development
Progressive Policy Institute
600 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20003
(202) 547-0001
(202) 544-5002 (fax)
mribbing@ppionline.org

Daniel P. Malloy
Stamford Government Center
888 Washington Boulevard
Stamford, CT 06904
(203) 977-4150
dmalloy@ci.stamford.ct.us

Rocky Delgadillo
Los Angeles City Attorney
800 City Hall East
200 North Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 978-8100
(213) 978-8312 (fax)
(213) 978-8310 (TDD)
rdelgadillo@atty.lacity.org