Paterson, New Jersey erupted last month after a 12-year-old girl was shot and killed. People rallied for an end to the recent violence, demanding a safer city in the wake of Genesis Rincon’s death. The tragedy comes shortly after Jerry Speziale was appointed as the new police director. Advocating community policing, Speziale and Mayor Jose Torres think that dynamic approaches can help with the crime problem in Paterson. This may seem like a interesting new strategy for fighting local crime and violence, but successful community policing programs were successfully used in Paterson not that long ago.

One such community policing program, the Village Initiative, operated from 1998 to around 2010 and had some measurable benefits for local youth. What did the Village Initiative accomplish, can community policing prevent further deaths like Rincon’s, and what can other cities learn from Paterson?

Paterson has long been plagued by high crime rates. The year that the Village Initiative launched, its violent crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants was roughly 67 percent higher than the national average. The Village Initiative responded to the crime problem in Paterson by bringing the community to at-risk juvenile probationers, making them responsible for their court orders, and reducing their chances of committing a crime again.

In an interview, Dr. James Pruden said that it’s important “for [juveniles] to see the government functioning positively in their lives.” An emergency medical specialist at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, Pruden was an active contributor to the Village Initiative who rode along with officers to visit at-risk probationers. Along with police, teachers, and other community leaders, he saw the program in action and witnessed its effects firsthand.

The Village Initiative

The Village Initiative offered important opportunities to minors such as vocational courses; from business training to cosmetology and automotive repair, the courses gave them opportunities to build marketable skills. In addition, there were components that set juveniles up for part-time jobs. These are no longer available, though. Around 2010, the Village Initiative lost much of its funding, likely related to the city’s other budget cuts during the midst of the national recession. Fortunately, the “ride along with a medical evaluation” that Pruden participated in continued after the funding stopped, along with a few other pieces of the program.

“They had this educational piece, they had the medical piece, they had the business piece, all designed to turn these kids in a different direction and to show them that the interest in them was not only because they were misbehaving,” said Pruden. The community was not simply responding to the negativity surrounding the juveniles’ lives, it was about instilling something positive in them. This should be the central tenant of all community policing initiatives.

“It’s not like I’m providing much of a medical service. What I would do was go to the house, find out what was going on, talk to them about their health issues… At the end of it, I would go back with the data the next day and talk to a case manager at the hospital. She would call them up and make sure they made their cardiology appointment, or she would cut through the red tape to facilitate their entry to the teen pregnancy program. And we would do this not only for patients that came to our hospital, we do this for people who go to free-standing clinics or to other hospitals.”

– Dr. James Pruden

The Results

St. Joseph’s Hospital sometimes treats rival gang members simultaneously, and the hospital could become a spot for continued dispute between them. As that conflict can be detrimental to the doctors and families there, Pruden was tasked with making the hospital a neutral zone. Through the social infrastructure of the Village Initiative, he reached out to community leaders to establish correspondence and set up meetings with gang members. After eight months of work,Pruden succeeded in negotiating with the gangs so that St. Joseph’s would be a safer space.

Anecdotes like that help illustrate the positive community relationships formed by the Village Initiative. But what do statistics tell us about its effects? Despite sharing some criticism about how data on the program was collected, Dr. Pruden said that the available information shows impressive results. Prior to the Village initiative, juveniles with first-time probation had a 37 percent recidivism rate; however, kids involved in the Village Initiative had recidivism rates of only 5 percent. But, he reminded me, “then the funding went away!”

As Pruden says, maybe the effects of the Village Initiative could be judged solely by the difference between a 37 percent and five percent recidivism rate. Maybe it could have only made changes in the lives of the specific juveniles who were involved in the program. But it could also be judged by the potential, immeasurable impact that ripples throughout the community, starting with those juveniles.

Lessons from the Village Initiative

From local advocates to national movements, community policing is in high demand now. For instance, more cops are patrolling neighborhoods on bicycles as a part of a community policing initiative in Lowell, Massachusetts. Nationally, the Obama Administration has ramped up the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office under the Department of Justice. A COPS report, Community Policing Defined, states that the approach “promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques.”

However, COPS is sometimes criticized for pushing policing in the opposite direction; reporter and author Radley Balko said that COPS supports many police chiefs who consider SWAT raids “to be a core part of a community policing strategy.” As police aggression only divides the police and the community, there is even more need to prescribe the Village Initiative. If Balko is correct and many have misconceptions, the country should find a model for community policing in the success of Paterson’s project.

Pruden’s work through the Village Initiative was not just a medical house call, but a social checkup. This should be how community policing looks, with community leaders working with one another. Police supervise medical evaluations, doctors help police at-risk youth, and the force of the community creates something positive together. Let’s prescribe the Village Initiative’s community policing in New Jersey to other cities in need.

—

Jake Ephros (@JakeEphros)

Featured image courtesy of [City of North Charleston via Flickr]

Jake Ephros

Jake Ephros is a native of Montclair, New Jersey where he volunteered for political campaigns from a young age. He studies Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at American University and looks forward to a career built around political activism, through journalism, organizing, or the government. Contact Jake at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Community Policing in New Jersey: A Model for Stopping Local Violence appeared first on Law Street.

Detroit filed for bankruptcy last July with over $18 billion in debt, the biggest municipal collapse in the history of the United States. The city also has the highest crime rate among all large cities in the country, which exacerbates its economic hardships even more. Our report, Crime in America: Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities Over 200,000 notes that unemployment, population reduction, slow police responses and a vast amount of abandoned buildings may be correlated with high crime rates in the city. According to Time Magazine, “Detroit is in particularly bad shape, many of its underlying issues — crushing debt and unfunded and unsustainable retiree benefits — are not unique.”

The country’s industrialization brought not only economic advancements and prosperity to the United States, but income inequality and multi-ethnicity problems to its cities. Detroit became known during the late 1950-60s as the “Motor City” or “Motown” due to the large concentration of automobile companies in its metropolitan area. Its freeway system was also constructed during industrial revolution, and facilitated the development of the city and its rapid industrialization.

However, instead of simply discussing the unfortunate economic and social hardships within the city, we should focus on what options Detroit really has for recovery!

Any suggestions?

Detroit is a city with a rich history and vibrant atmosphere, but high crime rates spoil all odds for its residents. Former Detroit Chief of Police and current Wayne County Sheriff, Benny Napoleon, reaffirmed this in his article in the Huffington Post, claiming that Detroit lost more than half of its population due to disorganized neighborhoods and high crime rates. He also proposed a Five Point Crime Reduction Plan, that should include but not be limited to the following:

– Data-driven approach

– Crime prevention

– Directed enforcement

– Problem-oriented policing

– Community policing

Sounds like a solid plan to me if staff training and implementation procedures are utilized systematically and correctly.

What has Detroit already done?!

There is a plethora of existing initiatives that have been adopted by the Detroit Police Department. Neighborhood Watch, for example provides the main line of communication between police and the community. Another useful crime prevention strategy is Citizen Observer, which is, in essence, a mobile platform that “provides updates of crimes trends, description of wanted suspects, missing persons, crime prevention tips, and other pertinent information pertaining to businesses and the community safety.” Other notable programs include Detroit’s Most Wanted and the Community and Police Advocacy (CAPPA) group, both of which equip the community with useful information and work directly with the public on a range of safety issues.

As we can see, the Detroit Police are vigorously trying to bring city crime down through community-oriented policing strategies, but one practice looks quite alarming to me: the Offender Tracking Information System (OTIC), which, according to its website, will “provide information about any offender who is, or was, in a Michigan prison, on parole or probation under the supervision of the MDOC, has transferred in or out of Michigan under the Michigan Interstate Compact, or who has escaped or absconded from their sentence.” The practice is disturbing because it can be easily misused by people to label and harass ex-offenders. It undoubtedly raises many ethical concerns.

Besides police initiatives, the Detroit community is trying to revitalize its neighborhoods to create a safe environment for all residents. The Helping Ourselves Overcome Disparities Project (Osborn HOOD) uses efforts from different city and neighborhood organizations to engage youth in community building and provide more mobility and safety to the Osborn area residents of Detroit. Osborne HOOD is an excellent example of community leadership and progressive thinking. Detroit should welcome similar initiatives in its backyard that can provide positive spillover effects and facilitate such projects on a larger scale.

Data and Necessary Surroundings

I strongly agree with the Five Point Crime Reduction Plan proposed by Benny Napoleon. Napoleon served as Detroit’s youngest Chief of Police and later became a prominent Assistant Wayne County Executive. As a longtime resident of Detroit with a 38-year public service career, he knows what is best for the city. Another important notion that he supports is the idea that comprehensive data collection is paramount in combating crime. The data-driven approach focuses on collecting and using data so we can understand patterns and try to reduce incidents of crime across neighborhoods. It’s truly a starting point for any preventive actions as well as for adequate respons times.

However, in addition to data gathering and analysis, Detroit needs systematic research on ecology of crime to understand where crime incidents are located to find the so-called “hot spots.” Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) can be utilized to make the public spaces safer. Some changes can be quite pricey, but Detroit can start with the small pieces of the puzzle that are relatively inexpensive, effective, and easy to incorporate. Small adjustments of neighborhood spaces like the replacement of blind spots with safer architectural designs, or changing the layout of streets to bolster neighbors’ interactions and provide a greater sense of community. Neighborhood watch groups should be also utilized in every community to better understand needs and the most pressing problems. The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg among the many innovative ways that CPTED can offer to transform criminogenic spaces into safe communities.

Detroit can learn a great deal about CPTED by looking at Irvine, California, which was rated the number one safest city over 200,000 population in 2012 according to our methodology. The city was carefully planned by Irvine Company in the 1960s utilizing some notions of CPTED. Omar Masry, an associate planner in the City of Irvine, California claims that implementation of CPTED in Irvine “enhances the sense of safety and security for new occupants and the surrounding neighborhood.” Using the same strategy for Detroit can render significant results in reducing its crime rates and reorganizing its communities.

So, Can We Rebuild, or Can’t We?

If we want crime reduction strategies to work in Detroit, strong police cooperation not only with communities, but with other sectors of local government, should be implemented. To eradicate “hot spots” of crime in Detroit we will need to “rebuild” the city by changing existing environments and providing safer opportunities for its residents. Communities should come together without having to wait for government and police to magically alter existing realities. The real change will happen when all human resources are pulled together including local government officials, police officers, community leaders, young professionals and educators.

It has been long proven that alone we can do so little, while together we can do so much.

—

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Gwert38 via Wikipedia]

Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Can We Rebuild Detroit? Affirmative Thoughts appeared first on Law Street.