Cops, Gangs and Crime, Part 2

Yesterday, we posted on approaches to contain gang-related violence and crime.  Sam Spagnola has suggested using RICO prosecutions in coordination with the US Attorney's office to break up the momentum that gangs possess.

Here is another interesting tactic employed by the City of San Jose, California:  bring suit against gang members on grounds of public nuisance.

As the city of Greensboro works to fight the crime and violence fostered by gangs, it must also deal with violence and crime that is not gang-related.  But certain principles can be applied to fighting crime, regardless of whether it arises from gang involvement or not.  The advances in policing, and the reductions in crime rates, that took place in a number of cities during the 1990's and into this decade suggest we need to look at those methods.

George Kelling was one of the key intellectual founders of these approaches, which he elucidates in a very important article.  Here are the things he says need to be done:

A. Maintain Order--

"To achieve this goal police departments and other law enforcement officials must adopt strategies designed under this vision, rejecting a reactive, after-the-fact, policing approach. They must target factors, such as small-scale public disorder and illegal guns and drugs, that spawn both contempt for the law and ever greater crime trends. They must also work to ameliorate communal problems even before they become criminal, and to employ the advantages afforded by the parole and probation system to exercise control over those people who are statistically most likely to commit crimes. Finally they must manage those problems they cannot solve..."

1. Don't emphasize reactive, fast response time policing-- because doing this "will have an extremely damaging impact on the success of crime prevention."

2. Adopt "broken windows" techniques--

"When communities fail to enforce laws against these so-called minor offenses, accepting a low level of disorder as inevitable and not worth the trouble of addressing, the result is that the disorder increases and major offenses, from robbery to murder, follow in its wake...'Broken Windows' policing both reduces the number of current criminals in the general population and creates an environment in which new criminals are far less likely to emerge." 

Note that the embrace of broken windows policing would be completely contrary to the civic discussions that took place in Greensboro regarding gangs.  We were told that aggressive law enforcement should not be the major part of the solution.  But broken windows theory suggests you should not even let the minor offenses slide by without addressing them.

3. Embrace problem solving-- We heard about this when we discussed gangs yesterday.  The same principle holds true for general crime-fighting:

"...the proper business of police is problems, not incidents...The factors that lead to a certain crime will usually evidence themselves in one form or another and likely would resurface in similar terms...Doing so requires police to engage in activities, from mediating disputes to issuing friendly warnings to loitering teenagers, that do not directly address criminal activity...accepting problem solving as a legitimate role and goal for the police can stop bad situations from blossoming into crime."

4. Removing illegal guns from the streets-- Maybe not as easy to do in North Carolina.

5. Target illegal drugs--

"The central strategy that informs successful initiatives is to blanket areas where the drug trade flourishes and give drug dealers no place to hide. Employing tactics such as “buy and bust” operations, a major uniformed patrol presence, and putting neighborhood drug gangs out of business can transform drug-ridden communities into safe, orderly spaces. Carried out broadly enough, they can have the same effect on entire cities."

Not an easy task if a critical mass of police officers is in cahoots with the drug dealers.

6. Use probation and parole enforcement to increase public safety-- We heard this argument in our discussion on gangs yesterday.  The same principle holds true for the wider crime problem-- there are many repeat offenders, who pass through revolving doors in the criminal justice system:

"It is a well-established fact that the people most likely to commit crimes in the future are those who have already done so in the past. Of all people currently in the correctional system, two thirds to three quarters are still on the streets, serving a term on probation. Others, having been incarcerated for a time, are now out on parole...

"Unfortunately, traditional probation enforcement in particular has relied to an enormous extent of self-regulation by the probationers, coupled with an anemic supervision structure. In order to realize the potential crime reduction that effective probation enforcement can provide, probation departments must adopt crime prevention and public safety as their mission. When they do so, however, the results can be impressive...

"Round-the-clock supervision, focusing especially on supervision at night, when probationers would be far more likely to commit crimes, must be instituted...

"In the enforcement of both parole and probation, officers must become a presence on the streets, working, just like the police, within a particular neighborhood instead of mainly from behind a desk, having interviews with their probationers and parolees and working cases by paper. This will allow for better supervision and demonstrate that past offenders will no longer be able to get away with even minor violations of the terms of their supervision. It will build trust and cooperation with the community, invaluable in any effort at serious supervision. Neighborhood watches, civic leaders and average citizens sitting on a stoop are all more likely to know which parolees and probationers are sliding back into crime than the case officer, and their help should be enlisted. Finally, violations of parole or probation must be punished immediately and consistently. Currently, many infractions, particularly of the terms of probation, are completely ignored, even when officers are aware of them and know exactly where to go to pick the violators up. When people can commit infractions, in the open as it were, without consequences, then respect for the law is seriously compromised..."

7. Manage Problems with No Solution--  For problems that cannot be completely eliminated, manage them actively so there is a lesser climate of disorder and lawlessness.

B. Creating Structures for Success

1. Hold the Police Accountable for the Crime Rate--

"Insisting that police don’t matter eliminates all the pressure and most of the incentives for them to succeed, saps the morale of officers, and leads inexorably towards a response-oriented brand of policing, the flaws of which were outlined above. A key principle of crime prevention, therefore, must be an absolute insistence on the accountability of police departments for the crime rate."

Perhaps if there are problems with morale in the police department, as some City Council candidates suggest, it is because the city is not committed to crime reduction; and the jobs of police are therefore rendered moot, as mere caretakers.   One way to restore the Police Department is to expect more of it. In Greensboro, we have not cared enough about crime, so we have not expected enough of the department. 

2.  Institute Compstat--  This is a computerized program to track continuously crime trends in individual neighborhoods. 

"Under Compstat, a police department collects timely statistics and uses them to monitor crime levels in specific areas throughout the city. This allows them to deploy resources immediately to areas where they’re most needed, stopping crime trends before they worsen, and also to judge how well anti-crime strategies are working...

"Precinct and district commanders are held accountable and they must devise tactics that drive down crime spikes. If they fail, they lose their commands. Compstat also allows for much better coordination between precincts and other specialized department units, the commanders of which all attend Compstat meetings when issues relevant to their commands are discussed and strategies are plotted. Adopting the Compstat system forces police commanders at all levels to pay attention to substantive community problems rather than traditional bureaucratic machinations, and focuses them on situation on the ground, as opposed to the events at central headquarters.  By combining detailed information on crime trends with strict accountability for problem solving, Compstat provides the best possible organizational structure for urban law enforcement."

One of the many distressing things found in the Bledsoe series was the description of former Chief White's attempt to implement CompStat, and the opposition he faced because of it internally.  This reflects poorly on the officers sowing dissension.  It was alleged that his methods were excessive, but I took this to be a possible sign that the organizational culture in the GPD was not amenable to change that could improve crime control.

3. Perform Frequent Analysis--

"Many police departments are good at starting programs, but are less effective at tracking their impact... Regular feedback, almost on a daily basis, is critical... Just as the police must be held accountable for problems, they must be lauded when they succeed."

4. Integrate Probation and Parole with Policing-- Again this concept, which appears to be so important, arises:

"The information possessed by probation and parole authorities, both in terms of databases and the personal knowledge of local conditions by individual officers, is invaluable to police in their own efforts to maintain order. Bringing these groups’ efforts together enables each to operate far more effectively...

"At the same time, officers from all three departments should work together on the streets, especially on basic patrols. This will help each identify potential problems; the police will be more aware of large concentrations of former, and quite possibly current, criminals, while probation and parole officers will be kept informed of potential crime problems their charges may become caught up in."

5. Create partnerships to Solve Problems-- We heard about this also yesterday with the gang issue.

"Making sure that the whole government is concerned with crime prevention can be an enormous advantage. In recent years, both Newark, New Jersey and Charlotte, North Carolina have had significant success in using apparently unrelated policy decisions to reduce the incidence of specific types of crime. Close contact with both prosecutors and between police departments is also an important potential resource. The willingness of district or even U.S. attorneys to aggressively prosecute offenders the police have identified as likely to repeat the same or greater crimes, for example, provides a crucial complement to targeted policing. Cooperation between police departments can also pay significant dividends. On the one hand, many crime problems, most obviously the drug trade, are not always locally based. Coordinated strategies to deal with problems affecting multiple jurisdictions may often be essential..."

Greensboro police are at somewhat of a disadvantage here because the local district attorney's office is beholden to the Simkins machine and the defense bar.

6. Involve the Whole Community-- 

"Without the consent, and hopefully active involvement, of the people among whom the police operate, it is extremely difficult to reduce crime. The entire project of maintaining order, after all, is only possible in an area where the majority of citizens actually want order. If the majority opposes the police, denying the consent of the community to their efforts, the community as a whole can itself act to maintain disorder by active opposition to the police. .. even fairly small degrees of community opposition can cripple law enforcement efforts and provide aid and comfort to illegal activity. It is, therefore, absolutely essential to work with leaders in the community being served, and to pay careful attention to the concerns of normal community members."

This, of course, makes the task of the GPD much more difficult.   Political leaders from the Pulpit Forum and the Simkins PAC wave the banner of anti-police diatribe, and it is gleefully reported in the local media. 

At the gang forum earlier this week, a representative of the Nation of Islam characterized anti-gang activities as an attempt to harm young black men.  Louis Farrakhan from this organization has been described in the past as having engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric; and this organization is also believed to have been behind the assassination of Malcolm X.  Yet he reportedly received loud applause when he asked his question.

The GPD must go directly to the affected communities for support.  If the status quo prevails, they will succeed in fighting crime only to the extent that the Simkins machine allows them to do so.

Nonetheless, information regarding the structure and philosophy behind modern successful attempts at crime control demonstrated elsewhere is readily available.  Greensboro is above the national average with respect to crime rates, and can do much better.  It is important to contain gang-related crime as well as non-gang related crime.

Whether Chief Bellamy is permitted to do his job to the maximum extent possible from the standpoint of crime control-- and whether he will be expected to do so--  will be determined in part by the upcoming City Council elections.

 

Comments

[Bubba]

Outstanding post, especially the analysis!

The painful truths told in this thread about our city's problems.....

"We were told that aggressive law enforcement should not be the major part of the solution. But broken windows theory suggests you should not even let the minor offenses slide by without addressing them."

"Not an easy task if a critical mass of police officers are in cahoots with the drug dealers."

"Perhaps if there are problems with morale in the police department, as some City Council candidates suggest, it is because the city is not committed to crime reduction; and the jobs of police are therefore rendered moot, as mere caretakers. One way to restore the Police Department is to expect more of it. In Greensboro, we have not cared enough about crime, so we have not expected enough of the department."

"It was alleged that his methods were excessive, but I took this to be a possible sign that the organizational culture in the GPD was not amenable to change that could improve crime control."

"This, of course, makes the task of the GPD much more difficult. Political leaders from the Pulpit Forum and the Simkins PAC wave the banner of anti-police diatribe, and it is gleefully reported in the local media."

.....are probably never going to be discussed by our media and elected officials, much less acted upon.

[Joe Guarino]

Thanks, Bubba. Let's hope the tide may be turning, against all odds.

[Joel Leonard]

I want to thank you for spreading the word on these concepts and advancing dialogue on these critical issues.

This morning I had breakfast with a former Battle of the Bulge soldier., Later in comes the restaurant a group of slackers with one wearing a t-shirt that said Jesus- F-ing Metal. I could not help but bow my head and pray for the future of America.

Oh, by the way yesterday morning we held a Labor Day Radio Show where we discussed Gang prevention programs through career pathways on 97.1. It was great! We also discussed the petitions for raising the minimum wage and queried where is the petitions for raising the minimum skill levels?

Where it be gangmembers, slackers, or the hypergreedy CEO, these are just symptoms of America's biggest problem. Too many of have catcher's mitts on both hands. More than willing to receive and not enough interest to give.

Sure makes me relish the time spent with this special blind aging veteran. God please bless America because we need it now more than ever.

[Brenda Bowers]

Joe, I see no hope at all for the GPD as long as the indians are permitted to run the show. And as if that isn't bad enough the chief is also under the thumb of every petty little politician or political stooge in the city. We the people of Greensboro need to elect a Police Chief and give him instructions to clean house. Some are afraid of this approach because the PAC and Pulpit Forum seem to be the only ones who can get out the vote and people are afraid they would then determine who the Police Chief will be. Well, isn't that what is happening NOW?? Will the PAC and Black Pulpit Forum raise hell about the election of a Police Chief, you bet; but no one listens to them but the current elected officials. They can't even get a decent showing when they call for a march or protest when more news reporters show up than demonstrators. And the reason they can get out more votes is because the good people of Greensboro can not take the time to vote leaving the tiny handful the PAC controls to take the elections. D. Bellamy-Small's recall election showed how much the average person in Greensboro really cares. People were willing to take the time to sign the petition, but could not be bothered to vote their convictions.

Another thing that causes people to stay away from the poles is they feel that no matter who they elect in their district things won't change because the same criminals are always being elected in certain other districts. This year could make a real difference if the voters will just come out because there are three at-large seats to be filled. But it will take much more than putting up a few signs in yards or even having meetings. It will take going to the people and pressing flesh and personally asking for their vote.

Has anyone responded to your call for a referendum to elect the police chief? Is anyone or group out there organizing a get out the vote drive? Is anyone or groups organizing a car pool to bring voters to the polls who lack transportation?

Heck, things are so bad in Greensboro that maybe the candidates in the various districts who really want to win should serve food on election day at the polling places. "Come get your free hot dog and vote for me while your here!" It worked for the colonials. BB

Sorry, today is not a very good day so I guess I should go read a good book and forget any commenting on blogs. This was an excellent post and I got off on a tangent. BB

[Joe Guarino]

Thank you, Joel, for your comments. And I appreciate your doing your part on the gang issue.

The Kelling article to which I linked in my post contains all the intellectual firepower behind the advancements in crime control seen in other US cities. These advancements have largely passed us by in Greensboro, because our political class consists of two distinct groups that have not prioritized crime, but instead pursue self-interest in various ways.

I believe the Kelling article (and the Heritage Foundation article I linked yesterday) should be required reading for City Council members; indeed, they should nearly memorize the content of these two pieces.

[Joe Guarino]

Brenda, various individuals have expressed confidence in Chief Bellamy's leadership. It is really difficult to have an objective measure of his performance thus far, because the most important measure is his impact on the crime rate. We do know that gang violence reached a crescendo earlier this summer.

But he, and his officers, need to be held accountable. And I agree that certain things-- the circumstances of his ascent, the cave-in to embittered employees on rotating shifts-- have not appeared to augur well in terms of the overall picture.

I have come around to agreeing with you that the police chief job should be an elected position, so that he is not subject to the political class. It appears that the political culture in Greensboro is far too compromised to manage crime control effectively.

[Joel Leonard]

Thanks Joe,

Another technique to curb gang violence is to hit them where they live or at least receive influence. I was on 97.1 discussing methods to advance the area. If rap stations across the country participated in similar programs, perhaps some see the light.

If pop culture glorified those fighting gangs as much as they do perpetrating we would advance these efforts. I could not believe my eyes when my favorite TV detectective MONK had Snoop Dog and treated him with reference as opposed to the thug that he is.

[Joe Guarino]

Thanks, Joel. I agree entirely that pop culture is a part of this mix, and should also be corrected. I again commend you for what you are doing.