Community development that fights crime

A successful crime requires, at minimum, three things: an offender, a victim and a suitable location.

Residents in high-crime neighborhoods often complain that the police aren’t doing enough. But by themselves, the police can only affect one point on the “crime triangle,” and that’s the offender, explained Julia Ryan, program director of the LISC Community Safety Initiative (CSI). Comprehensive community development, on the other hand, can impact all three.

At the Staying Safe workshop and roundtable discussions at the Getting It Done II conference, Ryan was joined by police and community organizers from Boston and Philadalphia, two of 15 cities CSI has worked with over the last 17 years on strategies for reducing crime through community development.

Community organizations in two of their cities’ roughest neighborhoods—Roxbury in Boston and North Philadelphia—forged partnerships with their local police departments. The results were a start in reducing crime and some key lessons in what it takes to make public safety an integrated and effective part of a local comprehensive community initiative.

Make friends in blue

In both neighborhoods, building good relationships with the police became the foundation for much of the work that followed.

At first glance, community developers don’t seem to have much in common with the police, said David Price, executive director of Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in Boston. “But crime tends to happen in specific places and repeats itself," he noted, "and community development organizations are in the business of changing places.”

"Crime tends to happen in specific places and repeats itself, and community development organizations are in the business of changing places.”

In Roxbury and North Philadelphia, police officers became powerful allies in pushing city officials to pay attention to the neighborhood, in pressuring negligent property owners to sell, and in convincing neighbors that it was safe to report crime.

Price recommended reaching out not only to the beat cops in your neighborhood but also to the senior officers, particularly the district captain. The more power you have on your side, the more leverage you have to get things done.

Jennifer Rodriguez of the local nonprofit Asociacion Puertorriquenos en Marcha first made contact with Philadelphia's 26th police district in 2010 by inviting the captain to a crime prevention training. Capt. Michael Cram sent two officers and later began turning up at neighborhood meetings to discuss revitalizing a crime-infested park.

Cram, the 26th district commander, admitted that finding police officers open to partnering with the community can be tough. But every police district has at least one, he said—“that one cop who sits and talks to everybody. You’ve got to find out who that cop is.”

Police departments are subject to sudden changes in leadership and organization, Rodriguez noted. So once you've found committed partners in the police force and invested time in those relationships, make sure you let your local elected officials know how vital those officers are to your work. "You're shielding [them] from being reassigned," she said. 

Hone your crime-fighting skills

Trainings for residents can be a great way to build relationships among neighbors and the local police while also learning new strategies to prevent crime.

Both Price and Rodriguez organized trainings on Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), a program offered through the national LISC office. Through CPTED, community leaders and police worked together on identifying factors such as poor lighting or vacant buildings that make certain locations attractive for criminals.

Roxbury used the training to reduce prostitution along its main commercial corridor while North Philadelphia used the CPTED checklist to identify all the safety issues in an abandoned park, including poor lighting, broken asphalt and overgrown trees.

"Trainings like the CPTED workshop have helped to build the group and keep the momentum going," Price said.

Make your case

Once you've documented what needs fixing, it's time to make your case to the powers-that-be. The North Philadelphia partners took their long list of the park’s safety hazards to their councilwoman, with a request for money to restore it.

They got it—a total of $138,000 from the city recreation department and the councilwoman's own budget. Along with a $30,000 grant from LISC, the funds were sufficient for a total restoration, including new surfacing, lighting, painting, landscaping and playground equipment.

Organized neighborhood support for the project, especially during an election year, made it an easy win, Rodriguez said. And, of course, the improvements made the park a better community asset in many ways, not just for public safety.

The Roxbury team—which included neighborhood nonprofits, activists and police officers—got a similarly quick response from the city to its anti-prostitution effort. Daryl Smith, deputy commissioner of the Boston Inspectional Service Department, was so impressed by the collaboration he decided to join in.

Now every Wednesday, Smith leads the other partners on a walking tour of one stretch of the commercial boulevard, talks to neighbors, and immediately takes action on any item that comes to his attention. "He [will] call the Public Works Department on his cell phone to come and trim a tree to improve street lighting and make a building safer,” Price reported.

Build your team

Fighting crime isn’t just about changing the environment, the people in the neighborhood need to change, too, Rodriguez explained. The renovations alone wouldn’t have deterred crime from the park and surrounding blocks—neighbors had to be willing to keep a close watch and essentially become the park’s stewards.

So far, residents have needed guidance to run the meetings, Rodriguez said.

“Relationships among the neighbors are not good sometimes,” she said. “So part of our role is to help them navigate their relationships and coach them [to] develop plans. Hopefully, at some point they will be able to manage that themselves.”

Towards that end, Rodriguez’s group organized a committee of residents to make decisions about maintenance, the park's opening and closing hours, which resident would lock and unlock the gates, and what park programs and events they should organize for the neighborhood, such as festivals or field days.

Communicate across lines

Clear communication among residents, the police and community developers can make everyone's crime-fighting efforts more effective. In Roxbury, for example, Nuestra organized a neighborhood watch between Dacia and Howard streets, a target area with the highest rates of crime and foreclosure in the area.

While the city had already mapped the overlap between crime incidents and foreclosures in the target area, there were so many hotspots that police or the development corporation couldn’t determine where exactly to focus.

“By concentrating on hotspot recommended by residents, we had the biggest improvement in the quality of life and the safety climate."

But residents could say which hotspots caused the most problems from their point of view. “By concentrating on those [specific spots] we had the biggest improvement in the quality of life and the safety climate,” Price said.

Neighborhood watches in Roxbury and the park committee in North Philadelphia also became forums for neighbors to get to know and trust the police officers who regularly attended.

A big issue for the police in both neighborhoods was how few residents were willing to call 911 because they feared retaliation from gang members. At the meetings, the police were able to reassure them.

"We don’t trace the calls, we don’t show up at your house for more information or call [in your report] on the police radio," explained Kenneth Grubbs, a community services officer for the Boston Police Department.

Target problem properties

Cracking down on your neighborhood's most problematic properties can be an effective way to root out crime. After neighbors helped identify the worst crack houses between Dacia and Howard streets, Nuestra bought two, rehabbed them and sold them to responsible owners.

An open air drug market in a garage on Balfour Street got shut down after Nuestra and its partners pushed the city to cite the building owners. "Finally, they got fined enough that they put on plywood and boarded it up," Price said.

In North Philadelphia, Rodriguez said that nearly a third of the land and buildings are vacant. Her group's long-standing partner, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, has a simple program that has been found to significantly reduce crime, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania.

The group clears the vacant lots of debris, plants grass and erects a low wooden barn-style fence around the perimeter. The three-foot-high painted fence, which costs less than five dollars per square foot, projects the message that someone cares about the property and that the neighborhood is safe, making it a more effective crime-deterrent than a high chain link fence with barbed wire, Rodriquez explained.

"If you want to do one first thing,” she said, “that's it."

Throw a party

Neighborhood events and festivals organized by residents and the police are another way to bridge the divide and build relationships. In North Philadelphia, partners held a community fair in the renovated park, Capt. Cram recalled.

"We barbequed, we had a handball tournament, we made the drug dealers donate soda, and we said, if we didn't see their kids out there all day, there'd be problems,” he said. “They were there."

In Roxbury, the police have helped sponsor regular events as a way to build relationships with youth before they get in trouble. Events included a peace walk, barbeques, and street cleaning competition.

The hard work in both neighborhoods paid off. Residents are far more willing to report crime today than they had been previously.

Today, the City of Boston is working with Roxbury residents to crack down on prostitution like never before, and around Rainbow de Colores Playground in North Philadelphia the loitering and drug dealing that was once rampant is almost non-existent, Rodriguez said. Residents have become so confident, Cram added, that they are now ordering drug dealers away from their properties.

The police alone will not deter drug dealers, Cram explained.

"You have to create a environment where neighbors are telling them, 'Get off the corner, get off the front steps,'” he said. “You’ve got to create an environment where the bad guys are scared of the good people."