Planning applied to crime reduction

As a planner, I easily fall into the trap of believing that the best way to address problems in a systematic fashion is to have a plan, even though I was admonished at a meeting at the Office of Planning last week that just because a plan might exist doesn't mean that it will be executed the way that was intended by the planners who wrote the plan.

(The example of Montgomery County and the Silver Spring Urban Renewal Plan was used, with regard to the library issue and how the County Executive wishes for their to be a bridge connecting a parking structure to the proposed library, which defeats the overall walking orientation that the streetscape-urban design elements of the plan are supposed to foster. See "Residents debate library design" from the Gazette.)

My response is always based on this line:

when you ask for nothing, that's what you get. When you ask for the world, you don't get it, but you get a lot more than nothing.

In short, maybe a plan isn't always implemented or it is not implemented or executed properly, but when you have a plan you have the opportunity to accomplish a lot more than if you never had the plan to begin with.

I think about this almost every time I read a story about systemic crime in DC.

Clearly, there needs to be a focused plan to attack crime in specific ways in Columbia Heights. See "'He was innocent. He did nothing to anyone.': As a D.C. mother mourns, a suspect is arrested in the fatal shooting of her 9-year-old son" from the Washington Post about the murder of the 9 year old boy shot through the door of his apartment, in a building where the front door lacked locks, in an area with frequent robberies.

Or there should be "security" plans for every school in the city (see "D.C. charter schools put out a call for protection: Officers should be helping to derail area's spillover violence, NE principal says" from the Post about problems at the Friendship Collegiate High School on Minnesota Avenue because of its location in an area of significant crime activity) or for areas around transit stations (see "Rock-throwers meet indifferent Metro employee" from Greater Greater Washington).

Or even Eastern Market on weekends. I am on the board of the Market, and during discussions about crime and other problems (vendor vehicles parked on the street while the vendor is working his/her booth are easy targets for criminals) made me realize that there needs to be a security plan for the greater market area on the weekends, it's a special event every weekend, and needs to be managed as such.

The most basic execution of the techniques of "crime prevention through environmental design" address evident risks in neighborhoods where crime exists in significant ways.

But you have to adopt the techniques of CPTED and have plans to execute the techniques before you can have any success. Also see "Architecture as Crime Control" from the Yale Law Journal.

Plus, the whole point of identifying persistent crime networks ("gangs") and perpetrators doesn't require advanced anti-terrorist military techniques from the Navy Postgraduate School (see "Iraq's lessons, on the home front: Volunteer veterans help California city use counterinsurgency strategy to stem gang violence" from the Post) as have been applied in Salinas, California.

I have been writing off and on for four years about anti-youth violence and crime programs in places like Boston (see "Straight Outta Boston" from Mother Jones Magazine) or the anti-gang programs spearheaded by David Kennedy (see "Crime: David Kennedy's Obsession With Drug Dealers" from Newsweek and "Don’t Shoot," from the New Yorker).

It is a matter of applying anti-gang techniques, focusing attention on areas of persistent crime, and applying the appropriate techniques -- anti-criminal and pro-environmental design -- not passing some law to put increased penalties on perpetrators.

See "D.C. Council proposes transit stop 'safety zone'" from the Examiner about the proposed legislation by to impose stronger penalties for crimes committed at bus stops. The issue is design (see the work by UCLA professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and others such as "Journeys to Crime: Assessing the Effects of a Light Rail Line on Crime in the Neighborhoods" and "Measuring the Effects of Built Environment on Bus Stop Crime") as well as anti-criminal techniques, not to mention successful prosecution of criminals.

It's about focusing on what needs to be addressed, with a plan, and organizing resources of all agencies, not just the police department, in these focused ways, in order to achieve fundamental reductions in criminal activity and improved safety for neighborhoods.

It's very frustrating that proven techniques such as these are very very very slow to be adopted in DC.

Maybe because it means fewer opportunities for politicians to talk to the press and go to crime scenes and feel important.

In the meantime, people suffer or die unnecessarily.

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Also see these past blog entries:

-- Crime Time (7/18/2006)
-- Crime Time #2
-- Crime Time #3
-- Crime Time #4 (7/31/2006)
-- Crime Time #5
-- Crime Time #6 (Baltimore)
-- Crime Time #7 (8/13/2006)
-- Crime Time 2008