More on Crime: Flock license plate readers | catching cameras versus a nationwide surveillance network

Photo: David Goldman, Associated Press.

I've known about license plate readers for a long time.  First, because parking enforcement and police vehicles in DC had them and "read" the streets as they passed, looking for cars with a high rate of outstanding violations or stolen vehicles.

Second was when I was on grand jury duty and learned LPRs are installed in some intersection cameras and are used to identify stolen cars or cars used in crimes.

I guess third, but related to the second, is when the fired Virginia newscaster killed two journalists that were filming doing a story in rural Virginia and fled.  LPRs identified his car on I-66 and he was apprehended--well, he killed himself ("Suspect dead after shooting 2 journalists during live broadcast," NPR).

So for a long time I've thought that LPRs are fine.  In fact I want two for Sugar House Park, but for a very limited use--to capture license plates so we can look up the address but anonymize the data, just using the zip codes so we can figure out how many patrons come from the City and from the County (both own the Park but it's in Salt Lake City and we always need to build our case with the County).

Mistakes.  But I have read about mistakes, license plate errors when entering data into the system leads people who are "legal" getting apprehended ("Automotive journalist surrounded by police due to Flock camera confusion," KARE11).

What the Flock license plate reader camera captures.

Misuse by individuals.  But the fact that LPRs aren't one camera but a network can be a problem if users of the information are more nefarious.  

A large number of cameras in an area means individuals can be tracked/surveilled.  

Individuals ("lone wolves") can misuse the system ("Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 28 Times in Recent Years," Institute of Justice, "How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking," Washington Post).

Organizational misuse takes the concept of network to another level.  For example, data can be shared with ICE, and many communities don't want that to happen.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a community near Harrisburg that is using speed traps as a way to identify immigrants for ICE ("This quaint Pa. borough is a ‘speed trap’ nabbing immigrants for ICE").  This would be supercharged with the addition of Flock camera based surveillance ("Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns," AP).  From the AP story:

The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show.

This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.

(Note. One thing I learned on jury duty is that people don't have the same kind of Constitutional protections in their car versus their house, because a car and a driver have to be licensed.)

Opposition.  As a result, people all around the country are fighting against the installation or maintenance of Flock cameras and systems in their communities ("Americans of All Political Ideologies Unite for Privacy Against Flock Surveillance Cameras," Military.com, "Why some cities are ditching their Flock license plate readers," NPR).

The Boston Globe has a good article about why these cameras are controversial, "Why Flock surveillance cameras are drawing fierce backlash across Massachusetts."  From the article:

... some uses by law enforcement have been more controversial: Authorities in Texas, which has a near total ban on abortions, allegedly accessed Flock data to investigate a woman suspected of having an abortion, claiming they were working on a missing person’s case; some jurisdictions have shared people’s data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Another concern privacy advocates raise is the lax oversight over searches in the system. To conduct a search, officers must select a reason for the search and have a case number. But the American Civil Liberties Union says it found officers often just put down a single word: “investigation.” Earlier this year, two officers in Milwaukee used the technology to search for their ex-girlfriends — one reportedly did so more than 120 times.

Conclusion: Salt Lake City offers a way forward.  Flock has made it harder for users of the database to search for immigrants, but only in the states that have forbidden the practice.  Obviously, the remaking of the Border Patrol into a surveillance agency is extreme, and should be forbidden.  But that's less likely to happen.   

Salt Lake City is proposing new rules for its use of the cameras so that they can be used only for specific criminal investigations ("Salt Lake City proposes new rules for the license plate cameras that dot the city," KUER/NPR). From the article:

Salt Lake City Council Chair Alejandro Puy worked on the city’s new draft ordinance after “considering the public outcry and the misuse of these tools in other agencies across the country.”

His goal is printed on page one. It reads, in part, “the City seeks to balance the operational benefits of ALPR technology with the need to protect privacy, civil liberties, and constitutional rights.”

The key provision in the code, Puy said, would require law enforcement agencies to submit a case number to prove their use of the cameras is tied to a criminal case. He argued this would prevent agencies like ICE from using the cameras to track undocumented immigrants who are involved only in civil cases.

That seems to me to be an important distinguishing policy.  Basically making the use of the data "reactive" in response to a specific crime, versus proactive surveillance where there is no crime.

The Border Patrol use is moving towards the level of "The Minority Report" movie and their use of the database should be severely restricted.

Bonus: The surveillance states of China ("Big data and the social credit system: The security consequences") and Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York) show us that opposition to LPRs isn't unfounded.  

As the power of the network grows, so does the ability to surveil.  

A headline of a Toronto Star piece, "Friend, enemy or useful tool, AI will reflect the values of politicians who use it," albeit about AI is no less applicable here: the intent and the values of the users dictate whether or not technology can be used to build or to oppress.

It makes me think it's time to re-read Neuromancer.

Lessons from murder reduction in Boston

The Boston Globe has an article, "What makes Boston so safe? Black pastors have different theories," updating the "Boston Miracle," because murders currently are below the five year average at this time the previous years.

The Boston Miracle ("Straight Outta Boston," Mother Jones, 2006) involves collaboration across nonprofits, churches, police and other government agencies, work with communities and on the street, to significantly cut the murder rate.  It's smaller in Boston than in cities like DC and Baltimore with comparable populations.

-- Policing in Boston webpage, Christopher Winship, Harvard
-- "How Boston became the safest big city in America," Economist
-- "Expanding the 'Boston Miracle,'" Boston Globe

Those collaborations haven't stopped as the murder rate dropped, they've continued--one such meeting has been held weekly for 30+ years.  No one has come up with the "one answer" on what has changed the trajectory.  One suggestion is of gentrification and displacement of potential shooters.  But that hasn't been as much of a factor in DC, which has a great deal of it.

Participants arrived for a weekly peace walk organized by the 10,000 Fearless Peacemakers. Photo: Taylor Coester for The Boston Globe.

The article starts out discussing Nation of Islam Preacher Randy Muhammad, and how his community has a weekly walk on Mondays through the community.  

They come upon a group of people hanging out at the T Station.  If it were DC, it could easily erupt into a public wilding event.  Here, Preacher Muhammad talks and interacts with the group.

From the article:

He’s wearing a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with a quote from Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who attracted controversy in years past for antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric. The quote itself is unobjectionable: “Making our communities safe & decent places to live.”

The idea behind events such as the peace walk is to build a rapport with community members, he said. That way, when it comes to disputes that could end in violence, his group can act as a neutral third party. “We offer an exit ramp,” said Muhammad. Oftentimes, he said, “we’re the only voice of deescalation.”

Not living in DC's poor neighborhoods anymore (H Street, 1980s-1990s), I don't know how much street presence there is of clergy and other committed community members.  

Community group involvement helps reduce crime.  Patrick Sharkey's book Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence credits the crime drop in part because of the rise of involvement of such organizations.  

I participated in one such group that was a response to the neighborhood center of crack dealing by Rayful Edmond's crew ("Rayful Edmond, Drug Lord Who Stoked D.C.’s Crack Cocaine Epidemic, Dies at 60," New York Times).  I also learned about how street design can help create protected areas conducive to drug dealing.

I know we had walks, I don't think we had weekly walks like Preacher Muhammad.  We did meet with the police precinct representatives every month at our meetings, among other government officials.  There was concern that people communicated some of what happened at the meetings to the drug dealers.

According to Crain's Chicago Business and their forum on the city's crime drop

Communities where nonprofits increased the most, such as those focusing on youth support and substance abuse programs, had lower crime rates. Community-based resources like this can also increase collective efficacy—social cohesion and trust among residents.

Also see "Nonprofit Crime Reduction," Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Our group and Preacher Muhammad's are congruent with "social efficacy theory" that posits more connected and involved communities, including the presence of a fair number of community organizations, have fewer social problems, despite income disparities. And Eric Klinenberg's discussion of the importance of social infrastructure in his book Palaces of the People.

Demographics are a factor.  The fact that Boston's murder rate is significantly lower compared to other cities means that they are doing something right, although part of it has to do with the rough percentage of black population in poverty.  For example, the black population in Boston is half that of DC, and one-third of Baltimore.  According to CNN:

The homicide rate for Black Chicagoans is nine times higher than for any other racial demographic, according to data released by the city Department of Public Health.

Differences in homicide rates by race account for significant differences in murder rates across cities.  E.g., Honolulu City and County with a population of one million--predominately Asian, and Asians having the lowest murder rate per capita--had 29 murders last year, which was a significant jump from 19 in 2024.

Summer always has a rise in crime and murder | Develop Summer Crime Suppression Strategies and Tactics.  Summer is known for an extranormal number of murders.  Focus resources on it.  That's the whole point of Broken Windows theory--focusing police time proactively not reactively, and addressing pattern crime ("Back from the Brink, an oral history of the introduction and implementation of Broken Windows theory policing in New York City").  Murders in the summer should be thought of as a pattern.

For example in Chicago 15 areas account for half the city's murders ("Chicago is throwing its ‘whole government’ at summer violence," CNN).  They focus resources on those "zones" with the most murders, bringing to bear all of the community's social infrastructure to address the problem.  DC knows where the murders are, I don't think they focus resources there.  Partly, because people in relatively safe areas still advocate for a high level of police presence.

Probably, there are more murders on weekends too, so that should be an area of focus.

Broken windows/physical improvements.  BW theory is two pronged.  One is refocusing police time and on crime suppression.  The other is investing in community--maintenance of public spaces like removing abandoned cars and in plantings, and working on keeping properties in good shape.  There have been studies in Philadelphia and elsewhere that find a positive reduction in crime in association with maintenance of vacant lots and conversion to community gardens.  Etc.

DC and Youth Crime.  Another area where DC seems to be an outlier is with youth crime, including violent crimes like murder, assault, and car jacking.  Having more community groups and preachers doing walks would be in order.

DC's youth crime and the failures of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services have been an issue for more than 30 years.  Truancy is an issue ("Empty desks: How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools fueled the biggest youth crime surge in a generation," Washington Post).

After a significant decline in the program over the 2000s and 2010s, Midnight Basketball is back up to 20 chapters.  Photo: Clara Mokri for The New York Times.

Recreation centers and programs and later hours on weekends.   Curfews are one way cities deal with a rise in youth crime and group wilding in the summers ("Cities, towns nationwide revive teen curfews amid summer crowds," Indiana Capital Chronicle).  I think they can be one element in a toolbox.  But how about offering more programs for youth in the evening and at night.

Recreation centers and programs should be open later, until midnight or later on Friday and Saturday, and have a system of Teen Rangers to organize the programming so its relevant to the target audience ("Clark County to open 4 recreation centers for late-night teen programs," 3News Las Vegas).  From the article:

Four recreation centers across Clark County will begin offering free late-night programs for teenagers starting Tuesday as county officials and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police work to address rising concerns about youth violence and juvenile crime.

The summer initiative, which runs June 9- July 31, will keep Walnut Recreation Center, Whitney Recreation Center, Cambridge Recreation Center and the Torrey Pines Resource Center open from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. for teens ages 13 to 18.

I aver the centers should be open later than 11pm.  Libraries too.  In Montgomery County, Maryland, libraries in town centers like Silver Spring and Bethesda used to be open later on Friday and Saturday during the summers.  Not now.  But with focused involvement programming, such programs should be considered. 

Many of the recreation programs serve adults in their 20s as well,  ("Midnight Basketball Returns, and Brings Community With It," New York Times, National Midnight Basketball Association).

Summer Jobs and impact on crime.  The Wall Street Journal reports on a positive association between summer jobs and reduction in youth crime and murders ("The Effects of Summer Jobs on Youth Violence," "Why Teenagers Stopped Working in the Summer," Wall Street Journal).  From the article:

Sara Heller studied Chicago’s jobs program and found that an eight-week summer job cut violent-crime arrests among disadvantaged teenagers by 43%, with the effect growing after the job ended. Mr. Gelber and his co-authors, studying New York’s program, matched roughly 290,000 lottery records to tax and death records and found that winning a summer job cut the risk of dying over the following years by about 18%, driven by fewer homicides, particularly among young men. Those same New York jobs, however, didn’t raise the kids’ later earnings; if anything they nudged them down slightly and left college-going untouched.

How about Co-operative High School?  Given the results from summer employment, I've suggested offering the option of co-operative high school, where after freshman year youth are placed in paying jobs alongside classroom learning.  Such programs are uncommon.  

High Companies, a multifaceted firm with a foundation in welding and manufacturing supports three schools--two in Pennsylvania and one in Denver ("How Co-ops Help Young People Start Their Careers," High Companies).  Orillia Secondary School in Ontario also.St. George's Technical High School in Delaware.  And probably others.

Seniors only.  Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District in Michigan offers co-op placements for senior, at more than 125 businesses, institutions, and nonprofits. Hodgson Vo-Tech in Delaware also only offers placements for seniors.

I do think as a crime reduction strategy, students from sophomore age schould be eligible for cooperative education.

Back from the Brink, an oral history of the introduction and implementation of Broken Windows theory policing in New York City

I have been remiss in reviewing Back from the Brink, the book by Peter Moskos that is an oral history of the New York City Police Department during the Bratton period, where new strategies and tactics were introduced to suppress crime in significantly measurable ways.  (I first mentioned the book last September, in "Murder rate in Chicago is bad: "correct" applications of broken window policing.")

Unfortuately, I have a bad habit of if I don't write the review as soon as I read the book, I'm not likely to get back to it, partly because I have another bad habit of writing my notes on various different pieces of paper, some get mislaid etc.

But the review of the book by Michael Fortner, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in Washington Monthly, "How New York City Got Safe: A historical reconstruction of the Big Apple’s crime decline, told from inside the institutions responsible for public safety," reminds me that it is important to do so.

A New York Subway car before Broken Windows policing practice was introduced in the late 1980s.

Fortner covers the book pretty well, but I think he misses some points.  

I lived in DC during the bad times in the 80s and 90s, and am a fervent believer in broken windows policing theory.  

In general, especially in progressive academia, it has a bad rep because most departments interpreted it as "zero tolerance policing" with a lack of focus on major crimes and the creation of a siege mentality by arresting people for the least transgression, like an unbuckled seatbelt (also see "Looking Through Broken Windows: The Impact of Neighborhood Disorder on Aggression and Fear of Crime Is an Artifact of Research Design" Annual Review of Criminology, "Why the Fraudulent 'Broken Windows' Theory of Policing Refuses to Die," Current Affairs).

What I got out of Moskos book are a few key things.  

First, the interviews make clear that Bratton and the top people believed that crime could be suppressed.  CompStat was about (re)focusing police time towards proactiveness.  "Cops on Dots" -- putting cops where crime is occurring--as some people called it.

Although as Fortner quotes one commander, it was a philosophy.  Moskos cites a cop talking about how they had a problem with bike-based robberies in his precinct and how it was addressed.  But others took out of CompStat meetings about their approach that they should "arrest more bicyclists" rather than analyze whether or not bicycles were used repetitively in perpetrating crime.

Bratton's team believed that by addressing pattern crime, and arresting perpetrators crime would drop.  

While generally, the police department wasn't focused on "broken windows" or improving public spaces per se, the application of focused policing on the subway system was complemented by a refurbishment of subway stations and subway cars--not just buying new equipment--but by addressing graffiti, etc.

The book gives you a great picture of the effort and how it was incremental, building on each success, or adjusting after failure.  I really got a sense of the breadth and depth of the effort and the spirit of experimentation.  

The idea of "moving the success of broken windows from underground/the subways" to above ground wasn't just about the CompStat tracking system and delving deeply into crime patterns, precinct by precinct.  It was about making improvements in crime reduction and physical improvements very visible, which in turn led to more support for the Broken Windows Approach.

Two stories in particular cover the integration of policing with public space improvement were the campaigns to significantly improve the  Port Authority Bus Terminal and Bryant Park (although the program to improve BP began before the Bratton period of policing).  

People didn't used to go to Bryant Park, day or night.  Now it hums with activity.

But as the president of the subway system told Bratton during his interview "if we don't fix stations and subway trains in association with better policing people won't take the train," the success of Bryant Park likely would have taken much longer to come to fruition without better, focused policing in public parks and Bryant Park in particular.

Another element of public space improvement at the time had nothing to do with policing, but with the creation of business improvement districts, funded by local property tax surcharges, these groups provided extranormal cleaning services, public space improvements and monitoring (Jane Jacobs style "eyes on the street") in places like Times Square and around Penn Station.

And the proof is in the pudding.  Sure multiple cities had significant crime drops starting in the late 1990s.  But eg DC versus NYC.  NYC had a 75% drop in homicides, DC 38%.  I'm sure this quantum difference in results between NYC and other cities was across the board in other crime categories.

Living in DC at the time, there weren't many broken windows approaches, but there was a focus on involving neighborhood groups, the way that Patrick Sharkey in Uneasy Peace attributes some of the fall in crime during that period to civic and collective action ("George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies," 2019).

I myself participated in one such neighborhood group that was started in response to a major drug distribution area, and over (a long) time the problem was cured.  

Cops came to monthly meetings, problems were discussed, there were occasional walks with police and elected officials, etc.  (I also did small BW experiments in my neighborhood, with litter pick up and measurement of its impact on certain streets and in bus shelters.)

A blog reader once made the point that as crime dropped, maybe stop and frisk was in part a response of needing something to do, but with the lack of restraints applied during the post Bratton Guiliani years (although Bratton in his later stint did support stop and frisk; later he recanted) it became a big problem.  

Obviously, Stop and Frisk was proven to be not productive.  Unlike the value of arresting fare jumpers and checking them for outstanding warrants, an early initiative of Bratton's on the subway system, less than 2% of the people stopped under Stop and Frisk had outstanding warrants.  

They were stopping people without reasonable suspicion or probable cause and it showed in the data.  Whereas fare jumping is a crime, and jumpers often perpetrate other crimes, on the subway system and off it.

So for me, the biggest issue with BW is that it hasn't really been applied in a true fashion in very many places.  And with how the Bratton people were pushed out by Giuliani, my lesson from DC is that you can't ever stop being vigilant when it comes to crime and order versus disorder.  Once disorder returns it's hard to reverse.

The rise in social justice concerns, deserved somewhat in response to structural racism, as crime dropped and fewer elected officials and academics had direct experience of the mess of disorder during the worst of 1990s, did lead to a rise in crime in places like DC ("The Coming D.C. Crime Boomerang," Atlantic), as crime decriminalization was seen by perpetrators not as a social justice move to help them because they were "driven to crime because of life circumstances," but as a signal to commit more crime (see the argument, by extension here, "The role of physical environment in the ‘broken windows’ theory," University of Chicago)

BART's new fare gates, seen at the Coliseum station in 2025, have generated more money for the transit agency. Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle

BART and fare gates. Recently there was a super interesting BW finding in SF with BART stations with new fare evasion resistant gates ("BART’s long fight against fare evasion is finally paying off. Here’s how much," San Francisco Chronicle).  

Not only did rider attitudes improve, ridership and fare revenue grew, and instances of vandalism dropped significantly.  Like Bratton said, turnstile jumpers commit other crimes.  If they aren't on the subway because they didn't pay, well, then there is less likelihood for vandalism of subway infrastructure.

Note that NYC and DC subways ("Metro’s new, higher faregates reducing fare evasion by more than 70 percent"), and St. Louis and Minneapolis light rail ("Transit safety and security: Broken Windows theory and reality | and the state of transit safety today," 2023) are also implementing new fare gates to reduce fare evasion.

Playgrounds and cafes were some of the positive use spaces added to the area.   Photo:  Jessie Cooper and Justin Roth embrace on a swing at a playground at Civic Center in San Francisco, California, on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Revival of BART's Civic Center station.  Predating the fare gate program, the BART Civic Center Station became a center for nuisance and crime including drug dealing, where the main two block "entryway" to the station became a gauntlet where drug dealing, loitering, and quality of life offenses blossomed..  

Above-ground, the City of San Francisco invested in improving the public realm on those two blocks and beyond, adding new facilities and refurbishment to encourage more positive use of the space, while below ground BART made complementary station-specific improvements.  

Media coverage of the project makes clear that the effort involved police and multiple other partners including philanthropy, physical interventions and ongoing programming ("SF Civic Center’s new vision: soccer fields, shaded gardens and people," "SF Civic Center — cleaner and safer — now a place to play and have a bite," "Rejuvenating SF Civic Center Plaza: a challenge beyond design," San Francisco Chronicle). 

While the area’s transformation remains a work in progress, the differences are stark. In addition to two new playgrounds that cost $10 million, the space hosts a growing number of public events, including outdoor concerts, art installations and food-truck gatherings. A winter park — complete with a 6,000-square-foot ice rink — is set to open next month.

BART has developed a station modernization program equally focused on reducing public safety issues.

The Station Modernization Program focuses on increasing safety, capacity, sustainability, appearance, and enhancing the customer experience: 

• Vibrancy-- Reflect the energy of the surrounding community and enhance the station’s existing strengths 
• Connectivity – Strengthen multi-modal and universal access to the station and promote a safe and comfortable customer experience 
•  Sustainability – Incorporate sustainable materials and technologies into the station to increase the life-cycle value of the station’s infrastructure and to conserve natural resources and protect the public investment. 

Residents hope a similar program can be developed to improve the environment and public safety elements at the 16th Street-Mission Station ("Can BART bring a Civic Center-style revival to another dilapidated S.F. station?," SFC).   But in contrast to the Civic Center project, they seem to be focusing more on BART, and less on engaging other agencies into creating a broader response.

There not thinking either multiplicatively, nor in terms of below ground versus above-ground improvements.

 “If you really think about it, this is the living room of the Mission,” he said. “And the BART station is the front door. The first impression you have of the neighborhood is coming through the fare gate and up that escalator.”

As discussed in the 2013 entry "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," transit stations are entry points--porches or living rooms--to neighborhoods.  While transit systems typically don't plan them that way, it is a responsibility that goes beyond the transit agency, and should require ongoing coordination and planning with the local jurisdiction.

Managing to prevent disorder is an ongoing process.  The final lesson with BW in NYC is that it requires constant vigilance too.  That it's hard to maintain because people get burned out.  But also when elected officials want the credit, they push out the top cops who bring the changes about.  That definitely happened in NYC.  Most of the top implementers of BW at NYPD were gone within a few years of Bratton's departure.  Although fortunately, further down the ranks were commanders, inspectors, and captains who had been (re)trained to the approach, embedded the precepts, and continued to implement the BW approach of proactive crime suppression.

Covid-related uptick in crime.  Although yes, things tipped the other way during the covid pandemic, in NYC and nationally "Explaining the COVID Violence Spike and the Roaring Crime Decline").  Although today, in most places reported crime including murders, has dropped significantly.

Police officers and detectives enter the crime scene area where a 9-year-old boy was fatally shot. Photo: John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune

Chicago.  Chicago is an outlier nationally, in that the city that has continued to have high murder rates, although they are dropping, despite purportedly adopting BW approaches ("End-of-Year Analysis: Chicago Crime Trends," U of Chicago Crime Lab).   More recently, the city has had success with crime reductions in association with community intervention programs.

In a past blog entry, I opined that they probably aren't doing BW very well, have many high profile negative incidents that indicate systemic problems with management, and that a high rate of financial settlements for police misconduct, fatal errors, etc. indicates, from a risk management standpoint, that they have a serious crime problem.  Although more recently, like Baltimore ("Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott discusses how the city has brought violent crime down," NPR, "Baltimore has cut homicides by almost 60 percent in five years," Washington Post) they seem to be having effect with violence interruption programs.

Also see:

"The federal help Chicago really needs," Crain's Chicago Business

At the University of Chicago Crime Lab, we have spent over fifteen years studying which interventions actually reduce gun violence and maximize the impact of government spending. We think we’ve found a clear path forward: Build the capacity of police commanders managing jurisdictions with the highest rates of violence. The Policing Leadership Academy has a simple premise — treat policing as a profession using the formula that has had tremendous success for private sector companies: investing in people’s leadership and management skills.

Also see "Policing and management," NBER, which makes the point about how the use of management time shapes outcomes positively or negatively.

Holy f***: Trump policy kills a woman in Minneapolis

Photo: Mathieu Louis-Rolland, Getty Images.

Protestors in Portland have been making fun of the extreme statements about Portland being out of control by wearing costumes at protests ("Portland’s Theater-of-the-Absurd Protests Reflect the Ridiculousness of Trump’s Lies," The Nation).

There's been a lot written about Trump using the National Guard as a tool to terrorize "Democrat cities" ("Trump’s use of National Guard troops on American streets is bad enough. This could be worse," Rhode Island Current), like Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago.  

Ostensibly, the troops have been sent to cities “overrun” with crime. Yet data shows that has not been the case. Troops have been sent to largely Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states.

The case for political theater being the real reason behind the deployment certainly was strengthened when largely Republican Mississippi sent troops to Washington D.C., even though crime in Mississippi cities like Jackson is higher than in D.C. Additionally, there is an even more dangerous purpose to the troop presence — that of normalizing the idea of troops on the streets, a key facet of authoritarian rule.

There are fundamental differences in training and mission between military troops and civilian law enforcement, with troop presence raising the potential for escalation and excessive force, and the erosion of both civil liberties and military readiness.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the justification used by the Administration was flawed, and ordered them to stop ("Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to deploy National Guard in Illinois," SCOTus blog, "The Supreme Court has taken the National Guard away from Donald Trump," Economist).  Separately, as DC is subordinate to the federal government, NG troops are still in the city.

Of the many objections to the entry of federal law enforcement personnel into cities is their lack of training on urban policing, nor in de-escalation.  Armed troops are by definition escalatory.  It doesn't help that the Administration lies about what happens in their various engagements with protestors.

Another objection is that putting such forces in cities provides reputational risk to the military, because it's not what they are supposed to do.  In a way, although a bit different, it's not unlike how the British, during the Revolutionary War, forced residents to billet soldiers, at their own expense.  Here, it's a city being forced to take the brunt of the action by the military.

We know about the Administration's multi-faceted anti-immigrant program ("Protecting The American People Against Invasion" White House) with overtones of White Christian Nationalism ("The wrath of Stephen Miller," Atlantic), which has resulted in the imprisonment and/or deportation of many thousands of people.  It's not uncommon for US citizens to be swept up in the actions, and imprisoned ("We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days," ProPublica).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel are able to operate in cities independent of the court judgements about the National Guard.

Chicago: A federal immigration enforcement agent points a crowd control weapon at a protester at East 105th Street and South Avenue N in the East Side on Oct. 14. Protesters gathered as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers awaited the removal of their vehicle after it crashed during a pursuit.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

And they are armed and aggressive.  Armed, not well trained Guardsman killed protestors at Kent State University in 1970 ("Kent State University marks 55th anniversary of May 4 shootings," Ideastream/NPR) but before that at the Historically Black College, Orangeburg State College in South Carolina, in 1968 where three students were killed ("Feb. 8, 1968: Orangeburg Massacre," Zinn Education Project).

One particularly egregious aggression was the raiding of an apartment building in Chicago ("“I Lost Everything”: Venezuelans Were Rounded Up in a Dramatic Midnight Raid but Never Charged With a Crime," ProPublica, "Stories from the federal siege of Chicago," Chicago Sun-Times).

Community members pray at the scene where a federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, 37, of the Twin Cities earlier on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

That's escalated.  Today, we have the killing of an American citizen in Minneapolis ("Eyewitness describes ICE shooting that killed woman in Minneapolis," NBC).

With the director of ICE as part of the operation!

The Boston Globe has a video link of the engagement, and there is no question the ICE agent murdered the driver, a 37 year old woman.  ICE agents too, aren't well trained, for urban incursions.  This is the result.

U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino joins federal agents at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Ironically it's 5 years plus one day since the Trump-inspired violent protests at the US Capitol ("Jan. 6 insurrection," Washington Post).  The Administration just put up a webpage lying about what happened ("White House unveils Jan. 6 webpage saying Democrats ‘staged the real insurrection,’ criticizing Capitol Police," The Hill). 

One protestor, Ashlii Babbitt, was shot and killed by a member of the Capitol Police.  She's been made a martyr of the hard right, and under Trump, her family got a payout ("Trump administration to pay nearly $5M in wrongful death lawsuit of Jan. 6 rioter shot by police," Politico).  She was rioting.  Rioting isn't protected speech.  She was a criminal.  Trump also pardoned most of the people found guilty of rioting that day.

A bullet hole is seen in the windshield as law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. Tom Baker/AP

Not the lady in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good, she's just dead.  Say her name... ("‘She was an amazing human being’: Mother identifies woman shot, killed by ICE agent," Minneapolis Star-Tribune).

The Administration is justifying the murder ("Live updates: Hundreds protest in Minneapolis after ICE officer kills woman," AP).  Calling the person driving away a "domestic terrorist" ("DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s comments in wake of woman’s fatal shooting by ICE agent," MST).

“He’s been in situations like this before, and he certainly has been out there and followed his training today,” said Noem at the evening news conference in Minneapolis.

A federal agent sprays a protester with a chemical agent at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

Noem appeared to reference the same officer when she said that, back in June, he’d been rammed and dragged by an “anti-ICE” motorist.

Emergency medical technicians carry a person on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost via AP) Ellen Schmidt/AP

The Republicans in Congress are supine in the face of the Administration's aggressions not just against the Constitution, but of the American People.

You would think this killing would be a moment comparable to when Senator Joe McCarthy's lies were challenged by Joseph Welch, the U.S. Army's chief counsel at one of McCarthy's many hearings about communists in government.  

He said: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That was the moment of McCarthy's downfall.  Were this to be a similar moment.

Sanctioned state violence.  The Trump Administration is one of the most violent in terms of how it deals with citizens and immigrants.  But this is not unique to the nation's history, with raids against "communists" in the 1870s and 1920s, anarchists (1910s), labor unions (1890s-1930), and the treatment of certain immigrant groups throughout history (Chinese, Mexicans, Jews).

But today it seems the US is taking its cues from Hungary and Russia, where the media is controlled and universities are subjugated, and countries like Chile under Pinochet, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel, China--Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York Magazine) and China are probably the most developed surveillance states in the world, more intricate than the Apartheid period of South Africa.  

Trump constantly threatens to stop elections and interfere with elections ("Trump’s Jokes About Canceling Midterm Elections Aren’t So Funny Anymore," Esquire), which is front and center in Erdoğan's regime in Turkey.

Plus there is the prosecution of Trump "opponents" such as James Comey (former director of the FBI) and Letitia Wilson (State Attorney General of New York).

Poland is an example that had degraded in terms of freedoms of citizens but is on a turnaround, with the election as president of Donald Tusk.  So it can be reversed.

It's incredible though that the US has reached this nadir.  I never thought that when I studied Latin America in political science courses in college, that the readings foreshadowed today's United States of America.

Local initiative in Huntsville, Alabama aims to improve security by banning problem customers across 18 bars

One of the first issues I got involved in in DC had to do with the overconcentration of liquor stores in my downtrodden neighborhood.  Such is linked to increased crime and community problems ("The Association between Density of Alcohol Establishments and Violent Crime within Urban Neighborhoods," Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research).  

I had learned about Seattle creating special zones to limit the sales of single bottles of beer, as an attempt to limit those problems ("Seattle may extend alcohol-sale limits to much larger area," "City tries to curb liquor sales," Seattle Times).  In 2003, the Washington Post published a story on those efforts ("Neighbors fight beer sales") and I got my picture in the paper (albeit on a slow news day)..

I wasn't against the sale of alcohol in managed situations (restaurants and taverns) unlike my neighbors, who couldn't see the difference in effect of on premise consumption of alcohol versus off premise consumption ("Restaurants and liquor licenses--How much is too much on H Street?," blog, 2005).

But the fact is, with establishments that are more alcohol-forward than food forward, with entertainment, music, dancing, etc., drinking can fuel violence.  I advocated for better security plans, and places did have them.

From "Bar Brawls," University of Toronto Magazine.

But one big problem is the focus not on sequestering and having the police deal with perpetrators, the plan is "to move them outside, off the premises, where it is no longer our problem."

All that does is displace the problem, it moves it from inside the club to outside, and the problem continues.  The media is full of articles about such problems all around the country, culminating in shootings and sometimes, deaths.

A consortium of clubs in Huntsville is dealing with this proactively, by maintaining a list of problem customers/people who have been banned, sharing the list across their 18-member group, and not permitting them to enter the premises to begin with ("North Huntsville bars band together to blacklist troublemakers across 18 venues," Fox 54/Rocket City News). 

The network allows participating venues to share information about patrons who have caused problems at any location within the group. When security staff scan a customer's identification at the entrance, the system immediately alerts them if that person has been banned from another business in the network, showing the duration of the ban, the reason for it, and which establishment issued it.

... Jabar Westbrook, owner of Goodtimez Billiards and other north Huntsville businesses, said the system addresses a common problem where troublemakers simply move from one venue to another after being ejected.

"Sometimes it's the same people going from place to place causing trouble, and so we're just trying to create consistency where no matter what, those people who are troublemakers can't just go somewhere else," Westbrook said.

This program makes a lot of sense, allowing bars to be proactive, instead of reactive.  It expands the range of options discussed in Assaults in and Around Bars, 2nd Edition (Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State University).

Health equity devolves to cities and states as the federal government cuts taxes for the wealthy

I have a bunch of pieces on equity planning and social urbanism, touched off by my experience on a DC Grand Jury.  As one of the court reporters said "breaking the cycle--man, we're just cutting the grass."  I figured that the city spends a couple billion dollars a year on the impoverished in DC, just to keep them in place.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs" (2017)
-- "Equity planning: an update" (2020)
-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC" (2022)
-- "Experiments in Social Urbanism"
-- "'Social urbanism' experiment breathes new life into Colombia's Medellin Toronto Globe & Mail
-- "Medellín's 'social urbanism' a model for city transformation," Mail & Guardian
-- "Medellín slum gets giant outdoor escalator," Telegraph
-- "Medellín, Colombia offers an unlikely model for urban renaissance," Toronto Star

Some cities have launched poverty reduction and area-based economic development programs to address this, like GrowSouth in Dallas ("Cities Need Goals and Capital to Fight Poverty," Catalyst) or Invest SouthWest in Chicago ("Johnson Administration Breathes New Life into INVEST South/West Developments in Englewood," South Side Weekly, "Invited In Only To Be Shut Out," Block Club Chicago, Next Steps, West Humboldt Park, "City announces four new targets for Invest South/West," Crain's Chicago Business).  

United Way Greater Toronto for more than a decade has focused its program funding on languishing impoverished neighborhoods ("Guiding the United Way through the next decade," Toronto Star).  From the article:

United Way Greater Toronto just launched an incredibly ambitious 10-year strategic plan. We’re going to sustain the 10 community hubs we have and create 10 more. Hubs are like a one-stop shop for social and healthcare services in neighbourhoods that need it most. So, it improves access to services. It improves quality. It pulls together organizations under one roof, so it increases collaboration across organizations.

Our second goal is a community real estate vision. Seventy per cent of the community organizations we support are at risk of losing their space, and they’re also at risk of then being, in essence, priced out of communities that need them the most. We have a real focus on supporting those organizations to ensure the stability of those physical sites being owned by community organizations and stewarded for generations to come.

At least with the cities, the programs tend to wax and wane as new administrations succeed previous ones more committed to poverty. 

If we think that cities (and counties, see "Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties" and "East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization | Part 1 -- Overview") should focus on addressing poverty with place-based solutions, I'm thinking it's the same with health equity.  Programs like Medicaid expansion--run at the state level in most places--provide health care to people who are medically needy.

This op-ed in City & State by NYC's health commissioner, "I am New York City’s doctor. This is how we treat chronic disease" makes the point that as the federal government cuts health programs (and medical research) cities and states should step up and fill the gap.

[RFK Jr.] has fired at least 20,000 employees from the Department of Health and Human Services. Billions of dollars in lifesaving medical research have been cut. Tens of millions of Americans, including millions of New Yorkers, will lose their Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits because of Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The record-breaking government shutdown multiplied the confusion and loss.

... My job is to support all New Yorkers in leading their healthiest lives, no matter their income or neighborhood. We have the experience and expertise to improve outcomes and even prevent chronic disease entirely. We know what approaches are proven to make a lasting impact.

That’s why, at the New York City Health Department, we recently released a city-wide chronic disease prevention strategy, which outlines how local government can address the root causes of chronic disease.

The strategy recommends promoting healthy living through nutritious foods and physical activity. But we must also meet people’s material needs. Improving access to basic resources – with direct cash payments, grocery credits and more – has a proven impact on health. And informed conversations around marketing, product design and creative media approaches can increase consumer awareness of the health impacts of the products they buy.

When people can afford the things they need – housing, health care, the ability to put healthy food on the table – they aren’t waiting to be treated in the ER once they’re in crisis.

This also comes up in Chicago, with multi-decade differences in life expectancy based on race, income, and neighborhood ("As they live Chicago's 'death gap,' a 3-generation family fights to end it," Chicago Sun-Times).

These kinds of statistics are the basis of the concept of "social determinants of health" 

and programs to address the disparities.

I have a series of articles about developing a comprehensive program at the bigger city scale on health equity, but I never termed it that way.  City and county poverty amelioration programs need to focus on health equity as an element of equity planning, and these entries lay out a way forward.

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River" (2018)
-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital" (2018)

-- "Community Health Improvement Planning" (2019)

-- "Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health" (2023)

-- "Big omission in blog series on advance hospital/health and wellness planning, public health planning: addiction services" (2024)

-- "Costly failures in the mental health system" (2025)

Murder rate in Chicago is bad: "correct" applications of broken window policing

 

I can't remember where I came across a mention of the new book by Peter Moskos, a professor at CUNY's John Jay College, Back from the Brink, which is an oral history interviewing various police and other people involved in developing in the early 1990s, "the system" of focused policing on improving place and suppressing crime in New York City, which became a national best practice for reduction in crime and policing, and a shining light leading to the resurgence in interest in urban living--most major cities began adding population in the 2000s because city living was perceived to be cool, but also safe.

I was so intrigued I bought a copy right away, forgetting I could probably get a review copy for free.

It's a slow read only because there are so many lessons to be drawn from the examples of what people did to bring down crime, and how they improved quality of life in New York City, leading to the city's "revival" in rising population, commerce, new construction, and tourism.

I used to say, after reading William Bratton's second autobiography, The Profession: A Memoir of Policing in America, that the New York City subway system was the only place that true "broken windows" policing ("Broken Windows," Atlantic) was implemented, to great success.

Many academics and advocates deride the theory, saying it didn't improve places, that it led to over-incarceration, etc.  

The reality is that what most people call "broken windows" is effectuated by police departments as "zero tolerance policing" where they arrest people for the most minor crimes.  By contrast, BW arrests when the effect can be multiplicative, in that turnstile jumpers tend to commit other crimes, when people not wearing their seatbelts tends to not be associated with criminal activity.

More and more research finds the "broken windows" approach to be successful.

So I'm reading the book, slowly, preparing to write a blog entry about lessons, but it's spurring me to buy more "old books" on the topic such as Crime Fighter about Jack Maple, Disorder and Deviance--after the BW theory was devised this book looks to better define what disorder looks like, and Bleeding Out. by a University of Maryland professor, about community organization ground up initiatives aimed at reducing violence.

Maybe I'll include them all in one big entry, maybe not.

Once the NYC subway was "cleaned up," police and stakeholders wanted to bring the concept of place-based improvement policing "up to the surface."  Bryant Park was first.  Then the Port Authority Bus Terminal.  Then Times Square.  These were the anchors that helped to create a critical mass of improvement, developing critical mass, leading to even more widespread improvements.

When I was in the process of buying other books, I noticed that the author of the book on disorder, who is based at Northwestern, has a lot of books about the "success" of community policing in Chicago.  I'd say that the number of police-involved killings, the hundred millions of dollars of judgements the city pays out each year, and the persistent level of crime indicates that community policing hasn't worked.

National Guard federal law enforcement accosting a guy on a bench in a park, Washington, DC.  Reddit photo.

Bloomberg reports, "Eight Dead, 58 Shot in Chicago Fuel Trump’s Troop Threats," on an especially high rate of violence in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, and how it gives Trump justification for his threats to put "federal law enforcement" in the city, the way he has in DC ("What a great headline (about Trump's takeover of the city police department in Washington DC) | and more on disorder").  

(Note that federal court ruled that the entry of federal law enforcement in Los Angeles, was illegal, "Trump deployment of military troops to Los Angeles was illegal, judge rules in blistering opinion, Los Angeles Times).

The fact is that DC and Chicago are great examples of not applying broken windows principles to policing and/or public safety, and having persistent crime as a result.  

In DC, it's a failure to focus on youth, their participation in crime including murder, car jacking, armed robberies, assaults, and what precipitates it ("Empty desks: How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools fueled the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.," Washington Post).  FWIW, Washington Post columnist Colbert King has been writing about this problem since the 1990s.

Another book in my queue to read, Unforgiving Places The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence. I learned about it from the Atlantic article, "Are We Thinking About Gun Violence All Wrong?."  Also see, "What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime," New Yorker.

Decades ago in the 1990s I was thinking about moving to Chicago, so I subscribed to Chicago Magazine for a bit.  

I remember a couple articles focusing on crime in that city, on the areas where it was worst, and how a relatively small number of perpetrators were responsible for a preponderance of crime.  (These articles are more recent: "The Truth About Chicago’s Crime Rates," "The Truth About Chicago's Crime Rates: Part 2," "New Tricks," Chicago Magazine).

I can't find that article without going to a place with a microfilm copy, but the New Yorker review of the book discusses that concept:

... research—from criminologists like David Weisburd and Lawrence W. Sherman—showed that, in city after city, crime was hyperconcentrated. A handful of blocks accounted for a disproportionate share of violence, and those blocks stayed violent, year after year. In other words, the problem wasn’t people. It was place.

Recognition that there were high crime areas, and the need to focus on those areas, while developing effective strategies for reducing crime, not just reacting to it, is the basis of broken windows policing.

I'm not sure what's happening in Chicago.  When I was on grand jury duty a decade ago, one of the people on the jury was from Chicago and she opined that the closure of various housing projects redistributed criminal activity into different areas, leading to turf wars.

Clearly Chicago isn't doing it, and their community policing strategy wasn't focused on the most important elements ("Civic heavyweights push CPD to rethink community policing strategy," Crain's Chicago Business)., Operationalizing Community Policing Within The Chicago Police Department, CP Solutions, "Homicide, Social Efficacy, and Poverty in Chicago," Chicago Magazine).

Also see:

-- "Chicago's Poor Neighborhoods: Everything Deserts," Chicago Magazine
-- "Is Chicago an Outlier? Organizational Density in Poor Urban Neighborhoods," University of Chicago

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Also see, included within many links to past entries, "Redefining what public safety means: Community Safety Partnership, Los Angeles."

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-- Restore the Core: A citizen's guide to building a livable Washington, DC

I lived in DC for almost 15 years before I started getting involved in civic affairs.  I did so believing if I didn't, nothing would change.  

I did have good timing.  Around then a desire to live in cities began to build.  And crime was dropping.  Neighborhood specifics was one of my foci.  

The other, "smart growth," and the report from the local Sierra Club chapter that I picked up at the Adams Morgan Festival definitely spurred me into involvement.  Before that I had been interested in urban issues, bought and read books, read the Washington Post and the New York Times, etc.  But I was an observer.

One of my first involvements was a local community group that was focused on the community sure, but especially on crime.  

The group was called Near Northeast Citizens Against Crime and Drugs and it was spearheaded by a firebrand "old lady," Loree Murray ("A Woman who won't sit still for it" and "Fought D.C. Cocaine Epidemic" Washington Post).  This area was right in the center of Rayful Edmond's crack distribution operation ("Rayful Edmond was no victim," Washington Post).  She lived around the corner from it, while I lived about 5 blocks away, in an area still affected by it.

This was the kind of community organization that Patrick Sharkey says in Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence, that helped to bring crime down.

In 2003, I ended up getting featured in the Post, "on a slow news day," on the overconcentration of liquor stores in my neighborhood ("Neighbors fight single beer sales").  The photo in my blog profile is from that story.

This kind of overconcentration elsewhere had been associated with significant crime increases ("Alcoholic beverage sales restrictions moving forward in Seattle," 2006).

Ironically, later I opposed a reflexive opposition to taverns and restaurants with liquor licenses, believing it would help revitalize the lagging commercial district, stating there was a big difference between liquor stores and restaurants ("Restaurants and liquor licenses--How much is too much on H Street?," 2005).  Of course, my position was the correct position.

Like a lot of issues, policing gets all mucked up in politics.  The way forward has been shown.  It's just that in most jurisdictions, that's not what police want to do, especially in Chicago ("The federal help Chicago really needs," "A tough truth about police management in Chicago," Crain's Chicago Business).