What gets measured gets done: Annual Report on the Conditions of Children | County initiatives on poverty, from Orange County to Salt Lake County

In college I thought I was gonna end up in the business world.  One of the books big back then was In Search of Excellence (published in 1982), about high performing organizations.  

It turns out I was more interested in organizations per se and how they operate than whether or not they were for or non profit.  And in high and continued performance.

One of the key points in the book is "What gets measured gets done," making the point that "making the numbers" is the focus when you're asking for measurable results.

Separately, I opine that everyone says kids are important, but too often money nor solid programs fails to follow the concern.  That being said childhood poverty has dropped significantly over the past 30 years due to a broader safety net ("Expanded Safety Net Drives Sharp Drop in Child Poverty," "How Poverty Programs Aided Children From One Generation to the Next," New York Times).

I expect that there is serious backsliding starting this year given cuts to Medicaid, food security programs, and schools more generally.

So the fact that Orange County California publishes a report, Annual Report on the Conditions of Children, to focus in on interdicting poverty at the county level is pretty interesting ("Win some, lose some: It’s not always easy being a kid in the O.C.," Orange County Register).  

Childhood is measured by poverty, health outcomes, academic achievement in annual snapshot

... There are several positive signs. More than 90% of all pregnancies include prenatal care; vaccination rates are high; kids have more access to emotional support; lower income students are doing better in math and language; foster kids are getting more timely permanent placements, and local kids are less likely than their peers around the state to get arrested, with fewer local cases leading to serious legal outcomes.

The negative signs, though, are blinking red. Child poverty is rising, as seen by increases in food assistance and free lunch programs. A higher percentage of local kids face “insecure housing” (read: homelessness). There are more preterm births and low birth weight babies. Teen pregnancies and dropout rates are both rising. There are, among children and teens, more “accidental deaths” — which include drug overdoses. More kids born drug-exposed and more are reporting that they suffer from depression. And child abuse, locally, remains a serious concern, with the county posting a higher rate of abuse than the state average.

Measurement is the first step.  Action planning, implementation, review and continuous improvement is the second, and its hard.  Especially in the face of too often limited funds.

In my writings on equity planning and social urbanism, I've never gotten into the weeds, recommending metrics and specific programs and initiatives for addressing it.  

-- "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," 2021 
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021

That's a necessary step for making public officials accountable for improvements in their communities.

Counties and areas of extreme poverty.  A number of cities like Richmond, Chicago (Invest SouthWest) and Dallas (Grow South) have developed anti-poverty revitalization initiatives.  I think some have gone by the wayside as administrations turned over.  

In Toronto, rather than provide financial support to all kinds of organization, the United Way focuses its efforts on a set number of impoverished neighborhoods.

I am not so familiar with county initiatives specific to poverty, although I mention all the time the Hennepin County Works program, which focused on reinvesting in Minneapolis to stop population leakage and rebuild ("A COUNTY AND ITS CITIES: THE IMPACT OF HENNEPIN COMMUNITY WORKS," Journal of Urban Affairs), because the County feared it was at risk from property tax declines.  It wasn't so much an anti-poverty measure as much as it was about being pro-center city.

Many school systems have related initiatives ("Schools #2: Successful school programs in low income communities and the failure of DC to respond similarly," 2019).  

Dayton, Ohio has is a major initiative focusing on "neighborhood schools" and adding human services functions, ("50-plus ways you can help 6 Dayton schools, thousands of students," Dayton Daily News, "Dayton's neighborhood school centers," New Directions in Youth Development).  

Roy Utah has boosted high school graduation by better linking elementary and middle school outcomes to high school, with mentors and other services ("How Roy High boosted graduation rates from 70% to 92%," KSL-TV).

Pontiac/Oakland County, Michigan.  But I think the Hennepin County model is extendable, an apt model for more places, especially as a way to address poverty.  I wrote about this in terms of Pontiac,  ("Pontiac Michigan: a lagging African American city in one of the nation's wealthiest counties") where I admitted I was embarrassed for not thinking this long before when I was a resident of wealthy Oakland County in middle and high school and a couple summers once I started college.  For a time I even went to Pontiac Schools in 6th and 7th Grades.

East County/Montgomery County, Maryland.  For Montgomery County Maryland too ("East County, Montgomery County, Maryland: Council redistricting spurs ideas for revitalization").  I just wrote about Long Branch ("Long Branch, Montgomery County: Main Street manager job | Purple Line").

Separately, Montgomery County Public Schools puts more money towards Title I schools serving impoverished areas ("When Unequal is Fair Treatment," Education Week) although outcomes continue to lag ("Educational Inequality in Montgomery County Public Schools," Montgomery County Sentinel).

Equity planning/social urbanism.  Another way to think about such programs is through the concepts of equity planning and social urbanism.  The programs above have influenced my thinking about this definitely.

-- "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," 2021 
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021

Salt Lake City.  There are tons of reports about economic disparities between the East and West sides of Salt Lake.  The west side is more Hispanic, more people of color, more poverty (series: "Roads to Understanding: Salt Lake City’s west side," KSL-TV. "s," Salt Lake Tribune).  

The west side is where the city's industrial district lies, including the state's five oil refineries, so air quality is a particular concern ("West-siders, at last, may have the proof they need to fix air pollution," Salt Lake Tribune).

Meanwhile the east side pretty much thrives as it's closer to and abuts the Wasatch Front mountain range so people haven't been inclined to move "west" as is more typical in most metropolitan regions, as they grow, they grow west.  

Even so there is population shrinkage or at least shrinkage of households and fewer children so schools on the east side of the county marked by closing schools in the adjacent Granite School District ("Granite Schools is looking to close 3 more elementary schools," KUER/NPR).

Salt Lake has closed west side schools because of low enrollments, while Salt Lake's stay open because the east side still has a preponderance of large Mormon families ("School closure and consolidation planning needs to focus on integration planning at the outset as a separate process," "Equity/"Equity" versus efficiency and the school closure debate").

The school system does have a number of Title I initiatives and a couple of schools more like the Dayton model, with community health clinics and community centers as part of the school grounds.

The physical divide between East and West is created by railroad tracks and a massive train yard as well as I-15, which follows the route of the railroads ("Will Salt Lake Heal its Historic East-West Divide, or Exacerbate it?," Building Salt Lake, "Utah and SLC wanted to punch a hole through I-15. West-siders fought back," Salt Lake Tribune).

So the city has plenty of initiatives promoting growth on the west side, prioritizing funding projects there over the East Side.  

To me, the biggest problem of development on the west side is lack of town centers, but I've grappled with how to write about it and haven't yet ("A new 9th and 9th? Salt Lake City’s Marmalade neighborhood becoming a ‘destination.’," "Why there are no bars in Rose Park or Fairpark — and why that could finally change," SLT).

It makes it hard to develop commercial districts and small businesses ("A coffee truck, known on Salt Lake City’s west side and at farmers markets, opens a brick-and-mortar cafe," "Mestizo Coffeehouse, part of a ‘beautiful community’ on SLC’s west side, is closing," Salt Lake Tribune).  (There is a redeveloping district along North Temple, but in terms of the east-west divide, it's more of an extension of the Central Business District.)  

There is also a citizen-initiated proposal, the Rio Grande Plan, which would revive the Rio Grande Station for long distance and commuter railroad sand light rail service, which may also involve undergrounding railroad tracks outside of the rail yard, making it easier to get between the east and west sides ("Study highlights Salt Lake City's east-west struggles. What will be done about it?," KSL-TV).  (I was the first person at the public launch of the proposal to say publicly that the RGP should be implemented in association with the coming of the 2034 Winter Olympics.)

The University of Utah runs an interesting community program there called University Neighborhood Partners ("University of Utah University Neighborhood Partners program and community revitalization in West side Salt Lake City/County," "How University Neighborhood Partners helps west side leaders," Salt Lake Tribune) and is investing in a small version of its hospital in West Valley City ("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") which abuts Salt Lake, and is even more Hispanic demographically. 

A new restaurant opens in the 9th and 9th district.

By contrast, East Side has thriving residential-commercial districts like 9th and 9th ("In Salt Lake City, a dynamic neighborhood with small businesses and room to stroll in," Washington Post, 2013), Sugar House, and 15th and 15th ("Thinking about the opportunities for success with neighborhood commercial districts: comparing Manor Park in DC to 15th and 15th in Salt Lake").

Salt Lake County.  Salt Lake County has its issues.  The County is mostly economically successful, but the west side and certain other pockets of the county lag the wealthier areas.  

While the County is majority Democrat, the way County Council districts are organized, the County Council currently is majority Republican.  Some of the members are seriously conservative and focused on "reducing the size of government" even though as a growing place, demands for infrastructure and other programs are greater, not reduced.

The County faces budget issues because of that growth.  It voted to raise the property tax, not much all in all, but there is opposition ("There’s a new referendum push underway. This one targets Salt Lake County taxes," Salt Lake Tribune).  

The County is cutting back investment in many areas--I know this because I am on the Board of Sugar House Park which is half owned by the County, and we just got a big push back on our capital planning efforts because of this--pushing back some projects as much as 6 years.

Salt Lake Deseret News photo.

The Republican majority voted to close some day care centers ("Families brace for challenges as Salt Lake County child care centers are set to close," KSL-TV) and a senior center to reduce costs.  

Even when offered money by a prominent foundation to keep the day care centers open, leading Councilmembers said no ("A famous Utah family’s foundation offered to pay for S.L. County day cares, public records reveal," Salt Lake Tribune).

To be fair, I don't think the County's wanting to close day care centers is necessarily "bad."  It does have to measure spending and outcomes, and how many people programs serve.  And they argued spending $2 million on 247 people (children) wasn't the best use of funds.

But instead of just voting to summarily cut the program, it could have looked at alternatives that were cheaper, such as supporting "seats" at other for profit and nonprofit centers.

I'm hardly an expert on all the programs in the county and nonprofit and philanthropic initiatives that focus on ameliorating poverty.  

I do know that Granite School District has a number of Title I initiatives (Educational Achievement and Workforce Development: A Review of Community Based Approaches, Gardner Institute, University of Utah).  

(Chris Detrick | Tribune file photo) Promise South Salt Lake Site Coordinator Susie Estrada shows children pictures of the staff members at the Hser Ner Moo Community Center in South Salt Lake City Tuesday, July 18, 2017. 

South Salt Lake ("How “Promise South Salt Lake” is creating safe spaces for youth and families," ABC4, "South Salt Lake Promise program helps youths thrive in community centers," KSL-TV) and Millcreek have created "Promise" initiatives which function comparably to the University Neighborhood Partners, bringing a variety of resources together to help people who can use the boost.  The Promise Partnership Utah organization supports such groups across the state. 

(Ironically, in the area, they call South Salt Lake "sketchy," urban and impoverished.  People here have little experience with true urban poverty! "Areas to Avoid: Salt Lake City’s Danger Zones," RLG, "South Salt Lake is turning 85. What is it known for?," SLT)

Conclusion: Why not a Salt Lake County Community Works Program, focused on poverty reduction? But mostly my response is that like Oakland and Montgomery Counties, very wealthy counties, Salt Lake County has a lot of wealth too, and rather than offer programs in a piecemeal basis or none at all, could a "Hennepin Community Works" program be developed to address the county's economic lagging areas in a more systematic way.

Could the Promise Programs and the University Neighborhood Partners initiative become the foundation of a more focused, overarching and branded County program serving impoverished areas in more systematic ways than the county is doing presently?

Operation Progress, Los Angeles

In the Rolling Stone article about the Community Safety Partnership, they mention an unrelated initiative by one of the police officers who finally tired of his "warrior policing" approach, and focused on developing relationships with promising students, and mentoring them and providing scholarships and then support for the students while they're in college. 

That cop was John Coughlin, and his program, Operation Progress ("Transforming lives in Watts," "‘Operation Progress’ finds unlikely success matching LAPD mentors with students," Angelus), would change almost everyone it touched, including Tionne. It plucked kids by the hundreds from the projects in Watts, granted them tuition-paid, private educations, then sent them to top-tier colleges around the country on full-ride scholarships. It would surround those kids with tutors and mentors, lavish them with shopping sprees and paid internships. It would partner with billionaires and nonprofits to lift tweens and their younger siblings out of squalor, and slowly but surely begin to empty the pond of future Bloods and Crips.

I've written about my ideas about a place-based CSP approach to public safety and revitalization in DC's poor neighborhoods here, "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," (2021).

This would be a good added piece to the neighborhood-based place-focused investment program..  One of the problems potentially achieving students have is peer group pressure to not put effort into school.   Having dozens of graduates of a program like Operation Progress spread throughout a community would provide counter-pressure to peer group efforts to denigrate schooling and achievement.

This could create a critical mass of residents focused on improvement and breaking the cycle of poverty.

Transit safety and security: Broken Windows theory and reality | and the state of transit safety today

Liverpool Echo photo.

When I was in Liverpool in June of 2018, I was really surprised at how many security personnel were present at the Downtown transit stations, at the entrances and on the platforms, all wearing bright yellow vests, because the system seemed pretty safe, that safety wasn't an issue.  

-- MerseyTravel TravelSafe Partnership

MerseyTravel also has a teen "officer" program and an adopt a station program.  One adopter was 12 years old when he started ("Merseyside railway station adopter is just 12 years old," RailAdvent)

Same with one of the main Metro stations in Los Angeles when I rode that system a few years ago. Lots of police but at the time, they seemed unnecessary.

William Bratton, the former police commissioner for New York City, is attributed as the leading proponent of the "Broken Windows" theory of policing ("Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety," Atlantic Magazine) which posits that visible disorder in communities--broken windows on empty buildings, abandoned buildings and cars, litter etc.--left unaddressed communicates that it's okay to commit crime.  Addressing this is both a police issue and a community investment issue.  

He didn't ever come across the theory of social urbanism, but that's a good approach to implementation of the ideas of community investment ("Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021) also different ways of serving the community ("Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership," 2014).

In his second autobiography, The Profession: A Memoir of Policing in America, Bratton discusses interviewing for the New York Transit police chief job (which was the stepping stone to commissioner).  He was taken on a tour of the subway system by David Gunn, the president.  

Gunn showed him the disorder in the stations, and said "we can fix the trains and improve service but if this is the way people come into and enter the system, they'll never come back and ride the trains" (paraphrase).

Famously, this environment was addressed by Gunn and Bratton and the subway system was revitalized ("Bill Bratton Explains His Ideas of Good Policing," New York Times).  From the review:

Bratton took over the city’s transit police in 1990, at a time when the transit system was at a low point. Crime was rampant on the subways; the cars were covered with graffiti; riders were sneaking through turnstiles. Bratton implemented a strategy of “quality of life” policing, derived in large part from the “broken windows” theory advanced by the social scientists George Kelling and James Q. Wilson. Controlling minor offenses, they argued, restored a sense of security, and identified petty criminals likely to graduate to more serious crimes. The strategy seemed to work better than even Bratton could have predicted. In less than two years, robberies on the transit network were down 40 percent and crime as a whole was down 22 percent. It was such a striking — and unexpected — success that when the job of New York police commissioner opened up in 1994, when Bratton was back in Boston, there really was no other logical choice for it.

But thinking about this later, I think Bratton's policing approach on NYC Transit is the only example of actual implementation of a Broken Windows approach of investment in the facilities and service improvements--which are the facilities that present the potential for disorder in a transit system--and enhanced policing in the stations.

When Bratton became police commissioner they didn't do Broken Windows, they did "Data Oriented Policing" now he calls this Precision Policing, focused on addressing crime and the use of police time based on geodemographic analysis of crime data within precincts.

Later he was fired because Mayor Guiliani didn't like how much attention that Bratton got by the press and public, and the policing strategy changed from data based to what is called Zero Tolerance Policing, which could be pretty oppressive and didn't engage the community.  As crime dropped and police needed things to do, this was implemented in communities of color as "stop and frisk" which was later found unconstitutional.

Other police departments implemented forms of data based policing but mostly zero tolerance.  The alternative approaches community policing or problem-oriented policing--a mix of Broken Windows and precision policing--were pretty much ignored.

The state of transit safety today.  The media is full of reports of serious safety problems on transit networks--murders, assaults, and other terrible crimes.  Drug use--a few days ago BART had three overdose deaths on the system in one day.  And other problems like homelessness, panhandling, mental health issues, etc.

Crime increased during covid, although it is trending down.  But commensurate with the decline in transit use--the big systems have about 50% of the ridership they had pre-covid--there are fewer "eyes on the street" and a lot more problems reducing the likelihood of people returning to transit.

This was accentuated by the pre-covid social justice movement which led to some cities like DC and NYC decriminalizing fare evasion.

At the time many transit advocates including myself were opposed, because of the sense that it would denigrate a sense of responsibility towards the public good of transit.  Plus the findings during Bratton's time that fare beaters often committed other crimes on the system.

I read a lot of posts and comments on social media about transit system safety, and online media ("Metro gets earful from callers about safety, service, homeless on buses, trains," "Metro riders speak out about crime, drug use and homeless on transit system," "Survey says: Fewer females ride LA Metro buses and trains, many citing safety and harassment," Los Angeles Daily News).  

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 31: BART Crisis Intervention Specialists Ontreal Wiltz, left, and Morey Deundra Moore, center, talk with a man at the Fruitvale Station on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, in Oakland, Calif. The BART transit agency is venturing into the area of homeless services to deal with an ever worsening homelessness crisis on trains, and in stations. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)

Some systems have responded with ambassadors as opposed to more police, which are more costly ("LA Metro’s ‘Transit Ambassadors’ offer alternative to armed officers," Los Angeles Daily News).  Many systems are adding fare-focused ambassadors ("Sound Transit fare ambassadors are checking if you paid, but nicely," Seattle Times).

Most systems have personnel devoted to address homeless issues, including social workers.  BART recently hired a couple dozen more people to work on this ("A transit agency is taking on the Bay Area homelessness crisis," San Jose Mercury News), transit ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists.

Safety on transit definitely is top of mind for many potential riders, especially those people predisposed against mass transit--hence the rise of ride hailing (Uber, Lyft) which on a per trip basis is much more expensive, but more convenient as it usually is a point to point trip.

Hardening fare turnstiles.  In response to the decriminalization, severe loss of revenue, and crime on the system, major subway systems like NYC and DC are installing new types of fare gates which make turnstile jumping more difficult.

St. Louis is enclosing its light rail stations making them controlled access to rebuild confidence in the system.  Light rail systems are known for mostly having open platforms.  Unlike subway stations, where you have to pay before you can enter, on light rail it's more the honor system, with open access.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a series on how to improve public safety on the light rail network in Greater Minneapolis:

-- "Systemic insecurity: Saving Twin Cities light rail"
-- "The safety-first effort in St. Louis: 'We had a problem to solve'"
-- "Light rail in the Twin Cities: We have a problem to solve"
-- "Eight recommendations for Twin Cities light rail"

In response the St. Louis Metrolink system commissioned a Metro Security Assessment and Strategy study.  The final report listed 99 improvement recommendations, in four categories: technology improvements; security staffing; procedures and training; and fare enforcement.  Right now more safety personnel visible on trains and other changes have been implemented, and they are implementing creating restricted access platforms

From the St. Louis article (paragraphs reordered):

... Every aspect of operations was reexamined with an eye toward keeping passengers safe. Then, because Roach felt more was needed to rebuild trust in the system, he resurrected an earlier proposal to physically secure the platforms. By spring 2024, the first four stations should be complete.

--- Metro St. Louis Secure Platform Program 

The light-rail system in the St. Louis area is second only to that in the Twin Cities area as the largest in the Midwest, with two lines and 38 stations that span two states. Like the Twin Cities, St. Louis also faced issues with rising crime and declining ridership that predated the pandemic. 

After a series of violent crimes, leaders here took decisive action starting in 2018. They zeroed in on one element above all else: rider safety. The overhaul that followed changed the city's entire approach, with a single-minded, unapologetic, safety-first mindset that has resulted in a far more visible security presence, from police and other staff on trains to better use of technology. 

The final phase is in progress now: a potentially groundbreaking conversion from the open "honor" system, like the one used in the Twin Cities, to one in which gates and fences ensure that only paid passengers have access to platforms and trains. The $52 million project includes a rarity in transit: a public/private partnership in which major downtown corporations are putting up $10 million to help fund the conversion.

... Roach touched on a point that should resonate with Minnesotans. "As we looked through the arc of what we needed to accomplish, it was confidence in the system," he said. "This is a publicly supported system, so I need folks even out in the suburbs, who may not ever take light rail, to still understand it has value. Like any Midwestern community, they want to know that it's fair and that it's safe. We decided if we could make a bold step like [secured platforms], we could really change the reality and perception of this system." The system, he said, is one in which "the public has invested millions. And they were asking us to rethink public safety."

The Star-Tribune recommends that Minneapolis go to a restricted access system for the light rail system.  According to surveys, Minneapolis Metro residents want improvements in public safety and fare enforcement.  And Minneapolis Metro has installed thousands of cameras in facilities and on trains, has a homeless intervention program, and transit ambassadors to add more eyes on the street in the system.

From "Eight recommendations for Twin Cities light rail":

• Adopt a single-minded focus on passenger safety
• Reject a piecemeal approach to safety issues
• Enclose stations as both a symbol and a strategy
• Rely on professionals to bolster security
• Step up fare compliance efforts
• Take a different approach to homelessness
• Adopt and publicize a new code of conduct that clearly and concisely spells out passenger behavior standards and consequences for violators
• Provide the public with a better online dashboard.

That's a pretty good agenda, basically it's a "Fixing Broken Windows" approach.  Also see "Criminology and the Fundamental Attribution Error," a speech by Ronald Clarke on the acceptance of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology (2015).

One that WMATA ought to pay attention to as well.

Other options.  Maybe not every station needs to be access controlled.  Thinking about it, I'd create a typology of stations based on crime statistics.  Maybe every station doesn't need restricted access, but certain stations, especially in the center city, do.

A tent city in front of Washington's Union Station last year before the National Park Service cleared the homeless encampment. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Addressing homelessness.  And the Post has an interesting article about how Amtrak at DC's Union Station has contracted with nonprofit organizations to work with homeless in the station catchment area on moving to permanent housing, getting necessary services, etc. ("Can we solve homelessness? A program at Union Station is a huge step").  

Note that I used to think this kind of program was innovative, but now I think of it as an indicator of system failure in terms of addressing the homelessness issue.  When libraries, parks, and transit systems are spending millions of dollars addressing the ramifications of homelessness on their facilities, it demonstrates an offloading of the problem to other agencies.

Conclusion.  For public agencies that are customer facing every moment they operate, perhaps transit systems are the most likely to execute true Broken Windows policing strategies.  When implemented such approaches see results.  Which ought to be a lesson to police departments and elected officials deal with policing and problems and disorder in their communities.

DC as a case study in the debate over investments in place over investments in people and the recent mass shooting

This piece is sparked by the recent mass shooting in Southeast DC a couple days ago, where as many as four people shot into a large crowd of people at a community barbecue, shooting at least 20 people and killing one ("Shootings in District surge as officials confront mass shooting that killed 1, wounded 21 at block party" and "After a mass shooting at a block party, community leaders are left reeling, seething and pleading," Washington Post).

---

In Muriel Bowser's first campaign for Mayor, in the Fall of 2013 I had a long talk with one of her campaign staff about what I called "creating a Marshall Plan for East of the River," a social urbanism program for the city's two poorest wards (but should also be extended to parts of Wards 1 and 5).

I proposed that a new Deputy Mayor for East of the River be created to oversee such a program.

I never heard from them again, but later I read an article in the New York Times about her proposal for a "Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity," which was her transmogrification of my concept.

The difference between my idea and what she implemented is investments in place versus investments in people ("human capital")--the Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity position mostly focused on worker training and readiness programming.

While at the time I hadn't developed the concept in detail, these writings capture the thinking behind it:

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Social urbanism and Baltimore," 2019
-- "Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda," 2015
-- proposal for an Ivy City Village Community Development Corporation, 2005
-- ",Lessons from Culture-based revitalization efforts in the European Union" Europe in Baltimore blog, 2014
-- "In lower income neighborhoods, are businesses supposed to be "community organizations" first?," 2012

What I was proposing was wide ranging investments and innovation and transformation in civic assets and programs in those communities, with the intent that the programs and facilities--what Klinenberg in Palaces for the People calls "social infrastructure"--would improve people's lives and their communities, including:

• schools ("Schools #2: Successful school programs in low income communities and the failure of DC to respond similarly")
• libraries ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets")
• parks and recreation ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building," "Sounds familiar to me: recommendations from a guy who visited every park in Boston)
• addressing crime ("Crime time re-revisited: a set of programs focused on reducing crime," "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," and "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do")
• transforming the health care system ("More communities need to integrate health care and public health programming")
• housing ("Revisiting the need for 'Tower Renewal' programs")
• transit ("Will buses ever be cool? Boston versus the Raleigh-Durham's GoTransit Model")
• sustainable mobility ("Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs") 
• workforce development ("One potential solution to the problem of "finding work" for homeless adults," cooperative high school, Tower Hamlets Idea Stores linking libraries and workforce development training, a community college branch in Southeast, social enterprise development, etc.)
• economic development ("Creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus," "Wanted: A comprehensive plan for the "Anacostia River East" corridor," "DC has a big "Garden Festival" opportunity in the Anacostia River")
• entrepreneurship and retail business development
• etc.

This is a big debate in urban economics.  Do you invest in people or places. Cities are fixed, they can't go anywhere. People are mobile.

-- City Success: Theories of Urban Prosperity, CEOs for Cities

So it's in the interest of cities to invest in place, to increase retention of residents and businesses, to spark and attract new businesses and residents, to increase property values, and property and sales taxes, to pay for the programs and quality of life that people want.

If you invest in people that supports the knowledge economy, which is what post-industrial capitalism is all about.  But people can leave.  (E.g., one of the downsides about a "nationally-focused" state university like the University of Michigan or the University of California-Berkeley is that many of the students do not stay in the state, and the state's investment in the university is wasted on those students who leave).


A lease sign on a vacant business property on Martin Luther King Avenue in Anacostia (2007), 

But if your "place" is severely deficient--wracked by crime, poor schools, poor health outcomes, deteriorated living conditions, poor mobility and access, etc.--do investments in people matter?

This is an especial issue of equity, as major center cities have proven that they can succeed as bifurcated places of both wealth and poverty ("'Two cities' collide as Chicago's social time bomb explodes," Guardian).

But success for some comes at the failure for others, and is costly socially, politically, economically, and morally.

Sure you're spending money on education, but a lot of K-12 reform efforts, especially DC's ("Fawning coverage of DC school "reform" doesn't push better practice forward") tend to be flawed and don't have great outcomes.

I've applied the Herzberg Motivation-Hygiene Theory to this, at least conceptually. Herzberg argued that in the workplace there are different factors concerning job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. That it isn't a continuum from dissatisfaction to satisfaction.

My take for cities is that you need to have great places to set the stage to best realize investments in human capital.

Like how what fuels dissatisfaction is separate from what fuels satisfaction, focusing investments on human capital while blowing off place conditions mean that your investments go for nought.

I think that's likely when it comes to the "Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity."

When I had my Marshall Plan idea, it was engendered by my grand jury duty experience, and being aware of various poverty interdiction efforts in cities like Charlotte-Mecklenberg, Dallas ("Grow South"), Richmond, Virginia, and Toronto, social urbanism programs in Bogota but especially Medellin, and various innovative program delivery models in North America and Europe, the kind of stuff I've been writing about in the blog since the beginning.

Mayor Bowser's focus was jobs, jobs, jobs.  She always talked about jobs as "the gateway to the middle class," figuring that if people are employed that goes a long way towards addressing other problems. While that is true in many cases, when you're dealing with multi-generational poverty, usually it's not that simple.

Conclusion.  It's not that DC hasn't been or recently committed spending billions of dollars on civic assets like new or refurbished schools, libraries, and hospitals.  But for the most part the spending isn't particularly organized, integrated, coordinated, inspired and visionary, or transformational.

Granted, things are tough.  Addressing multi-generational poverty is difficult even in the best of times and takes a lot of money and time.

But I'd say the focus on worker training and "greater economic opportunity" hasn't moved the needle much in terms of community and human capital improvements in DC's most impoverished areas.

And these areas and households aren't particularly economically resilient when economic conditions change significantly, as they have as a result of the pandemic.  Hence, in pandemic times, we are seeing more shootings, more murders, continued poverty.

Place investments and not just "any old investment" but the right kind of investments are key.

Oklahoma City as a contrast.  Note that this is the fundamental lesson in Oklahoma City, which led to their capital investment program called "Metropolitan Area Projects," which former Mayor Mick Cornett (A Republican!) wrote about in his book The Next American City.

That to invest in (and attract) people a/k/a "human capital" you had to invest in place.

OKC kept trying to recruit big businesses to the city, offering great incentives packages, but they kept getting rejected. 

After many months of badgering one of the companies that turned them down told them why.  They said that the Downtown had no liveliness, no activity, the schools were bad, etc., that their executives couldn't imagine wanting to live there.

It took 6 years from that point to develop the program that became MAPS, and more than 10 years before the first projects started to come to fruition, but through four phases, they've made incredible investments in the community, from streetcars, an arena, improved canal, Canal District, and riverfront, a water sports complex, rebuilding of every school in the main inner city school district, etc.

They're making Oklahoma City a place that businesses want to locate and people want to live.

(OKC's Metropolitan Area Projects capital improvement program is an example of what I call Transformational Projects Action Planning.)

The cost of austerity: measurable decline in life expectancy in the UK

Given the state of human and social services in both the UK and the US, it should be no surprise that among peer "first world" nations, both the US and the UK have the worst life expectancies when it comes to low income households.

The Guardian reports ("Austerity blamed for life expectancy stalling for first time in century") that an analysis of the impact of cuts to social and health programs in UK over the past ten years has found a measurable reduction in life expectancy, although it reflects mortality increases amongst the poor, who have borne the brunt of cuts to social care, health care, housing, and social services.

Reconfiguration of the welfare benefit program has been a disaster too ("The misery, despair and pain of universal credit," Guardian), leading to a number of deaths as people get cut off services.

And this is more "a feature not a bug" in the way the services have been set up to fail. The government argues instead that deaths from flu and other circumstances led to the decline.

Basically the decline in life expectancy tracks with the increase in poverty.

Brilliant piece in Bethesda Magazine on a Title I elementary school

In the face of recent reporting about improprieties in graduation results for DC public schools, proof pretty much that DC's so-called educational reform project has failed, at least as it relates to low income African-American students (also see writings in Guy Bradenburg's blog--he is a retired DCPS math teacher), I happened to come across the November/December issue of Bethesda Magazine, the "lifestyle magazine" (comparable to Washingtonian for DC) for Montgomery County, Maryland, which has a very long article ("Hope Lives Here") about Daly Elementary School in Gaithersburg.

For years I argued that DC's school reforms were misguided, that we ought to be considering and following the best practices in nearby Montgomery and Arlington Counties (and elsewhere, "Powerful story of how Bristol Virginia elementary school deals with extremely impoverished students," 2015 blog entry).

Montgomery County is known for acknowledging learning gaps between students of color/low income students and white/higher income students, and providing additional resources to those schools, which include more support and teaching staff, six weeks of additional learning activities in summers, and other supports.

Like Montgomery County, DC has parent/family liaisons ("Fawning coverage of DC school "reform" doesn't push better practice forward") but it is only recently--last year--that the city has begun to add summer schooling for Title I schools, and it is not widespread.  The first year had 11 schools, and this year two more schools have been added (but 15 programs if you double count schools with elementary and middle school aged students).

The lengths the principal, teachers, and support personnel go to at Daly Elementary is quite impressive and communicate how difficult the challenge is to ameliorate the impact of multi-generational poverty on educational attainment.

I talked about the article with someone who works for DCPS and also worked for a time in Montgomery County and they said:

1.  DC has more resources, but how the resources are used is different

2.  DC is much more bureaucratic, whereas what happens in Montgomery County is much more human centered--there the principals and teachers have the power to act, while in DC it's more about test scores and following the rules, that the likelihood of conversations even happening in DC at the school or administrative level the way they are recounted in the Bethesda Magazine story is infinitesimal.

For example one example is how the Daly School principal realized that for many students they can only count on eating enough food when they eat breakfast and lunch at school, so she opens the school up for meal service even on "snow days."

The person I talked to couldn't fathom how to bring such a practice about in DCPS, figures it doesn't even cross people's minds--although DC has a summer feeding program for children for exactly this reason.

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This gets back to something that has always bothered me about the lionization of former DCPS chancellor Michelle Rhee. 

When she would say stuff and teachers would counter, "but the students are poor;" Rhee would be dismissive and pejorative, saying "you're saying the students can't learn," when the teachers were trying to say "given the levels of poverty we need more and better resources."

Rhee never acknowledged that what tends to separate successful charter schools from other charter schools and public schools is additional resources, supports, and instruction time.

Instead, the predominate response was more tests, more instruction time devoted to taking tests, and more pressure to diddle with test results and whether or not students passed classes and proceeded to graduate.

It is damning that it was USA Today, not the Washington Post, which broke the story about significant test score cheating in DC elementary schools during the Rhee years:

• When test scores seem too good to believe
• For teachers, many ways and reasons to cheat on tests
• When test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?

Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center

One of the reasons I've been blogging way less of late is dealing with a family health care emergency, which has introduced me to the current state of hospital and nursing home/rehabilitation care practice.

It had been years since I've been to a hospital and I had no clue to how much health care has changed--e.g., bringing the x-ray machine to the patient instead of taking the patient to the "Radiology Department" or the way ICUs are set up, the state of hospital food service is nothing like it was, etc.

Similarly, the nursing home we utilized for short term rehab was old but super well maintained--it didn't have that "institutional smell" you expect from such facilities, and came with engaged staff, excellent food, etc. and the Medicare comparison website listing all the various facilities was useful, and helped us make what we believe was the right choice of a facility in DC as opposed to the Maryland facilities that Maryland-based Holy Cross Hospital was trying to steer us to.

So reading the story ("‘I can’t breathe!’ A nursing home patient called for help: His nurse left him on the floor") in the Washington Post a couple days ago about the death of a patient in the nursing home section of DC's United Medical Center was completely shocking as it described a charge nurse not addressing the needs for more than 20 minutes of a patient who had fallen out of bed in her presence.

There is no way that Warren Webb would have been so neglected at Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in DC's Mount Pleasant neighborhood or Holy Cross Hospital in Montgomery County, Maryland, the two institutions I've spent a fair amount of time in over the past weeks.

In those facilities such an avoidable death is unimaginable.

But it didn't surprise me about UMC, because of how things can work in the 'hood, regardless of people being trained.

Somehow, "streetwise culture" becomes the norm instead of professionalism. (This isn't a problem only in DC. It was a huge problem in Los Angeles County too, see the Los Angeles Times investigative series, "The Troubles at King/Drew.")

The problems appear to be deep-rooted and structural.

Granted a hospital serving predominately low income patients has financial issues, and I have written about the issues at UMC and Prince George's Hospital Center for years:

-- "Area health care planning," 2011
-- "Revisiting an example of a real need for regional planning: hospital and wellness services," 2012
-- "When the problem is defects in the structure of "the market", financial incentives won't do much good: Maryland's health enterprise zones," 2013

While PGHC is going through a transformation and the construction of a new facility in Largo will lead to the system being absorbed into the University of Maryland Medical System, UMC doesn't appear to be showing substantive signs of improvement.

Various management entities have come and gone and the current group assigned management control of the hospital, which is now owned by DC, seems to be floundering, although Howard University Hospital, which hired a different management group ("Howard University strikes deal with hospital turnaround partner," Washington Business Journal), seems to be stabilizing.

The group running UMC, Veritas, is getting high fees, is associated with political donors to Mayor Bowser, and in the Spring, the hospital was forced to close its obstetrics section ("D.C. shuts down obstetrics ward at United Medical Center" Post). The latest story about the death of and the failure to substantively investigate is only the latest problem.  DC City Council has had hearings on the "current problems," but the financial and care problems with the hospital go back for more than one decade.

Transforming health care access East of the River

The problems of health care East of the River and in Prince George's County derive from the same issue, poverty, lack of insurance, extranormal demands, etc., and it is unfortunate that the border between DC and Maryland prevents creating a unified solution.

I'd prefer that UMC become joined with Howard University Hospital, even though the Howard system is not much better financially, at least it's associated with a medical and dental school.

Although UMC just signed a contract with a George Washington University hospital affiliated medical practice to run the emergency services.

Ideally, out of the city's two weakest hospitals we could build a stronger system, reduce back office costs, do a better job with billing, etc.

But also, it would be an opportunity to reconfigure health care in a way that focuses on health promotion rather than only triage.

In past entries I've mentioned the integrated health care and public health system in Denver ("Denver Health Becomes Profitable After Using Toyota as a Template: Lean manufacturing has made Denver Health a model for public health care" and "Mile-High Health Reform," Governing Magazine) and the proposed rebuilding of St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago into a multi-faceted center with community recreation and health facilities beyond hospital functions, a project called FocalPoint.

-- Creating Community-Centric Hospitals in Lower Socio-Economic Areas: A Study in Chicago's Near Southwest Side, Summary of Research

-- Chicago Tribune article "Chicago safety-net hospitals face uncertain future amid changes to health care system: Area has 20 safety-net hospitals, which are a stop-gap medical system for the poor":

St. Anthony embarked on its turnaround after assessing the needs of its community and tailoring its services to match. It now functions as a de facto community hub, teaching language classes and hosting courses for people studying to take high-school equivalency tests. It also added health services like dialysis and occupational health and expanded its infusion, pediatric and maternal centers.

"If you're doing what the community needs, you become very valuable to them," Medaglia said. "And to continue to serve them, you really have to think out of the box. You have to think:  What can we do that's different, that can service this community at a lower cost and higher quality?"

St. Anthony is pushing forward with plans to build a 1 million-square-foot commercial development at 31st Street and Kedzie Avenue anchored by a 100-bed replacement hospital. The $430 million Focal Point development is slated to be built on 11 acres acquired from the city for $1 by a nonprofit affiliated with St. Anthony. The complex is set to include two schools, retail stores, a child-care center, an indoor recreation facility and an athletic field.

But I just learned about a "community clinic" being created in Baltimore by the Bon Secours Health System and Kaiser Permanente ("Kaiser, Bon Secours join forces on plan to improve health through economic opportunity," Baltimore Sun). From the article:

The initiative comes as hospitals are learning they need to do more than treat patients' medical conditions, but also help address social issues, such as transportation and poverty, that may prevent people from going to the doctor.

"It is not enough to provide excellent health care," said Celeste James, Kaiser's director of community health initiatives. "People need their basic needs met around economic stability to really focus on health."

Bon Secours' Baltimore hospital already provides many of the services that will be offered at the new resource center through a program it runs called Community Works. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Kaiser officials thought partnering with a hospital with roots in the community would be more beneficial.

The partnership with Kaiser will allow Bon Secours to expand its offerings, which include job training and a transition program for people being released from incarceration. The two health systems will work together on programming.

Most of the patients that frequent Bon Secours come through the emergency room, said CEO Dr. Samuel Ross. Many live in poverty and have untreated chronic conditions that could be better controlled with preventive care. ...

The resource center will also offer mental health services. The health systems will partner with community groups such as Roberta's House, which provides grief counseling to those who have lost loved ones to violence.

Kaiser hopes the resource center and partnership last as long as a similar project in Los Angeles. The health system opened a counseling and learning center there shortly after the Watts riots 50 years ago. The center started in a small room with three employees and is now located in a 9,000-square-foot facility and employs 30 therapists, teachers, counselors and other workers.

As part of the partnership, Kaiser and Bon Secours plan to help support the creation and growth of 10 businesses in the community. The health systems also hope to attract more partners to embark on larger economic development projects and reduce the area's unemployment rate in the future.

It's not a hospital but a support program, to be delivered in a shuttered library building.

It looks to be offering the kind of programming that would make sense as part of the St. Anthony Hospital project in Chicago, and could be developed as part of a new United Medical Center in Southeast Washington, DC.

UMC needs transformation.  And in general, DC government doesn't appear to be positioned to be able to bring about that kind of substantive change.

DC Public Safety Survey/Search for a new Police Chief

DC has launched a public safety survey as part of the process of selecting a new police chief. Some of the questions are poorly written but overall it's an ok survey. Here are some of my responses for qualitative questions.

About the police department's effectiveness

The survey question is poorly written, as you don't give a neutral option. I'd say that the dept. is reasonably effective, but could be a lot better, were it to have a more structural approach to addressing crime in particularly hard-hit areas. Examples would be the Community Safety Partnership in LA, which is discussed here or better approaches to dealing with people with mental health issues.

What should the department focus on?

DC's police department has more police per capita than any other city police dept. in the US, and that doesn't include the other forces present in the city (Housing Police, Park Police, Capitol Police, Uniformed Secret Service, etc.).

I worry about the constant call for more police officers when MPD has so many more police officers compared to other cities. One question you aren't asking is "better use of police officer time."

Plus, there is a big difference between "zero tolerance policing" and "broken windows policing." It's not clear from these questions that you know the difference. There is also a difference between "increasing the size of the police force" and "maintaining the size of the police force" and using the time better by sworn police officers.

What professional experience should the city be looking for in a police chief?

DC government is not known for innovation. This is true for the police dept. too. I'd like to see a police chief with a sense and inclination for innovation, e.g., programs like the Community Safety Partnership in LA, the way that the Fullerton Police Department in California has completely reformulated in response to a beating death of a homeless man by police officers, the way the High Point, NC police dept. deals with domestic abuse, the way that Boston dealt with monitoring of people on probation, ("Problem-solving probation" and "On probation, at a turning point," Boston Globe), the need for more structured approaches to CPTED and pattern crime, the connected approach of Chris Magnus, now chief in Tucson, formerly of Richmond, CA; the approaches by police departments to mental health matters in San Antonio, and Boston, etc.

Other thoughts on the police chief search

Besides what is mentioned above, I am an urban planner. There isn't a "plan" or "master plan" for the police dept. It would have been useful to create one in advance of selecting a new chief. See "State of Tennessee public safety plan as a way forward to link #BlackLivesMatters agenda with crime dampening" and "Seattle Police Department master plan is quite impressive."

The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do

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Substantively revised on points 1-4 from the original.
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Overarching general agenda (items 1-4)
The necessity of data and master planning

Providing long term approaches will reduce crime in a more structural and structured manner compared to the results of short term responses, other than short term responses likely catching the least adept of the current cohort of active criminals (for example, "Two men sought in rash of D.C. armed robberies"  and "In DC's homicide spike, a new trend: Some involve past violent offenders,"Post--although I don't see how this particular pattern in homicides is "new") being apprehended and imprisoned.

Usually what is going on when crime spikes upward is that a "new" group of active crime perpetrators commits a bunch of (pattern) crimes, the police recognize the pattern, and eventually the criminals are apprehended, and in response, the crime rate drops.  It's a recurring, and at least to me, common cycle.

What to do long term.  Being introduced to the work of Ronald Clarke and others makes me realize that even if crime spikes tend to be recurring and eventually suppressed, more systematic and structural approaches can have substantive long term positive impact on crime reduction.

In "Crime time re-revisited: a set of programs focused on reducing crime" I listed nine items.  That is the basis of this expanded list.

1.  In the longest term sense, there should be a "Marshall Plan" approach to interdicting poverty in those areas of the city with persistent poverty and unemployment.  I've been meaning to write a position paper on this, and I'll get around to it sometime.  The point is to provide a rich network of civic assets and resources, not unlike the Settlement House programs dating back to the 1890s and the Progressive Movement.

My sense is that, at least in DC, we are spending billions of dollars each year -- on police, fire and emergency services, criminal justice, jails and prisons, schools, health care, welfare, etc. -- just to keep people roughly in the same place.  We need to upend how we use public resources to generate the kinds of preferred outcomes that we say we want but aren't getting.

In "State of Tennessee public safety plan as a way forward to link #BlackLivesMatters agenda with crime dampening" I wrote:

One of the problems that many people ascribe to the #BlackLivesMatter agenda is a kind of "nullification" as it relates to crime ("Black Lives Matter should also take on 'black-on-black crime," Washington Post).  To an outsider, it appears as if there is a kind of preconceived notion within the movement that anything "the government" does concerning crime and public safety is anti-Black and moreover, unjustified.

While I can see why many people would have strong reason to believe that, it is in fact a stretch or overstatement.  There is no question that the current paradigm isn't working ("Police misconduct and grand juries: a separate prosecution and grand jury system is necessary" "How police departments become corrupt," and "Police officers aren't always the best placemakers").

But at the same time there is no question that there is crime and it disproportionately impacts low income communities and people of color.

I believe that communities need a strong agenda for dealing with crime while recognizing that the public safety agenda is often built on a racist foundation, and much more resources need to be put towards community improvement, simultaneous with and not subservient to "order maintenance."

2.  I do agree that there is a need to have better data on crime and prosecution ("Activist Sues DOJ for Crime Stats in Capitol Hill Neighborhood," NBC4) for the entire city and that ideally, DC would control criminal prosecution of local crimes rather than the federal government doing so as it does currently.

But at this time, I don't think that the city's new Attorney General is adequately focused on building the capacity of the agency to justify doing so.

3.  To move the city forward in this policy area, we need to create a city "criminal justice" master plan that would mediate between all the various stakeholders within the current system.

4.  And we need to create a public and comprehensive DC policing master plan, since DC has so many police agencies including Metropolitan Police Department, US Capitol Police, US Park Police, DC Protective Service, Federal Protective Service, Uniformed Secret Service, Metro Transit Police, DC Housing Authority Police, etc. Plus the issue of cross-border crime between DC and Prince George's County ("Prince George's, D.C. police use new map tech to track border crime," Washington Post). Dealing with terrorism, etc.

It would also clarify between the citizens and the various agencies, including but not limited to the MPD, the city's primary police agency and under the control of the local government, an understanding of the responsibilities and duties of each.  The way it works now, DC citizens have virtually no input on many of the agencies with policing authority in the city.

WMATA's Transit Police definitely need to be included, both ways, in terms of providing peace of mind to people riding transit and the recent rise in terrible crimes (murder and assault) on the system, mostly in DC, but not limited to it.  (The Park Police and Transit Police have authority in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, while the other agencies have more limited powers and authority.)

Years ago, I called positive attention to the Seattle policing master plan ("Seattle Police Department master plan is quite impressive") but charlie pointed out it didn't say much about how to reduce crime. And clearly it wasn't enough to keep former Mayor Greg Nickels in office ("2013's #5 Most-Read: Seattle's dirty little secret of downtown safety," Crosscut).

Specific policing and programming agenda (edited, reordered, expanded)


5.  The city and the police department need more focused crime interdiction programs for places with persistent problems.  See "Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex."

6.  And focused crime suppression programs related to crimes of violence such as intimate partner violence, murder, gangs, etc.  This would include more general monitoring of ex-offenders, along the lines of programs like those once successful in Boston.  See "Straight Outta Boston" from Mother Jones Magazine.  And this particular element of Mayor Bowser's public safety agenda was vociferously opposed by activists.

7.  Instead of "All Hands on Deck" events DC needs to launch its own version of Los Angeles' Community Safety Partnership, which embeds police officers and implements community programs in various public housing developments in the Watts community.

Apparently, Albany, New York has a similar program, called Neighborhood Engagement Units ("Back on the beat," Metroland).

-- past blog entry, "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership""
-- Pathway to Change: African Americans and Community Policing in Albany, Center for Law and Justice

8.  Provide specific programming for the mentally ill rather than expect police to be first responders.  Many of the people caught up in the criminal justice system have mental health problems.  I was surprised to see that Los Angeles is creating a special jail unit to deal specifically with inmates with mental health issues ("LA County to relocate some inmates, build jail to treat the mentally ill," Los Angeles Times.  Police officers are put in a terrible position of being the default responders for mental health problems.

This guy in New York City (image at right), who repeatedly urinates in public ("20 years of cleaning up NYC pissed away," New York Post), is an example of someone with serious mental health issues.

Arresting and incarcerating him doesn't address his underlying problems and won't cure him.

At the same time I don't think this is a "quality of life" crime that should be ignored.

9.  Address somehow the scourge of drugs, such as synthetic drugs which are causing major problems in many cities across the country not just DC ("Man charged with killing pedestrian took drugs before hijacking bus," WTOP).

10.  Stop the revolving door of criminals getting released time after time, as the violence of their acts escalates, until they are stopped once they commit an ur crime of violence and the door is closed ("How an accused rapist kept getting second chances from the D.C. criminal justice system," Washington Post).

11.  But this also requires way better support and interdiction systems so that perpetrators stop escalating their criminal activity ("A boy is killed for 'absolutely no reason' while waiting for the Metro," Post).  Yes, programs for youth need to focus on rehabilitation ("We need to steer D.C.'s young people away from crime earlier," Post), but not everyone works well with the "soft approach."

12.  Awesome summer school programming for youth.  With regard to summer school programming, DC needs to consider:

- Year Round Schooling, so that there aren't such long breaks in the summer
- and/or Enhanced, Enrichmment-Focused Summer School programs -- they have to be great, not just more traditional lecture-based instruction.

13.  And create year-round cooperative high school education programs that could include externships and income for high school aged youth.  This is complementary to the next recommendation.

14.  Besides a bottom to top review and revamp ("Can a troubled summer jobs program give D.C. the results it wants?," "D.C.'s summer job program starts — and the heat is on Bowser" and "D.C.'s Summer Youth Employment Program," Washington Post), the city's Summer Youth Employment Program, especially because many of the participants are post-high school age, could be extended to an all-year program, comparable to the Federal Government's Vista and comparable programs and other job development and workforce readiness programs.

That's probably a better strategy and more palatable than "paying criminals not to commit crimes" ("D.C. Crime Bill Would Pay People to Avoid Committing Crimes," New York Times), which is based on an interesting program in Richmond, California.

15.  And recreation centers, parks, and libraries in areas of greatest need should have more extensive program and be open for longer hours in the summer, say til 11pm.  Los Angeles ("Crime falls 40% in neighborhoods with Summer Night Lights program," Los Angeles Times, Greensboro, NC, and Muskegon, Michigan, among other places, have such programs.

From the Muskegon Chronicle article "Summer Evening Recreation Program at Muskegon High School gets young people off the streets":

“It was a lot of fun last year and we expect more this year,” Adkins said of a program that drew on average 400 youth on any given night. “We encourage parents to come with their younger children. This is for anyone in the Muskegon area, not just the city or Muskegon school district.”

There are also "midnight basketball leagues."

-- Parks After Dark: Preventing Violence While Promoting Healthy, Active Living report, LA County Department of Parks and Recreation
--The Real Deal:The Evolution of Seattle, Washington’s At-Risk Youth Program
-- "Rethinking Sports-Based Community Crime Prevention: A Preliminary Analysis of the Relationship Between Midnight Basketball and Urban Crime Rates," Journal of Sport and Social Issues

16.  Plus, why do outdoor pools start closing in mid-August, shouldn't they stay open through September?