The whole policing thing is complicated these days over arguments about defunding versus creating a more expansive approach to public safety, and shifting some calls from police to other types of social resources.
The problem in the argument is that yes, police often do bad things--warrior policing is usually overkill, killing people in custody isn't good, there is structural racism in how policing is performed, which has extraordinarily negative consequences, and for many types of "social problems" police officers aren't necessarily the best initial responders.
But at the same time, there is crime and it needs to be suppressed, criminals need to be apprehended and punished, etc.
But too often, because some/many police do bad things, there is a kind of nullification concept, that "criminals" aren't really criminals because police do bad things. This is a specious argument.
Assaults, killings ("Man accused of killing father dining with family at Miami Beach café appears in court," WSVN-TV, "Tony Robinson Charged In Chicago Stabbing Death Of UMD Doctoral Candidate Anat Kimchi," WJZ-TV/CBS), robberies, burglaries, organized and notorious shoplifting ("San Francisco repeat offenders responsible for retail theft, police say," ABC/SF), hit and runs ("South Dakota Lawman Who Ran Over Man Cuts No-Jail Deal," Daily Beast), turnstile jumping ("Mayhem at Penn Station shows how far NYC has sunk," New York Post), etc. are bad, and the people who commit such crimes need to be apprehended and punished.
From the article on the killer of UMD PhD student Amit Kimchi:
As you can as well, there’s a homeless encampment that’s adjacent to where this crime scene is,” said Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown. “We suspect this likely is a homeless person that’s secreted himself in the bushes and came out and committed this heinous crime.”
In such an area with high pedestrian traffic, why aren't there more patrols, like what they're doing in Baltimore's downtown as discussed below.
As importantly, my experience living in DC in the late 1980s and 1990s when crime was particularly bad (although a friend says the 1970s were even worse, although the murder rate wasn't as high) reinforced to me the importance of order, that public safety was a key element in why people chose not to live in cities, and that there is a fine line between order and disorder and that when you let crime slide, it only gets worse.
Wrt the last point see the book The Future Once Happened Here and Moynihan's essay "Defining Deviance Down," subtitled "How We've Become Accustomed to Alarming Levels Of Crime and Destructive Behavior."
Noxious uses like rampant, visible drug use ("OD death toll mounts in Washington Square Park, including 3 last week," New York Post), homeless camps, tagging/graffiti, and misuse of public spaces and facilities ("The party is FINALLY over ... for now: NYC's Washington Square Park goes silent as DJ who hosted raucous parties that caused late-night chaos is arrested," Daily Mail versus "Welcome to Washington Square Park, Capital of Woke Bohemia," The Nation) are other signs of disorder that are difficult to live with for residents, and are feared by nonresidents as a sign that cities are out of control..
A big issue with crime and crime suppression is the use of police time. Speeches by Herman Goldstein, who coined the term "problem oriented policing" and Ronald Clarke, upon their acceptance of Stockholm Prize in Criminology, are well worth reading in thinking about how to better deal with crime.
Clarke opines that a lot of crime reduction has come about from initiatives by property and business owners, recognizing that it's better to take proactive steps to reduce the opportunity for crime, than to deal with the consequences afterwards.
In Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence, Professor Patrick Sharkey argues that among other factors, increased community involvement has led to a significant decrease in crime as well.
Baltimore. So I am not surprised that the Baltimore Downtown Partnership finds that more focused use of police officers in the Downtown area served by their business improvement district has resulted in less crime ("Downtown Partnership says crime has gone down after more patrols were added," WBFF-TV). More focus, more resources directed where they are needed ought to have positive outcomes.
From the article:
"How do we work together? How do we collaborate?" says Thomas Akras, chief of operations management for the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. "It's a partnership with the city of Baltimore. It’s a partnership with the sheriffs office, the U.S. Marshal’s, the University of Maryland Police Department, even the Capitol Police. What we do is we share our deployment scheme every single day with the Baltimore City Police Department."
Akras heads up the new security effort that’s been underway downtown since March. They’ve hired more law enforcement to patrol 106 blocks downtown, specifically Maryland State Police and Baltimore City Schools Police. "The Baltimore City School Police are specially trained to deal with young people, to de-escalate situations, to mediate situations," Akras says. They’re out 7 days a week. ...
"Our officers we have in the field are on the same radio system with the Baltimore City Police Department. They will engage and, if they are called for support, will help support the Baltimore City Police Department and enforcement. They act as an extra layer," he explains.
Six school police officers work Monday through Thursday. Eight are on duty Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. to midnight. On top that Maryland State Police are working as well, second jobs for them.
"On any given night, we have an additional 10 to 12 officers in the downtown area doing walking deployment, engaging with citizens, conducting business checks. This is on top of the private security force that we use, Wolf Security. They also do business checks and report and make observations," says Akras. "The results have been pretty impactful."
Most of the crimes happening are assaults and larcenies. Crime has gone down over the last few months. This summer, looking just at July for example, they’ve seen the lowest numbers in the last four years with 121 incidents.
The End of Policing. Is a great book that offers a lot of food for thought on rethinking how we respond to many types of social problems with police, that we've criminalized the problems, and what we're doing isn't working ("Towards a public safety model that is broader than policing" and "The opportunity to rearticulate public safety delivery keeps being presented").
Seattle study on police response and public safety. Seattle recently received the results of a study that found that as many as 50% of calls received by 911 could be resolved by other than a police response ("Report: Nearly half of 911 calls to Seattle police don't need officer response," Seattle Post-Intelligencer). The study, by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, classifies events in tiers:
- Tier 1 – Most likely can be handled by an unarmed/community response.
- Tier 2 – Can be handled by an unarmed/community response, with police resources co-dispatched nearby for safety.
- Tier 3 – Police resources are primary dispatch tasked with quickly ensuring the safety of the scene and then turning the response over to a community/unarmed co-responder.
- Tier 4 – Police are the primary responder
providing a framework for the creation of a broader "public safety" approach to crime and social problems beyond criminalization and a police-first response that may not be effective ("Seattle plans to add special response for some 911 calls that don’t need armed police," Seattle Times).
Community Safety Partnership concept. I've argued that the BID concept of more concerted public space management needs to be extended beyond commercial districts, to those areas that for whatever reason, need a similar increase in attention and public safety focus ("Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisances").
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