More with Less Policing

Stop me if you've hear this one before:

Higher unemployment will drive more people to seek an illegitimate income, and budget shortfalls will force cities and counties to cut back on police officers, or at least fail to hire enough new ones to cope with their growing populations.

This prediction, from The Economist's "World in 2009" review, suggests that a new policing strategy will necessarily surmount the resource-intensive "zero tolerance" model pioneered in NYC in the early Nineties and adopted in most big city police departments since. The article continues:

The approach that will come to prominence in 2009 is almost the exact opposite of zero tolerance. Rather than cracking down on petty offenders such as turnstile-jumpers and squeegee men, the authorities will focus on those who are most likely to kill or be killed. Some may be drug dealers recently released from prison. Others may be the associates of people recently wounded by gunfire. What makes the approach particularly novel is that it depends on local people. Rather than insisting on zero tolerance from the police, it tries to change what the residents of crime-infested areas will tolerate.

This approach, pioneered in Boston and refined in Chicago, aptly describes Seattle's own Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (YVPI). Seattle's plan focuses government resources on the 800 or so youth identified as likely to commit future acts of violence. The YVPI uses a "case management" model to capture the target population, offer them various kinds of support, and allow opportunities for their behavior to be monitored and measured.

The notion that it "depends on local people" is a debatable feature of Seattle's YVPI. Using community resources and guiding a community's expectations by involving them in crime fighting is supposed to be what makes this strategy cheap compared with "broken windows."

One aspect of the program, the use of "violence interrupters" ties it to Chicago's CeaseFire program and provides at least an shred of community involvement -- the community in this case being ex-con or former gang member (the interrupter) with enough street credibility to diffuse potential violence before it erupts.

The YVPI conspicuously lacks another of piece Chicago's CeaseFire program -- community "responses" at the scenes of all shootings. These aren't built into the Seattle program precisely because the City has not developed the capacity to mobilize the community.

Seattle City Councilman Burgess affirms the need for community involvement in a recent Op Ed without pointing to any institutional framework for community involvement:

Most important, the initiative recognizes that one of the most effective ways to prevent violence is for community members to engage directly with at-risk youth, to challenge norms tolerating violence, and to encourage young people to speak out when violence strikes.

Two points to make here:

1) City officials have gone out of their way to champion their Youth Violence Prevention Initiative as "community-led" and "community-driven," which it is not. It is a smart "technocratic" strategy that leverages existing bureaucracy and expertise. It is led by government administrators, and driven by law enforcement, education, juvenile justice, and social welfare professionals.

2) I doubt the CeaseFire-like aspects of the YVPI signal a titanic shift in Seattle from one model of policing to another, but they do highlight a police force stretched dangerously thin and, owing to a tight budget, apt to see hiring levels reduced sometime in the next year. I have high hopes that case management for 800 kids will result in fewer shootings in our neighborhoods, but I'm skeptical that it will effect residential burglaries in Seward Park or other parts of the city. Budget woes or no, Seattle can't skimp on police hiring.

Crime & Crime Prevention in the East Precinct

The Central District News reports that, according to the SPD, crime was down last month in the East Precinct. This is great news, as long as it's true. Past "errors" concerning crime statistics for the South Precinct make it clear that great news about crime in high crime neighborhoods should be met with some skepticism.

In other ambiguously good news, though the City cut the East Precinct's Crime Prevention Coordinator position at exactly the worst time, given the gang wars in the Southeast and Central Districts, the Central District News reports that, between the Mayor's office and the SPD, there is some will to restore it.

Elected Officials & SE Seattle Leaders Need to Get Serious About Youth Violence Epidemic

On the occasion of his annual State of the City address, Mayor Greg Nickels was in our neighborhood spreading election year cheer about crime. A mile from the spot where, a week and a half before, gunmen had shot 19 bullets into the living room of a woman who was home alone watching television, he called the crime rate in Seattle “a cause for optimism.” These past months, the Mayor has rarely missed an opportunity to tout with satisfaction the historic lows in crime he’s presided over.

As euphoric as our public officials are about the low crime rate, when it comes to the youth violence problem in the Central and Southeast Districts, they are unusually circumspect, describing it in terms of “perception”. The gang war in our neighborhoods has been lumped together with issues like public urination under the rubric “perceptions of social disorder.”

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Proposed Statement on Neighborhood Youth Violence for Consideration by the SEDC

Here is what I will ask the Southeast District Council tonight:

Last week at a rally held in response to Tyrone Love's murder Mayor Nickels said that "we need to commit that it is the last time we see that happen in this neighborhood, in this community." But we know it probably will happen again in the Central District and in the Southeast District too, because nothing fundamental has changed.

We have to do more. It's going to take the best efforts of government, community groups, parents, and citizens together, offering mutual support and holding each other accountable to solve our youth violence problem

In order to start to come together as leaders around a problem we recognize as severe and escalating, to be watchful over the resources committed to our community, and to hold government accountable for the role it needs to play, I would like the SEDC to consider endorsing the following points:

• The youth violence problem in the South Precinct is severe and is getting worse
• The South Precinct is understaffed and should be staffed up to the level promised
• Mayor Nickels and the City Council should give the youth violence the attention it deserves

While these points, which the South Seattle Crime Prevention Council endorses, are not particularly specific or ambitious, they can serve as the basis for some consensus among community groups in the Southeast District.

The cycle of violence and retaliation is picking up pace, sucking more people into its logic, and inevitably touching citizens who have nothing to do with gangs. Something has to give.

At this moment, confronting gang violence and saving our children from harm should be the priority of southeast Seattle's community leadership, including the Southeast District Council.

I'm asking the SEDC to endorse these points as an organization, and for membership organizations to write letters to the Mayor and the City Council expressing their concern about youth violence in our community.