Cities think creatively to beat crime

Cities think creatively to beat crime
Combining high-tech, suppression successful
Mike Cruz, Staff Writer

When police in Chicago experienced an upsurge in homicides and other violent crimes a few years ago, officials there started looking for long-term solutions.
What they came up with was a layered approach that coupled old-fashioned street policing with new, high-tech tools.

Veteran street cops continued to hit high-crime neighborhoods, contact gang members and drug dealers, and share intelligence with officers on other beats.

But they also tried tools such as a computerized crime-analysis system that defines high-crime areas as well as high-tech surveillance cameras, some of which can detect the sound of gunshots and automatically call 9-1-1. Costs are covered by asset-forfeiture funds generated from the sale of seized assets.

Officials in Chicago, once considered the nation's murder capital, say the approach is making a difference, even though it might be too soon to see any long-term definitive trends. In 2003, homicides in Chicago were just under 600, and they dropped to about 430 the following year - when the 50-plus cameras were installed.

"We're fighting next-generation crime with next-generation technology," said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department.

Experts point to Chicago as an example of a police department actively developing better crime-fighting programs without simply adding scores of officers. Other cities, such as Stockton,Ontario, Santa Ana, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, are also trying innovative programs.

Violent crime has come to a head in San Bernardino, where a recent spate of homicides, including the shooting death of 11-year-old Mynesha Crenshaw in the Del Rosa area, has garnered a public call for change. Officials at City Hall and the Police Department are looking for solutions to bring it under control.

"It's ultimately a matter of are we being as efficient as possible," said Joseph Brann, founder and CEO of Joseph Brann and Associates, a consulting group that specializes in police management, performance and accountability.

A retired police chief, Brann was the first director of the COPS Office in the U.S. Department of Justice and has worked with many police agencies nationwide.

Brann asks police agencies to determine their priorities. In general, about 30 percent of police work is criminal in nature, Brann explained. The rest usually deals with social disorder and administrative tasks.

"If there is such a high percentage of your activity that is not criminal in nature, are there other ways of dealing with that?" Brann asks.

Many police departments are looking to greater use of civilians, better technology and focusing proactive efforts on high-crime areas.

Brann also points to the 10 percent factor.

Generally, when looking at calls for service, about 10 percent of the locations that police respond to generate about 50 percent of their total calls for service. And about 10 percent of the people arrested are responsible for 40 percent to 50 percent of the crime.

Such cities as Pittsburgh and Indianapolis have put a lot of effort toward creating focused patrol units that target high-activity areas. The concept involves sending manpower to the areas where most of the crime occurs.

For many agencies, such as those in San Bernardino County and across the region, a large and growing portion of calls are gang- and drug-related.

Although there might be a variety of reasons for that, several cities are taking steps outside of traditional policing to curtail the crime that comes with gangs and drugs.

In Santa Ana, a city of more than 340,000 in the heart of Orange County, the gangs are mostly homegrown and multigenerational, police said.

The city's 12-member gang unit is broken into three subunits for homicide, assault and suppression, an approach that has been in place since 1995. While the suppression officers hit the street, the homicide and assault units assist in prosecutions.

The gang unit works on identifying and prosecuting gang leadership. Once an arrest is made, the case is vertically prosecuted. The investigator, prosecutor and probation officer assigned to the case all sit next to one another in the Police Department and prosecute the case to the end.

"We know that we can't chase every one, so we focus our enforcement on the most active. I think that we've been successful through that," said Sgt. Lorenzo Carrillo, a department spokesman who spent several years in the gang unit.

Santa Ana police also use a problem-oriented policing, or POP, team to go into neighborhoods and seek out the causes of problems before they arise.

"We can keep going back to the same house every night for gang activity, and that's going to keep using up our resources," Carrillo said.

Stockton put together a street-enforcement team in 1998 to quell rising gang violence. Each team is made up of a sergeant and five officers.

The team takes a proactive approach by hitting the streets to locate gang members before problems arise. When the team is on the streets, conducting probation and parole searches and arresting violators, it won't respond to normal calls for service.

"I know that it was effective. There was a dramatic decrease in gang violence at the time," said Sgt. Rodney Rego, who supervises the gang-violence suppression unit at the Stockton Police Department.

Police there also credit the use of a bullet database that can be used for tracking bullet striations and characteristics, which act similarly to a signature. Also, Stockton police try to get as many of the cases involving gang leaders into federal court, where penalties are stiffer.

The Police Department has one officer that is a deputized federal agent who can take cases to Sacramento to get a federal indictment.

Years ago, Stockton adopted a program called Cease Fire, which was created in Boston and led to success at curtailing gang activity, said Stockton Assistant Chief Wayne Hose. The program involved using resources from local, state and federal agencies, putting them on the street and making contact with the gangs.

"It had a tremendous impact in the late 1990s and 2000s," Hose said.

However, Hose said, gangs have since had a resurgence.

The city was recently granted assistance from the California Highway Patrol, which included officers and air support, for 90 days as part of a larger crime-suppression initiative, of which gangs are just a part, said Connie Cochran, city spokeswoman.

Traditionally, Stockton had homegrown gangs that were typically turf-oriented. But recently, that dynamic has been changing as more people move to the city from the more affluent Bay Area in search of affordable housing, Rego said.

Over the past two years, Stockton's population has grown 30 percent, and the city has seen an increase in gang membership. The city has 96 gangs - mostly Latino, black and Asian - with 2,600 members.

Stockton also has an investigative gang unit made up of plainclothes officers that has been modeled after the vice and narcotics units, and the city institutes a more proactive approach called the Peacekeepers.

The group is made up of community members and former gang members who to speak with youth before they get caught in the criminal-justice system. Peacekeepers is operated by the city Parks and Recreation Department so that it is not viewed as being an extension of the Police Department.

"We've found that it's a little more beneficial than the Police Department going out," Rego said. "It's just a different level, and they seem to understand."

Back in Southern California, the Ontario Police Department's gang-suppression unit is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The emphasis is getting out on the streets, gathering information and creating a presence.

"We want to be contacting gang members. We want to work in the areas that have the higher amount of activity," said Ontario police Detective David McBride. "We need to know these people. We need to know who they are."

Ontario is part of San Bernardino County's SMASH unit as well as a federal task force formed to combat gangs. The city has a variety of gangs, from Latino and black gangs to white and outlaw-motorcycle gangs, McBride said.

Intelligence is important when combating gangs, but McBride cannot deny the impact of pure manpower as a swarm of officers hits the streets, such as what occurs during a SMASH gang sweep.

"We literally blanket the city," McBride said. "The word gets out, and the bad guys go underground."

Although McBride didn't have crime stats for gang activity immediately available, he said the city was doing "very well" in its effort.

"I think we're doing something right,"he said, "and we're going to continue doing it."

Pros:


New technologies enable police to be more efficient; working smarter not harder.

Focuses more on putting the people who commit violent crimes in jail.

Local agencies strengthen relationships with assisting state and federal agencies.

Cons:


Technology-based solutions can be expensive.

Criminals naturally raise the bar as they look for ways to beat new solutions.

Surveillance cameras draw concerns from privacy advocates.