Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Community Policing and Human Settlement Patterns

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Former Police Chief Rodney Monroe implemented community policing in Richmond is credited with bringing down the city's sky-high crime rate. Can his approach be replicated in suburban Henrico and Chesterfield?
Former Police Chief Rodney Monroe, who implemented community policing in Richmond, is widely credited with bringing down the city’s sky-high crime rate. Can his approach be replicated in suburban Henrico and Chesterfield?

by James A. Bacon

Community policing is key to the war on crime, agreed top law enforcement officials yesterday at a public forum hosted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Community policing gets police out of their cars so they can patrol neighborhoods on foot, interact with residents and build trust. “I do think the relationship piece … is the critical piece,” said Henrico County Police Chief Doug Middleton.

The reversion from police-by-patrol-car to community policing is credited with much of the downturn in crime in recent years, along with adoption of the “broken windows” theory of crime fighting, which advocates going after smaller crimes, and the use of statistical tools to predict areas where crimes are more likely to occur. In the city of New Haven, Conn., community policing has coincided with a 30% decline in serious crime since 2012, according to a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal today.

Community policing is back in the spotlight since a U.S. Justice Department probe into law enforcement practices in Ferguson, Missouri, where the police killing of a young black man triggered rampant protests. The suburban locality’s community-policing efforts “have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years,” the report said. Police had lost “the little familiarity it had with some African-American neighborhoods.”

This passage in the WSJ article has particular resonance in the Richmond region:

Walking the beat isn’t feasible in spread-out, rural or suburban areas. It is more labor-intensive than assigning officers to police cars that can zip from neighborhood to neighborhood, and officers on foot can’t always respond as quickly to crimes. Budget cuts also have made it harder for some police departments to justify the cost of walking the beat.

Community policing is a fine strategy for the City of Richmond, where urban neighborhoods are reasonably compact. But it’s more problematic in Henrico and Chesterfield County where an increasing number of poor people are living. For two or more decades now, poverty has been leaking across municipal boundaries into old suburban neighborhoods of ’50s- and ’60s-era ranch houses in low-density, cul-de-sac subdivisions that do not lend themselves to walking, biking or community policing.

Cul-de-sac subdivisions worked fine for mostly law-abiding, middle-class people who, if they engaged in criminal activity, it was more likely to be check kiting or embezzling than drug dealing or shoot-outs. As those neighborhoods are increasingly occupied by poor residents experiencing social breakdown and a higher proclivity for crime, Henrico and Chesterfield county police face a real challenge in implementing community policing. While everyone agrees in theory that building strong ties to the community is critical, the experience of Ferguson and other suburban jurisdictions shows that it may be difficult. Let us hope that Richmond-area police are up to the challenge.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

11 responses to “Community Policing and Human Settlement Patterns”

  1. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    There is plenty of heroin in the lilly whites suburbs. Why do you alwAys go with the “poor ” stereotype?

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Of course there is crime in the suburbs. But do you seriously deny that that middle-class Americans are less likely to commit violent crime than poor Americans are?

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    community policing is one of those buzz words that get associated more with poor communities than other communities.

    and in theory, it can be good – if the police are viewed as true protectors of the community they serve rather than as an armed force that is loathed and feared by members of that community and unfortunately as we have seen – some will claim the former while others in the community see it as the latter.

    so my deal is when someone claims it’s the former even as those in the community are not in agreement – then why do the supporters of the concept not accept the verdict of the community being policed until something like Ferguson happens – and much back and forth, claims and counter claims about “disruptors” until the Justice Dept shows up and finds the truth – and truth is that Community Policing is not a universally accepted description of a good policing tactic.

    yet we still have folks who continue to define it as a good thing – and insist so, even as we have evidence that it’s not but they continue to insist that it’s a good thing anyhow – which really furthers and widens the partisan (and racial) divide.

    long story, short – the name sounds good in concept but obviously is not universally accepted as good by everyone and especially some of those who are experiencing it.

    why we continue to hold certain positions in the face of disagreement – baffles me a little and in my darker thoughts – I think it’s on purpose sometimes.

  4. LifeOnTheFallLine Avatar
    LifeOnTheFallLine

    By and large the suburbs have no incentive to do this. The entire appeal of the suburbs is that (mostly) white people who are moderately well off or better get to live somewhere the inertia of their class status confers benefits to their children while keeping taxes low. Intensive policing costs money, which means higher taxes and when the whole reason for living in the suburbs is to escape taxation that’s not a tenable move for local politicians, especially if the tax in question is property tax (meals taxes can be rationalized as ‘I don’t HAVE to go to a restaurant’ and are somewhat easier to swallow).

    Plus, if the crime can be safely assumed to be isolated to a few specific neighborhoods then the residents in the rest of the county are probably not going to actually care. The scary thing about city crime (which was largely also pretty isolated to certain neighborhoods) was never where it happened or even how much it happened, but who was perpetrating it.

    1. DonR Avatar
      DonR

      Fairfax County is 62.2% non-hispanic white.
      Arlington county is 63.8% non-hispanic white
      The city of Alexandria is 60.9% non-hispanic white

      The percentage of non-hispanic whites in the United States is 63%.

      Meanwhile, the percentage of African-Americans among the City of Washington DC’s population has been plummeting.

      As Jim Bacon’s creative class moves into the cities they are displacing the long time residents of those cities. One of the most under-reported trends in US demographics and human settlement patters has been the homogenization of suburbs and cities.

      More and more, the techniques of law enforcement and other social services that were used in the cities will also be needed in the suburbs.

    2. DonR Avatar
      DonR

      Fairfax County is 62.2% non-hispanic white.
      Arlington county is 63.8% non-hispanic white
      The city of Alexandria is 60.9% non-hispanic white

      The percentage of non-hispanic whites in the United States is 63%.

      Meanwhile, the percentage of African-Americans among the City of Washington DC’s population has been plummeting.

      As Jim Bacon’s creative class moves into the cities they are displacing the long time residents of those cities. One of the most under-reported trends in US demographics and human settlement patters has been the homogenization of suburbs and cities.

      More and more, the techniques of law enforcement and other social services that were used in the cities will also be needed in the suburbs.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/black-dc-residents-plummet-barely-a-majority/2011/03/24/ABtIgJQB_story.html

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    let’s say this – if the police patrolled suburban subdivisions and stopped folks to check on them – I think most would seriously resent it at some point rather than be comforted by it yet they have no trouble recommending it for other communities.

    is there a double standard?

    you bet there is. some of those folks think that “community policing” is strict law enforcement … a term also used to depict speed traps and other variants of harassment.

    1. DonR Avatar
      DonR

      Don’t fool yourself LarryG – the jackbooted Gestapo members of the Fairfax County Police Department supported by the Reichstag of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors are more than happy to smash up suburban homes.

      A few points:

      1. It’s debatable whether playing poker for money is even illegal. Is it a game of chance or a game of skill. The Supreme Court hasn’t decided.

      2. The county keep 40% of whatever it considers the illegal money wagered.

      3. In a prior “raid” on a suburban bookie the brilliant cops accidentally shot and killed the guy as he stood in the street in his bathrobe. That cost Fairfax County $2M.

      And no … I was not at the poker game.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/27/fairfax-swat-team-raids-high-stakes-great-falls-poker-game-seizes-cash-terrifies-players/

    2. DonR Avatar
      DonR

      Here’s another one for you LarryG – Hands up, don’t shoot in Fairfax County. It seems the Waffen SS reprobates on the Fairfax County Police Department decided to execute a man standing on his doorstep with his hands in the air.

      More on the story – the only member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors who would agree to release the results of the investigation to the murdered man’s family (and he was murdered) was Pat Herrity. All the rest of the sniveling, disgusting cowards on the Fairfax County BoS did everything in their power to cover the matter up.

      http://wapo.st/1xn6kjE

  6. Darrell Avatar
    Darrell

    Is this post going to be tagged as spam too?

    Jim, there is a whole string of posts I have put up and each one was tagged as spam. Go ahead and read them, post them, or trash them. I give up.

  7. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Some here have said that there are provocateurs that are stirring up racial disharmony -.. and the community policing is a good thing that is about connecting better with the community – a benefit to the community

    for example, here’s a website extolling the virtues of Community Policing:

    ” Community Oriented Policing Services

    The Community Oriented Policing Services (C.O.P.S.) program is a new outlook on police work. This philosophy is based on a foundation of two-way communications between the police department and the community it serves. At the heart of the C.O.P.S. philosophy is the thought that neighbors, working with police, could solve many neighborhood problems, before they lead to criminal problems. The Neighborhood Watch is an important part of this program.”

    then we hear this (about the same city):

    “In the aftermath of a scathing report showing Ferguson unfairly targeted African-Americans and preyed on its most vulnerable citizens, the Justice Department is asking the city to make more than two dozen changes to the city’s police department and municipal courts — or face a costly lawsuit.

    The 102-page report on the patterns and practices of the Ferguson Police Department released on Wednesday, describes an out-of-control police department whose officers target African-Americans, stop and search people without reasonable suspicion, arrest people without probable cause, abuse their authority to quash protests, routinely ignore civil rights and use excessive force by unnecessarily using dogs, batons and Tasers.

    It describes a city government that uses its police and courts as an ATM, tolerating a culture of police brutality while pressuring the police chief and court officials to increase traffic enforcement and fees without regard to public safety.

    It exposes a court run by the police department that routinely violates due process and intentionally inflicts pain on the most vulnerable residents… ”

    Now does anyone here have trouble reading the Ferguson words on community policing considering recent events and the DOJ’s report?

    so how does this work – when supporters and advocates of Community Policing laud it’s “broken window” benefit to the community – whilst the community itself loathes Community Policing as oppression and corruption?

    The problem is and has been – all along – folks who convince themselves of the “good” of something without ever really seeing it in action nor talking to the people who are living with Community Policing.

    They just read the stuff that appeals to their own bias and apparently assiduously avoid the detractors…. words…

    then these same folks go on to deny that there is still institutional racism, predatory police, bad schools, etc and blame it on rabble-rousers who bring the issue up at Council meetings.

    anyone see a pattern?

    I will not point out specific folks – but only ask – … how do we form our opinions?

    do we really take a hard look at the claimed good but also do due diligence on the downsides?

    I call it – seeking the truth… we always need to try to find the truth rather than be satisfied with what satisfies our own biases – that we all have and that we are all guilty of engaging in at times.

    After looking at both sides – I no longer see the phrase Community Policing – as a positive phrase. I see it at least sometimes, as a dishonest PR effort that implies one thing but does something else – not in all cases – but in enough cases that the phrase itself has become exposed as a cynical perversion

    how about it? Have I got this wrong?

Leave a Reply

Read More