Fighting crime by building moral communities - Cover Story

Christian Century, Oct 5, 1994 by Christopher Freeman Adams

AN UNEXPECTED but heartening irony in the "tougher than thou" national discourse on crime--a phenomenon that has yielded such gems of public policy as "Three strikes, you're out"--is that the hottest idea in police work now is not higher caliber weapons or armored assault vehicles, but community policing. Community policing refers to a shift from a military-inspired approach to fighting crime to one that relies on forming partnerships with constituents. It employs health and human service programs as well as more traditional law enforcement, with an emphasis on crime prevention. It represents a change from a reactive model of law enforcement to one dedicated to developing the moral structure of communities.

Such a shift will require a very traditional institution to change fundamentally. "It's complicated," says Berkeley Police Chief Daschiel Butler. "And you have to develop systems to make all this work. In seven years we'll probably look back and say, 'That was no big deal.' But right now, in the implementation phase, it's not that easy."

Though community-based policing is one of the more hopeful urban initiatives, it has its detractors. When David Dinkins was mayor of New York, the city was a leader in developing community policing. But when former prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani became mayor the program came under fire. Typifying the response of lawenforcement traditionalists, he indicated that the purpose of police work is catching criminals--anything else is a distraction. He apparently has never been convinced by the sociological correlation of crime and poverty.

While supporters of community policing disagree with the mayor about the merits of, for example, police officers and public health nurses working side by side, they are quick to point out that community policing has a hardedged crime-fighting component.

"I didn't become a believer by reading books," says Butler, "but by being a grunt out there in the field." He tells a story about his days as a narcotics commander that illustrates the value of developing relationships with people in the community. He was executing a routine search warrant with other officers when he noticed a car that kept circling. It matched the description--previously given him by a "little old lady"--of a drug supplier's vehicle. When he had the car stopped he discovered that the driver was a parolee, who could legitimately be searched by police officers. From the "little old lady" he knew that underneath the spare tire was a "square" gun--possession of which was a parole violation. He found the gun and the man was arrested before he could commit another crime.

Butler is understandably fond of this story because it demonstrates the worth of effective community liaisons to traditional police work. But he seems even more excited about the prospect of combining enlightened police work with social services. To emphasize why this relationship is needed, he displays a map that charts alcohol use in Berkeley. There is a clear concentration on the west side of the city. Next he adds an overlay that shows mortality rates, and then one showing crime rates. All three maps exactly correspond. "This suggests a natural link with health and human services," he says--including "areas you wouldn't think about--like well-baby programs and getting information out about fetal alcohol syndrome. We can't do community policing and ignore these types of issues."

Butler liberally uses such terms as "natural links," "interdependence," "alliance" and "connection" when describing his vision of what the police department ought to be. Some of the programs he is most excited about do not fit the traditional model of police work: the D.A.R.E. program teaches middle-school children skills to say no to drugs; Neighborhood Watch encourages neighbors to know each other and be concerned for each other's well-being; and Business Watch forges alliances among business people to alert one another about suspicious persons by way of a "phone tree."

Another program in which Butler is involved--one that goes beyond the scope of his own department to the whole region--is the East Bay Public Safety Corridor, a consortium of city leaders (notably from Oakland and Berkeley) and state political leaders who are trying to forge a unified and comprehensive response to crime. San Francisco's East Bay is composed of a dozen or so small to mediumsized cities divided by what are often arbitrary city limits. Realizing that the sources and causes of crime and violence do not recognize these boundaries, the cities are pooling resources.

Rather than letting collaboration mean merely integrating the command and control structure for police responses, planners of the Corridor undertook a very thoughtful process. They held a series of focused meetings of community activists, educators, academics, public officials and, most important, representatives of the groups perceived to be causing the problems in order to better understand the situation and respond appropriately. I took part in this process, meeting with the focus group on juvenile justice, which included youths who had been arrested for tagging, minor drug offenses and other infractions. The group was small and could clearly have been dominated by "experts" and public officials, but there was an extraordinary willingness to listen, especially to the real experts--the youths themselves.