With violent crime increasing in Chicago, a group of community leaders are seeking changes in the way police patrol neighborhoods in order to foster a new level of trust between police and residents in a way that can help fight crime.
Representatives of more than a dozen organizations throughout the city are scheduled to meet this week with Police Supt. LeRoy Martin to ask him to begin a citywide experiment in community-based policing.
The pilot program would assign four officers in each of the city`s 25 police districts to work full-time with community groups to identify crime problems in their neighborhoods, said Warren Friedman executive director of the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety, an agency of community organizations. Police officials have expressed interest in such a trial program, but have not committed to a starting date.
Under the community policing concept, officers would be assigned to neighborhood beats for extended periods of time so they can get to know the neighborhood and its residents better, Friedman said.
Typically, Chicago police officers patrol in cars and respond to citizen calls to the 911 emergency number. This ”incident-driven patrolling” means that in very busy districts, officers are responding to calls for their entire shift, Friedman said.
”Community policing is more than just getting officers out of their cars and into the neighborhoods,” Friedman said. ”It sets an agenda for what they do there.
”Community policing may be how the community gets more say in how their neighborhoods are patrolled and policed.”
Community patrolling already has begun in cities such as Baltimore, Tulsa, Portland, Ore., Aurora, Colo., and nearly 300 other municipalities.
Neighborhood leaders say building communications and trust between police and citizens is vital to solving the crime problem.
”Residents have a need for a better relationship. A lot of the young people who are good kids do not trust the cops,” said Nancy Cobb of the Roseland Coalition for Community Control.
”A lot of it is a them against us attitude,” said Mary Volpe of the Northeast Austin Organization. ”When (the police) are on the streets, in cars, they don`t have any contact with average citizens. The only contacts they have is when they are chasing them, when they are the enemy. They judge everyone out there the same way.
”When a beat cop walks the streets, he gets to know the people,” Volpe said. ”They know who the good ones are and who the bad ones are.”
But the police need help from citizens, too.
”Some are frustrated by the lack of concern by the community,” said Karen Hoover of the Coalition for a Crime Free Rogers Park. ”If people in community don`t care, why should they care?”
Cobb said: ”The police are not ones who want to be labeled as not being able to do their job. In many big cities they just cannot, because crime and drugs are out of control. How would you act if you could not do your job?”
The group is hopeful that Martin will begin a pilot program citywide.
”In a proposal to the National Institute of Justice, (Martin) approved the formation of a four-officer team in a single district,” Friedman said.
”They were to be excused from normal 911 emergency call responses and training in problem solving techniques.”
The team was to be assigned to work with a similarly trained team of community group representatives.
”We need officers with enthusiasm. If they do well, then the brass can start ordering others to do it,” Friedman said.
”If you have success (with the pilot program) then it is not just the brass telling the officers to do this sissy stuff of talking to the community.”
”It is a matter of seeing that the police are not spinning their wheels. There could be a cop for ever block, but if they get there after the incident has happened and don`t have a relationship with the people who live there, it is very difficult to handle,” Cobb said. ”If the police know who lives and works and plays in the community they will have a better relationship and will be able to be more effective.
”The gangs prey on the non-sophistication and the ignorance between the community and the police,” Cobb said.
”They have a network, signals, the police have a lot too, but they do not have the missing portion, us.”
