The Big Easy Has a Bright Idea to Curb Violence

In a seemingly miraculous feat, New Orleans has managed to drop its notorious murder rate by 20 percent this year — to 155 deaths — the lowest number the city has seen in almost 30 years. Interestingly, however, it wasn’t because police got tougher on the streets, but because city officials got organized.
Under Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s NOLA for Life program, launched in 2012 to rethink the city’s murder reduction strategy, New Orleans’ Innovation Delivery Team led the charge in finding new approaches to curb violence.
New Orleans was one of five cities selected for the pilot program, which was funded with a $4.2 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2011. The team was comprised of eight people using the nonprofit’s innovation delivery method, which helps mayors create and implement big solutions to local problems. The team serves as an in-house consultant firm for City Hall while tapping into global resources and experts provided through Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The team worked with the New Orleans’ police department to analyze data relating to murders, while also looking to strategies from other cities such as Memphis, Chicago and New York. It also met with academics to help comb through the data more deeply while hosting focus groups with at-risk young men, providing a new path for a better murder reduction strategy, according to Fast Company.

“The biggest thing that went against common belief is that a lot of our violence was related to groups and gangs,” says Charles West, who lead the innovation delivery team. “We were always told that we didn’t have a gang problem. But we had gangs of significant size, and people just weren’t talking about it. More than anything, there wasn’t a specific form of policing strategy for groups and gangs.”

The team came up with 130 different initiatives to approach the violence problem according to West. NOLA for Life now operates a multi-agency gang unit which has helped the city ramp up prosecution of gangs.

Other initiatives involved agencies such as the Department of Sanitation, which can train and hire ex-prisoners to receive a commercial driver’s license in an effort to prevent recidivism and find a job.

“Everyone has found a place in it … and everyone is accountable,” West says.

But what made it work was the amount of coordination and organized approach in which city officials tackled the problem. If the city continues on this track for reducing its murder rate, it would be the first four years in a row that murders have dropped.

The Big Easy is currently making room so it can continue to fund the program with tax dollars, which will include more initiatives to step up economic opportunities for African-American men. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Philanthropies is expanding the program with $45 million and has called for more than 80 American cities to apply for funding.

MORE: Can $45 Million Worth of Data and Technology Improve U.S. Cities?

5 Ways to Strengthen Ties Between Cops and Citizens

During a tense confrontation between white police and a black man, officers drew their guns and fired, leaving a mourning mother and an enraged community.
Sounds familiar, right? But it’s not the story you’re thinking of.
In this case, the year was 1987; the place was Memphis, Tenn. And the man killed by cops? Joseph Dewayne Robinson.
His death has a lot in common with that of Michael Brown’s, the black teenager who was killed by an officer in Ferguson, Mo., last month. But while Brown’s passing was followed by the deployment of armored vehicles, rubber bullets and riot gear, Robinson’s led to community dialogue, partnership and, ultimately, a new national model of how police can de-escalate crisis situations. It’s one example of terrible tragedy leading to positive change.
It remains to be seen what will come out of the disastrous events in Ferguson. Brown’s death — and its turbulent aftermath — exposed a deep disconnect between the local police force and the community it serves. As the tear gas clears in the Missouri town and analysts consider how things went so horribly wrong there, here’s a look at five instances where police and communities have worked together successfully, building trust and making neighborhoods safer for both cops and the people they’re supposed to protect.
1) Memphis calms things down
Robinson, mentioned above, had struggled with mental illness and was just 27 years old when he was killed. On the day of his death, his mother had called the cops because her son — high on cocaine — was cutting himself with a large knife and threatening people around him.
The Memphis police arrived and, after a confrontation, shot Robinson 10 times.
The community was deeply disturbed, and people started coming together to look for solutions. “Family members meeting in the kitchen said there’s got to be a better way to deal with these things,” says Veronique Black, a family and consumer advocate at the Memphis chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a nonprofit mental-health advocacy group.
Two members of Memphis NAMI approached the police department with a plan: Let’s train cops to safely defuse tense situations involving people with mental illness.
In response, the city’s mayor formed a task force and police met with families and mental health professionals. Together they came up with the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT): a 40-hour training program that teaches police to respond to mental illness emergencies in a calm, safe, caring fashion.
“The CIT officer is working very, very hard to slow things down,” says Maj. Sam Cochran, a former member of the Memphis Police Department who oversaw the city’s CIT program for 20 years. CIT members are trained to respond coolly and carefully in all situations — talking down agitated people using a clear, slow voice, defusing conflicts that might otherwise end in injury or death, and finding ways to reduce anxiety while avoiding the use of force.
They’re also specialists in controlling fear, whether it’s the person in crisis, others who happen to be around or even the officers, Cochran says. People who are afraid can be dangerous: “If you don’t get a handle on that fear, it can cause some very difficult challenges,” he says.
The training gives cops a safer way to respond not only to mental health emergencies, but also high-pressure situations of all kinds, like domestic disputes or confrontations between police and a suspect.
The program has worked well in Memphis. “We had something like a 40 to 50 percent decrease in officer injuries on call events related to mental illness,” Cochran says. And although the department didn’t keep statistics on civilian injuries stemming from those kinds of calls, he says, “we felt very confident that if officers weren’t getting hurt, people with mental illness weren’t getting hurt.”
Based on its success in Memphis, CIT has since become a national standard, adopted by about 2,800 police departments nationwide.
2) California cops chat over coffee
While police departments have been arming themselves in recent years with surplus military equipment from the federal government, there might be a much simpler way to make communities safer: over a cup of coffee.
Hawthorne, Calif., police detective John Dixon tried that tactic back in 2011. He convinced his department to set aside a single morning for Coffee With a Cop, an event where officers would sit in a local McDonald’s and talk with anyone who had a question or concern. The event was so popular that the department started holding it in a different area of the city every six weeks.
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These coffee talks allowed Hawthorne police to connect with their neighbors on a more personal level. The idea, Dixon says, is to reclaim “the small-town feel of knowing a cop on the corner.” They are also a way to break through the barriers that can separate cops and civilians (like the bulletproof glass at the front desk in the police station), Dixon says. “It opened up a lot of lines of communication.”
Previously, cops might only interact with civilians during calls for service, Dixon explains. “Officers tend to go to the call, handle the call and then leave.” But Coffee With a Cop lets officers and neighbors relate as people, to see each other as more than just a robbery victim or a law enforcer.
After the program’s initial success, Hawthorne police Sgt. Chris Cognac wrote about it in a federal newsletter on community policing, and the idea caught fire. The department received a grant and started training other police departments how to commune over a cup of joe.
Some 680 departments in the United States as well as forces in Canada, Australia and Nigeria have held Coffee With a Cop events, Dixon says.
Dixon says police departments often ask what kind of return, in numbers, they’ll get from holding a Coffee With a Cop event — How many arrests will it lead to? How many guns will be seized? But the effect of the events isn’t quantifiable in that way, Dixon says. It’s about relationship-building, not crime stats.
At the events, people often talk about problems that they wouldn’t think to call 911 about, but that add up to diminishing a neighborhood’s safety, Dixon says. One neighbor, for instance, complained to a cop about an abandoned couch in an alleyway, where people were hanging out and doing drugs, he says. The officer immediately pulled out his phone and called the city to have public works haul away the sofa.
3) Boston makes a miracle
Cops and neighbors can bond over a hot beverage — or they can come together to confront violent gang members and convince them to put down their guns.
That’s what the work of David Kennedy, criminologist and author of two books on crime prevention, has shown.
Kennedy is the mastermind behind the so-called “Boston Miracle,” which drastically reduced youth homicides in the city in the 1990s. The method is one of the most high-profile models of police and neighborhood leaders working together to end street violence.
Kennedy’s approach is based on the understanding that most urban violence is caused by a small number of people. Therefore, police shouldn’t treat whole communities as problematic simply because some members are violent, and residents should work with cops who are willing to focus on tackling the troublemakers.
Under Kennedy’s model, cops, probation officers and others identify the people responsible for most of the shootings. These people are invited to a call-in, where they’re given straight talk by neighbors, police, prosecutors, street-outreach workers and clergy. The message: Keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll come down on you hard, prosecuting you in federal court if possible. Or, put the guns down, and we’ll help you secure jobs, find housing and access other social services.
At a call-in, gang members learn that the cops and the community already know who they are and what they’re up to — and most important — that they want to help them make a change.
This tactic, which has since spread to dozens of other communities, isn’t a silver bullet. Boston’s homicide rates crept back up in the 2000s, but Kennedy argues that his approach needs to be an ongoing process with continued investment on both sides.
4) New Haven welcomes newcomers
Almost 10 years ago, leaders in the city of New Haven, Conn., noticed a problem. Undocumented immigrants, who can be among the most vulnerable to crime, were afraid to talk to police.
The solution? A new ID card for all city residents — regardless of their citizenship status.
DON’T MISS: Here’s a Smart Solution That Stops Immigrants From Being Robbery Victims
“Prior to it coming out, undocumented immigrants were often afraid to report violations for fear of deportation,” says Luiz Casanova, New Haven’s assistant police chief. “We had a number of crimes go unreported. Witnesses of crimes did not come forward. Horrific crimes — sexual assaults, rapes, home invasions.”
And while immigrants were avoiding police by not reporting crimes they witnessed or experienced, they were often the ones most in need of police protection. Why? Many undocumented immigrants couldn’t open bank accounts, so they carried around large amounts of cash, leading to a reputation among muggers that they were “walking ATMs.”
In 2007, New Haven addressed these problems when, under the leadership of former Mayor John DeStefano Jr., the city council voted to create the Elm City Resident Card. Additionally, New Haven issued a general order prohibiting police from asking victims or witnesses of crimes about their immigration status.
The ID card helps people open bank accounts and access public services. It also imparts to immigrants a sense of belonging, leading to a new feeling of trust with the police. After the card was introduced, Casanova says, crime went down in immigrant neighborhoods by about 20 percent — despite the fact that more people were reporting crimes.
Other cities, including San Francisco and Trenton, N.J., have since followed New Haven’s lead, rolling out their own municipal identification cards.
5) Detroit tries to bring cops home
Sometimes cops and communities feel disconnected because they actually are, geographically speaking, far away from one another. Many police officers don’t live in the cities they serve, but commute from other towns.
In an effort to encourage members of the force to live in the communities in which they work, Detroit began offering tax-foreclosed homes to cops for $1,000 and grants of up to $150,000 for renovations in 2011.
Programs like this stem from the theory that cops may be more invested in a community if they see it as their home not just their workplace. They also increase the likelihood that community members develop stronger relationships with officers who also happen to be their neighbors.
It’s difficult, however, for a city to force cops to live in town. Courts across the country have struck down lots of residency requirements. And police officers argue that, in an already dangerous job, it’s safer for them to live away from the people they arrest.
That hasn’t stopped cities like Detroit from trying, though. Atlanta offers discounted apartment rentals to cops, plus incentives to buy homes and bonuses for those that relocate. And Baltimore also offers cash to police officers who buy homes.
The latest town to consider such incentives? Ferguson, Mo.
 
MORE: 7 Ways to Help the Residents of Ferguson

Want to Avoid L.A.’s Most Dangerous Streets? There’s a Map for That

The story of Kitty Genovese’s murder in 1964 is practically American folklore — stabbed to death in a dark alley in Queens, N.Y., just outside the front door of her apartment building, with at least 30 neighbors within earshot. Intense media coverage focused on this last part, examining the bystander effect and why she died, despite dozens of nearby witnesses.
Stories like these are painful reminders that the most gruesome crimes can happen in broad daylight or with countless others present. So what can happen on far less populated blocks?
As Atlantic Cities writer Conor Friedersdorf writes, Los Angeles is void of what the late Jane Jacobs, an urban theorist, would call “eyes on the street.” L.A.’s design — spread out and dominated by highways — drastically reduces sidewalk populations that could deter, if not at least bear witness to, crimes.
But the Los Angeles Police Department is actively exploring ways to combat this inherent city problem. A new law enforcement tactic called “predictive policing” involves a computer program that analyzes all crime that occurs in an area and produces a map with boxes drawn around blocks where future illegal acts are most likely to occur. Each day, cops release a new map via social media with updated boxes so people know which cross-streets in their neighborhood need the most attention. A community-driven initiative like this allows cops to better plan their focus their attention.
“Cops working with predictive systems respond to call-outs as usual, but when they are free, they return to the spots which the computer suggests,” The Economist noted when the plan first came to light last summer. “Officers may talk to locals or report problems, like broken lights or unsecured properties, that could encourage crime.” And it works: The tactic coincided with a 12 percent reduction in property crime in one Los Angeles neighborhood.
Friedersdorf wrote about the expansion of his program; he and his neighbors received a message from the LAPD, which stated:
“In an effort to do this we are deploying as many resources as possible to the box areas. To further increase the effectiveness of Predictive Policing we are asking the public to spend any free time that you may have in these areas too. You can simply walk with a neighbor, exercise, or walk your dog in these areas and your presence alone can assist in deterring would be criminals from committing crime in your neighborhood.”
Unsurprisingly, Friedersdorf is eager to do whatever it takes to make his neighborhood within L.A.’s Pacific Division safer. “I’d change the route I take on dog walks to help out,” he writes. “And if lots of my neighbors do the same, it’ll be a sign of civic health. We’re all responsible for safeguarding our neighborhoods.”
Though city governments can often cause frustration, this attempt to galvanize citizens to pursue safety can also increase cooperation between Los Angelenos and their governing bodies. “This latest example is a good illustration of how transparency can help law enforcement to improve public safety,” Friedersdorf writes. “And if the experiment works, needed eyeballs will be dispersed to at-risk areas without the use of Orwellian surveillance cameras being installed all over the neighborhood.”

Does Reducing Jail Sentences Take a Bite Out of Crime?

“We cannot prosecute our way to becoming a safer nation.”
That’s the guiding principle behind Attorney General Eric Holder’s “Smart on Crime” initiative, which he launched last spring. This week, he made impressive strides toward making good on that statement, as well as the plan’s promise to enforce fair punishments as well as ensuring safety.
Back in 2009, the U.S. had the highest documented prison population in the world. Holder has made it his mission to leave a legacy of lower incarceration rates — and he’s doing it with an eye on drug sentences. On Thursday, Holder advocated to the U.S. Sentencing Commission a decrease in minimum sentences for drug offenses, just days after calling for a fight to curb heroin-related overdoses and a limit to jail sentences imposed on drug offenders, National Journal reported.

His drug-sentence focus is a wise one: Numbers show that it has the best chance of creating positive, tangible results. Half of American inmates are serving drug sentences, and of those inmates, a disproportionate number are African-American.
Per Holder’s proposal, drug-related sentences would drop by an average of 11 months (from 62 months to 51 months), decreasing the federal inmate population by 6,550 over five years. That decrease would reverberate far beyond population statistics; reducing the prison population by 6,550 would save, on average, $169,238,900 a year, according to the Urban Institute. It would also put the prison system in a more favorable light. “This overreliance on incarceration is not just financially unsustainable; it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate,” Holder told the commission.
This is the latest in Holder’s firm march toward prison reform. National Journal reports that in August, he announced that low-level drug offenders (not connected to organized crime) would no longer be charged with crimes that impose mandatory minimums. The Sentencing Commission will vote on his newest proposal in April. Until then, he’s enjoying support from across the aisle and from the public.

During a panel at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Texas Governor Rick Perry gave highly favorable remarks about Holder’s initiative. “The idea that we lock people up, throw them away, and never give them a chance of redemption is not what America is about,” Perry said. “Being able to give someone a second chance is very important.” Poll results show a similar consensus. In 2012, Pew found that 84 percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “Some of the money that we are spending on locking up low-risk, nonviolent inmates should be shifted to strengthening community corrections programs like probation and parole.” Meanwhile, 69 percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “One out of every 100 American adults is in prison. That’s too many, and it costs too much.”

 We’ll have to wait until April to see the outcome of Holder’s latest efforts, but he’ll surely continue fighting tirelessly, regardless of the outcome.

How a Group of Exercising Seniors Hopes to Change a Crime-Plagued Neighborhood

While much of Brooklyn has enjoyed an influx of wealthy citizens who have grown weary of the Manhattan scene, the community of Brownsville continues to be entrenched in a deadly cycle of high poverty and senseless crime. In 2013, former mayor Michael Bloomberg declared New York City as the safest big city in America, with crime down a total of 30 percent over a 10-year period. In Brownsville, this declaration couldn’t be further from the truth. Over that same period, the neighborhood’s incidence of serious crime went down only 9 percent. And in 2013, the area had 13 murders on record — just three fewer than in 2012. But a group of about 40 elderly women and a few men are doing something together to improve their community and fight poverty: They’re exercising. “It makes people want to come out and do more, rather than be afraid,” Linda Beckford, a 70-year-old Brownsville resident and member of the group, told NPR. “A lot of seniors are by themselves and they don’t want to come out.”
On a recent February day, the women gathered at the local community center, where instructor Sid Howard, who is also a coach with New York Road Runners, led them in an aerobics workout. He starts the class with the elderly in chairs, where they warm up with rubber exercise bands. Eventually, they get up, stretch, dance and work muscles that haven’t moved in ages. On warm-weather days, the group takes to the streets, walking and dancing together. Not only is this an opportunity for them to get active and have fun, but it also gets people used to seeing their elderly neighbors, who before Community Solutions started the program used to stay primarily indoors.
Delores Stitch, one of the ladies in the group, says that she thinks the seniors get more respect now from their young neighbors. “They stop in and speak to us,” she told NPR. “The kids, the young adults, the middle aged.” In the summer, the group will walk to a local fresh produce stand, which is run by teens through another program focused on reinventing the neighborhood. Despite its high rate of crime and bad reputation, many residents of Brownsville and members of the social seniors group have lived here for decades. As Gwen Grant, 65, puts it, underneath the harrowing statistics lies a lot of promise, especially in the kids. “As seniors, we have to be interested in the kids. Don’t just say, ‘They’re bad, they’re troublesome,’ ” she says. “We have to give them what we know. We can also learn from them as well.”

Can a Crime-Reduction Method Also Prevent Traffic Accidents?

The broken windows approach to fighting street crime involves seriously enforcing the small things, like broken windows and other instances of vandalism, in order to maintain an orderly environment and discourage bigger crimes. According to the NYPD, the theory has worked to reduce New York City’s homicide rate, and could also work on reducing the number of traffic accidents caused by reckless driving. Cracking down on drivers who run red lights or who drive just over the speed limit could create more orderly roads, creating a safer environment for pedestrians.