| Barricades Go Up, Crime Goes Down
Residents line up to receive free hot dogs from Western District officers during a recent Safe Zone.
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Colonel Deborah Owens, BPD's Chief of Patrol, chats with a young visitor to Western District's Safe Zone
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In Baltimore, MD, the police are fighting crime with old-fashioned ideas fashioned in new ways.
The Safe Zone project targets high-crime districts for 1 month's time. Police "hold down" an area of high violence and/or drug activity by increasing police presence and blocking off all traffic from 2 to 10 p.m. daily, allowing only residents and people who have legitimate business in the area to enter. The unusual step of almost quarantining a neighborhood and the basic step of having more cops walking the beat have worked well so far.
The project was established jointly by Operation Crime Watch, the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, the Baltimore City Police Department, and the Baltimore Police Public Housing Section. Piloted in the western district last year, the police department decided to take the project citywide in 2006.
In Baltimore, drug activity is neighborhood based, and therefore organizing residents in crime prevention and reduction activities is an essential part of gang intervention and gang violence prevention. Community involvement is key to the success of Safe Zone, explained Kevin D. Cleary, the Operation Crime Watch Coordinator of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods. The zones can get hot again after police presence is less noticeable, but if residents are partners with police it is more difficult for the drug dealers to get a foothold again, he said.
The sponsoring agencies hold resource fairs and youth nights during the Safe Zone period. Ten to fifteen local agencies participate in these events by staffing booths, doing field work, and providing advocacy and referral services to residents. On youth nights, police play basketball and street hockey and conduct other recreational activities with youth. Police also provide free cookouts during the fairs.
"The goal is to present a visible presence and let law-abiding residents come out of their houses to obtain much-needed resources," said Lou Takacs, Public Safety Coordinator for the Washington Village/Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council. "[Safe Zones] change the environment and peoples' perception of the police and their community."
When the project began and the first Safe Zone established, residents did not get enough advance notice and therefore did not react well, according to Takacs, but the planning for Safe Zones is now much more extensive. Community leaders are informed, and the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods and the Baltimore City Department of Social Services reach out directly to residents, providing lists of city services and fliers with safety information. Now the residents are pleased with the Safe Zone project and more interested in helping the police.
Getting the community involved and having residents be more willing to call 911 in an emergency is another police objective. People often are afraid to get involved for fear of retaliation by drug dealers. Citizens are therefore encouraged to sign up for Crime Watch numbers. People who have these numbers can call 911 without the responding patrol car knowing the caller's location or telephone number. Citywide, more than 6,400 citizens have signed up for Crime Watch numbers.
The results and an evaluation of all the Safe Zone projects are still being compiled, but early statistics are impressive. In some of the worst areas, no crime was reported in the area during the period, which Cleary declared to be "almost unheard of" for such violent neighborhoods. Criminal activity seems to be suppressed when a Safe Zone is present. A lot of the drug activity appears to be directly tied to specific houses, which may explain why the violence is not being displaced to an adjacent area. Anecdotally, district commanders are saying crime is down, Cleary said.
"The people are thrilled," Cleary said. "It's the first time in a long time there was peace and quiet in the streets.
For further information, contact:
Kevin Cleary
Operation Crime Watch Coordinator
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