Detroit tries community policing

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Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, right, and author George Kelling are interviewed in Detroit. The Associated Press/Carlos Osorio

February 13, 2012

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Associated Press Mon Feb 13, 2012, 07:05 AM EST

DETROIT — Loitering, cracked windshields and broken taillights — at times overlooked by a Detroit police force often overwhelmed with assaults, robberies and carjackings — are being targeted along with other minor violations to stop more violent behavior at what some consider its source.

"Broken Windows," a decades-old method of community policing, is on an 18-month trial run in two parts of the city, according to Police Chief Ralph Godbee.

One of the authors of a 1982 magazine article spouting the benefits of saving neighborhoods by putting more officers on foot patrols and focusing on issues that might appear insignificant in a city with one of the highest crime rates in the nation is working as a consultant on the project.

There were 344 homicides in Detroit last year, compared with 308 in 2010. Through Feb. 5, 36 were committed in the city — six more than at the same time last year.

Murder, rape, assault, robbery and other violent crime decreased by 7,300 reports last year. But Detroit's violent crime per every 100,000 residents remains high because the city's population has dropped by about a quarter million over the past decade.

More than a dozen funeral directors held a motorcade of hearses recently to bring attention to the rising number of murders.

Detroit's crime problem is even raising the alarm in Lansing. Gov. Rick Snyder said last week that he'll give details next month on how putting more resources into the Michigan State Police and funding a summer jobs program for inner-city youth and additional programs to help the chronically unemployed — including former felons — find work will help lower crime rates.

And along with using the "Broken Windows" methodology, Godbee is moving dozens of officers from desk and other indoor duties to outdoor patrols to help change how police respond to crime.

"Every one of my available resources, all we do is put them in a scout car, have them listen to a radio and then, when they get a call, they go," Godbee said. "That's not policing. ... They're not engaged in the community and problem-solving in changing some of the street-level dynamics that contribute to an environment and a belief that everything goes in Detroit.

"I get complaints about the kids playing basketball in the street and won't move when cars are coming by; loud music complaints; the home on the block that seems to be the skip house that people hang out at; the open air narcotics dealings; some street level prostitution. Those are the things communities ... want us to pay attention to. But when we get so caught up in just responding to calls for service and we don't free up resources to deal with those issues, then things continue to spiral out of control."

That spiral is at the core of "Broken Windows," by George Kelling and James Wilson. The magazine article and corresponding theory claim crime is more likely to occur in blighted areas often ignored by police and the people who live there. Increased police presence and enforcing things such as vagrancy laws help maintain stability in those neighborhoods.

Traffic stops can turn up guns stashed in cars. Misdemeanor citations may lead to apprehending people sought on felony warrants.

But Ron Scott, head of the nonprofit Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, believes the policy gives some officers license to abuse their authority.

"It sounds to me like zero tolerance," said Scott, a frequent critic of the police department. "To pull people over for circumstances which are trivial at best does not do anything to resolve larger social issues. It makes the assumption that everyone is a criminal."

Bill Bratton put the theory to the test in New York City and Los Angeles and believes it will work in Detroit. Bratton was New York's police commissioner from 1994 to 1996 and police chief in Los Angeles from 2002 to 2009.

"The people committing the minor crimes are also committing the serious crimes," said Bratton, chairman of Kroll, a global risk management company.

After six years in Los Angeles, violent crime had dropped about 33 percent. Homicides were down more than 40 percent.

As Transit chief in New York, Bratton said police in 1990 and 1991 cracked down on vagrancy and turnstile jumping to lower reported crime in the city's massive subway system. By stopping fare evaders before they got on the trains, officers were able to keep more serious crime from being committed, he said.

"There were beggars on every train, sleeping all over the place; graffiti, panhandlers demanding you give them the tokens when they open the gates for you," Bratton said. "If you don't weed your garden, the weeds are going to kill your flowers."

Kelling, on loan to Detroit from the New York-based Manhattan Institute for Policy Research where he is a senior fellow, visits Detroit twice each month.

"The fear is caused by the disorder," Kelling said. "There's a lot of abandoned houses, a lot of areas that look to be quite despairing. You have a cluster of very nice homes and then you get three blocks of homes that may make it or may not make it, but they're right at the edge. The policing issue is how much do you invest in those areas that are at the tipping point and how much do you invest in the areas that have been largely destroyed. I think those are policy decisions Detroit is facing up to."