Lasting impact: maintaining neighborhood order.

During the past two decades, law enforcement agencies around the country have adopted the combined operational strategies of community-oriented. policing and problem solving (COPPS) to address a wide range of crime problems and the quality-of-life issues that often surround them. Using the COPPS model, police officers and citizens in communities of every size and demographic makeup have joined together to address these problems in new and creative ways.

However, despite the ever-increasing prevalence of community-oriented policing and a growing litany of successful problem-solving interventions, few police administrators or scholars have focused on the strategic issues involved in maintaining the enhanced quality of life and sense of community safety that successful community-based policing efforts often create. As communities across the country are discovering, maintenance becomes a key issue after the initial problem-solving push has produced results. To ensure that problem-solving initiatives have a lasting impact on communities, law enforcement agencies should develop practical strategies to ensure that community policing yields long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes.

Long-term Solutions

Much of what has been written about maintenance issues is featured in the most important contemporary discussions of crime and its impact on communities. In their landmark "Broken Windows" article, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling describe in very compelling language the potential long-term implications of leaving neighborhood problems unattended.(1) The pioneering work of Herman Goldstein on problem-oriented policing suggests that in-depth analyses of related incidents and the development of tailor-made responses are keys to resolving underlying problems within a community.(2) Goldstein's research contributed to the development of the SARA (scanning, analysis, response, and assessment) model of problem solving, which would be applied successfully by the Newport News, Virginia, Police Department in the mid-1980s to address long-standing crime problems in specific areas of the city.

Each of these works, and the documented successes of problem solving in Newport News, helped lay the philosophical and operational groundwork for community-oriented policing as it is currently practiced in departments around the country. However, because of their groundbreaking nature, they could only hint at the strategic issues involved in maintaining a problem-solving posture after the initial COPPS interventions had taken place.

Like a patient requiring long-term care, neighborhoods plagued with problems require periodic attention to ensure a healthy environment is preserved. In recent years, a growing number of communities that developed and implemented successful community-oriented intervention strategies have wrestled with the problems of maintaining reduced crime levels after the initial intervention has taken place.

Law enforcement agencies have learned that some crime problems-such as gang violence and drug dealing - tend to resurface. Likewise, certain community environments - public housing developments, high-density apartment complexes, and urban centers - are prone to rapid degeneration once high-impact intervention policies terminate.

To ensure that community-oriented and problem-solving initiatives have a lasting impact, law enforcement administrators should include maintenance in the strategic planning process. To do so effectively, they first must possess a clear understanding of problem solving as a method to address community problems.

Strategic Response to Persistent Problems

Problem solving is the linchpin of COPPS. It helps agencies adopt long-term solutions to address crime, fear, and disorder. The SARA model provides the police with a useful tool for identifying, analyzing, responding to, and evaluating crime problems and neighborhood concerns. Application of the SARA model leads officers away from short-term, reactive, and incident-driven responses and moves them toward long-term outcomes based on in-depth analysis and collaboration with citizens, municipal agencies, and others.

When formalized, the SARA model serves many useful purposes. These include:

* Providing documentation of initial intervention efforts and their outcomes

* Producing a record of interested parties, or stakeholders, both internal (specifically, officers and support staff involved in the initial intervention projects) and external (including business and property owners, residents, and other city and government agencies)

* Creating a database of problems defined by type, area of town, time of day, and other factors. This information provides the who, what, when, where, and how of addressing ongoing problems

* Developing a training mechanism and a record of information resources for other officers to review and gain ideas about how to address similar situations.

The information acquired from the SARA process assists officers with ongoing problem assessment and maintenance, as well as helping to mobilize original stakeholders to reestablish neighborhood control. The benefits of formalizing the problem-solving process have led many agencies to develop computer-based programs to support SARA.

Like many agencies, the Reno, Nevada, Police Department has relied on the SARA model to implement problem solving initiatives during the past decade. One of these initiatives, undertaken in a low-income residential area known as Virginia Lake, illustrates how quickly crime problems can return to troubling levels after an initial intervention. The case study that follows demonstrates the importance of maintenance in any problem-solving approach. It also shows how documenting initial efforts can speed the process of repair by providing an agency vital information about strategies and stakeholders.

CASE STUDY: VIRGINIA LAKE

In many ways, the Virginia Lake area qualifies as a classic candidate for a problem-oriented policing approach. At the time of the initial intervention by the Reno Police Department (RPD), the 1.5-square-mile area in the south patrol division was home to approximately 6,600 residents. In 1992, the annual per capita income for area residents was $12,600. Virginia Lake includes five contiguous, high-density apartment complexes, each controlled by absentee owners. The area also consists of several strip-mall shopping centers, numerous retail establishments, and a large public park.

The Initial Intervention

Beginning in the late 1980s, calls for service from the Virginia Lake area increased steadily until February 1992, when two RPD beat officers, working the swing shift (4 p.m. to 2 a.m.) in the area, decided to conduct an inquiry to determine the extent of the problems. From February to August 1992, the officers developed and initiated a problem-solving effort in the area. During this 6-month period, the officers used periods between service calls, as well as limited additional time provided by their supervisors, to analyze the problems and develop responses. In doing so, the officers used the SARA model to guide and document their efforts. In the period following the initial intervention, this documentation would prove invaluable to subsequent maintenance efforts in the targeted area.

Scanning

Scanning department records revealed that approximately 10,000 calls for service emanated from Virginia Lake annually. The majority of these calls involved domestic violence, burglaries, disturbances, and gang-related activities. The area had recently experienced two gang-related homicides, the kidnap-murder of two children, and increased drug activity.

During interviews with the officers, residents expressed considerable fear of crime but also related an underlying atmosphere of tension, brought about by the influx of gang-related graffiti, assaults, righting, and shots fired. Residents also expressed concern with the outward signs of neighborhood disorder, including abandoned buildings and vehicles, traffic problems, and uncollected refuse.

Analysis

With the assistance of the department's crime analyst, the officers developed a survey and administered it to 120 business owners, residents, and apartment managers in the Virginia Lake area. The respondents were asked to define the area's problems, discuss their fears, and suggest actions the police, other city agencies, and residents could take to address the area's problems.

The survey produced numerous interesting findings and uncovered several problems that had not been revealed by other forms of crime analysis. For example, residents expressed tremendous fear of gang behavior and its resultant problems, such as graffiti, random gunfire, and the presence of suspicious persons. Residents participating in the survey recommended organizing a formal Neighborhood Watch program.

Business owners in the area, also expressing concern with burglaries and juvenile offenses, inquired about crime prevention programs and supported efforts to organize a business watch. In addition, the survey revealed that apartment managers neither knew nor communicated with one another. As a result, a number of evicted renters simply moved from one complex to another in the same area.

Often, the concerns expressed by tenants in one apartment complex differed considerably from those expressed by tenants in the complex across the street. The varied nature of these concerns convinced the officers that tailored responses to specific problems would succeed better than a generic cookie-cutter approach to problem solving.

In addition to the citizen survey, the department also conducted an environmental survey of the area. Department personnel photographed street intersections and relayed the photographs to the city's streets department. Likewise, officers videotaped abandoned buildings for the fire department. In addition, officers performed speed and traffic surveys, as well as a lighting survey. They also observed that the area's landscaping consisted primarily of rocks, which provided ready ammunition for youths who participated in one of the area's favorite pastimes - throwing stones at vehicle and apartment windows.

Residents expressed considerable enthusiasm about assisting the police department to address the many problems that confronted the area. During an initial neighborhood meeting, residents, police officers, and other stakeholders discussed the problems and possible solutions. During the intervention period, stakeholders continued to share their concerns and ideas and to chart the intervention's progress during monthly follow-up meetings.

Response

When the officers determined the magnitude of the problems facing the area, they began to formulate plans for tailor-made solutions to them. Experience had shown the officers that arresting offenders should be considered part of the solution; but arrests alone rarely result in long-term improvements to complex neighborhood problems. The officers knew they would have to explore other options.

Armed with vast amounts of information and data, the officers initiated a collaborative, citywide response to the area's problems. The response comprised a balance of crime control and crime prevention efforts. The city attorney drafted a graffiti ordinance. A gang enforcement team worked with the beat officers to target gang-related incidents in the area. Pressure on drug dealers and arrests increased in the apartment complexes. The city imposed a curfew at the public park, which had become a focal point for gang activity and drug dealing. At the same time, the police department initiated bike and foot patrols to complement vehicle patrols throughout the area. The enhanced patrols produced immediate results when officers apprehended several juveniles responsible for a string of vehicle burglaries.

With guidance from the police department, landlords and tenants from the five apartment complexes established a resident council; residents and business owners launched Neighborhood and Business Watch programs. Apartment managers received landlord-tenant training and began to exert friendly pressure on one another to proactively address problems on their properties. The manager of one complex initiated a latchkey program to keep young students busy after school.

The beat officers also coordinated efforts to address environmental issues as another means of crime prevention. The local power company evaluated and corrected area lighting problems. The resident council, working with local salvage yards, initiated a program to remove abandoned vehicles. Residents and apartment managers launched a cleanup campaign. The city's parks department and residents jointly cleaned, painted, and repaired the park facilities. Apartment managers arranged to have pyracantha shrubs planted around fences to make them more formidable crime barriers. The city razed abandoned buildings and a community service organization purchased recreational equipment and transformed a vacant lot into a neighborhood park.

Assessment

Effective assessment of a problem-solving initiative actually begins in the analysis stage, when the. police department collects baseline data on the extent of the problems in a targeted area. As the Virginia Lake intervention drew to a close, the beat officers evaluated the overall effectiveness of their efforts and determined whether any remaining issues required additional analysis or responses. They based their outcome evaluations on both quantitative and qualitative data, including calls for service, reported crimes, and results from citizen surveys.

The officers compared calls for service data from February to August 1992 to figures for the same period in 1991. The comparison revealed significant decreases in robberies, assault and battery offenses, assaults with a deadly weapon (ADW), commercial and residential burglaries, and vehicle thefts during the months of the intervention. As often occurs when communities mobilize against crime and citizen trust in the police to respond grows, reports of disturbances, destruction of property, domestic violence, shots fired, and suspicious persons increased moderately during the intervention.

In a follow-up survey, area residents expressed less fear of crime, cited an improved physical environment in the neighborhood, and pointed with satisfaction to ongoing self-help efforts, as the resident council continued meeting on a regular basis. The reductions in serious criminal activity and calls for service, coupled with improvements to physical environmental conditions throughout the area and the development of citizen-based organizations, led to a gradual reduction of the beat officers' efforts, as the police department returned control of the neighborhood to its residents.

FLEETING SUCCESS

In the year following the police department's concentrated presence in Virginia Lake, conditions in the area began to worsen. While robbery, ADW, and vehicle theft rates continued to fall, the number of family disturbances, assault and battery offenses, reported prowlers, and residential and vehicle burglaries increased significantly.

In 1994, two years after the police department's intervention efforts, conditions deteriorated further. Crimes against persons increased sharply. ADWs spiked (up 500 percent from 1991 levels), as did robberies and reports of suspicious persons in the area. Commercial burglaries increased 44 percent over 1991 figures. Residents expressed a heightened sense of fear, particularly because of recurring gang-related activities in the neighborhood.

Because of the serious downturn in conditions in the area, the resident council recontacted the two officers who had initiated the 1992 intervention efforts. However, because the officers had since been reassigned to specialized units elsewhere, there was little they could do to assist the council. While the new beat officers assigned to the neighborhood and their supervisors were concerned about the declining state of the neighborhood and sought to improve conditions, they were unfamiliar with the area's history. The attrition of area residents and apartment managers also had a negative impact on ongoing maintenance and problem-solving efforts in the area.

Eventually, by using information contained in the original project file, the beat officers were able to reclaim the neighborhood and reestablish a network of partnerships with the resident council, apartment managers, business people, and other city departments and government agencies. After renewed police concentration in the area, a new assessment of the crime problem revealed that crime and calls for service data for many of the targeted offenses had returned to the reduced levels achieved during the original intervention effort.

Still, some problems persisted. Commercial, residential, and vehicle burglaries continued to rise significantly, as did reports of prowlers. During the renewed intervention efforts, over 80 shots were fired in the area - a 453 percent increase over 1991 figures. Reports of family disturbances greatly exceeded their 1991 levels.

Some criminologists might view these increases as "random noise" - changes in criminal activity that occur routinely in economically deprived areas. However, another characterization might be that the increased crime levels for certain offenses reflect, at least to some degree, the reduction of police-citizen maintenance efforts in the area. This indicates that certain neighborhood conditions can lead to increased crime and disorder and thus demand greater maintenance efforts from stakeholders. The police department must continue to explore ways to address these ongoing problems.

Maintaining the Initial Success

The Virginia Lake case study demonstrates a central truth about problem-oriented policing: Law enforcement cannot engage in intensive crime control and prevention efforts and then become essentially inactive in a particular "hot spot." Problems once brought under control quickly can return. Therefore, law enforcement agencies must identify those areas and crime conditions where problems are prone to recur and implement the necessary mechanisms to sustain problem-solving efforts. To ensure a lasting impact, agencies should plan for a long-term approach when implementing community-oriented problem-solving responses.

Document Efforts

Law enforcement agencies should document their problem-solving efforts using the SARA model. If possible, officers should computerize documentation - such as using automated databases for tracking and retrieving information by type, area, officer assignments, shift, and other factors. Keeping this important information readily accessible will help ensure that maintenance efforts will continue even if the personnel involved in the original intervention effort are assigned elsewhere. Agency administrators should develop methods to periodically update the original project file. Information should include the names of new stakeholders - such as incoming apartment managers - as well as updated crime figures and service call data for the targeted area.

Train All Personnel

Agencies should train all personnel - sworn and support - in COPPS methodologies and develop administrative systems to ensure that officers and supervisors understand the history and status of problems in the areas to which they are assigned. To accomplish this agencywide, commanders might consider posting, in a conspicuous place such as the patrol briefing room, a list of projects by area and officers involved.

Keep Other Agencies Involved

Administrators also should keep municipal agencies that took part in any initial intervention initiatives informed and involved in ongoing efforts to maintain an enhanced quality of life in the targeted area. The police departments in Newport News, Virginia, and San Diego, California, formed analysis advisory committees that serve as vehicles for monthly meetings between police and other government agencies to discuss and monitor ongoing problem-solving efforts.

Keep Stakeholders Informed

Likewise, administrators should ensure that beat officers keep concerned citizens groups - landlord-tenant associations, Business and neighborhood Watches, and neighborhood advisory groups - informed about ongoing efforts in target areas. The continued involvement of such groups represents an essential element in any ongoing crime control effort.

CONCLUSION

Crime is a dynamic force. That is, it tends to respond and adapt to changing environments. Therefore, an effective response to crime also must be dynamic. When law enforcement agencies mobilize for a short-term blitz of activity directed at specific crime problems in particular neighborhoods, they often realize impressive initial results. But, without ongoing maintenance, conditions in troubled areas can quickly deteriorate to a level as bad, or worse, than those that originally precipitated the intervention.

Therefore, agencies should approach problem solving as a long-term commitment. After the initial intervention has reversed a downward spiral, law enforcement agencies should work to maintain reduced crime and fear levels by continuing to assess and respond to emerging problems. To do so, beat officers and administrators should maintain regular liaison with community leaders, business groups, and other municipal agencies. Law enforcement administrators should view the success of any initial problem-solving intervention effort not as the end of the agency's efforts in the targeted area but as the beginning of a renewed and ongoing relationship.

Endnotes

1 J.Q. Wilson and G. Kelling, "The Police and Neighborhood Safety: Broken Windows," The Atlantic Monthly, March 1982, 29-38.

2 H. Goldstein, Problem-oriented Policing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990).

Dr. Glensor is the Deputy Chief of the Reno, Nevada, Police Department.

Dr. Peak is a professor in the department of criminal justice at the University of Nevada in Reno.