Neighborhood service team.

In the early 1990s, run down houses in several parts of Garland, Texas, provided the violent backdrop for a seemingly endless series of crack cocaine transactions. On an almost daily basis, occupants of a few houses terrorized entire surrounding neighborhoods with drug-related shootings. Children could not play outside; elderly residents lived like prisoners in their own homes. A drug operation housed in an apartment complex across from an elementary school spawned frequent shootings, assaults, and robberies.

An urban nightmare had crept into a once-peaceful suburban setting. At the same time, calls for service to the Garland Police Department increased dramatically, with a corresponding rise in crime rates, especially violent crime.

The increased calls for service placed greater demands on the police department at a time when citywide fiscal shortfalls kept the police budget essentially flat. Inadequate staffing levels also hampered the department's ability to stem the rising tide of crime.

A 1992 study of the 100 largest cities(1) in the United States showed Garland with the second lowest number of sworn personnel (238). The city's ratio of 1.22 officers per 1,000 residents fell far below the study's average of 1.8 officers per 1,000.(2) Despite these limitations, administrators of the Garland Police Department and other municipal agencies sought ways to maintain quality service to the community.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

It became clear that the contemporary issues facing Garland could not be addressed effectively using traditional approaches. However, city and police administrators saw the call to do more with less - usually regarded as a necessary evil - as a challenge to improve community relations through enhanced involvement with the community.

To develop solutions to Garland's crime problems, city officials studied community- and problem-oriented policing programs in other cities. In every case, primary responsibility for program administration rested with the police department. Police and city administrators determined that several factors, including the police department's low officer-to-resident ratio, would make these programs difficult to replicate in Garland.

City administrators concluded that successful implementation of a community-wide response to the city's crime problems required nothing less than a restructuring of the institutions that provided law enforcement and other city services. Ultimately, the goal to reduce and prevent crimes led to the development of the Neighborhood Service Team (NST) - a unique cooperative effort combining the resources of the police department and other municipal agencies with the assistance of community residents.

THE NST

The Neighborhood Service Team consists of all city departments. However, the majority of projects involve personnel and resources from 15 agencies, including the police and fire departments, the planning department, and housing and neighborhood services. The team's mission statement reflects its goal to "build and maintain a partnership between the community and the city that will encourage cooperative problem solving and improve quality of life...."

The NST concept encourages all city departments to share equal responsibility in the administration of the program. Accordingly, the structure of the NST ensures that each participating agency has an equal voice in decisionmaking and project implementation.

Team Organization

A police commander and an official from the city's planning department were selected as co-managers of the NST project. Each city agency selected a mid-management-level employee to serve on an administrative committee overseeing the NST effort. These representatives, referred to as coordinators, developed a protocol for NST initiatives. These coordinators meet regularly to review progress reports, discuss problem areas, plan upcoming projects, and coordinate the use of city resources. To streamline the bureaucratic process, the city manager and city council granted final decisionmaking powers to the coordinators.

The heart of the NST effort consists of field-level personnel who interact directly with community members to identify problems. These employees are empowered to initiate and proceed with work on community projects without first obtaining authorization from a supervisor.

Training

Prior to implementation of the NST project, instructors trained all police personnel involved with the program, regardless of rank or position. Instructors from the Norfolk, Virginia, Police Department and the Police Executive Research Forum provided theoretical training. In-house instructors taught officers certain techniques to help them interact with personnel from other agencies. Emphasizing teamwork and coordination with other city departments, these instructors laid a strong foundation for the successful implementation of problem-oriented policing concepts.

In addition, team coordinators conducted departmental cross-training for all involved city employees. Team coordinators also compiled a training manual to help team members identify and solve neighborhood problems. The manual includes a city directory, service referral listings, citizen survey data, NST personnel listings, and general information on city departments.

TAKING ACTION

Think Big, Start Small

Team coordinators selected a 5-square mile area in east-central Garland as the first community to be served by the NST. The target area, called NST-east, had experienced rapid deterioration during the past several years.

The neighborhood's ethnically diverse population of 24,000 - made up primarily of lower and lower-middle income families - accounted for 12 percent of Garland's total population. Yet, it had come to account for nearly 20 percent of the service calls to the police department. The Neighborhood Service Team directed its efforts to addressing the various factors that had led to the neighborhood's deterioration.

Community Survey

NST coordinators believed that a survey represented the best way to determine community needs and concerns as they implemented the program. Obtaining feedback from area residents would enable NST members to identify neighborhood priorities.

Team members distributed the survey, printed in both English and Spanish, to commercial and residential addresses throughout the target area. Neighborhood churches and recreation centers also functioned as distribution sites, allowing NST coordinators to reach as many people in the community as possible.

A total of 500 surveys was distributed. Residents completed and returned 372 surveys. Sixty-seven percent of the respondents (249) listed their names and phone numbers for future contact by NST members. In December 1992, shortly after analyzing the survey responses, the NST set to work to address the problems as prioritized by the residents.

NST Officers

Initially, the 17 police officers that patrolled the NST-east area assumed responsibility for community/problem-oriented policing in addition to their normal patrol duties. When it became apparent that the demands of patrol duties left these officers little time to perform their NST responsibilities, department administrators decided to select full-time NST officers to work the area in addition to the regular patrol staff. Relieved from answering routine calls for service, NST officers focus on identifying problems in the target area and coordinating the multiagency response to those problems.

The NST Process

The process - then, as now - is quite simple. Once team members identify a neighborhood problem, they initiate a project to eliminate its underlying cause. They complete a short form to track the NST project from inception to completion. The team measures progress with several quantitative instruments, including minisurveys conducted before and after each project and analyses of statistical data. In the first months of its operation, the Neighborhood Service Team identified and resolved several high-profile problems in the target area.

NST PROJECTS

Cleaning Up a Neighborhood

Team members learned that communication problems in the past often had contributed to neighborhood deterioration. A predominately Hispanic neighborhood within the target area appeared noticeably run-down and suffered from high crime rates.

An NST officer observed a general lack of pride in the neighborhood among residents, who also exhibited a high degree of tolerance toward crime. This officer also noticed that excess trash and discarded appliances covered the yards of two neighboring streets, sullying the appearance of the entire neighborhood. When a Spanish-speaking NST officer talked to the residents, the officer discovered they wanted the refuse removed, but could neither afford the dumping fee nor remove the accumulated debris themselves.

The NST officer contacted his counterpart in the sanitation department, who arranged to have a large roll-off dumpster placed on a nearby vacant lot for trash and junk collection. The neighborhood residents quickly filled the dumpster to capacity. Large trash trucks made daily runs to haul away the accumulated refuse. The cooperative effort among police officers, sanitation officials, and residents resulted in a clean neighborhood. The improved physical state of the area helped restore a sense of neighborhood pride that proved less inviting to criminal offenders.

Closing Crack Houses 

To date, the collaborative efforts of the police department and other NST agencies have closed 19 drug operations based in residential locations. Instead of officers making perfunctory arrests, NST members worked cooperatively to address the root of the problem.

NST members from the Housing Department condemned drug houses and had them boarded up or razed completely. By eliminating one particularly notorious drug house and adding additional street lighting through the assistance of the electric company, the NST helped restore a sense of safety and security to a neighborhood that had devolved into a battle zone. The residents reclaimed their neighborhood and became free once again to enjoy such simple pleasures as visiting outside, walking to the store, and working in their gardens.

Protecting a School

One of the most complex projects initiated by the team proved to be closing down a drug operation in an apartment complex across from an elementary school in the target area. For some time, the apartment complex's management assisted police efforts to curb the drag activity by boarding up vacant units and installing barriers to prevent drive-through drug dealing. Unfortunately, these measures combined with periodic police visits to the complex caused the drag activity to spill across the street onto the school's grounds and into the building itself. Parents expressed understandable concern, while children who attended the school or lived in the apartment complex grew more frightened.

To ensure community involvement, NST members met with officials from the Garland Independent School District and surveyed neighborhood residents, including tenants of the affected apartment complex. After reviewing the survey responses, the Neighborhood Service Team implemented a multifaceted plan designed to enhance the security of the school by addressing the problems at the apartment complex. The plan included the following actions:

* Adopting a zero tolerance enforcement attitude

* Enforcing criminal trespass ordinances

* Evicting drug offenders

* Working with the city's transportation department to draft an ordinance limiting vehicular traffic around the apartment complex.

In addition, the police department's drag unit used informants and undercover stings to identify drug dealers. Code enforcement officials also conducted inspections and assisted the management of the apartment complex to make physical improvements to the facility.

Within a month, the apartment complex - which had regularly ranked among the highest areas in the city in terms of police service calls - became one of the lowest service areas in the city. The number of calls involving serious crimes declined from 360 in 1992 to 29 in 1993.

Rediscovering the Community

Surveys and community meetings revealed the need for a wide range of social services in the target area. The Neighborhood Service Team worked proactively to identify and provide services that would enhance the lives of individuals living in the target community.

Harmony House

To provide a central location to address some of these needs, the neighborhood service team renovated and converted a former residence into a meeting place called Harmony House. The site once had served as a community resource center. Today, programs offered at Harmony House focus on public health issues; English-as-a-second-language courses; computer training, tutoring, and GED classes; outreach counseling; and community meetings.

Community Involvement

As the Neighborhood Service Team made its impact felt throughout the community, the community responded with strong support for NST initiatives. When an NST member initiated a project to wash and paint an apartment complex wall defaced by gang-related graffiti, a local paint company donated paint to the project, and high school students volunteered their time to help eliminate the neighborhood eyesore.

When another NST member identified several elderly or disabled residents who were unable to make necessary home repairs, he contacted the shop department of a nearby high school. In exchange for work performed on targeted homes, the student volunteers received academic credit, and perhaps more important, experienced the intrinsic reward of helping others through community service. These and similar projects foster the type of involvement necessary to strengthen the spirit of community that provides a less fertile breeding ground for criminal activity.

GETTING RESULTS

Reduced Crime

The various projects coordinated by the Neighborhood Service Team have one overall goal: To reduce criminal activity in the target area. Crime data for NST-east show that this goal is being met. The 5-square-mile target area posted a 25-percent reduction in serious crime rates during 1992-93, its first year of operation. The city's overall serious crime rate fell only 1.5 percent during the same period.(3) In 1994, serious crime in the target area fell an additional 3 percent. The city recorded a 2.5-percent decrease in serious crime in 1994.(4)

Recognition

Everyone appreciates being recognized for their efforts - especially when those efforts translate into an improved community. Garland's NST concept has drawn considerable praise for its innovative and cooperative approach to solving once-seemingly intractable community problems.

In 1993, the Governor of Texas presented the State's Criminal Justice Award for Community Policing to the Garland Police Department for its NST program. In the same year, the National League of Cities recognized the Garland Apartment Managers Group for its contribution to the NST initiative. In 1994, the International Association of Chiefs of Police presented the Webber Seavey Award for Quality in Law Enforcement to the NST, one of only three programs that year to win the prestigious award.

Expansion

The success of the Neighborhood Service Team in east Garland led to an expansion of the program in September 1994 to include an 8-square mile area of west Garland. This target area presents its own set of challenges: It consists of several culturally diverse neighborhoods and has the highest concentration of multifamily housing units in the city. However, the assembled team is confident that the same revitalization taking place in east Garland can be realized in west Garland.

CONCLUSION

The Neighborhood Service Team concept succeeds largely because it serves one of the most basic human needs - the need to be heard. The concept allows citizens to communicate their concerns to public servants who act proactively to address those concerns.

The collaborative process of problem solving promoted by the NST concept represents another key ingredient to its success. Because all city agencies share equal responsibility for identifying and solving problems in the target area, all have an equal stake in the results. Cross-training ensures that all NST members have the skills necessary to assist residents in the target area.

As citizens see tangible results and improvements in their neighborhood, they, in turn, develop a stronger sense of community. In short, the Neighborhood Service Team fights crime by pooling city services to help citizens reclaim their communities.

Endnotes

1 Garland, the ninth largest city in Texas, lies in close proximity to Dallas and Fort Worth.

2 "Local Yearbook, 1993: Highs and Lows of Urban America," Governing, July 1993, 42-51.

3 Crime in the United States - 1993, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994.)

4 Garland Police Department records.

Commander Barber serves with the Garland, Texas, Police Department.