NCJ Number
198741
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 70 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2003 Pages: 20-25
Editor(s)
Charles E. Higginbotham
Date Published
January 2003
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article reports on police departments around the country that are taking a proactive stance against crime in their communities.
Abstract
This article gives accounts of seven policing programs from around the country that are successfully implementing proactive strategies. The first account involves illegal trash dumping in Oklahoma County, right outside of Oklahoma City. This area surrounding the outskirts of the city had become littered with illegal trash dumping. In response, the sheriff’s office created a new position called Trash Cop. The new Trash Cop put together a surveillance plan and made several arrests in his effort to clean up illegal dumps. The second program that is highlighted involves cleaning up junked vehicles in Sugar Land, TX. The police adopted a junk motor vehicle ordinance and identified a particular neighborhood in need of cleaning up. In another account, the police department in Calera, AL, instituted a Citizen Contact Program to encourage officers to interact with citizens and inform them about crime trends and prevention techniques. Woodcliff Lake, NJ, decided to get back to old policing ways when they re-instituted a 40 year old policy of assigning police officers to a beat consisting of 200 households. Officers regularly visit with these households to address crime prevention and quality of life issues. This technique has improved crime prevention for businesses, too. Each sergeant in the department is assigned to 30 businesses that receive personalized attention and information regarding crime trends. Another police department in Lynchburg, VA, created the HABIT program, which decreased thefts from automobiles by raising citizen awareness and response. In Chandler, AZ, a police survey of citizen satisfaction revealed that citizens were concerned with speeding motorists in residential neighborhoods. Their response was to set up a police motorcycle squad to reduce the traffic-related violations in the city’s neighborhoods. Finally, in Milpitas, CA, the city learned that its immigrant shopkeeper population was dissatisfied with law enforcement efforts in the shopping centers. In response, the police department assigned officers to each shopping center in order to promote community cooperation in crime control efforts.