Small Steps Add Up to Big Drops in Crime
During a press conference at Milwaukee Police District 7, Police Chief Edward Flynn was joined by Mayor Tom Barrett, Alderman Willie Wade, and other community stakeholders to announce another drop in crime. According to the Chief, total violent crime was down 7.1 percent in 2010 from 2009 – and decreased 23.1 percent since 2007. Total crime was down 10 percent in 2010 from 2009 – and is down 19.3 percent since 2007.
The city-wide numbers are impressive, but what is more important is the human story behind the numbers. Big decreases in crime start with careful communication with community members to identify issues which enable law enforcement to apply limited resources effectively. An example of such community engagement in District 7 was highlighted by Chief Flynn. Under the command of Captain William Jessup, officers reached out to community partners, city agencies and individual residents to take an area that was a haven for disorder – the Hampton-Hopkins Target Area- and turn the crime numbers around. Safe & Sound Community Prosecution Unit Coordinator, Erin Perkins, played a key role in organizing and implementing the efforts for the target area.
Nestled between 34th and 40th Streets, Glendale Street and Fairmount Avenue, the Hampton-Hopkins target area experienced a twelve percent increase in reported offenses between 2008 and 2009. This included a marked rise in violent crime and a high volume of calls for police service. Drug activity, gangs, and prostitution thrived in well-defined areas. Quality of life issues stemmed from a growth in boarded up and foreclosed properties as well as a lack of new business development. Amid these distressing facts, District 7 devoted itself to collaborating with other agencies to disrupt criminal activity, promote public safety, and increase neighborhood stability in this geographic area.
Several stakeholders were brought together to carry out the numerous small, but important, steps in the anti-crime initiative. Safe & Sound Community Partner Organizer Rose Pritchett went door-to-door in the target area, speaking with residents about the initiative and listening to their concerns. He also encouraged residents to attend the meetings to provide input and join the established local block watches. The police department established regular beat patrols in the Hampton-Hopkins area. Blessed Trinity Church hosted block watch meetings to increase solidarity amongst residents. Probation and Parole closely monitored the highly-concentrated population of offenders on supervision in the community, while the District Attorney’s Office focused on charging chronic offenders to keep them off the streets. Walgreens, Lowe’s, and Valspar donated products, like lighting and paint, to reduce blight. Students and teachers at 35th Street School organized a clean-up to improve the look of their neighborhood. With the help of the Department of City Development, the Eagle Scouts began a project on 34th and Courtland, removing brush and trash to prepare for the future site of a walking path and sitting area for residents. This has all had an impact as Romaro Giles, a resident on 38th Street, said of the project, “We had foot patrol in the neighborhood. It made me feel safer and everyone else in the neighborhood feel safer.”
Identifying and abating nuisance activity was also a major part of the Hampton-Hopkins Initiative. In the Spring of 2010, Erin Perkins, Safe & Sound’s Community Prosecution Unit Coordinator for District 7, took additional steps to organize outreach throughout the entire target area with members of the Community Prosecution Unit and the Department of City Development to solicit feedback from residents about problem properties and their concerns about their neighborhoods. This outreach resulted in 156 face-to-face contacts with residents. Over 200 flyers with information about joining block watches, reporting nuisance activity, and utilizing community resources were left at homes. Twenty-two properties were reported for being vacant, in need of a board-up, or for having tall weeds.
The outreach revealed that many residents, including Mr. Giles, were concerned about the criminal activity, like drug dealing, prostitution, loitering, and violent crime, in their neighborhoods. They identified the Pine Tree Apartment complex at 38th and Fairmount as the epicenter for most of this activity. In one year, 223 calls for service were logged for these apartments to the Milwaukee Police Department. The Community Prosecution Unit conducted a series of meetings with the owner and his building managers to discuss residents’ concerns as well as the high volume of phone calls from Pine Tree. A lengthy nuisance abatement plan was drafted to handle the problems on the premises. However, after an inspection by the Department of Neighborhood Services revealed more than thirty serious building code violations, four of the five buildings in this apartment complex were deemed uninhabitable. Community Advocates were on-hand to find new housing for tenants. Following the closing of these apartments, crime in the surrounding neighborhood dropped by 23%.
The Mobil on Hampton was another location that residents cited as a hot bed of criminal activity. During a meeting with the Community Prosecution Unit, the owners of the gas station agreed to close their business between midnight and 6AM. Officers then worked with the owners, David Weber of the Department of City Development, and offenders from the Felmers-Cheney Correctional Institution to fix the façade of the store by painting the building, removing brush, and picking up trash.
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn emphasized that “Community engagement is fundamental to our mission…Cops count, but cops and the community win.” The small steps that led to the overall decreases in crime simply could not have been accomplished without resident and neighborhood involvement.
