Your Local Police Officer’s Job

by Tony Chavira

An Atlantic Magazine article from March, 1982 focuses on an interesting study where a New Jersey state program temporarily funded a huge increase in police patrolling along the streets of major cities. I know that this program may not seem particularly revelatory or experimental to those who watch a lot of old films, as there are plenty of references to officers swinging their batons and lingering around in the streets of even the worst parts of towns late into the night. And yet somehow, by the 1980s, the concept of officers patrolling the city streets on foot had become foreign enough to be reconsidered with this experiment. The logic is still prevalent today: police cars can roam freely under the assumption that police can take down more hard crime with a faster overall rate of success. They can simply leap into their vehicles and mad dash to the scene of the crime. Running there doesn’t really get the job done.

Despite the car’s amazing efficiency when attending to reported crimes, the authors of the 1982 article did not focus on the act of “solving crimes” (which tends to be much of the focus of police operations today as well). Instead, the authors chose to focus on a key point that is at least as important as the elimination of actual crime: the feeling of safety residents have when walking through their own neighborhoods. Stepping outside of your home to see a homeless person sleeping on your doorstep; walking down the street while avoiding sleeping drunks on the sidewalk; watching someone proposition a prostitute in the open; these are all realities of living in a city, and we have all seen them at some point or another simply by living in a city environment.

These are all things that can be easily monitored by police officers too. Aside from simply solving crimes, it has historically been the job of the police officer on patrol to mediate neighborhood safety in order to regulate a certain type of environmental decorum. Police would make sure respectable people don’t get panhandled, call attention to loiterers, manage the noise level on the street, or even arbitrate between local businesses and their customers. Very traditionally, we prefer that our officers know our names, say “hi” to us in friendly ways, look out for our neighbors, monitor the more eccentric local residents, and keep their eyes out for dicey strangers. If a crime is happening in front of you, a police officer should feel compelled by their position of authority (and by their actual job requirements) to intervene and stop that crime. Somehow, though, years have passed and the sense that police officers are willing to partake in friendly day-to-day interactions to maintain this decorum has passed as well.

The authors found (and no one was surprised) that the program to put foot patrols on the street wasn’t much of a success in terms of reducing actual levels of crime in any of the New Jersey cities. Granted, if the levels of crime had not changed, it also meant that placing officers on the street involved no real increase in the level of crime, but that’s not as important as what the findings showed: that the overall perception that residents lived in safe neighborhoods improved dramatically. All it took was a dedicated force of police officers to know the neighborhood, patrol it on foot throughout the day, and keep the peace.

Oh, that and the total elimination of the patrol car, which was seen by many as a barrier, shield or hindrance to dishing out actual, helpful authority on the street (just think about how many times an officer has been called a “bitch” he or she had pulled up in a car to intimidate a gang member, said a few words and immediately rolled up the window to drive away).

Now, the New Urbanist advocacy community can do its best to change in the amount of walkability a city has in order to create more accessible and more economically-integrated communities. And their efforts would not be in vain. Living closer to public transit, in mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods right next to parks, schools and services is pretty much the ideal neighborhood for everyone. But what happens when even one street drunk enters this neighborhood and has total disregard for the citizens around him when he sleeps in the middle of the sidewalk? Ignoring this person leads to communities were others know that there are no repercussions for passing out drunk in the streets, in the parks, or other public places. But full-force arresting the first guy who gets drunk and passes out on the sidewalk won’t set a good tone in an open, comfortable community. No one wants to fear that any stupid misstep will land them in jail, this aren't prohibition days after all.

It’s been shown time and time again that increasing the number of police patrolling in high-crime areas does reduce the amount of crime in that neighborhood. But not everything unsavory on the street is a crime. What can you do about neighborhoods where the residents simply don’t feel safe: where local homes are abandoned and dilapidated, where local bars are seedy and spill bizarre characters onto the street late at night, or where destructive youths roam? These things are not crimes per se, yet they create an aura of danger, keeping people in their homes, afraid of going outside regardless of the actual level of crime. When a police car rolls through this kind of neighborhood late at night, people simply stop and wait for the police to leave so that they can carry on their unpleasant business a moment later.

But when a police officer or two walks through this area, the bizarre characters, rowdy youths or whoever are forced to explain themselves to a figure of authority that isn’t going anywhere. This is the kind of authority that people in good communities depend on: the authority instilled in the police not simply to solve crimes, but to make public spaces comfortable for the public. If smart urban spaces are meant to promote a sense of integration and community, foot patrolling is, in turn, meant to integrate and manage this space seamlessly to the benefit of its residents and users. It’s okay that some spaces are more run down that others; Beverly Hills is just a different kind of neighborhood from Skid Row. But there’s no reason why both spaces can’t benefit from an ingrained sense of comfort for all people living and working in them. This is the job of your friendly neighborhood police officer.

Having worked in downtown Los Angeles for a few years now, I can tell you that it’s much easier for police to get out of their cars in a dense urban space, but many still do not. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t interesting combinations of both ideas, though, including bicycle cops or more recently cops on Segways. So my question for you to roll around in your head would be this: is a cop on a Segway someone you feel comfortable approaching, or does the device still create a barrier that keeps the police from fully and comfortably mediating your neighborhood?

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