Category: Agency Serving a Population of 100,001 to 250,000 Residents
The Problem
Community Assisted Public Safety (CAPS) is a novel crime fighting initiative based on community-policing principles that the Richmond Police Department strongly embraces. CAPS quickly has become the Richmond way to improve the quality of life in city neighborhoods by eliminating public safety concerns about vacant, abandoned and neglected property. Police officers now target and arrest properties and hold owners both civilly and criminally liable for the activities that occur on their properties.
The City of Richmond, like many urban centers, suffers from blighted properties, including drug houses, abandoned buildings, decaying residences and illegal businesses. These properties attract criminal behavior and negatively impact communities, often reducing the quality of life for neighboring residents. Thus such properties cause an increased demand for police resources due to loitering, street level narcotic activity and other concerns that the properties create.
Every community association in Richmond is concerned with the problem of blighted properties. Criminal activity often begins in and radiates from these properties and leads to serious safety and quality of life issues for residents. Prior to CAPS, the department spent countless hours arresting individuals who were in and around these properties. Numerous repeat calls for service to blighted properties occurred, and although officers arrested people, they did not have the tools to address the underlying issue effectively - the blighted properties. Simultaneously, the city’s overburdened building inspectors were unable to do any proactive enforcement and were having difficulty maintaining accurate data files on current inventory.
The Richmond Police Department’s challenge was to develop and implement a method for all city agencies to work together with citizens to achieve lasting results. In response, the police department partnered with other city agencies to create CAPS. Multidisciplinary teams were developed and assigned geographically throughout the city. Each team is comprised of a code enforcement official, a police officer and representatives from the Health Department, Fire Marshall’s Office and Zoning Department.
The Solution
The Richmond Police Department brainstormed to determine how best to achieve the goal of creating blight-free communities and decided that it was necessary to implement an approach of multiagency collaboration and a philosophy of community-oriented government and problem solving. Community Assisted Public Safety (CAPS) was born. The police department spearheaded the city’s effort to engage other agencies, citizens and businesses in this new multidisciplinary approach to resolving blight and associated crime. CAPS also had the objective to meet city council goals of expanding the following community-policing initiatives: to further reduce crime; to preserve the aesthetics of Richmond and improve the infrastructure of neighborhoods and city facilities; and to improve the real estate market viability and quality of life in targeted neighborhoods. CAPS is based on three key principles: first, extensive partnerships with citizens; second, education on the elements of a healthy community; and third, proactive enforcement of public safety, building and environmental codes.
CAPS’ goal is to maximize the effectiveness of city agencies by combining resources to make property owners and residents with chronic public safety or code problems accountable. To that end, CAPS created six multidisciplinary teams, called Code Action Teams (CATs) and assigned each one to one of six geographic areas so that each area had one CAT Team. The teams are comprised of representatives from police, building, zoning, health, fire and any other agencies such as state and federal law enforcement agencies. The CATs were cross-trained to achieve success. For example, police learned about code enforcement and vice-versa.
The CATs were assigned to a specific geographic area, and each team became intimately familiar with the blighted properties in its area. CAPS partnered with a local citizens’ coalition, Team Zero Tolerance, to engage community residents in each of the six geographic locations. The CAT members meet monthly with residents to identify and prioritize problem properties and identify appropriate actions that both citizens and CAPS can take and monitor implementation in their neighborhoods. Residents decide on the problem properties and then are challenged to prioritize the importance of their selections. In addition to providing the monthly information, residents receive feedback from the CATs regarding the progress and resolution of the previously chosen properties. This full-circle response builds trust in CAPS and ensures the process will continue to be successful. The CATs initiate the abatement process by surveying the nominated properties, identifying violations and determining the most effective methods to employ to address the violations. Contact then is made with the property owner to begin the process of repairing the violation. When compliance is not voluntary, all necessary measures are taken to ensure that violations are abated. It is during the enforcement phase when the multidisciplinary nature of the teams is most effective. The teams strategize and pool resources to determine the best way to solve the problems.
To coordinate overall logistics, CAPS implemented the Code Review Committee (CRC), composed of citizens, management level representatives from involved city agencies and representatives from the City Attorney’s Office, Commonwealth Attorney’s Office and City Manager’s Office. The CRC’s role is to ensure the success of CAPS and to implement enforcement strategies for problem properties that do not respond to normal code enforcement actions by the CATs.
The CRC effectuates city code changes to facilitate CAPS actions; seeks restitution from property owners for the costs of police, fire and health responses to nuisances; and initiates civil and criminal actions to address complex code enforcement issues. Having both civil and criminal legal representation in the CRC is another new element that CAPS introduced to the city, and it has made the prosecution of blighted properties more efficient than previous efforts.
The high rate of citizen involvement in government is another achievement of CAPS. City residents work with the CATs to determine which properties from their area should be submitted to CAPS. In addition, residents have become court watchdogs and make certain that judges and politicians are aware of the coordinated approach to addressing blighted property and its associated criminal activity. Citizen groups regularly appear in court to demonstrate their support for CAPS when court proceedings become necessary. Community presence in court has led to stiffer penalties in CAPS cases that traditionally were treated lightly in criminal court.
CAPS also successfully implemented a program to use Virginia’s Drug Blight Statute (VA Code 18.2-258) to fight illegal drug activity. This code section makes it illegal for property owners, tenants, property managers and others in control of property to allow knowingly their property to be used for drug related activity. Police officers started charging persons with violations of 18.2-258 in appropriate situations. This enforcement, in turn, provided landlords a way to seek speedy evictions for criminals who were disturbing the quality of life for law-abiding residents.
Additionally, the police department started activating CATs during police search warrants to ensure that if necessary, the property was shut down in addition to anyone being arrested. CAPS also implemented a uniform schedule of violations and recommended punishment that each agency follows when it goes to court. The uniform schedule has helped establish a systematic enforcement approach among all city agencies, and it has enhanced the city’s ability to secure punishments for code violators.
Evaluation
In its short life span, CAPS has achieved impressive results by using innovative techniques to leverage the strengths of individual agencies into teams with strong enforcement powers. Since its inception in October 2002, more than $1.5 million in overdue back taxes have been collected. More than 1,300 criminal violations have been noted with a 77 percent abatement rate from the impacted properties. The CAPS approach of increasing public safety through blight abatement is achieving its goal of enhancing city residents’ quality of life and restoring neighborhood pride.
This novel idea has enabled the department to close down illegal businesses immediately and secure residential properties with serious health/safety issues. For example, a local restaurant and trouble spot had the following record during a two-year period: 67 criminal incidents, 197 police responses, a homicide, assaults, stolen autos, shots fired, police May Days and thefts. CAPS conducted one inspection and noted so many tax, health and other violations that the club closed immediately after the inspection and has since stopped its operations.
Community partners were integral in the formation of CAPS and remain a pivotal piece to CAPS’ success and continue to participate in the numerous roles described earlier in this section. Those partners include:
- Richmond Community Development
- Richmond Fire Department
- Richmond Health Department
- Richmond Social Services
- Richmond Tax Enforcement
- Richmond Department of Public Utilities
- Richmond City Attorney
- Richmond Commonwealth Attorney
- Richmond Neighborhood Team Process
- Richmond Team Zero Tolerance
- Internal Revenue Service
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Department of Environmental Quality
- Motion Pictures Association of America
- Virginia Alcohol Beverage Commission
- Dominion Power
- Continental Cable
The success of CAPS has generated a groundswell of support from residents to maintain this response to blight issues. Although Richmond faces an overall shrinking bi-annual budget for FY03-04, every council member requested that CAPS be created into a fully-funded line item and receive full program support. This is a remarkable accomplishment for CAPS and illustrates how effective it has been in its short lifetime.
Residents attending the monthly meetings are informed and educated as to their rights and responsibilities as property owners and neighbors. With each neighborhood abatement, comes an increase in neighborhood pride that improves the quality of life for residents and helps the CAPS philosophy spread throughout the city.
CAPS created the “Community Code Enforcement Report” that for the first time indicates the significant workload and accomplishments made by city agencies. This report provides excellent information for city agencies and detailed reports to citizens at CAPS community meetings.
In addition to the qualitative measurements described above, CAPS also was measured quantitatively and the impressive results are listed below:
- Inspected more than 350 properties
- Cited more than 1,350 violations
- Abated 77 percent of violations (22 percent pending and one percent unresolved)
- Made more than 140 arrests
- Towed more than 150 vehicles
- Confiscated more than $600,000 in illegal merchandise
- Brought more than 300 charges against 70 defendants
- Generated more than $55,000 in court fines
- Recovered $1,200,000 in delinquent business taxes
- Recovered $300,000 in real estate taxes
- Recovered $25,000,00 in lost revenue for Department of Public Utilities
- Recovered numerous stolen gas meters
CAPS’ actual results exceeded performance expectations. In addition to enhancing enforcement actions for code violations and quality of life issues, CAPS has become a major revenue generator for the city. CAPS has been a valuable source of learning for all involved and has highlighted the fact that strong partnerships are the key to success. The realization that a problem property impacts all city services has enabled the police department to develop a multidisciplinary and unified approach to abatement that benefits all stakeholders. The department also has learned that an abated property results in reduced or eliminated calls for service, improved opportunity for home ownership and a greater sense of community within the neighborhood.
