By Michael Grabell, The Dallas Morning News
Dallas has launched a flurry of anti-crime initiatives over the past year, hoping to break a six-year streak as the city with the highest crime rate among the nation’s largest cities.
But according to experts, while Dallas has the tools, it may be missing the blueprint to put it all together.
As new Police Chief David Kunkle begins to draft his own crime-fighting plans, The Dallas Morning News presented 16 criminologists, policing consultants and former police chiefs with a list of various anti-crime initiatives as well as media accounts of the crime problem and the state of the Police Department.
A conclusion shared by many: “I would doubt that mounting these or other crime-focused initiatives are the most important things to do right now,” said David Duffee, associate dean of the criminal justice school at the State University of New York at Albany.
The experts say Dallas has assembled a promising cache of anti-crime initiatives but should establish a strategic plan, boost police morale and increase resources if it wants to see a sharp decline in crime.
“Developing strong leadership, clarifying lines of communication to other city leaders and developing (and actually implementing) a real strategic plan appear to be paramount concerns.”
Those interviewed said hiring a new chief was a key first step, and they expect him to infuse the department with fresh ideas and to quickly garner the support of officers and the community.
Simple advice
But the criminologists and former police chiefs shared similar advice on how to proceed: Dallas should expand its crime-mapping program, restructure its community-policing model and hang its initiatives on a strategic plan, developed with the aid of the community.
Chief Kunkle, who started work late last month, has a track record for such ideas. As Arlington’s police chief, he introduced the computer crime-tracking program known as Compstat, fostered a community-policing philosophy among all officers, and began working with businesses and community groups.
Since August, city officials have compulsively watched crime statistics and passed a series of ordinances to supplement the work police officers do on a daily basis. From a blitz on robberies in entertainment districts to an ordinance targeting stray shopping carts, the initiatives represent a wide-ranging approach against crime.
“I think that we were brainstorming and trying to come up with some ideas to help reduce crime, knowing that the most important piece was yet to come - and that was a strong police chief,” Mayor Laura Miller said.
The criminologists and former police chiefs described Dallas’ initiatives as a “broken windows” approach, targeting such quality-of-life problems as panhandling and prostitution on the belief that neglecting those smaller crimes will lead to such serious crimes as assault and robbery.
Tom Ward, assistant chief over patrol, said the initiatives have bolstered the efforts of street officers.
“There is a great deal of good police work that’s going on in addition to these initiatives,” he said. “On a day-to-day basis, we have officers who go out either through calls to police or through observation, find people who are committing offenses, and take action on these offenses.”
Crime expected to drop
Overall, crime is expected to be down about 6.5 percent when official figures for the first half of the year are released in coming weeks. As of May, violent crimes, such as murder and robbery, were down 9.6 percent, while property crimes, such as burglary and theft, had fallen 5.8 percent, he said.
Chief Kunkle has already sent two top commanders to study the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Compstat, which uses computerized statistics and mapping to spot crime trends in specific neighborhoods.
Crime prevention experts praise Compstat as one of the most significant advances in policing and credit it in part with driving the steep decreases seen over the last decade in such major cities as New York.
“Precinct managers were held accountable, knowing what the problems are, devising non-cookbook strategies for dealing with the problems, and woe be it to the precinct commander who couldn’t identify his or her problems and the innovative ways to deal with it,” said George Kelling, a Rutgers University professor, who pioneered the broken windows theory.
Larry Hoover, director of the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, has said that the department had one of the best crime-mapping programs he’s seen but that commanders aren’t held accountable enough for forming solutions.
That accountability would increase if the department eliminated specialized units - known as interactive community policing, or ICP - and adopted a geographic policing model, advocates of the approach said.
Chief Kunkle said that after speaking with officers and the community, he plans to reorganize the department to decentralize resources and make officers accountable for crime in assigned areas instead of just during the hours they work.
“Everything we do will be to try to push the responsibility down to the geographic level,” he said. “We want to push geographic responsibility but also give those geographic commanders resources such as vice, traffic and gang” units.
Under a geographic policing model, patrol officers focus intently on areas assigned to them and are held accountable for both community policing and crime in their areas, known as beats.
Dallas officers have said that the ICP program has strayed from its original philosophy to imbue all officers with the community-policing ideal. Instead, “budget cuts, power plays [and] political correctness” have divided the department into officers who work in community relations and those who primarily answer calls for service, one lieutenant said.
Officer skepticism
The mix of traditional call answering and community policing creates an environment where patrol officers view ICP officers skeptically and learn to leave community outreach to them, said Jerry Oliver, a former chief in Detroit and Richmond, Va., and now a special assistant to the Arizona attorney general.
He added that the community tends to rely heavily on its ICP officers while despising the other officers.
“Ideally you have every officer be responsible for community policing for the beat,” said Ben Click, the former Dallas police chief who initiated the ICP program. “Dallas just doesn’t have the staffing to do it. I think you’d see response times go up significantly, and I think the community may not see that as a positive thing.”
The City Council is awaiting the findings of a Police Department efficiency study before deciding if it needs to hire more officers but has proposed hiring 129.
“You’re talking about doing everything from prostitution and adult entertainment to reducing robberies and Project Safe Neighborhoods,” said Robert Taylor, chair of the University of North Texas criminal justice department. “It’s always going to boil down to the resources.”
Limited resources
Chief Kunkle said he is reviewing the number of officers in each unit and reviewing the department’s resources. Ms. Miller said the city is committed to giving police the needed resources but must do so within limited funds.
“If the efficiency study says 129 is not the right number and says we need 400, I think that that could be a problem,” she said.
But hiring more officers may not necessarily fix the problem, experts said. Some cities with high ratios of officers per resident still face high crime, while others with low ratios have low crime rates.
Criminologists say Dallas should evaluate anti-crime initiatives periodically because any program could cut crime significantly in one city and fail in another.
“I applaud the idea of experimenting with new methods,” said Gary LaFree, a University of Maryland criminologist. “I just hope there’s a follow-up.”
“It really depends on: ‘How motivated is the Dallas Police Department? How good is their morale? How much does the community support it? Do we have a plan?’ Because otherwise these individual programs are just buzz words.”
DALLAS CRIME-FIGHTING PLANS:
STATISTICS AND MAPPING
In weekly command staff meetings, the department expanded its form of the Compstat program, which uses technology and mapping to spot crime trends across the city. Crime analysts give division commanders weekly reports on the top three beats, or hot spots, in their areas for vehicle burglaries, auto theft and residential burglaries - offenses that make up the largest chunk of total crimes. Commanders then deploy extra officers to those areas.
WEEKLY CRIME MEETINGS
In August, the mayor initiated weekly crime meetings with commanders, City Council members and city staff members. Each week, the crime analyst and police chief go over the crime trends and face questions from city officials. The mayor, chief, city manager and council members then brief the media. The mayor says the meetings create a united front against crime, but veteran officers skeptically view them as micromanaging and meddling.
PANHANDLING CRACKDOWN
A 30-day crackdown in November expanded on an ordinance that went into effect in May, making it illegal to panhandle at intersections, bus stops, payphones and ATMs. In the crackdown, police officers targeted panhandling hot spots by writing tickets, taking panhandlers to jail, and raiding nearby homeless camps.
SHOPPING CART ORDINANCE
In November, the city unveiled an ordinance to make it illegal to have a shopping cart off the premises of the business that owns it. The city touted the move as a small but important effort to prevent the quality of life in some areas from deteriorating. Some police officers say it gives them more probable cause to question suspicious people and helps them catch thieves carting around stolen computer equipment. Others say it has unfairly targeted the homeless, many of who have improvised by carrying their belongings in baby carriages.
SKY TOWERS
Also in November, the department added two new observation towers, portable booths that can rise 20 feet high, and has been using them in shopping mall parking lots, downtown, at large gatherings, and in other areas where they have seen a spike in vehicle burglaries and auto thefts.
CIVILIANIZATION
In December, the Police Department presented the council’s public safety committee with a plan to convert 36 “desk jobs” in information technology, auditing and dispatch - which were being filled by sworn officers - to civilian positions. This freed up officers to return to street patrol and allowed the department to add 12 positions to the narcotics unit, eight to the gang unit, four to the vice unit and four to the Crimes Against Persons Division, which investigates murders, shootings, rapes and assaults.
APARTMENT INITIATIVE
In March, the council passed an ordinance overhauling the apartment licensing system and created a registration program, in which apartments are inspected more frequently. It requires owners and managers to post after-hours phone numbers for emergencies, to attend three crime watch meetings a year, and to attend an annual city-sponsored symposium on crime and code compliance. Management must include crime prevention information in leases and give new and prospective tenants copies of building inspection scores.
LOCK, TAKE, HIDE SIGNS
Also in March, the council began requiring apartments, shopping centers and other businesses with more than 100 parking spaces to buy and post signs reminding patrons to lock their doors, take their keys and hide their belongings. City officials hope the signs will educate people about what they can do to prevent vehicle burglaries and auto thefts.
PROSTITUTION INITIATIVE
In May, the city attorney proposed posting photographs of prostitution clients on a city Web site; classifying any vehicle used to solicit prostitution as a nuisance, so that the city could confiscate vehicles the same way police can seize drug houses; using restraining orders to ban offenders from areas where they offended for six months to a year; and setting up a “solicitor school” to educate prostitution clients about sexually transmitted diseases and sexual, domestic and drug abuse in prostitution. The proposals still require approval, but the Web site is already up.
RESERVES
City Hall and the Police Department began recruiting 40 volunteers in May to become reserve police officers after raising $80,000 to fund two academy classes. The reserve officers answer calls just as full-time officers do and are used for special events and initiatives.
SCHOOLS
Dallas school administrators in June proposed a crackdown on campus crime that includes random drug testing on 10 percent of students, search dogs, surveillance cameras, and cooperation with Dallas police to stem gang activity. The actions were prompted by a spike in several categories of violent and nonviolent crimes last school year. The district also wants to mandate half an hour of anti-drug and anti-violence education per week in elementary and middle schools. Random drug testing would begin immediately for 15 percent of high school students who participate in athletics. Administrators also want to start a program to test up to 10 percent of all students, regardless of athletic participation, whose parents permit. Approval for some of the items is still pending.