Fear of Crime in Community Lessened, Study Says : Police Rediscovering Value of Foot Patrol

Police agencies throughout the nation, including San Fernando Valley divisions of the Los Angeles Police Department, are rediscovering the traditional foot patrol, a move law-enforcement experts say may reduce the fear of crime while improving relations between residents and police officers.

Recently established foot patrols in a neighborhood of Canoga Park and at housing projects in Pacoima are just two local examples of a cautious revival of traditional “foot-beat” police work. In Boston, New York, Newark, N.J., and Flint, Mich., foot patrols and related programs designed to integrate police officers into urban neighborhoods have been declared remarkable successes.

“There is a growing interest in community-oriented policing, of which the foot patrol is a tactic,” said Jerome McElroy, associate director of the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, a criminal-justice research organization that operates a community patrol officer program with the New York Police Department.

“Police agencies over the past couple of decades have focused more on the conventional forms of street crime, partially because the police forces have become increasingly mobilized in cars and have become more removed from the community,” McElroy said.

Neighborhood Problems

In reaction, McElroy said, there has been a new recognition nationwide that police departments must address the neighborhood problems that often go unreported but give rise to anxiety and obsessive fear of crime.

“This means becoming familiar with the problems of the neighborhoods and helping the people solve their problems,” he said. “In many instances this means the foot patrol, which is symbolic of the cop in the community.”

Although foot patrols are still relatively uncommon in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police say patrols in south and central Los Angeles have reduced crime and improved public perceptions of police work. A 3-month-old foot patrol at the Imperial Gardens housing project in south Los Angeles, for example, has resulted in a 49% drop in crime, police said.

“The whole attitude of the public is to get back to the good, old-fashioned foot beat,” said Los Angeles police Lt. Dan Cooke. “The officers know their clientele, and they have a good inclination as to who has done the crime.”

Park-and-Walk Patrols

Although foot patrols are generally less effective in sprawling cities like Los Angeles, law-enforcement experts say the foot beats, combined with “park-and-walk” programs, have proven successful in low-density cities similar to Los Angeles. Under the park-and-walk systems, officers patrol areas both on foot and from their patrol cars.

The new Foothill Division patrols in Pacoima, for example, are actually a combination of the traditional foot beat and park-and-walk patrols. Patrols at the Van Nuys Pierce Park Apartments and the San Fernando Gardens complex are done on foot, but officers drive patrol cars between projects. Capt. Stan McGarry, the Foothill Division commander, said the cars allow the officers to patrol a larger area and to save time traveling between projects.

“The basic question for all foot-patrol work is, how can the officer’s free-patrol time be most effectively utilized?” said Robert Trojanowicz, director of the National Neighborhood Foot Patrol Center, part of the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University.

“You have to get them out of their cars, interacting with the people and making contacts,” Trojanowicz said. “We have found that in many cases the quality and quantity of information coming from residents to foot-patrol people is better than to the undercover officers.”

Crime Fell 8.7%

Trojanowicz, who oversaw a three-year study of foot patrols in Flint, Mich., said that crime fell 8.7% from 1979 to 1981 in areas of that city patrolled by officers on foot. In other areas of the city, crime rose 10%.

Calls for service, moreover, fell by 42% over the three-year period. The reduction in service calls, which traditionally consume more than 80% of police time, was probably the most significant finding of the study, Trojanowicz said.

“Service calls about barking dogs, neighborhood fights and abandoned cars were down because people began to handle many of their problems themselves,” he said. “The foot-police officer was acting as an effective mediator for neighborhood disputes.”

But a 1978 study in Newark, N.J., showed neither a drop in the crime rate nor a reduction in service calls there when foot patrols were added to traditional police beats. Conclusions from that study, conducted by the Washington-based Police Foundation, confirmed, however, that foot beats were very effective in making people less fearful of crime and in improving relations between police and residents.

Change in Attitudes

“If you are measuring crime prevention by victimization, foot patrols do not appear to be preventive,” said Tony Pate, program director for the Police Foundation. “But in the course of weeks in Newark, you could see a manifest difference in the behavior of the resident on the street and the attitudes of the police officers. There is a difference in trying to maintain order from a closed police car and doing it face-to-face.”

Statistics kept by the National Neighborhood Foot Patrol Center show that foot patrols, while increasingly popular, are still an anachronism in much of the country. Trojanowicz said there are only 110 foot-patrol programs nationwide and 54 park-and-walk programs. Twenty-nine communities, including Los Angeles, have both.

Objections to Practice

Trojanowicz said many police administrators oppose the patrols, preferring a “professional model of aloofness” so that beat officers will not be tempted by bribes or be lured into acts of corruption.

The city of Los Angeles has 50 foot beats, most concentrated in the Central City, police said. All officers have access to patrol cars, although many of them use the vehicles simply to drive to and from their beats, Cooke said. The 50 foot beats involve about 166 of the city’s 6,900 police officers.

The Valley has nine foot beats, seven in malls and large commercial areas. Aside from new patrols at the Van Nuys Pierce Park complex and the San Fernando Gardens in Pacoima, they include patrols at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Promenade, Panorama and Northridge malls, the northern section of Van Nuys Boulevard and the Ventura Boulevard commercial strip in North Hollywood and Studio City.