Attacking Harbingers of Crime

The mere perception of crime often harms a community more than crime itself. That’s why police efforts to rid the west San Fernando Valley of potential harbingers of crime--such as graffiti or piles of trash--are so popular. Since February, officers on the beat in the LAPD’s West Valley Division have reported those kinds of problems--as well as more mundane annoyances such as potholes--directly to City Councilwoman Laura Chick’s office, which tracks down the appropriate city department and orders a quick fix.

Chick’s program is a smart approach for two reasons. The first is obvious. Cops know their beats better than anyone. They know the walls where kids like to spray their tags, the vacant lots where folks dump their old sofas, the back streets pocked by potholes. In their down time between calls, patrol officers can note dozens of potential problems--a little extra work that just might save them big hassles later. Keeping the community looking nice is the first step toward keeping it nice because the appearance of neglect sends the message that no one cares and that crime will go unpunished. It’s the principle of “Broken Windows,” popularized by UCLA professor James Q. Wilson, and a fundamental tenet behind LAPD efforts toward community-based policing.

On that level, Chick’s program is fairly unremarkable. Its true merit lies in the way it deals with the structural problems of the Los Angeles bureaucracy. Since orders for repairs or cleanings come directly from Chick’s office, the responsible city agencies are far less likely to put them in the queue with every other complaint from the public. That’s what tended to happen when officers tried to report problems in the past. It sometimes took weeks to have junk removed or a wall painted as individual requests worked their way to the top of the pile. With a nudge from the council office, those response times drop dramatically. Now, most problems are dealt with in a week or less.

Little things like that make all the difference. When cops--or anybody for that matter--can see the results of their efforts that quickly, it encourages them to do more, to embrace the kind of individual participation that prevents neighborhoods from falling over the edge. But cutting through the city’s bureaucracy can be frustrating even for those on the inside like cops. Using a little political pressure to make the bureaucracy more manageable and responsive to neighborhoods is a good example of effective leadership.