Policing Model Gets Mixed Reviews

Joyce Tse
Special to The Lookout

May 16 -- Touting record-low crime levels, the Santa Monica Police Department is crediting much of its success to its own version of community-oriented policing, but some residents in the city's most crime-prone neighborhood feel left out.

The police department, which prominently features its "progressive" Neighborhood Centered Policing (NCP) model on its web site, contends the program prevents crime by building close ties to the community.

The program, police claim, is more efficient than traditional versions of community policing -- which assign beat officers that must report problems up the chain of command -- because it is run by lieutenants who have the power to implement changes.

Under the program, lieutenants and neighborhood service area coordinators work in a "circular organizational fashion" directly with the community to solve problems and improve their quality of life, said SMPD Chief James T. Butts, Jr.

By working in a circular fashion, "lieutenants can rapidly address concerns and conditions brought to their attention," Butts said.

"There's almost a zero waiting period because there's no delay from bureaucracy," said Lt. Frank Fabrega, the department’s spokesman.

But some residents and leaders in the Pico Neighborhood, the residential area with the highest crime rate in the city, believe the program, started in 2003, does not truly involve the community, despite police presence at many neighborhood meetings.

Police patrols are seldom seen in the neighborhood, and when they are, they are usually nameless faces inside squad cars, some Pico residents complained. In addition, some said they didn't know about the "SMPD Quarterly," a newsletter to keep residents informed about the latest NCP projects in their neighborhoods.

Regardless of what police claim, there really is not enough partnership and communication between Pico residents and police, some local leaders said.

"I didn't even know that Neighborhood Centered Policing existed in Santa Monica," said Francisco Juarez, a longtime Santa Monica resident who ran for City Council in 1999. "We have police assigned to my neighborhood? That's the first I heard of it."

There are three fundamental elements to community policing -- "partnership, problem solving and organizational transformation," said Drew Diamond, senior researcher for the Police Executive Research Forum and the former director of the Community Policing Consortium in Washington, D.C.

"It's not so much about holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya,' as it is about working in real partnerships -- not just make believe stuff -- to make things happen in a positive way," Diamond said, noting that he was not commenting on Santa Monica’s program, which he has not studied.

Started 25 years ago, community policing was initially an experimental approach to reducing crime in "public housing neighborhoods" by embracing the idea that the average citizen has the power to make a neighborhood safer, while police have a responsibility to help citizens reach their goals, Diamond said.

In both NCP and community policing, officers are expected to forge close ties and open lines of communication with residents in the communities they are assigned to protect, Diamond said.

Under this model, residents can keep officers informed of problems they see happening -- and which officers may not be aware of -- and together they can proactively find solutions and prevent others from cropping up, Diamond said.

There are many simple ways officers can open the lines of communication and interact with citizens, but the reality of community policing is that interactions should extend beyond attending neighborhood watch meetings or area functions, said Diamond

There should be patrols, not just in cruisers, but also on bike and on foot, methods shown to positively increase perceptions of how approachable officers are, he said.

Residents and officers, Diamond added, should recognize and get to know one another.

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For some people, the term "community policing" conjures up images of an officer walking a beat, greeting residents and engaging them in conversation. Officers are expected to be present often enough to become familiar and approachable figures.

In Santa Monica, however, some Pico residents say this is not the case.

"There's not a lot of interaction," said Jeff Ruiz, owner of Bill's Convenience Store on Lincoln Boulevard. "There are a few officers that I know who come in and say, 'Hi. How are you?' but usually when you see them, it's because something is wrong," he said.

"We see officers when they're arresting somebody," said Juarez.

Longtime Pico Neighborhood resident Barbara Filet recalled a time when officers on horseback once patrolled her neighborhood.

"Maybe 10 years ago there would be police on horseback, and I did see them come through on my street," she said. "That was a neat experience and it was kind of nice talking to the police."

Today things are different, Filet said.

Occasional patrol cars drive down the street, she said, but not bike patrols.

"I think the wonderful thing about being on a bicycle is that someone on a bicycle is easy to approach," said Filet. "They're not encased in steel. I'm really a part of my neighborhood when I'm on a bicycle, and so I'd love to see more police on bicycles."

But other Pico residents and community leaders feel there is adequate police presence.

Nat Trives, a former SMPD officer who served as mayor of Santa Monica, said he sees plenty of officers patrolling the city.

"I see patrols all the time," said Trives, a former resident of the Pico Neighborhood who now lives in Sunset Park. "I have seen police chatting with people on the street corner, other than in confrontational situations.

"My experience when I was in law enforcement was that we took great pains to know residents, and we would acknowledge them and they would acknowledge us," he added.

Still, some Pico residents would like to see more car, bike and foot patrols in their neighborhood, the city's poorest area and home to many of Santa Monica's black and Latino residents.

"If I were to describe the ideal neighborhood watch, it'd be Officer Joe Blow saying, "Hey, alright Frank, hey how are you doing today? Alright, see any bad guys?' but no, there's none of that dialogue," said Juarez.

Police counter that in Santa Monica, lieutenants cannot spend all their time out in the neighborhoods they are assigned to patrol because NCP is a collateral duty, something that they do in addition to their usual duties.

"We (lieutenants) are not full-time Neighborhood Centered Policing representatives, but we incorporate it throughout our day whenever possible by providing outreach," said Lt. Carolin Shepard.

When lieutenants can't get out into their neighborhoods, Shepard said, her task is to assign other officers to go into neighborhoods to network with residents and business owners.

"We ensure that other officers and department staff become familiar with residents or merchants," Shepard said.

Chief Butts acknowledged that while more community patrols would be ideal, it is more efficient to patrol Santa Monica in cars because it is surrounded by Los Angeles on three sides.

"If we had 600 officers...boy, you know? We'd have foot beat officers all over the place," Butts said. "But we have to maintain patrol forces who are able to get to calls, and rapid response is important as well."

For those who might question whether community policing is a viable option, Diamond argues that in the long haul, it saves money and doesn't require extra officers.

"It takes the same amount of officers you have," Diamond said, noting that he was not directly addressing Santa Monica's practices. "It's about training the officers. It's about the skill level of the officers and the supervisors. It's about the philosophy."

By training officers to interact and actively help citizens solve problems, crime can be dramatically reduced, lessening the workload on officers and in the long run, saving the department money, he said.

Although it is difficult to measure how effective NCP is in Santa Monica, Butts notes that crime rates in Santa Monica are at the lowest levels in nearly five decades, Butts said.

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When trying to determine how NCP really compares to community policing, there are key questions to ask, said Diamond.

"How deep is the partnership between officers and the community? Is it real? Real partnerships aren't just going to a meeting," he said.

"How much problem solving actually goes on in a collaborative way and how much has the organization (police department) done to engage itself and change itself to meet those needs of the people in those neighborhoods," he said.

If these questions can be answered in positive ways, then that means community policing is truly being accomplished, Diamond said.

In community policing, input from residents is one of the most basic requirements is the model is to work, Diamond said. Without it, there is no community policing.

In the Pico Neighborhood, some residents contend that the community has lacked ample opportunities to give input into the way their neighborhood is policed.

"How can you say you have a community policing model when you've never met with the community to ask them their opinions about how policing should look and feel?" said Oscar de la Torre, a School Board member and director of the Pico Youth and Family Center.

Police officials acknowledge the program was crafted without resident input.

"The reason the community wasn't asked for input into the creation of the model is that the basic format of the Neighborhood Centered Policing program was established solely by the chief of police," said Lt. Fabrega.

While residents weren't asked for input in designing the model, they now have the opportunity to engage in discussions with the police department about concerns they want addressed in their communities, he said.

In an effort to keep Santa Monicans informed about the latest Neighborhood Centered Policing achievements, the department publishes the "SMPD Quarterly," a newsletter that discusses the City's latest NCP projects, provides statistical data on crime rates and discusses the impact that the program has had on the relationship between officers and the community, police officials note.

Whenever residents have concerns they want addressed, they can obtain the phone numbers of all the lieutenants and neighborhood service area coordinators from the SMPD web site, or they can form or join neighborhood watch groups and invite officers to attend meetings.

In the Pico Neighborhood alone, there are over 40 neighborhood watch groups, Fabrega said.

"If someone wants to form a neighborhood watch group, the police department helps get fliers made and distributed," he said. "So as far as how many groups there are, we can never have too many."

As part of the NCP strategy, SMPD officers look to neighborhood watch meetings as a primary way of meeting with concerned residents to get to know them and discuss issues, police officials said.

"We attend neighborhood watch meetings we're invited to," Fabrega said, adding that officers also get to know some residents on their beats by attending local functions.

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Though there is no way to evaluate the exact level of satisfaction that residents feel towards community policing in Santa Monica, SMPD officers say they feel that overall residents must be happy since they haven't heard complaints.

"We've had nothing but positive responses and eagerness to participate with people in our areas," Shepard said.

For Diamond, the best way to evaluate community policing is to determine in the residents are involved.

"If you have different officers in shifts, they're all engaged at some level with the community in the neighborhoods they work in," he said. "The neighbors should know them all.

Officers, he said, “don't have to know everybody that lives there, but they should be fully engaged, not just making or answering calls."