Citizen Crime Boards
From the earliest inception of police departments, patrol work was done on foot, and every officer walked a beat so that he knew who was doing what. Departments slowly became more centralized, however, as municipalities grew larger, as police investigations required more specialized expertise, as patrol cars became a necessary tool of fast response and pursuit, and as fiscal pressures required. While policing became more operationally efficient, however, the drawback was that the creation of vertical bureaucracies produced a disconnect between police departments and communities.
The community policing concept was introduced to the New Orleans Police Department during Superintendent Richard Pennington’s term in office. This wasn’t just a “feel-good” measure. Corruption within the ranks of the NOPD was so pervasive that the federal government was threatening a takeover. Citizens were afraid to report crime in their neighborhoods because they might be murdered by bad cops like Len Davis. Mistrust of the police exacerbated another chronic problem — that of witness intimidation by offenders. The model he followed was one that worked to cut crime in New York City, based upon a pro-active community policing philosophy: a more robust and more independent public integrity division to weed out corrupt officers; a witness protection program; raises for police officers to attract and retain more qualified personnel; higher education standards required for promotions; decentralization of command structures, including detective bureaus, to make them more accountable to neighborhoods; zero tolerance for nuisance crimes while interacting with social service agencies to help solve problems; the use of statistics to measure the performance of commanders, and a reward system that relied upon those performance measures; an electronic crime mapping system to identify crime patterns and to make tactical deployments. The key to making these reforms happen was disciplined leadership.
Operational control for Chief Pennington’s plans was placed in the hands of Ronal Serpas, a well-respected, well-educated street cop with a mastery of criminal justice statistics. Serpas demanded high performance standards of commanders while defending their dignity, but he also demanded civility towards citizens. Abusive or corrupt officers were dismissed. As much as a third of NOPD personnel resigned, or were fired, to be replaced by fresh recruits indoctrinated in a culture of respect and service towards all citizens. To serve the ideal of patrol officers getting to know particular neighborhood and their residents, Serpas instituted rigid orders for patrols to stay within their beats unless responding to a violent crime call, and when appropriate, created walking or biking beats to get officers out of their cars and into the communities they served. It’s important to remember that the qualities of a commander like Serpas can truly make a difference in how orders are communicated through the chain of command to the patrol officer. The spirit of an order (like using traffic checkpoints to find wanted offenders), can instead become an opportunity for citizen harrassment - further eroding relations between the police and community - if those orders aren’t clear and specific.
Unfortunately, the style of leadership exhibited by Ronal Serpas wasn’t memorialized and passed to the next administration. Pennington’s plans were never codified, and the crime reduction achievements of the community policing model were diluted by his successors. Some of the community policing reforms were even reversed arbitrarily without consulting citizens. Furthermore, citizens who have tried to help the police by participating in community meetings and calling in concerns are often met with unsatisfactory responses.
The experience of New Orleanians post-Katrina is that citizen participation is essential for the creation of good public policy. Citizens have formed their own models of governance that respond directly to the needs of their neighborhoods. These organizations are already ideally suited to facilitating a community policing model. Citizen models of self-government should be carried into the criminal justice sector.
To purposefully guide the process of reforming the criminal justice system so that it properly serves the needs of citizens, neighborhood organizations should form their own Citizen Crime Boards. The scope of interaction shouldn’t be limited to the NOPD, but should include all members of the criminal justice community, including the Criminal Courts and D.A.’s office, as well as representatives from social service agencies and institutions of education when criminal justice discussions require their input. A spirit of cooperation and honesty should guide discussions. Criminal justice methods which have a proven success record should become part of a formalized process; methods that don’t should be re-evaluated. Most importantly, the discussions should be ongoing, and embedded as a permanent part of the community policing approach, ensuring that a change of administration doesn’t lead to further decisions made without justifying the changes. The ingenuity and achievement of past administrators should be formalized without becoming inflexible. Crime Boards would serve as stores of institutional memory, instilling in successive administrators of various elements of the criminal justice system the long-term vision of residents. Furthermore, Citizen Crime Boards would serve as trusted liaisons between neighborhood residents and the criminal justice community, eliminating the factors that lead to mistrust, and opening up a more free flow of communication.
Citizen Crime Boards could meet at regular intervals, inviting members of the criminal justice community to work together at identifying and solving problems. Each neighborhood would have its own Crime Board, with occasional meetings called to assemble members of Crime Boards from all neighborhoods to arrive at a consensus on larger policy issues. Members might be elected by residents of a neighborhood to ensure that the best-qualified spokespersons for each neighborhood serve. The exact structure of Citizen Crime Boards and their scope of authority should be decided after an open discussion of the concept.
It’s unfortunate that past successes have to be relearned. Citizen Crime Boards offer a way to ensure that successful criminal justice approaches endure, and that the values of neighborhoods are honored and preserved, by facilitating a positive dialog between citizens and the criminal justice community. The result will be more peaceful neighborhoods and a much brighter future for New Orleans.
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Brian’s thoughtful proposal deserves to get before a wider audience. I was astounded by the quick loss of institutional memory after Pennington and Serpas moved up and on. Remember Comstat? Perhaps our new adjunct “commissioner” consultant would be open to these ideas. I also know from testimony of friends and actual experience working with police and citizens in Community Oriented Police Education ( COPE) dialogues back in the mid-80s that community policing works. One additional note would be an internal and/or external mechanism for handling police brutality complaints—but one respected by the police AND the community. And one that builds more trust in All the communities that make up the fabric of the city. What we have had is no accountability for either policing or for police brutality. The Internal Affairs process is a joke. Yet we have appalling statistics that demonstrate a clear pattern of police abuse. Lastly, I just believe that the citizens crime committees could be an effective ally for increasing the competence and the pay of all who undertake the task of protecting citizens. Both are sorely needed as one part of a solution. Mike
Police are more vulnerable than in the past because of lack of gun control.
Is there anything our local government can do about that? Is there anything we can do about that as citizens?
Kathleen Fischer
Citizens certainly can be advocates *for* the police. I think police officers often feel as though their left out there on their own without the support of the community. If gun control is an issue, or adequately arming and protecting officers, then a Citizens’ Crime Boards could address the issue. The solutions we need won’t be created by sitting back and waiting to be saved by a mayor who doesn’t interact with the community at all, a police chief who may have good intentions but who has to learn about including the community in his thought processes, and a court system that has completely isolated itself from criticism. We have to be pro-active; we have to be our own advocates for the priorities we want addressed in the criminal justice system.
Michael, COMSTAT as a process is still in place as far as I know. The Friday meetings with district commanders, detectives, the FBI, and other law enforcement officials, are still a component of a tactical decision-making process and administration. What’s missing is inclusion of the community in that process. The NONPAC meetings which offer the community an opportunity to ask questions, are helpful for information, but are otherwise meaningless gestures which don’t afford citizens an opportunity to guide tactical decisions and the quality of police interaction with the community.
The problem with NONPAC is that it is simply a gusture. It is like a venting session, and the people who attend might get thier specific issues addressed, but it won’t change procedure, feedback is not rolled into the policy of the NOPD.
That is the idea of a neighborhood-level Citizen’s Crime Board, to present propsoals to the NOPD for a neighborhood, and then push those proposals through.
NONPAC is district wide. Districts are huge, but they are divided into zones and subzones. Community accountability needs to happen at that level.
I am currently working with the City Council Crime Summit’s Corrections working group. We are looking at the root causes of criminal recidivism and are looking at implementing best practices within the corrections system in New Orleans.
We are looking at best practices educational and rehabilitative services instead of warehousing many inmates, who, even before the storm, were destined to be released in worse situations than they were in prior to incarceration. In collaboration with the courts, we will be starting a court-based educational program within the next month. Other ideas are being actively discussed and planned.
We meet every two weeks, on Saturdays. Please e-mail me and I will add you to our mailing list.
Cory Turner
coturner1@aol.com
Restorative Justice
http://www.turningpointpartners.com/
About Turning Point Partners:
Turning Point Partners, now in its fifth year of operation, is confronting major challenges as a result of the changes in its environment caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Its mission had been and remains to develop and establish restorative, strength-based systems in schools, courts, and communities. Inherent in the mission statement is the need to have healthy systems with members healed from the trauma of their daily lives made worse by the natural disasters.
Description:.
The Turning Point Partners’ approach focuses on the talents and gifts of young people and their families to overcome the high-risk conditions under which they live and it draws upon the inherent power of communities to facilitate systemic change. TPP integrates three powerful models –Community Building Circles, Mindful Communication/Nonviolent Communication, and Restorative Justice to design and implement innovative programs that model systemic change.,
Our initiatives:
* Provide training for community leaders and caregivers faced with members who have experienced trauma
* Facilitate alternatives to incarceration initiatives for adjudicated youth
* Develop Victim Impact & Reentry programs for youth offenders. The programs include Victim Impact Panels, Victim Offender Conferencing and Reentry Conferencing
* Offer education and training workshops in Restorative Justice, Restorative Discipline, and Mindful/Non-violent communication for the public, justice systems and all levels of educational institutions
* Sponsor Community Building Circles for public and private agencies
* Promote Defense-Based Victim Advocacy
What do we *currently*do about officers we all know of who are abusive? A certain officer Powell has come to light in several instances for using abusive language, lying about the law and veiled threats of violence. How do we reprimand this person? The complaints line has been called, Carter has been written, all with no visible response.
Charles, your point only underscores the need for accountability to be extended outside the walls of the criminal justice fortress. The Public Integrity Division should take those complaints and respond to them, but do we ever hear about cases they’ve investigated that result in disciplinary action? The integrity and civility of the police department, and all elements of the criminal justice system, needs to be front and center in a reform agenda, with more open access for citizens to information.
I do, by the way, think it’s fair to ask how personal relationships between public officials may influence how critical they are. It’s one of the things I admired about Serpas — that his personal acquaintences never influenced his first duty to serve the community, and when necessary, to take disciplinary action against those who weren’t serving with respect and integrity.