Community Policing to Prevent Gun Crime

Crime Prevention Plan

Introduction

The city of Cincinnati, OH, is seeing an increase of violent crime and gun shootings in the Over-the-Rhine (OTR) community. Since 2000, OTR has been a major source of frustration for the city: it is on the northern side of the city’s business district where residences and small business owners dwell together in the city’s oldest neighborhood. For decades OTR housed the city’s poorest residents, but since 2000 the city has poured billions into fixing up the community, painting buildings and offering incentives to business owners. The goal has been to create new parks, new businesses, revitalize residences and tap into the community’s historical strengths as a midway point in the city between the urban business district on the river and the uptown college area. However, last year saw the city set a record number of homicides at 94, which represented a 30% increase from 2019, many of those homicides occurring in OTR (Baker, 2021). Following the infusion of billions of dollars, OTR was initially envisioned as a place where residents of suburban neighborhoods could come, shop, dine, and be entertained. However, as many residents were displaced by the revitalization campaign, and an already existing homeless problem was never addressed, the crime problems in OTR never really went away but were only exacerbated by the city’s attempt to sweep them aside. Gang growth, drug dealing, and prostitution have not diminished, and now gun violence is risen dramatically, with officers removing 750 firearms from the street after only three quarters in 2021 (Baker, 2021). This paper will serve as a crime prevention plan to address the OTR neighborhood and its role in the city’s crime problem. The four-stage problem-solving process will be conducted by first identifying the research objectives and methods used; what information was collected so as to identify the nature, scope and causes of crime and disorder in the OTR community; analysis of the root causes of the crime in the community; and what the strategy for addressing this issue will be.

Research Objectives and Methods

The objective of this research is to understand the nature and extent of the crime in the OTR community, what its causes are, and how this crime can be prevented. The methods used included researching theories in criminology, including Broken Windows Theory, Life Course Theory, Social Bond Theory, as well as crime prevention models. Additionally, the concept of restorative justice is explored to understand how it might help in the OTR community.

Data on the city’s crime was obtained from the City Council’s Law and Public Safety meeting at which the city’s police chief disclosed the crime statistics affecting the city and OTR. Data was then compared to other communities, where similar problems have occurred, with a view of analyzing how those cities addressed the problem. Poverty, school attendance, gang activity, arrests, and community action plans make up the main data entries for this analysis. These data were obtained from publicly available sources.

The goal of this research is to understand why crimes in OTR are occurring and what strategy can be employed to prevent crime. To this end, a literature review is conducted in the next section that explores the various theories of crime. Also conducted is a brief analysis of two other cities—Mesa, AZ, and New York City—to determine what they have done to address crime problems in the past. Following this, the data collected on the OTR community in Cincinnati is presented and analyzed, and the plan for preventing crime is provided.

Research

Literature Review

Social Bond Theory

Social bond theory holds that people need to establish social bonds with others in their community in order to feel that they are true members of the community. If they do not develop that bond, they have no reason to respect the community’s laws or norms; they act out of self-interest rather than out of respect for other people, to whom they have no feeling of belonging. When people develop a social bond they can earn a sense of self-respect and respect for the community and feel involved in the life of the community. They are no longer isolated from the community; rather, they are active members who try to abide by the laws and norms and take pride in how they conduct themselves, how the community sees them, and how well they advance (Johnson et al., 2015).

Life Course Theory

Life course theory holds that major life events will determine the future trajectory of the individual with respect to crime (Bartol & Bartol, 2017). A traumatic event can cause a person to fall into delinquency at an early age. Abuse, abandonment, lack of familial structure, sudden poverty, environmental pressures—all of it can act as a kind of trauma that derails a person into a negative state whereby it is more difficult to get one’s life back onto a stable track. People who develop drug addictions tend to represent the best example of life course theory in practice: they do not receive the mental health help they need to break their addictions and as a result end up in and out of jail, maintaining a life of criminality well into adulthood.

Broken Windows Theory and Social Control/Social Disorganization

Broken windows theory posits that when communities allow their physical appearance to deteriorate by neglecting upkeep, it opens a window for criminal activity to enter into the area. Because the community shows no care or concern for its physical structures and areas, the theory holds that criminals see the community as not caring about what the moral code either. Communities that do not take care of themselves indicate that criminals are welcome. Social control theory posits that the opposite holds true as well: the more in control of itself a community appears, the less opportunity there is for criminal elements to enter in and gain control of a community. To this same end, the more disorganized a community is, the more opportunity there is for criminals to provide an organizing principle and gain influence in the community—and this is the main idea of social disorganization theory (Takagi et al., 2016). Formal or informal social controls can be used to prevent communities from falling into crime, according to these three theories

Zones of Transition

Zones of transition are communities where there is consistent high turnover of residents. Families move in and out of the community rapidly and few put down roots in the community. The effect is that there is never a feeling of ownership or pride among the residents because they do not view themselves as anything more than passing through the community. They are transients and as a result, delinquency is high; and the theory of social bonding is what supports the fact that zones of transition typically see the most crime in a community (Felson, 2018).

Restorative Justice

The concept of restorative justice is best contrasted with the concept of punitive justice, i.e., incarceration. Whereas punitive justice focuses on removing the offender from the community for a period of time by incarcerating the convict, restorative justice focuses on giving the offender an opportunity to make restitution to the community through some public acts. In restorative justice programs, the offender is integrated into the community and the opportunity for the development of a social bond is created (Johnson et al., 2015). Restorative justice hubs have been shown to reduce recidivism rates by 26% when compared to punitive justice (Johnson et al., 2015). They are also much more cost effective: restorative justice hubs cost tax payers only $444 to $8,000 per person per year, whereas incarceration costs tax payers on average $88,000 per person per year (Johnson et al., 2015). Incarceration is thus more than 10x higher in cost than restorative justice and less effective at promoting social bonding. Restorative justice also has been found to be more pleasing to both offenders and victims of crime because restitution is made in public, whereas in punitive justice the offender is isolated from the community and there is no sense anywhere that any lesson has been learned or any recompense made. Additionally, restorative justice programs can prevent crime drastically over time: “a New Zealand study found a reduction in court trials from 13,000 trials prior to the implementation of restorative programming, to 2,587 trials – a reduction of more than 80%” (Johnson et al., 2015, p. 9).

Crime Prevention Models

The Urban Village Model and the Chicago Area Project are two crime prevention models that can shed light on the issue in OTR. The urban village model fosters social bonding among community members by focusing on the implementation of projects and activities that people can take part in. These tend to include activities in parks, churches or other organizational shelters, where people come together to share in a bonding spirit. Street parties, festivals and fairs are examples. As members of the community take part in such activities, they develop a sense of pride and ownership in the community. Some investment is required for this type of model to be implemented, as there are organizational costs. However, if the community can save in some departments—such as the incarceration department by implementing restorative justice—it can have extra funds to implement the urban village model of crime prevention.

The Chicago Area Project was implemented in the 1930s to address gang activity, crime, and drug abuse. It focused on grass roots self-development, in which various business leaders, organizers, community leaders and so on worked together to make the community stronger for vulnerable populations. In this model, vocational training is offered, sports are promoted so as to plant the seeds of team work and accountability, and programs for drug abuse and finding employment are given. It is another option that can help communities strengthen themselves by addressing the underlying roots of crime so as to prevent crime outbreaks in the future.

Other Cities

Mesa, AZ

Mesa attempted to prevent gang activity among juveniles by conducting a community initiative that saw community leaders, police, local organizations, schools, teachers, mentors, churches, businesses and program directors work together to provide teens with alternative options instead of joining gangs (Spergel et al., 2005). Teens took part in the intervention by playing organized sports, receiving training in a trade, furthering their education through mentorship, and receiving counseling. The intervention program saw gang activity reduce over a five-year period. It was an outcome that resulted from the use of informal controls and community organization (Spergel et al., 2005).

New York City

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (2003), what reduced crime in the 1990s in New York City was the fact that police made more arrests. Felony arrest rates rose 50% in the 1990s; arrests for burglaries rose 10% and burglaries fells 3.2%; in other words, deterrence was the main method used by the city to prevent crime. Today, New York City is adopting a different approach and is attempting to address rising gun violence in the city by paying incentives to people who commit gun violence (Barton, 2021). The idea here is that people resort to gun violence because they lack the economic resources to support themselves in any other way. It also incorporates aspects of life course theory into the incentive program by providing mentoring in a one-on-setting as part of the Advance Peace initiative (Barton, 2021).

OTR Data

Education

There are two public schools in OTR that offer education for children at grades pre-K through high school. High school graduation rates are 84% but college graduation rates are only 31% for Cincinnati, but these numbers are far lower for OTR (Open Data Network, 2021). Schools do offer after school programs, and the schools also try to work with parents to help them with employment and education issues. However, the schools lack many resources that could enhance the learning experience for the student body and give them more support for further education.

Poverty

Poverty is the main issue in OTR, as the vast majority of the community is beneath the poverty level (May, 2015). Poverty is due to lack of employment activities, lack of higher education, and lack of training for community members. The area is also seeing more upscale development, which is putting strain on the impoverished as they are further priced out of their communities with no options but to move elsewhere.

Gang Activity

Gang activity is increasing in OTR, and the community members say it is a combination of lack of employment, lack of respect for laws, lack of self-respect, and too great access to guns (Winter, 2020). Gang activity is leading to increased violence near parks where children play and it is making community members afraid for their safety. More people are arming themselves out of fear, which increases the risk of gun violence breaking out. Drug dealing, gun violence, and prostitution are on the rise in OTR as well.

Community Organization

Community organization has improved thanks to 3CDC, which has obtained billions of dollars of investment from local businesses to help improve OTR. However, much of that money is spent on updating parks and venues that will be solicited by patrons, restoring housing to upscale levels, and creating new business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Community organization is still needed in terms of applying a crime prevention model like the urban village model.

Zone of Transition

Turnover remains high in the OTR community, as people come and go through the community without putting down roots. Some members of the community have been there for decades, but there is also a substantial percentage of the population that has only recently moved there and will only stay for a short time before moving elsewhere. The zone of transition problem prevents the community from addressing the community issues that would make it stronger.

Nature, Scope and Causes of the Crime That Will be Addressed

The nature of the crime in OTR that needs most to be addressed is that of violent gun crime. Gun violence has increased sharply in recent years, and more guns are being removed from the streets than ever before. An interview with one city police officer revealed that in the 1990s it was unheard of to take a gun off the streets—if an officer managed to do so he was given the day off. Today, so many guns are removed from the streets every day that it is just a matter of course. The situation in the OTR has changed drastically since the 1990s. An entire generation has grown up in the shadow of gun violence, and to some extent gun violence has been sensationalized in the media. Moreover, the prospects of the young people in OTR is low, as few graduate high school, even fewer attend college, and most drift in and out of the community as they age, some drift in and out of jail, and many engage in drug dealing or prostitution, both of which are viewed by the poor members of the community as norms.

The scope of the crime encompasses all of OTR and everyone of all ages. Children are impacted by gun violence because murders are occurring near parks and schools. Adults are impacted because they are made unsafe by the threat of gun activity. The problem of gun violence is linked to drug dealing, gang activity, and lack of economic opportunity for the vulnerable population.

The causes of the crime that will be addressed will be lack of economic opportunity, lack of community organization, lack of restorative justice programs that can help prevent future crime, lack of sufficient arrests made to deter crime, and the persistent threat of OTR as a zone of transition.

Analysis

Members of the OTR community are surrounded by poverty (May, 2015). Census data reveals that all of the families in OTR live below the poverty level (May, 2015). Poverty is not new but is multi-generational in this community. It has been a community into which the poorest families find temporary shelter; they have come from Appalachia or from other urban areas. The historic OTR community is home to some 400 children, who live in households where the average household income is below $25,000 (May, 2015). Children basically raise themselves as some have a mother working third shift, a father in prison or who is dead or who is not around; they are forced to get themselves up, get their clothes cleaned, and get to school on their own (May, 2015). It is a very different life from what individuals in more affluent suburban communities are used to.

The community has been a zone of transition for decades, and in recent years the process of gentrification in the community has created a tense environment in which poor community members live side by side with upscale restaurants and business owners. There is a general sense of displacement among the poor African American and Appalachian communities still to be found in OTR.

Gang activity is on the raise as youths feel there is no alternative; and this problem is exacerbated by the lack of community organization. Youths are not given opportunities to learn self-respect, respect for the community, or a trade that can help them obtain employment and begin a career. They are vulnerable to drug dealing and prostitution because they are without proper guidance at home, as homes are unstable due to economic pressures and incarceration. Restorative justice programs are lacking in the community, and these if implemented could help to prevent crime in the future. There are also too few arrests targeting gun violence, no programs that will help to remove guns from the streets, and no incentives like New York’s Advance Peace program. The crime prevention plan should address all of these concerns because they are at the root of the problem of gun activity in OTR. The common thread is that a community presence needs to be made more powerful, and the community needs to begin taking more pride in its place.

Crime Prevention Plan

Addressing Zones of Transition

To deter OTR from remaining a zone of transition, some incentives must be given the residents in order to induce longer stays in the community. Some residents have occupied the community for decades but the high degree of turnover among others marks it as a transient community. To prevent gun violence in the community, the issue transition must be addressed, starting with providing housing incentives, employment opportunities, and better community networking. The longer that community members can remain in the community, the better the roots of the community will be and the more pride the members will take in maintaining OTR.

Informal social controls will not take effect so long as OTR remains something of a zone of transition. Already some work has been done to support the community by way of the 3CDC investments—but these investments have essentially gone to beautifying parks, houses and businesses. They have not done much in the way of providing economic support for impoverished members of the community; nor have they done much to create labor opportunities for youths or adults.

3CDC should be working more closely with law enforcement, community leaders, businesses, and housing to make sure that the community can organize more efficiently. It can make a big impact on crime prevention, but it has to start with the community developing a sense of purpose as a community and not just as a repository for business investment. Trade training, counseling, outreach, and organization should all be more evident in the 3CDC plan for the OTR. This could help strengthen community bonds, which according to social bond theory would further help to prevent gun crime from taking place in OTR.

Addressing Poverty

New York City has shown that offering incentives can be a way to cure gun crime and get guns off the street at the same time. By offering a financial incentive to turn in guns, the police in OTR could help to remove access to guns, which is a big problem for the community, as residents of OTR report. Incentives like this could be one way to directly alleviate the problem of poverty.

Another way to address poverty in OTR is to provide incentives for long-term residency. So far 3CDC and the city have provided incentives for businesses looking to open up in OTR, but they have not extended the same incentives in the realm of low-income housing. This is where incentives are needed most, however. OTR’s gun violence problem is not going to go away until the poverty issue is addressed, and the longer the community remains in poverty, the longer it is going to be a zone of transition. Incentives need to be given to encourage people to put down roots in the community. The business community and the housing community have to recognize that it is not a matter of pricing out low-income residents so that they move elsewhere: gun activity will not diminish, for if people from outside the community are still coming to OTR, there will be predation. The issue is to help make OTR more sustainable by providing support right now for low-income families.

Businesses and organizations should be offering training and employment services for families in need, and OTR organizers should be working to create a plan like that of Mesa, AZ, where counselors, business leaders, churches, community leaders, and law enforcement help youths especially to develop the skills, self-respect, and opportunities to enhance their lives with training and education. The more opportunities there are, the less likely it is that poverty will persist in the community. This is the best way to address the issue of poverty directly as opposed to attempting to sweep it aside by way of gentrification.

From a life course perspective, many of the children in OTR are already facing great hardship. Hardship like this can set them on a life course that will lead them into gun activity at some point in time. The roots have to be laid now so that children are directed away from delinquency and hardship. The better organized the community is with informal controls, the greater the chances are that crime will be prevented there and the community will grow.

Addressing the Need for Establishing Social Bonds

Social bond theory, life course theory, broken windows theory, social control theory, and social disorganization theory all share in common the great need for community. Unless members of OTR can develop the necessary social bonds, the community will not be able to address the gun violence problem. Churches, grass roots organizations, community leadership, businesses, schools, and law enforcement all play a part in facilitating the development of social bonds. This plan will first call upon the community to develop a clean up the block initiative that will bring the community together and promote proactive interests in maintaining upkeep. Broken windows, graffiti and negligent buildings are harbingers of crime, so the community must organize to keep neglect out of the area.

Law enforcement will be able to tell where the most neglected parts of OTR are, and community organization should be take place so that the most neglected parts are properly maintained: debris picked up, vandalism cleaned, grass cut, and abandoned buildings rejuvenated. The city must provide some support for this organization, and police should provide assistance so that community members feel safe. Community members should be given a stake in the investment for participating in the clean-up as well. They should receive a drug-free recreation house, where youths can go to play games, learn sports, gain tutoring and mentoring, or learn a trade. This will facilitate social bonding and promote upkeep at the same time, thereby allowing OTR to address the problem of gun crime from multiple theoretical perspectives. The more organized the community becomes, the less opportunity there is for crime to flourish. OTR has to become self-reliant, but it needs support from the city, from law enforcement, from churches, and from local businesses to do so. The goal is to create opportunities to incentivize the youth, and to promote upkeep and maintenance through these incentive programs.

Implementing Restorative Justice Hubs to Curtail Recidivism

OTR also needs to establish restorative justice hubs similar to those found in Chicago (Johnson et al., 2015). These will be hubs where individuals who are convicted of crime can be housed while they make restitution for their offenses through some community activity. The positive benefit of this is that it significantly reduces the cost associated with incarceration and provides that these savings can be reinvested in the community to support the community’s organization initiatives. Restorative justice hubs also promote social bonding, as offenders realize that they are part of a wider community in OTR and that they are not as isolated as they think. By giving back to the community in restitution, the offender learns to become part of the community, to take pride in the community, to respect the law, and to respect himself. This has been proven to reduce recidivism and crime, and if OTR wants to prevent gun crime in the future it is indispensible that it implement restorative justice hubs in the community.

Restorative justice hubs can be operated with minimal costs to the community, and they can be monitored and overseen by an audit committee that checks to see that the hub is adhering to the principles of restorative justice, as outlined by Johnson et al. (2015). This will ensure that these hubs are not neglected and that those who use them are overseen with care and diligence.

Increasing a Community Policing Presence

OTR cannot count on its citizens to answer all the problems of gun crime, however. Cleaning up the community, addressing poverty, promoting organization can all help—but police presence is also needed. New York City showed this in the 1990s when it significantly decreased gun crime in the city. The presence of law enforcement in OTR has to be felt—but it also has to be respected. Community policing should be implemented so that neighbors do not feel threatened by police; rather, police should be there to represent law and order—not hostility or aggression towards community members. Police should get to know everyone in OTR, block by block, so that they are on a first name basis with the community and are trusted as supporters of the community. The goal is to uplift he community through strength, determination, and character. But the law must still be enforced, so a police presence is as necessary in OTR as clean-up is to prevent crime from seeping in through the cracks. Police should be peaceful and friendly; and the more they can be seen as lovers of the peace, the less opportunity there will be for community members to complain or for gun violence to erupt.

This approach aligns with the concept of situational crime prevention. It is not just law enforcement that can provide a policing presence but also the community itself through Neighborhood Watch programs, increased social interaction, enhanced social cohesion, and the presence of informal and formal social controls. Property should be respected and maintained, and neighbors should strive to support one another in a positive environment.

To overcome the lack of unwillingness that pervades the OTR community to collaborate with law enforcement, some initial interaction is needed first: law enforcement should host an event in the community where they can explain what they want to accomplish in terms of supporting the community—increased police presence, community policing, community collaboration, increased arrests with a focus on gun crime, and restorative justice. This will help the community to learn to trust law enforcement more, and it will provide transparency to the community. Communication and outreach and the two methods that need to be used to promote collaboration for the good of the community and to prevent crime.

Increasing Arrests

In order to promote peace, law enforcement in OTR should focus on increasing arrests, following the example given by New York City in the 1990s. This should be explained to the community as part of its enhanced policing presence in conjunction with its community policing approach. The community needs to understand that the problem of gun violence will not go away unless the law is enforced—and that means making arrests.