Crime Is Down--Now Let’s Reinforce What Works

A big caveat has shadowed the wonderful news about the continuing drop in violent offenses nationwide. “It’s the age theory of crime,” said Daniel Rosenblatt, executive director of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police. “Once an offender passes the 17-to-28-year-old age range, they commit fewer crimes. We’re at the tail end of that [downturn] now with the aging baby boomer population. The criminal-age population is going to rise again, and we’re bracing ourselves for that storm.”

That inevitable demographic change--a resurgence in the number of Americans in the highest crime bracket--does not sentence society to a huge rebound in violence. But it does highlight the importance of the innovative crime-fighting tactics that are being credited for a good deal of the present reduction in the carnage.

Themes are seen throughout the nation. Federal gun control legislation and the funding for tens of thousands of new police officers are often cited. And every law enforcement agency contacted for this editorial, both here and in other regions, credited community policing.

In the Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Lincoln Heights sections of Los Angeles’ Eastside, for example, violent crime is down by 30%. Business and community leaders and citizens actively work with police there in reporting crimes and even in allowing their properties to be used to watch for criminal activity.

The drop in serious crime in Orange County’s seven largest cities bettered the national trend. Again, improved cooperation between residents and officers was cited as a big factor.

In Chicago, which last year had its lowest homicide count in eight years, some potential violence has been actively prevented. When one woman’s stalker was about to be released from prison, for example, beat officers and neighbors cooperated to keep a near-constant vigil. The stalker was nabbed outside the woman’s home just one night after his release and has been incarcerated again.

Seattle has decided to expand the number of officers assigned to community patrols there. Such officers do not respond to routine emergency calls and are free to work on problems in the communities they patrol. Murders, robberies and aggravated assaults are down by 41%, 22% and 36%, respectively, since 1994.

In San Francisco, robberies, rapes and homicides fell by 22% or more this year relative to the same period of last year. Police Chief Fred Lau put it this way: “We must return to the simple principles of policing by reestablishing a trusting partnership between police and the community.”

Now, what’s been learned about community policing ought to be refined and duplicated wherever possible, before the next generational upswing in crime takes hold.