While the Lions were losing...

Ah, Thanksgiving! The turkey, the stuffing, and the whole family gathered around the dining table for the traditional feast and fellowship. Well, maybe not for everyone. Here's a some of the one-liners from Lincoln police Incident Reports and dispatch records on Thanksgiving:

EXBOYFRIEND GRABBED VICTIM'S NECK CAUSING TENDERNESS LATER
PR SHOVED TABLE INTO VICTIM'S CHEST
THREW VIC TO GROUND CSNG TO HIT HEAD CSNG PAIN/BUMP
LV-IN B/F PUNCHED VIC SVRL XS CSNG BRUISING/SWELLING
ELBOWED 2 XS IN FACE CSNG BLOODY NOSE
PULLED HAIR/SHOVED/SPED UP CSNG TO JUMP FRM MOVING CAR/MINOR INJS
CALLER SD IS PISSED & COMING OVER TO BREAK WINDOWS
FATHER OF CHILD @ V'S RES/ARGMNT W/ VALID PROT ORDER/ACC SCRATCHED VIC
BROKE INTO V'S RES TO STEAL ITEMS W/ VALID PROT ORDER
FAMILY DISPUTE/NAME CALLING/STRUGGLE ENSUED
OPEN 911 LINE SOUNDS LIKE ARGUING IN BACKGROUND
19YOF 4MOS PREG WAS STAYING AT FRIENDS W/ HER 2 KIDS -- HAD A DIST
22 YO M- POSS ETOH POIS. VOMITING NOT ALERT
BYFRND JUST ASLTED JUSTIN -- IS STILL THERE --- 4 KIDS IN THE HOUSE
HEARD KIDS SCREAMING AND SOMEONE BEING SLAMMED AGAINST THE DOOR
COMP GOT A CALL FROM HER DAUGHTER SAYING THAT SOMEONE WAS BEING ASLTED
FAMILY GATHERING OF 10 PPL- 38YO BROTHER SHOWED UP CODE 19
A911 ON CALL BACK VERY VERBAL IN BACKGROUND ///STEPSON 30YO THERE
OPEN 911 LINE SOUNDS LIKE VERBAL DOM IN BACKGROUND
GFRND MOVING OUTR AND VERBAL W/COMP...ARGUING
VERB DIST WITH NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE STREET
COMP WAS IN A VERBAL DISTI W/ANOTHER MALE WHO PUNCHED OUT HIS WINDOW..
SAYS FEMALE BLK JACKET SHORTS HIT COMP IN FACE WITH A GLASS
COMPS EX 25YO W/M ASLTD COMP 5 AGO
LISA SAID CHRIS WAS CAUSING PROBLEMS C19 VERBAL
SOMEONE YELLING SOMEONE JUST HIT MY MOM. PHN HUNGUP
VERB DIST WITH NEIGHBOR KEN ACROSS THE STREETV FRIEND HIT V ON SIDE OF FACE WITH A DRINKING GLASS/NO VISIBLE INJ

It was actually a very slow day: 196 dispatches, about half our average. If you are a long time reader, and this post looks familiar, don't worry: it's just déjà vu. You can keep an eye on what we're up to at the Lincoln Police Department day-by-day on our public web site.

The spirit of community policing

It's graduation night for the LPD police academy. Late this afternoon, the badges will be pinned on a group of new Lincoln police officers, who will assume their duties beginning tomorrow. It's a great event, one that I have mentioned before in The Chief's Corner. We are all proud of their accomplishment, and look forward to working alongside our new officers as their careers unfold.

We always combine our awards ceremony with the two academy graduation events. It will be a busy one tonight. There are 38 awards to bestow; 17 to officers (11 of those are life saving awards), and 21 to citizens who helped us in a variety of ways. There are retail employees and service sector employees who helped build an important drug cases by providing critical information. We will honor two citizens who intervened to help save lives along with officers, and three citizens who put their own safety on the line to help police officers struggling with combative suspects and needing a little assist in getting the cuffs applied.

We also have awards for nine private property managers and landlords that have helped us immensely in dealing with prostitution in Lincoln. This has made a real difference in the area of Lincoln where street prostitution has been most problematic. We truly appreciate their help and support.

All of these citizens are examples of the real spirit of community policing: everyone pulling together to promote a safe and secure community. These citizens didn't hide behind their window shades: they got actively involved and exhibited resourcefulness, courage, and self-sacrifice when duty called. Yes, I mean duty. In a democratic republic, we all share the duty for public safety and security. The police are merely paid to do it full time.

New member

I'm a new member. I joined in San Diego a couple weeks ago, where I was pulling duty representing the IACA at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. It was easy, and there was no fee. I signed up because I fundamentally agree with the principals of the organization, and I think it represents the best hope we have for fighting crime and for passing on the important values of this republic that are worthy of upholding.


Oh, I forgot: Fight Crime, Invest in Kids.

Pay it forward

One Thursday evening in 1949, sixteen year old Pete Wagner went with his pals to Hilsabeck's Sporting Goods store in downtown Holdrege, Nebraska. The boys were ordering their letter jackets--a substantial expense at $30 each. While his buddies tried on samples for size, Pete stood quietly in the background. Although he was a new letterman, he couldn't afford a jacket. Pete's dad had died just a few months earlier, and it was up to him to work all the hours he could at the grocery store so the income of the short order cook mom and the apprentice meat cutter son could keep the family afloat.

Mr. Hilsabeck, the proprietor, talked quietly to Pete and asked him why he wasn't ordering a jacket. Pete told him he couldn't afford it, but that he might be getting a sweater sometime later. In a small town like Holdrege, everyone knew about Pete's dad and about the family's precarious financial condition. "You go ahead and order your jacket, Pete," said the proprietor, "and you can pay me a few dollars a week--whatever you can afford."

Through the kindness of Mr. Hilsabeck, Pete got his letter jacket, paying off his debt interest-free and the rate of $2 a week. It was a story Pete Wagner told me a dozen times or more, and it was an act of kindness and generosity I saw him repeat in his own life over and over. A proprietor himself in later years, he was always there to help the poor family in the neighborhood of his grocery stores, the disabled employee, the customer down on his luck, the shut-in down the street, the kid with no job, the college student with no place to stay, nothing to eat, and no car to get to class.

My father in law, Pete Wagner, the best fishing buddy I've ever had, died last Thursday after an intense battle with a sudden illness. We will lay him to rest this morning, a year after my own Dad's passing. A man is lucky to have a father he can look up to, aspire to be like, and learn life's important lessons from. I was blessed with two.

Evidence-based policing

This is the fifth and final post in a series that started Monday.

Having spent the week vastly oversimplifying criminology and policing, I need to acknowledge a couple things. First, there are many other theories of crime, supported by really smart people that I have not even mentioned. Second, no one theory explains crime. I think that even the most ardent proponent of a particular theory would probably agree with that. As a police officer, you can see crimes that seem to be best explained by one or another. Many of the distinctions in theory are blurred in the real world. Police strategies are not neatly compartmentalized into those based on one particular theory. There is a good deal of overlap.

In my own paradigm, I tend towards routine activities and rational choice theories because they are actionable. As a police officer, I can actually do something about wolves, ducks, and dens. Given a crime pattern, generating alternatives grounded in routine activities theory and situational crime prevention is comparatively straightforward. Information about what works and what doesn't is often available. The Problem-Oriented Policing Center provides a great compendium of such information. It is more difficult to come up with strategies that I have the resources to implement if I accept strain theory or subcultural theory as the best explanation for criminality. I'm not discarding other theories, just focusing on strategies that are within our power to carry out.

Most of all, I want us to engage in police strategies that work. Evidence of impact impresses me more than theory. Show me that arresting more drunk drivers is correlated with fewer alcohol-involved fatal accidents, and I'm on board. Demonstrate that enforcement of minor public order crimes is related to lower overall rates of victimization, and I'll head that direction. Prove to me that when an offender is arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced for an act of domestic violence that he or she is less likely to commit the same crime against the same victim in the future, and I will make those investigations a priority.

I believe in practicing evidence-based policing. The evidence isn't always clear-cut, there are often gaps in our knowledge, and sometimes you must operate on the best information you have at the moment. You should always, however, keep your mind open for new and better information, and be willing to change course and adapt as the state of our knowledge improves. You should also look for any available evidence of the impact of your own activities on your desired outcomes, and at the bare minimum be able to describe the logical link between what you are doing, and what you hope to accomplish.


The Series:

Theory and practice
Wolves
Ducks
Dens
Evidence-based policing

Dens

This is part four of a series. Read Monday's post, if you haven't already.

Dens are problem places. These are the addresses that police officers are quite familiar with on their own beats: places with repeated calls for service and problems. Some dens have achieved their status because they are the location of lots and lots of human activity that inevitably involve the police and mostly minor crime. For example, so far this year, the list of the top five places where the most crimes have occurred (142 to 406) includes three high schools and two shopping centers.

Other dens are true dens of iniquity: places where bad actors congregate and bad actions occur with regularity. Retired LPD officers will instantly recognize addresses like 1416 P Street, 913 O Street, and 2272 Y Street--problem spots during the 1970's and 1980's. Today's officers have their own list of familiar-sounding addresses. I found, for example, one single-family residence in Lincoln this year that has already generated 13 police crime reports. There is also a home with 12, four with 9, and two with 8. That's a lot of stuff for a few single-family homes.

The Lincoln Police Department is quite good at is in identifying dens. I can give you the track record of a specific address all the way back to 1980 in a matter of moments, and find the owner and a photo of the premise in a few clicks thereafter. Our information by address is rich and deep. A den may be an exact address, or it may be an area where problems are concentrated. We use some specific techniques for pinpointing locations with emerging problems, such as Threshold Alerts. Our GIS capability is well-developed.

A key to dealing with dens is to look beyond the individual calls for service and incidents. This is the essence of most good problem-oriented policing projects: gathering the information, assessing the underlying problems, addressing those with a targeted strategy, and assessing the results.

Dealing with problems at places is not solely the job of the police. Place managers such as business owners, apartment managers, retail managers, and property owners have the most important role. We want to help them do it well because it is in our best interest. As an example, we provide some great resources to rental property owners and managers, so that they may be alerted to a den existing in their own units. Owners and managers can instantly obtain up-to-the-minute information concerning the basic details of all police dispatches to their property. We also provide liquor license holders with information about drunk driving arrests where the defendant claims to have been drinking in that particular establishment. We emphasize the value to our officers of establishing relationships with retail businesses on their beat, and we are heavily-involved in one of the most important places in any community: schools.

Here are a few examples of place-based interventions LPD has initiated that I've blogged about here in the Chief's Corner in the past:

Working with landlords to reduce problems at rental property.
Keeping close tabs on the residences of high-risk sex offenders.
Dealing with problematic practices at bars.
Recruiting good tenants into fragile neighborhoods.

Despite the fact that we do a particularly good job of locating and working on dens, there are a few ways I think we could improve. We could, for example, intervene more effectively on businesses with repeated false alarms. If the small fines don't seem to have the desired impact, maybe a personal visit by the police captain who commands the area would. I also think that in some case we could intervene earlier with place managers--even thought this is an area in which we generally excel. Sometimes we wait a little longer than we should. By the time we've actually spoken to or written the owner/manager, the problem has been in existence for quite a while.

Some people opine that place-centered police intervention merely moves the problems elsewhere. In my book, though, the displacement argument is unconvincing. The net effect of displacing crime is usually positive:even if there is some displacement, it's not one-to-one. And there can be some unexpected diffusion of benefits when crime prevention efforts focused on one offense type or one area actually exert a positive influence on crimes and areas other than those directly targeted. It's a contested issue, but I believe the greater weight of research evidence backs me on this one.


The Series:

Theory and practice
Wolves
Ducks
Dens
Evidence-based policing

Ducks

This is part 3 of a series. Read Monday's post, if you haven't already.

Ducks are victims or targets. A citizen who leaves the keys under the driver's side visor in his car is a sitting duck. A retailer who keeps a considerable amount of cash in the register, rather than making timely deposits is a sitting duck. A gaggle of catalytic converters conveniently piled up by the fence at a salvage yard is a flock of sitting ducks.

Focusing police efforts on the victims and targets is generally more productive then devoting those efforts exclusively towards offenders. We've shown over and over again that you can reduce crime with straightforward prevention methods. It is much more efficient and effective, in most cases, than investigating cases after the fact and seeking to arrest the offenders. Since ducks can be both persons and things, you can engage in strategies primarily aimed at changing potential victim behavior, and in strategies that are primarily aimed at making the thing less craved.

Craved, as in: Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, and Disposable (I believe Ronald Clarke originated that, but it's become so commonly repeated, I'm not certain.) If it is difficult to dispose of stolen property, it is less craved. If the thing is concealed from view and protected by a lock, it's less available. If the product won't work without an electronic code, it's less enjoyable. Car alarms, removable-face plate and auto disabling stereos, fox urine sprayed on park fir trees, regulation of pawn shops, cable locks on school laptops, the list is long on efforts to harden targets in order to make them less craved. Some target-hardening initiatives have been especially effective. You'd be hard pressed to find a credible explanation for the drop in business burglary other than the proliferation of alarm systems, for example.

Many of our efforts in situational crime prevention involve attempts to increase guardianship. In this approach, we seek to make people more aware so they will be more watchful. We also encourage them to notify us when they observe criminal or suspicious behavior. We encourage the use of countermeasures that make it easier to guard themselves and their property: security lights, visibility corridors, CCTV, alarms, controlled access, drop safes, and many others.

I'd give the Lincoln Police Department good marks for our work on preventive strategies in the duck pond. We practice problem-oriented policing department-wide, and we do a pretty good job of recognizing crime trends and jumping on them early with preventive strategies. There are many good examples of these in past posts on the Chief's Corner, such as:

-Making it harder to offload stolen bicycles.
-steps to protect portable GPS units.
-Recommending the use of better locks.
-Suggesting getting your car up into the driveway when possible.
-Contacting us about suspicious behavior.

If I were to pick out the two best examples from my blog of LPD efforts to reduce crime by focusing on sitting ducks, though, it would be our comprehensive strategy to reduce metal thefts, and our projects to reduce open garage door burglaries.

Finally, there is a special category that must be mentioned: repeat victims. In preparation for this post, a ran a report I had never created before: 2008 Incident Reports summarized by the name of the victim. After winnowing out the obvious (various retail stores, City of Lincoln, Lincoln Public Schools, etc.) I was left with a list of individuals who had been repeatedly victimized by crime this year. When you look at these victims, you find that almost all of those at the top (there was one exception in the top 8) are women who are in domestic violence situations and have been repeatedly assaulted, had property vandalized, been stalked, had their protection order violated, and so forth. In many cases their assailant had been arrested on multiple occasions, and in a couple of cases, he is presently a fugitive. If we can intervene effectively to protect these repeat victims, there is a chance we can prevent very serious crimes.


The Series:

Theory and practice
Wolves
Ducks
Dens
Evidence-based policing

Wolves

This is part 2 of a series. Read Monday's post, if you haven't already.

There is a lot of police focus on wolves--primarily catching them. Crook-catching consumes a huge amount of police resources. It's a job police officers generally find rewarding.

The concept behind our crook-catching is either incapacitation or deterrence. If criminals are identified, arrested, successfully prosecuted, and sentenced to incarceration, there will be an interval of time when they are unable to ply their trade. That alone should have a salutary effect. Once released, the offender may be deterred from committing the next crime by the memory of the unpleasantness involved in the last one (specific deterrence). Other would-be criminals will be deterred by the example (general deterrence.)

There are plenty of examples of the failure of incapacitation and deterrence. I've blogged about some of these in the past. The fact of the matter is that the old saw "crime does not pay" may not always be accurate. Your chances of actually being incarcerated for a given crime are quite small. This table from my friend Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe's fabulous book Intelligence-Led Policing makes the point:


Even when cases are reported to the police, cleared, and result in a conviction and sentence, the results can be discouraging. Police officers generally see so many examples of shortcomings in the criminal justice system that we become rather cynical. On the other hand, we still hold out hope that even short brief incarceration, and loosely-supervised probation help. On occasion, criminals change and become law-abiding and contributing members of society. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that most of the people we arrest are not repeat customers. Our attention needs to be directed towards the most ravenous wolves--the small percentage of repeat offenders who are responsible for the better part of all crime.

We also engage in strategies aimed at displacing offenderss. Assistant Chief Jim Peschong, the best hunter of wolves I have known, believes that one of the reasons we enjoy a low violent crime rate is that we track down criminals with uncommon zeal and celerity, putting pressure on suspects that would draw less police effort and attention in some cities. I concur. It's hard to measure, but Lincoln is not a good town to live in if you a petty criminal, or even a just a chronic lead-foot. Other examples of such displacement strategies would be Project Safe Neighborhoods, and Warrant Focus Areas. With these projects we are trying encourage criminals to either leave or lay low: either one works for me.

We expend the least effort on strategies to prevent wolves from becoming wolves in the first place. You could argue that some of the work of our school resource officers involves promoting pro-social behavior by young people. That's also part of the purpose of such things as the Lincoln Police Department's midget football program, our law enforcement Explorer post, and our early-diversion process for youngsters who commit law violations. These are pretty small operations, though, compared to criminal investigations.For the most part, wolf-prevention is the domain of other institutions and organizations: family, church, mentors--the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" idea. Although we are a fairly small player in the prevention realm, we believe in it, and we support (both individually and organizationally) such efforts as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Teammates, and the Boys and Girls Club.


The Series:

Theory and practice
Wolves
Ducks
Dens
Evidence-based policing