Getting police out of their cars

Peter Moskos,  Cop in the Hood - Instead of watching to prevent crime, motorized police patrol became a process of merely waiting to respond to crime.

Alisa Walker, Curbed, 2016 - Cops roving cities in police cruisers have become a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape. But having law enforcement officials monitor cities in glass and steel bubbles has proven problematic. Not only does a patrol car further isolate police from their communities, it sets up an undeniable us-versus-them hierarchy on American streets.

New policing programs that encourage cops to walk instead—called “foot beats”—are proving that walking can be transformative for neighborhood safety....

While the traditional concept of walking the beat has never disappeared from denser cities like New York and Boston, it has become less and less common in most American cities over the years. One reason is the way our cities have grown—the distance that some cops would have to cover on foot would make it statistically impossible to keep the peace...

Community policing—also known as relationship-based policing or partnership policing—aims to engender a trusting relationship between officers and the people they’re meant to protect, two groups which, in big cities especially, can have strikingly different social, racial, and economic backgrounds.

Walking the beat, engaging with residents at a personal level, is at the heart of that initiative. “If you understand the culture and you respect it, you’ll be able to police it more effectively,” said Fernando Rejón, a director for the Urban Peace Institute who helps to train law enforcement officials in community-based policing and gang intervention.

In 2011, the LAPD launched its first Community Safety Partnership (CSP) in partnership with the Urban Peace Institute and the city’s housing authority. Officers selected for the pilot program received a different set of skills than most cops. They were shown how to spot signs of post-traumatic stress and mental illness which could cause violent behavior. They were specifically trained to work with kids and teens, as up to 40 percent of all residents of public housing are under 18. And they agreed to devote five years to the same neighborhood—long enough to learn residents’ names....

Foot beats changed the community dynamic. Not only were smaller issues like graffiti and vandalism easier to see and fix on foot, police could have daily check-ins with elderly residents and small business owners. Cops on foot helped kids get to school on neutral paths that didn’t cross into contested gang territory. Soon, police officers found themselves taking on new roles, like coaching sports teams and leading Girl Scout troops.

Most notably, over the first three years, homicides plummeted by 50 percent.