The police are being held accountable for crime and pressured to show results. All the solutions you mentioned are outside of their abilities or authority. So yeah, what are some of their options? Regardless, people committed crimes. Are you saying to ignore them?
I guess I'm just not explaining myself well. Arrest and process people who commit crimes? Sure, do that.Specifically target heavily impoverished, high crime areas for easy wins? Who really benefits from that? Gangs rule those areas. There are little to no opportunities for employment and the city provides next to no support for areas like that. Hopeless doesn't even begin to describe areas like that. My fiancee is a mobile librarian who frequently goes out to underserved areas like Englewood and the stories she has are heartbreaking. The kids want to learn. They want something better. The jump at the opportunity. But beyond some token support, the city doesn't really do anything.When school funding needs to get cut and other services get reduced they start in Englewood and the adjacent neighborhoods. When you give people nothing to live for, what else do you expect. This is an issue that extends decades, at least. What would I like to see? Revitalization. Offer work training programs. There is always construction in Chicago. Train these people for construction work. Offer shuttles to construction sites for people that can't afford and/or don't have transit access. Use the police as a tool to monitor these areas as opposed to scoring these lame easy wins. Things along those lines. None of that will happen though. Like I said, it's easier to just make the downtown/Wrigley areas prettier for tourists. One of the better ideas I've heard is offering subsidized/free housing to teachers/police officers/etc in these areas. The idea being that people living in those areas will be more invested in making it a better place to live. Optimistic, but something worth considering.
I hear what you're saying, but you're also saying that the cops should just not do their job in that area. And yes, trying to prevent crime is part of their job... not just responding to crimes that have committed. If there were a rash of purse snatchings in the area, and they sent out some old-lady-with-purse bait to catch them, would that also be "wrong"? On one hand you're saying that there are so many better things that COULD be done to improve the area, but isn't being or won't be done... and yet when the cops try to do SOMETHING (that is completely effective in many areas), it's wrong? What should the cops do, then? Nothing? Turn a blind eye to all crime? Forget "construction jobs" or anything non-police... what can the police do to help lower crime in that area?
Here's an article describing an average day in Englewood - https://wgntv.com/2013/08/25/its-englewood-12-hours-in-one-of-chicagos-most-dangerous-neighborhoods/ When you hear gun violence in Chicago, your mind should always think of this neighborhood. It is routinely listed as one of if not the most dangerous area in Chicago. Petty theft is pretty much the absolute least of their problems. Which is why I keep pointing out the uselessness of something like this. My fiancee had to go to a school adjacent to Englewood and wound up having to park a few blocks away from the school. The moment she got of her car and neighborhood resident spotted her, asked where she needed to be and offered to escort her to the school. And the concern wasn't due to a serious spate of shoe thefts. A drive by shooting happened the night before. What should the police do instead of hassling people stealing shoes? Reduce gun and gang related violence maybe? Solve problems related to that first. Otherwise, this is just putting shitty band aids on a dismembered limb. I'm not saying, at all, that the police shouldn't do their jobs. I'm saying they need to fix the actual problems plaguing these areas.
I'm not trying to be a dick or anything... but how should they do this? I'm genuinely curious what you'd recommend they do.
I'd have a hard time accusing you of being a dick when I'm doing the same. The answer to that solution? I really have no idea. CPD donning riot gear and clearing out the gangs is the most straightforward solution. Not the safest or best solution. But the fastest. The police has a long way to in establishing trust and respect in communities like this. Tales abound of police brutality (Laquan McDonald being one of many examples). I'm the whitest white dude ever and I'd rather do everything I can to avoid crossing paths a CPD officer. Similarly, I know those communities could do better. I know the willingness to change is there. I hear it from my fiancee all the time. Years, maybe decades, will have to be spent mending the relationship between the two. Because right now the two see each other as enemies. And until that mindset is changed, I don't think real progress can be made.
Again, I'm not saying petty crime couldn't and shouldn't be addressed. These areas have far, far worse problems. If I was a gang member I'd be ecstatic that the police are spending their time on crap like this. Less attention on me.
I apologize for the triple post. Let me pose a question. I'll try to phrase this as best I can, but I'm a moron when it comes to IT. So if this is a bad example, ridicule as you see fit. Let's say you are working IT for a company that is experiencing massive security breaches and management's only solution is to have you tell people to just change their passwords every few days. And the people that don't change their passwords in the allotted time are written up. Do you feel that would adequately address the problem?
As mentioned above. Working to establish a trust in these communities and getting both sides to stop viewing each other as enemy combatants is the first step. Getting the community to see the police as trusted resource and the police seeing the community as citizens to protect and serve is and not as a threat is what ultimately needs to happen. The challenge is getting one to actually to the leap of faith to make that happen. The time to have implemented something like Broken Windows in an area like Englewood has long since past. I think that it is a viable solution in a mildly bad area or on the downturn. But not one that is as far gone as areas on the South/Southwest side are.
No... but I wouldn't dismiss it. Security is a "layers of the onion" thing, and the biggest part of it is recognition and enforcement. If being written up had any consequences, then it might help... but really, the biggest help is to make a fucking huge example out of someone. Case in point... we just had a huge security breach at my current gig. We're basically building an online bank for one of my customers, and 2 idiots on my team thought posting shit to Pastebin was a proper way to transfer test plans between team members... when we spent HOURS training people in proper security procedures. Needless to say, they still did stupid shit, but we fucking crucified them in public when it came to be known that they fucked up like they had.
In the end, I can see that what they did might not be viewed as being the best thing they could have done, but I'm also not ready to crucify the cops and pardon all the thieves as a result. People still stole shit they shouldn't have, and they should be punished for it. What the cops did wasn't wrong, it was just less than ideal in some people's opinion.
And I apologize for coming across as bitchy. It's just, living in Chicago, knowing how useless our government is and then seeing that video.........Well. Yeah. We'll spend $75 million on an L station we don't need - https://www.transitchicago.com/washingtonwabash/ But investing in making underserved/impoverished areas any better? Fuck that. It's beyond frustrating. And I don't want to come across like I'm shitting on the cops. I'm really not (despite the fact that, as above, I'd rather avoid dealing with them if possible). At the end of the day, they're just tools of an ineffective government and have to resort to useless crap like this. It's just a waste. I want them to do their job. I just want them do spend it effectively. And areas like this need more than token gestures. Fix the serious crime first. Then focus on things like this.
I hear you, and can relate. I tend to be very reactive when people beak off about "simple" situations and solutions that are actually much more complex and nuanced than people think... full-on reaction to potential Dunning-Kreuger. I deal with that daily, and it's one of my buttons that are easily pushed. There are people way smarter than us that deal with this shit professionally, and know what they're doing. I'm not saying the "smart ones" were responsible for this particular situation... this may have very well been set up and organized by Barney Fife for all we know... but on the chance that there's more to it than the bullshit representation by a stupid media that is pandering for eyeballs, I tend to give "professionals" the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not saying I disagree, but if it's anything like New York, they'd be out on bail by the end of the day. Here in our area, there's a program billed as an "alternative to jail" which helps criminal post bond or get reduced sentences ( if they're ever even sentenced ). Instead they get counseling and education. Sounds nice huh? Except they're back out on the streets, doing their thing, maybe showing up and going through the motions that this program is expecting of them. Or, squeeze out a few tears for the judge and tell them you're a mom, grandma, and need help? Slap on the wrist, even for repeat offenders. Rob three houses in a single morning while high as fuck on meth and a rap sheet long as my leg? Six months. ( I know, one of those houses was ours. ) I get daily police reports sent to me and honest to God, one guy has been arrested on drug charges three times in the past month. Until the courts and justice system get serious about actual punishments, the police are wasting their time even apprehending these people, more often than not. The criminals know it, and they laugh about it.
You realize that Chicago's efficacy at dismantling the major players in gangs in the 90s has a lot to do with how much gang violence there is now, right? Turns out large, organized gangs made for less violence than a whole mess of smaller, disorganized gangs that battle over smaller turfs. I think everything you were saying about resources and support and education is going to do a lot more good than continuing to haul in people in gangs. Also, the problem with broken windows policing is that, sure, maybe it decreases petty crime in the short term, but if you're arresting people for a bunch of petty bullshit, you're devastating the neighborhood in the long term. Putting more people in jail isn't actually good for deterring crime, because after someone has served a sentence, and gets out of jail with little to no support, poor housing options, and probably worse employment options, what do you expect them to do? Sure, some people are evil garbage creatures, but SO many people in jail were just desperate people in shitty situations.