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"Trust is the defining safety issue of our time"

At the heart of the national conversation about crime, violence and the health of America’s communities lies the crucial matter of trust.

Without trust—between residents and police, residents and community developers or among neighbors—the problems of chronic crime, disorder and blight that eat away at low-income neighborhoods only fester.

LISC has long supported teamwork that nurtures trust and helps lower crime and spark economic growth in low-income neighborhoods. Three years ago, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a branch of the Justice Department, invited LISC to support a visionary push to partner community developers, researchers, police departments and other neighborhood leaders to tackle crime hotspots in local places.

With LISC providing technical assistance and mentorship, the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program, or BCJI, now backs crime reduction efforts in 60 cities and rural areas across the country. This fall, the Justice Department added another 14 neighborhood sites, bringing the federal investment to more than $40 million since 2012.

When community safety partners come together to hash out challenges and share tactics, questions of trust-building and community engagement top their list. At a meeting earlier this year for BCJI grantees and LISC staff at the Justice Department, Karol Mason, Assistant Attorney General, stressed the urgency of building relationships to fight crime. “Crime is at historic lows in much of the country, but faith in our [criminal justice] system is being tested, especially in minority communities,” Mason said. “The divide in trust is the defining safety challenge of our time.”

Milwaukee Police Officer Kai Anderson talks with school children as part of the city’s efforts to build safer, stronger communities.
Milwaukee Police Officer Kai Anderson talks with school children as part of the city’s efforts to build safer, stronger communities.

But bridging that divide—especially in the wake of recent deaths of black civilians in encounters with police—is a fraught and delicate process. Ed Chung, an advisor to Mason who addressed the BCJI meeting, pointed to the Attorney General’s National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, as one vigorous effort to expose and dig out the root causes of tension between police and residents.

“Lack of trust is not a cause of violent crime, but it may be a symptom,” said Chung. Community policing and beat walking, he pointed out, are chief among the strategies for helping change perceptions on both sides of the thin blue line. BCJI neighborhoods, Karol Mason added, are perfect laboratories for testing ways to shake up entrenched attitudes and bring police and communities together.

One BCJI partner in Alameda County, CA described a local solution to improve trust and residents’ feelings about police “legitimacy” in high poverty neighborhoods, whereby police academy recruits mentor adolescents in a program for at-risk youth. Through months of contact, recruits and kids--the very cohorts who might conflict in another setting--develop friendships and empathize with each other’s positions. Ultimately, those recruits will police the neighborhoods of people they know and understand.

“There are very few players who don’t have a role in violence prevention work.”
— Howard Spivak, deputy director, National Institute of Justice

Residents of high crime areas need to have confidence in stakeholders other than police, too. BCJI researchers describe the challenges of inspiring authentic resident involvement, without which data on crime patterns and hotspots is impossible to collect. In communities where safety and renewal programs have been imposed from outside, people often feel “over-studied and under-served,” according to Matt Perkins, a LISC senior program officer.

By attending meetings and community events over time—and sometimes listening more than speaking—BCJI researchers and community developers have developed affinity with residents. “We have learned that to make a difference, communities need to be empowered to own their problems and recognize their strengths—with the help of others but not directed by others,” said Howard Spivak, a physician and public health expert who now works as deputy director of the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Justice Department.

Bona fide empowerment means making sure crime fighting programs integrate all kinds of community members. “There are very few players who don’t have a role in violence prevention work,” Spivak said. “It can be hard to keep up the momentum of collaboration between faith communities, CDCs, academics, cops and other groups. But the bottom line is having everyone at the table.”

The BCJI approach casts a wide net over all kinds of neighborhood players, and capitalizes on work that’s already happening on the ground. “Community engagement is a process, not an event,” and in many places, it’s already percolating around safety concerns, noted Jason Cooper, a LISC program officer. Which is why BCJI looks to back community groups with established neighborhood ties and, whenever possible, builds on crime fighting work that is already underway.

Trust also begins to flourish when people see that good things can actually happen in their neighborhoods. This is where the connection between revitalization and crime reduction really shows itself, as happened in one Springfield, MA neighborhood with a BCJI grant. An apartment complex where drug and gun trafficking was rampant was shut down and refurbished as housing for local families. Crime plummeted and the surrounding area began to improve.

“When you respond to what people are asking for, they begin to trust that we will do what’s needed,” said Geraldine McCafferty, director of Springfield’s Office of Housing. “The place became nice and safe and people are much happier to live there. We’re seeing a change in the way people talk to police and city officials.”

That better physical surroundings and safety are mutually reinforcing—and help bring about social cohesion in a neighborhood--is why housing and public safety must be addressed simultaneously, Mindy Turbov, director of HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program, told BCJI grantees. “Deteriorated, abandoned and poorly managed housing leads to higher crime,” said Turbov. “That leads to cycles of disinvestment in neighborhoods. We need to support the conditions where people will reinvest, and safety is one of those conditions.”

Renewal projects, especially those that entail closing down a problem property, can really benefit from the voice of law enforcement, and the process opens a path for collaboration between police and residents. Police often have information about what drives crime in a particular place that residents may not be aware of, and vice versa.

“This is an important opportunity for inviting law enforcement to the table,” says Julia Ryan, director of LISC’s safety programs. Communities and police have “different perceptions about where and why crime is happening. They speak different languages. But when they’re part of this kind of problem-solving team, each can see what the other has to offer. They’re doing something together that builds trust.”

60 cities and rural areas