CSI In-Depth Paper Series A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Auburn Boulevard Revitalization Project As public agencies and community developers look to replicate successful projects, it is important to apply objective measures to evaluate achievements. This publication highlights a benefit-cost analysis of the Auburn Boulevard Revitalization Project in Sacramento, California. This award-winning multi-agency effort not only produced considerable crime reduction and new development, but also saved the County approximately $8 million between 1994 and 2004. This case is particularly relevant for practitioners, policymakers and funders who are interested in examining the impact of investments in community safety projects. This article proposes mixing community policing and community development with the objective of having economic development and community safety mechanisms reinforce one another to prevent the typical plight of urban neighborhoods. It includes a discussion of the metaphorical significance of the federal government's Weed and Seed program and the potential of the Community Safety Initiative as an effective strategy for improving community safety and health. Beyond Community Policing: Engaging Prosecutors in Community Safety Partnerships The prosecutor has a specific area of expertise and a distinct role to play in community safety that cannot be filed by the police or the community. This article explains that role and describes several best practices, with illustrative models for including a local prosecutor in the kind of safety partnerships championed by CSI and the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards. Catalyst for Collaboration: Roles of a Safety Coordinator This paper draws from the strategies of successful community-safety partnerships to describe how safety coordinators can engage community members and law enforcement, build successful relationships between the two and move forward with a work plan that yields tangible results in improving safety in a neighborhood. The paper outlines the role and strategy of a safety coordinator, how to structure the position and go about finding the appropriate person to fill it. Crime-Fighting Partnerships: How to Leverage the Capacity of Community Developers This study highlights the experience of police personnel from three jurisdictions, Tacoma, Washington; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; and Providence, Rhode Island, to demonstrate how dynamic partnerships can lead to dramatic reduction in crime and victimization. These award winning partnerships illustrate how the approach fits with widely accepted law enforcement theory, providing a clear argument for the value of working with CDCs. This foldout chart was created for community developers and police personnel and diagrams how these entities can collaborate on development projects in ways that are mutually beneficial. This tool lays out the six phases of partnering on development projects, from the early planning stages through to project completion and management. By taking the time to dialogue, share plans and make joint decisions in these ways, community safety practitioners can achieved marked transformations of properties and their surrounding neighborhoods. Leveraging Code Enforcement for Neighborhood Safety: Insights for Community Developers Drawing on the best-practice strategies employed by winners of the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards over the last five years, this paper leads safety practitioners through the process of neighborhood revitalization through a focus on code enforcement. By partnering with law enforcement agencies and code enforcement agencies, community developers can effectively rid an area of problem properties, reduce magnets for crime and establish neighborhoods as a safe and healthy place to invest. Organizing for Safety: Transforming Community Activism into Community Change Experience has shown that effective community organizing around public safety is one of the most lucrative paths to community revitalization. This paper presents examples from Tacoma, Washington and North Little Rock, Arkansas to demonstrate the unique and critical role that proactive police officers can play in facilitating this sort of community activism to improve public safety. Furthermore, they illustrate the powerful model of law enforcer as mediator. Out of the Blue: Turning Problem into Opportunity When a Police Partner Moves On Transfers of police personnel to other departmental positions can be difficult for community developers who rely heavily on police support—and in some cases, trusting relationships with individual officers—to keep neighborhoods safe and primed for economic investment. Without notice or care taken in communicating project status and priorities to new police coming in, transfers can hinder specific projects that rely on the expertise and commitment of specific officers and derail delicate efforts to improve community-police trust. This paper draws on the experiences of past winners of the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards and the input of police leaders around the country to examine:
Partnering to Build Out of Crime: HomeSight and the Seattle Police Department Community developers, policymakers and law enforcement agencies will be interested to learn how HomeSight, a CDC, integrated safety work to harness a greater investment of resources for neighborhood revitalization. This case study examines how HomeSight collaborated with the Seattle Police Department and home and business owners to build its way out of crime. SafeGrowth: Creating Safety & Sustainability through Community Building and Urban Design The partnership between SafeGrowth and LISC's Community Safety Initiative has allowed for the design of a comprehensive program model for professionals in community development, urban planning and design, law enforcement and crime prevention. It draws on the best-practices of six years of MetLife Foundation Award winners to inform future planning for comprehensive community safety programs. This paper describes first and second generation CPTED principles and outlines how the principles should be considered as part of a 6-phase planning and problem-solving process to improve public safety. Safe Streets, Sound Communities This report acts as an introduction to the Community Safety Initiative. It explores LISC's role in promoting community safety through partnerships between police and community organizations. Highlighting the work and lessons from the Community Safety Initiative as well as other LISC supported, community based safety efforts, the report profiles three communities - the Olneyville neighborhood in Providence, Columbia City in Seattle, and Franklin Avenue in Southeast Minneapolis. This case study describes a project conducted in the Greater Elmwood neighborhood of Providence, RI that used mapping and data analysis to guide a comprehensive public safety and community development agenda. The partners examined the relationship between: foreclosure challenges and misdemeanor crime; violence and reentry patterns; troublesome congregating and drug sale arrests; and other confluent trends and problems. These linkages led the partners to address conditions and crimes through an innovative and strategic integration of real estate development, problem-solving policing, foreclosure response, community organizing and offender reentry systems in this Providence neighborhood. As communities around the country seek comprehensive approaches to diverse but confluent problems, the Greater Elmwood story is instructive to public, private and non-profit leaders. Understanding Crime Displacement: A Guide for Community Development Practitioners The idea that crime will automatically relocate in the aftermath of community development initiatives (CDIs) is perhaps one of the most commonly held beliefs among development specialists and police, alike. It is commonly used as a rationale for doing nothing about some community crime problem. However, this belief, which is referred to as crime displacement, is not universally true. In fact, research on the extent of crime displacement has repeatedly found that crime displacement is the exception rather than the rule and that the opposite of displacement - diffusion of crime and control benefits - is just as likely to occur. This case provides guidance to community developers and their police partners about how to assess displacement risks and mitigate them in project planning and implementation. |
|
|
|
|
