There are three things that must be present in a community for a criminal stronghold to exist: fear, apathy, and tolerance for crime. The criminal knows that if he can intimidate the citizens, he has a toehold in the stronghold. If he drives through the community and sees overgrown lots, graffiti, abandoned homes, broken-down cars, and litter everywhere, it sends a message that the community does not care about itself. And if the community tolerates crime, it will have crime. This is a fundamental truth. Interestingly, it will have just as much crime as it is willing to tolerate.
Coactive policing is about building a trust-based partnership with the community, and then applying the power of that relationship to attack the fear, apathy, and tolerance for crime that allows a criminal stronghold to exist.
Shoot me an email at ray@policedynamics.com and I will send you a report called CRASHing the Gates of the Stronghold that outlines a practical plan for coactively reducing crime in problem neighborhoods (but give me a few days because I’m about to leave for a vacation…).
[…] This is an expanded definition of what we might traditionally think of as the police mandate. But policing is SO much more than just enforcing the law. The Coactive approach to policing understands that just locking people up, merely enforcing the law, doesn’t solve the problem of crime. It might solve A crime, or it might solve a series of crimes. But it will not solve the PROBLEM of crime because it is not affecting the core issues that allow crime to flourish: Fear, Apathy, and Tolerance. […]