Four strategies to make your neighborhood safer (delusion alert)

A series of gunshots fired late at night in East Atlanta recently prompted my neighbor to post on our local Facebook group, asking what we can do as a community to make it less dangerous to live and work in the area.

You may be asking yourself the same question. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across the country have seen an increase in gun violence and homicides.

Around the country, crime seems to be rising, and that sense of danger influences our daily choices – from where we walk our dogs to how we vote.

As a researcher at the University of Washington, I study how media and technology influence our sense of safety. New apps and technologies have made crime information increasingly accessible and available in real time and on demand. However, I’ve found that access to so much information can cause some people to feel helpless and anxious rather than empowered.

If that sounds like you, here are four evidence-based strategies you can use to take power and transform your neighborhood. While these strategies may not lead to immediate changes, they shift the underlying social, economic and environmental characteristics of your neighborhood to make it truly safer in the long run.

Research shows that neighborhoods where people walk around and greet one another are safer. That’s because they deter potential offenders, who prefer quieter neighborhoods, and because they give people the power to look out for one another.

For example, if you see a child involved in a fight, knowing your neighbors might help you contact the child’s parent or guardian or intervene yourself. If you see an older adult looking lost, you may know how to guide them home or call someone who does. You do not need to be close friends with your neighbors, but by taking small, consistent actions to look out for one another, especially those neighbors who are most vulnerable, you are creating a safer community.

Despite the real problems the country is facing with gun violence, crime rates in the United States are still at historic lows: Property crime and violent crime have been decreasing steadily since the early 1990s, with a slight uptick in violent crime since 2015.

While crime rates are largely decreasing, information about crime is more accessible than ever. Mobile apps and websites now enable you to view and share crime information in real time with the click of a few buttons.

In a recent study, we interviewed people who use the Citizen app to stay informed about local safety incidents. We found that while such apps can provide users with timely local information, they can also spike users’ fears by raising the salience and visibility of every little incident regardless of whether it presents a risk to users’ safety.

The Citizen app, like many other apps, has a financial incentive to report as much information as possible because it profits from users’ engagement. However, for users of these apps, the resulting fear can lead them to avoid going out in the evenings or heighten their fear of strangers - the opposite of the kind of social trust and cohesion necessary for long-term crime prevention.

If you find yourself feeling anxious or fearful after reading crime news, consider using filters, turning off alerts and maintaining perspective by reading good news as well as the crime stories.

Another influential study found that organizations that focus on neighborhood development, substance abuse prevention, crime prevention, job training and recreational activities for youth all reduce the crime rate.

The study was large, looking at data from 20 years and 264 cities, and found that establishing 10 additional community organizations in a city decreases the homicide rate by 9%, the violent crime rate by 6% and the property crime rate by 4% within a year. Those effects persist for at least three years, even if the organizations cease to exist.

One famous example is a program called Midnight Basketball, which began in the early 1990s in Washington D.C. Its aim was to provide youth with a safe space to play basketball during high-crime hours and use that opportunity to connect them with educational and social services.

Despite research documenting the success of Midnight Basketball in reducing crime, the program struggled for many years due to poor political and financial support. By supporting local, high-quality programs in various ways – with dollars, volunteer time and political support – community members can begin addressing the underlying social and economic factors that lead to crime in the first place.

Organizing is an effective crime prevention strategy. When neighborhoods organize against crime, however, they often default to crime watches and neighborhood patrols. One study estimates that over 40% of the U.S. population lives in areas monitored by a neighborhood watch group.

While some studies have shown these programs to be effective in reducing the crime rate, research also shows that monitoring a neighborhood leads to the unjustified suspicion and harassment of Black people, due to deeply held biases.

There are other ways to organize that makes the area safer for everyone. For example, you can focus on changing the underlying characteristics of a neighborhood.

Community members can identify individual blocks or vacant plots of land that look run down. Clean up trash, advocate for more street lights and plant greenery – the goal is to transform run-down parts of your neighborhood into vibrant areas where people would enjoy congregating.

This sort of organizing can have a large impact – in Philadelphia, for example, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s program to convert vacant lots into green spaces led to a 29% reduction in gun violence in the affected neighborhoods. That would translate to 350 fewer shootings each year if the program were implemented citywide.

When you feel unsafe, a natural reaction is to isolate yourself and distrust the strangers around you. However, such responses not only lead to more fear, but they can also weaken community cohesion and make your neighborhood less safe.

By building relationships, looking out for one another and investing in your social and physical infrastructure, you can truly make your neighborhood safer in the long run

“Despite research documenting the success of Midnight Basketball in reducing crime, the program struggled for many years due to poor political and financial support.”

Right, it didn’t fail because it was a stupid idea, it failed because not enough money was spent. The same old, same old of stupid government programs.

Here are my 4 stategies:
1) Look in the mirror.
2) Realize that the person in the mirror is why things are the way they are.
3) Recall all the politicans you voted for that created the situation in the first place.
4) Elect new people.

Nothing will change until steps 1 and 2 are completed

If she believes that “gun violence” exists she is already toast.

It is people violence.

“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

In most bad neighborhoods people used to “care” and “fight violence” until the gangs killed a few of them—sometimes intentionally and sometimes in the crossfire.

If your neighbors are bad news you are not going to “cure” them—you need to get out of there before you become the next victim.

No. In most bad neighborhoods people just stopped caring. Gangs don’t houses go derelict, people do. Gangs don’t turn up the TV when something is happening outside, people do. Gangs don’t ignore Kitty Genovese while she’s being raped and murdered, people do. You have to EARN living in a good neighborhood. It has to be maintained just like your house, your mind, and your body.

You are confusing cause and effect.

The people who care moved out of the bad neighborhoods long ago...no point in buying a house or staying in one in a high crime area if you can figure out any way to bail.

There are some sweet old ladies that do live in the bad neighborhoods because they are poor and cannot figure out an alternative—if they get out of line they will be dead old ladies as their houses get burned with them in it. They do care—about staying alive.

No, I’m not. We know from all the stats that it’s the caring that goes first. Step 1 of a neighborhood going down hill is not replacing the street lights when the burn out. Criminals are lazy, they don’t put in the work to ruin a neighborhood. They find a neighborhood that’s already lost.

The problem is the people who let it get that way so the sweet old lady was trapped. Every Projects we had in this country started nice. But they didn’t care, and it became bad. We’ve got this crap documented in neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood. And it does NOT run the cycle you say. That’s the plot of bad movies. Reality is much more tragic. The people in the neighborhood stop taking care of it. It becomes dark. And run down. And the criminals moved in. That IS the cycle. Has been for decades, over a hundred years, in America, Europe, Asia. You want your neighborhood to be good, start by keeping your house up, then help out your neighbor.

And stop watching dumb movies that make it seem like gangs just pick on neighborhoods. Really if gangs were going to take a neighborhood down Bel-Air would be a ruins. Think about it, bunch of rich unarmed liberals with lots of cool stuff to steal. That’s a place worth targeting. But the people there keep it well lit, and well repaired. No gangs.

You and I live on different planets.

I have seen many areas that were nice go downhill fast.

What happened was that a few “bad” families moved in—then the crime rate went up—then the good people started bailing.

I have seen it with my own eyes here in CT.

You give me ten criminal “families” determined to rip off and terrorize their neighbors and any community will go down the toilet in a hurry.

The most common example were public housing projects. Once single black moms moved in with their “good boys” they went down the toilet in a hurry. As long as the “good boys” live there hope is gone.

Actually this time you got it right. Yes “bad” families move in, people not taking care of things. Those aren’t gangs, those are people who don’t give a crap.

Remember the Projects started nice. But nobody took care of them.

See you went from blaming gangs, who are actually the last people to move into a spiraling neighborhood, to residents who don’t care. We’re now in complete agreement.

A gang is just when criminals band together to protect each other.

I think we are debating definitions here.

In CT most of the “gangs” are very disorganized/fragmented—in fact that is the cause of most of the shootings in urban areas—turf wars.

“There is no honor among thieves.”

Now you’re backing off again and going to bad movie land. Yes gangs are when criminals band together. But criminals, banded together or not, don’t feel welcome in a maintained neighborhood. PEOPLE need to maintain the neighborhood, that keeps both organized and unorganized criminals out.

One of the first things that happen when a gang is contemplating a neighborhood is they’ll tag it. Then they pay attention to what happens. If the tags stay untouched for weeks they know that neither the people nor another gang care, free territory. If the tags get blacked out another gang is there, so they have to decide if they want to fight for it. If the tags get painted over neatly and made to look like there never was a tag they know the people still care, they move on.

It’s not about honor among thieves. It’s about if the PEOPLE that live there give a crap. If they do the neighborhood will be maintained, and the criminals will move to a soft target.

That is REALITY. Has been forever. Whitechapel was a nice neighborhood, then it got run down, then it became bad, then Jack the Ripper showed up. That is ALWAYS the cycle. Gangs don’t drag it down, the residents stop keeping it up.

No they don’t. They will always eat the people around them. In places of low crime the police enforce lower level laws and ordinances with vigor. They have to in order to justify their existence and generate revenue. I have seen municipalities literally eat their own citizens with the enforcement/judicial system. They are hammers and everyone are nails.

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