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| Baltimore's Inner Harbor Skyline - photo courtesy of Wiki Creative Commons |
by Gregory Saville
This year, for the first time, SafeGrowth project teams from cities across the U.S. and Canada will attend an international policing conference to showcase their crime prevention and neighborhood safety work to hundreds of police delegates from around the world. The meeting will be held in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
The Baltimore Inner Harbor is not only famous for being the site of one of the most dramatic, urban post-industrial waterfront redevelopments, but it also gave birth to the lyrics of the American national anthem during the War of 1812 (technically that happened at nearby Northwest Harbor).
Now the Inner Harbor features another breakthrough event. From September 12-14 this year, Baltimore’s Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel hosts the 2024 International Problem-Oriented Policing Conference (the POP Conference).
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| The Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at Arizona State University runs the annual International POP Conference - this year it features SafeGrowth project teams |
THE POP CONFERENCE
Each year the POP Conference reminds the police community, and the community at large, about a powerful problem-solving strategy where police cut crime and increase safety. The problem-oriented policing method has been around for decades showing, in project after project, how effective policing can build community respect, enhance officer safety, and turn crime hotspots back from the brink of crime.
The conference is run by the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing under the direction of Michael Scott. He not only leads the POP Center, but he has authored many police guidebooks on how to address everything from assaults around bars and dealing with clandestine meth labs, to speeding in residential areas and how to deter high-risk individuals from crime.
This year’s conference will feature topics such as
- Preventing People with Dementia from Going Missing
- Homelessness and Public Safety in Palm Springs
- Reducing Racial Disparities through Problem-Oriented Policing
- Reducing Gun Violence in Baltimore
It will also highlight the prestigious Goldstein problem-oriented policing award projects throughout the conference with the winner announced at a final presentation.
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| Baltimore's Greater Baybrook Alliance SafeGrowth team presentations earlier this year - teams will unveil their projects also to the 2024 POP Conference delegates |
SAFEGROWTH AT POP
The SafeGrowth teams have been invited to this year’s conference to illustrate how community members use the SafeGrowth program to create safety plans and how it can work alongside POP projects. Like the POP method, SafeGrowth employs a similar step-by-step process, but the SafeGrowth program is based in urban planning and employs both 1st Generation CPTED and 2nd Generation CPTED.
The SafeGrowth teams attenting this year’s conference will bring their project results on problems such as homelessness, illicit drug dealing, vacant properties and blight, and street violence. The projects are primarily led by neighbors and community associations, in collaboration with police problem-solvers. They illustrate another model of what effective POP and crime prevention might look like in the years ahead.
SafeGrowth students have been invited from classes in Madison, WI, Vancouver, BC, Palm Springs, CA, Baltimore, MD, San Jose, CA, and Saskatoon, SK and they will present their work in informal poster sessions.
If you want to learn about powerful crime prevention methods where police and community work together, conference registration is available at the POP website.
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