Stories from skid row in Los Angeles

The recent story of LAPD Sergeant Deon Joseph triggered a flashback this week. For 17 years Sergeant Joseph has worked in the skid row of Los Angeles, a cluster of streets with over 3,500 homeless in a city of over 50,000 homeless. The YouTube "Stories from skid row" says it all.

My flashback was to a conference years ago in Vancouver. I was in the audience listening to a well known journalist describe stories about policing. It was one of those ah-ha moments, at least for the audience.

First he told stories about his personal experiences about officers he knew or came across on the street. They were positive stories about how those officers were conscientious and diligent. People needed help and the police showed up to help. It was all very glowing.

Then he told stories about rotten apples and police misconduct. They were stories from headlines in  other parts of the city or from other cities. He had read those stories in the press and recounted them to us. His conclusion? There are two different sides of police work.

Duh.

THE REAL STORY?

I pointed out to him that every positive story he told came from his life experience but every negative story came from the press. He knew his personal stories were true. So wasn’t he concerned that the press stories might be incomplete or biased? Nope! He seemed oblivious, probably because my point was more about the quality of journalism than the quality of policing.

Screenshot from Stories from Skid Row

There are plenty of negative stories about police. The federal investigation this week concluded racism is a part of the Ferguson police story. Also this week there was a tragic police shootings of a homeless man in Los Angeles. There are plenty of bad stories.

Yet occasionally the opposite shows up like the YouTube above or the NPR radio show that shines light on the complexities in Skid Row. No doubt those positive stories are forgotten in the bad press of the day. But the remarkable account of Sergeant Joseph and all his partners' exceptional work on Skid Row is important. That too is part of the real story.

Lose your busses, lose your city

Saskatoon, Canada. Downtown bus terminal.

Wandering the alleys of Saskatoon is always interesting. My co-instructor Elisabeth Miller and myself did this last week with our SafeGrowth class and we were drawn to the downtown bus terminal.

In the little corner of criminology that is CPTED, bus terminals are called activity generators. Without careful design and management they easily tip into crime generators. My prior blogs on bus stop crime hotspots have made this clear.

Research from Los Angeles in the early 1980s, followed up in seminal work by a UCLA researcher in the late 1990s also makes this clear.

What do we know? Terminals, stops, and busses are a linchpin for humanizing the public realm. Lose your busses…

Architectural rendering for a new, CPTED-friendly, downtown
bus terminal in Dayton, Ohio 

Saskatoon is no better nor worse than others. Their terminal is little more than a regular city street with some streetscaping and security guards. It is unlikely to attract a larger, diverse ridership. Nor will it win any awards, unlike Dayton, Ohio.

Dayton, a similar sized city, has won awards for terminal design and safety. A few years ago some CPTED-trained police officers, bus officials, and professional designers tackled a crime hotspot at the old bus terminal.

Dayton's redesigned bus terminal (photo RTA Bus Hub Report)

Their redesign cut crime, improved ridership, and became a Goldstein Award Finalist at the annual problem-oriented policing conference in 2010.

It shows how design can build community goodwill.

Access control, coffee shops, surveillance, and landscaping (photo RTA Bus Hub Report)

Today I was reminded how easily that goodwill can be short-circuited by the criminal justice system.

SHORT-CIRCUITING GOODWILL

I refer to an attack a few years ago by a drunk on a Vancouver, BC bus driver. The driver suffered brain damage, a broken jaw and has been off work for a year. The driver's son, in the bus at the time, was also assaulted and injured when he attempted to help his father.

Today BC courts kept the assailant out of jail on a conditional sentence - conditions that he stays sober, gets counseling, and (wait for it) that he purchases a ticket before he gets on a bus! Unsurprisingly this outraged the public.

Putting aside the value of restorative versus punitive justice and how to fix the system (that's next blog), the message from that sentence is terrible. It says stay off busses.

The Vancouver press sums it up this way: "The attack on [the busdriver], though more serious than most, is part of a persistent pattern of violence visited on vulnerable bus drivers, usually with no jail time meted out to the assailants."

So while design might matter, it is not enough. We must fix our response to crime as well.

Bus Stops - crime hot spots or community building blocks?

Clean, good sightlines, territoriality - What is this bus stop missing?















Guest Blog



Megan Carr is a Livable Communities Specialist interested in SafeGrowth, particularly transportation’s role in shaping vibrant and safe communities. She runs her own consulting firm, Civitae, LLC. Megan recently participated in the AARP SafeGrowth programs in New Orleans and delivered a presentation to transportation authorities regarding safety and bus stops. A longer version of this article will appear in the upcoming ICA newsletter CPTED Perspectives.




Why is it that some bus stops act as hot spots for crime while others can serve as building blocks for community?

 Two studies by Loukaitou-Sideris in 1999 and 2003 examined the physical attributes of high crime bus stops in Los Angeles. What’s interesting about the findings is that of the nearly 20,000 bus stops, 18 percent of the total incidents occurred at just ten stops.

Findings at these ten stops indicated they were:

• Located at intersections involving inactive land uses such as empty lots and surface parking lots

• Lacked adequate lighting or nearby shops, public phones or police sub-stations

• Located near dilapidated and/or vacant buildings (83%)



Furthermore, movement predictors such as nearby alleys had an almost double crime incidence rate. Crime was also significantly higher at intersections near bars, liquor stores, check cashing establishments, and Single Room Occupancy hotels.




The Other Side of the Coin


In Los Angeles following the Rodney King riots in 1992, Mayor Riordan launched the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative designed to restore people’s sense of ownership in their communities. Recognizing that bus stops can function as focal points for communities, the organization developed community plans starting with placemaking improvements at bus stops.



Project for Public Spaces was hired to assist neighborhood groups who were each given a grant to develop a bus stop area plan. Many positive outcomes followed as a result. From the initial $100,000 seed investment, a vacant lot in North Hollywood was transformed into a beautifully landscaped transit park with illuminated bus shelters, matching benches, information kiosks and kiosk art. Eight new businesses were attracted to the intersection filling formerly vacant facilities.

An additional $500,000 was invested in property improvements and $60,000 in private funding was invested in the park. Consequently, 30 new jobs were created in the vicinity of the bus stop.



The project employed a placemaking approach that encompassed what 2nd Generation CPTED calls Community Culture. It included façade improvements, pedestrian walkways, pedestrian-oriented lighting, public art and plentiful landscaping providing needed shade and defining pedestrian areas.

By making improvements to the site, riders today benefit from natural surveillance and amenities from nearby businesses in addition to a more aesthetic and comfortable bus experience.

These examples provide valuable lessons on the importance of site design at bus stops. From reducing the opportunity for crime to supporting local economic development, investing in quality public spaces at bus stops is a worthy focus for community redevelopment.

Escaping L.A.'s violence - a haven within

An L.A. Times article tells a story we should heed, a gem at the end of a neighborhood safety rainbow. The gem is Vermont Knolls, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. The L.A. Times calls VK a "place where people know each other, have an emotional and financial investment and don't take kindly to anything that might disturb the peace."

In any traditional suburb we might label that NIBMYism. Here - for very different reasons – something else is going on.

In the past 3 years the L.A. Times reports there were 2,603 murders in Los Angeles. In the vortex of the gangs, drugs and shooting storm lies Vermont Knolls where the Times says there hasn't been a single murder in the core area. In fact, the first murder in 3 years happened only 5 days ago.

Even in neighborhoods immediately adjacent to Vermont Knolls there are of lots of murders. Those nearby places suffered 28 homicides in the same period. No doubt crime still happens in VK, but why so few murders?

The L.A. Times story suggests a few answers.

* Though 15 gangs vie for control of turf around VK, police successfully targeted a gang who resided there.
* Surrounding areas are dominated by high turnover, section 8 subsidy housing, boarded up homes, foreclosures, liquor stores, and urban blight.
* In VK investors are working at commercial rehabilitation. It also has well-maintained lawns and not many front yard fences.
*Courts have passed gang injunctions.
*Unlike nearby areas, VK has formed an influential advocacy group, the Community Coalition, to organize themselves.
* VK uses extensive outreach programs including church sponsored activities.
* VK has older and more long-term residents, more owner-occupied single homes, and folks with roots.


Notice police and courts play only a limited role, such as selected gang enforcement and a community police station.

Notice also the broader agenda carried on by investors, a community-group, a church, and neighbors themselves.

Ben Adler says it best in his Next American City article "Crime's Bottom Line".

...while crime has continued dropping in New York, it has begun to level off in many cities, including D.C., that have employed the same police tactics [Broken Windows]. In D.C. murders rose slightly in 2007 and 2008, and crime in general remains persistent...while infinitely better than when the city had 482 murders (compared to 186 in 2008), is still surprisingly high for a city that has experienced a recent boom in residential demand and commercial activity.

D.C.’s experience demonstrates the limits of police-based approaches to crime prevention…Police tactics may get the crime rate down from epidemic proportions, but they won’t fix the root problems.