City: What specific steps will you take within the police
department to reduce crime?
Norwood: Number one, I believe that we need to
reverse the reorganization and move to a structure that allows for more
neighborhood connection between the police officers and the neighborhoods they
patrol. Number two: We will increase state funding on a permanent basis to add
50 new police officers to the department, specifically assigned to deal with
anti-drug efforts. Number three: In that reorganization I will make sure that
we will deploy officers in a way that allows for an intense and visible street
presence, including foot patrols in specific neighborhoods.
What specific steps
will you take in other areas to reduce crime?
I that in partnership with the county government, we would
be able to do a better job of providing assessment and after-care services for
inmates in the county jail system — so that inmates with emotional and
physical health or employment problems, we are able to shut down the revolving
door that all too often is our criminal justice system.
Second: I would partner with the county government to have a
real, comprehensive approach to juvenile-justice services, so that we are able
to intervene in the lives of young offenders earlier and in a way that allows
for a restorative approach and a diversion approach. This is what I mean when I
talk about the development of a real Marshall Plan for each neighborhood, to
really get at those non-criminal justice issues in a comprehensive holistic
way.
Do we need more
police officers? If so, how many?
I believe that we do, and I have been saying that I would
like to add 50 new members to the police department.
How will you pay for
it?
Well, if you ballpark at $100,000 per officer, it gives us
our amount. We should seek that financing from New York
state government, and our highest priority needs to be going to Albany
and getting an adjustment, a special aid line that allows for the hiring for
these police funded by new dollars on a permanent basis.
Do we have enough
information to abandon the new reorganization of the police department? If so,
how should we organize the department?
Yes. I believe at least we should be moving back to one
section in each quadrant, but I would be willing to rely on the expertise of
our law-enforcement community to tell us what is the right
configuration. But it is clear to a layperson when an experiment has
worked and when an experiment has not worked, and this experiment has not
worked.
Number one, if we look at the familiarity and the knowledge
that the officer responding to a crime has of the neighborhood and the actors
in the neighborhood, it’s less than before. Number two, it now takes longer for
crime reports to be picked up from the street level, gotten into central crime
analysis, have trends interpreted, and then be reported back to the police
officer on the street. Number three, I think that response time from the
constant — the moment that the 911 call is placed until the call is answered
— has not improved. In fact, I believe it has worsened. And lastly, customer
satisfaction and the response of our employees — this is not a subjective
measure; it’s a quantifiable measure — in both cases, people say things have
gotten worse.
How would you measure
success in public safety?
I believe the overall crime rate is the most effective
measure, not just crime in one category, but crime in all categories. But my
two bottom lines are the economic well being measured in per capita income and
the viability of neighborhoods measured in property values. I believe that as we
tackle these issues, as we build the strength of neighborhoods, as we restore
relationships within neighborhoods, we will se the real world value of that by
having all of our neighborhoods being neighborhoods of choice, all of our
neighborhoods being neighborhoods that are in such demand that property values
increase.
This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2005.
