City of Monrovia

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST POLICING

The City of Monrovia's Community Activist Policing (CAP) Program was implemented in June 1990. Since that time, the City has experienced a greater than 50% reduction in serious crime. The program is dedicated to the concept that the community itself must change the environment that breeds crime. This strategy consists of four key components:

1. A cooperative problem-solving relationship between private and public agencies and the community as a whole.
2. Recognition of the importance of cleaning up graffiti, rundown facilities and other signs of neighborhood blight.
3. The development of necessary family and support systems.
4. Eliminating crime and the fear of crime.

The Community Policing plan includes efforts to develop and implement quality programs that enhance the efforts of the community and police to combat gangs and illegal drug trafficking and to eliminate blighted areas. In addition, it is necessary to become involved and expand resources to improve individual family environments and their relationship to the neighborhood, school system and social order. The program continually strives to cultivate private, state and local resources to remain responsive to the varied needs of the community.

Community Activist Policing (CAP) Task Force
Community Activist Policing is a concept which emphasizes problem-solving using a task force of various City and community resources. The cooperative committee serves as a working group to collect intelligence, analyze incidents and formulate comprehensive corrective actions. Monrovia's CAP task force is comprised of members from the following departments and agencies: Police, Community Development, Public Works, Community Services, Fire, Los Angeles County Probation Department, California State Parole,and the Monrovia Unified School District.

Philosophy and Organizational Strategy
Community Policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that allows the police and the community to work closely together in new ways to solve the problems of crime, illicit drugs, fear of crime, physical and social disorder, neighborhood decay and address the overall quality of life in the community. As citizens are allowed to contribute to the police function, a bonus of community support and participation evolves. The philosophy relies on the belief that solutions to today's community problems require both people and the police to explore creative, new ways to address neighborhood concerns beyond a narrow focus on individual crime incidents.

Commitment to Community Empowerment
Community policing's organizational strategy requires the full commitment of personnel. An intensive effort must be made to bond the community to the Task Force, City support departments, and the patrol officers. The more ingrained the criminal element is in the neighborhood, the more personalized the Task Force must become to overturn the feelings of fear, disparity and isolation of law abiding citizens who live there. Citizen representatives are sought within identified problem areas to provide insight on the problems from the community's perspective and help develop and implement the strategy of the CAP Task Force. The result is the eventual disappearance of criminal activity, thereby instilling trust, confidence and credibility in city government and police practices. People are then enlightened in the process of policing themselves and seeking out corrective actions to a variety of problems.

Personalized Policing / Long Term Proactive Problem Solving
The community policing officer's broad role demands continuous, sustained contact with the law-abiding people in the community, so that together they can explore creative new solutions to local concerns, with private citizens serving as supporters and volunteers. As law enforcement officers, community policing officers respond to calls for service and make arrests, but they also go beyond to develop and monitor broad-based, long-term initiatives that can involve all elements of the community in efforts to improve the overall quality of life.

Special Needs Assistance
Community policing is responsible for developing new ways to protect and enhance the lives of those who are most vulnerable - juveniles, the elderly, minorities, the poor, disabled and the homeless. The CAP philosophy works toward making communities safer and more attractive places to live.

Police Operations
Every resource of the Police Department is committed to the CAP Program. Ongoing communication with residents and businesses in the community are stressed at all times. The idea is to send a clear message to let citizens know the police are there to protect them. In turn, we ask for their help in solving community problems.

Specialized law enforcement programs provide personalized service for citizens and enhanced performance to combat high profile criminal activity.

Uniformed Bike Patrol - Officers on bicycles allow for greater mobility and stealth qualities that assist in observing crime and making on-view arrests. Bicycle officers are charged with enhancing community support and confidence in the Police Department, while addressing drug and alcohol violations, gang related and other serious crime. Face to face dialogue with residents and business owners in the target areas ensure the goals of CAP are achieved and maintained.

Special Enforcement Team (SET) - SET is a specially trained, four man team deployed to control, track and combat gang and drug activity. They are responsible for networking with other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to promote exchange of intelligence, enforcement support and cross training.

Search Warrant Notification - Letters are delivered to the owner and/or person in control of all places where search warrants for drugs have been served. CAP Task Force members follow up by contacting landlords, and in some cases meeting at the property to show them, first hand, what activities have been taking place.

Community Policing Bureau - This Bureau is designed to enhance the CAP strategy, and to be responsive to special problems affecting the community. The unit is active in the community dissolving barriers, educating citizens on security and personal safety, interpreting the needs of the community as it relates to law enforcement, assisting people on an individual basis, and improving lines of communication between citizen and specialized police department bureaus. The Bureau also researches and distributes literature for state and local "help" services available to the community.

Probation & Parole - Administering and managing those on active parole or probation is addressed by our a Detective assigned to work High Risk Offenders. Communication between agencies is necessary to provide comprehensive management of those subjects who continue criminal activity in neighborhoods. A good liaison with probation and parole can bring quick resolution to those subjects who are escalating activity lending to eventual criminal complaints.

Community Development - Neighborhood Preservation Officers and Building Inspectors identify dilapidated, roach-infested and poorly maintained properties in neighborhoods that are the center of criminal activity. Poorly maintained properties are videotaped to document their conditions at the time of the inspection. The videotapes are used to inform and motivate owners to improve the living environment on their properties and to bring pressure on those who refuse to improve their properties. The program stresses that property owners owe more to the community than simply collecting the rent.

Safe City Safe Campus - A program that combines the resources of the School District with City and police personnel for school safety and campus problem solving. Resources are defined to solve problems of truancy, discipline problems, and provide family intervention and counseling.

Criminal Analysis - The Crime Analysis unit is specifically designed to gather data, cross reference and analyze information. This information assists patrol officers and detectives in identifying associated cases.

CAP Problem Management - Patrol officers act in support of the community policing strategy. Patrol officers adopt specific, high-crime neighborhoods or locations to work. They interact with the citizens and apply the CAP strategy in improving the area and eliminating the criminal element. The officer interacts with the residents on a variety of issues and assists in empowering the individual in management of the neighborhood.

Citizen's Academy - Classroom instruction hosted by the Police Department to acquaint the public on the police functions. It is designed to bolster the confidence of the public, gain trust and explain law enforcement procedures and the complex responsibilities of the officer.

Landlord and Tenant Responsibilities
The CAP Task Force investigates locations where drugs are being used or sold. The landlords of the residences are contacted and advised of the drug activity taking place in their rentals. They are encouraged to evict tenants actively involved in drug activity and are required to make any necessary repairs to their property.

Landlords and tenants are given a letter from the Police Department that states:

"As owner, lessee, and/or occupant of real property, you can be held responsible for the existence of a public nuisance. The City of Monrovia has the authority to conduct a nuisance abatement against properties that are related to the use, maintenance, or manufacturing of a controlled substance and/or Health and Safety Code violations."

The letter is signed by the Chief of Police and has a question and answer information booklet explaining real property forfeiture procedures.

Landlord Counseling
One-on-one counseling sessions are given to landlords on the proper procedures of tenant selection and evaluation. They are also advised on benefits of stronger rental agreements and the issuance of "house rules." The agreement has a clause that prohibits tenants from engaging in any type of drug activity. Tenants agree that violation of these rules shall constitute a non-curable breach of this agreement and will subject tenant to eviction upon receipt of a three day Notice To Quit. The agreement also indicates that tenants shall not consume alcoholic beverages in or about any common areas or public spaces. This clause gives the landlord a legal basis when trying to evict problem tenant(s).

Graffiti Removal and Graffiti Bounty
The Community Services Department established a program that provides graffiti removal services within 24 hours after the graffiti is reported. All City employees and citizens are encouraged to immediately report any graffiti observed. Citizens who observe a subject in the act of graffiti vandalism can call the police department and if an arrest is made, the citizen receives a $100 Graffiti Bounty.

Relocation of Tenants
The CAP Task Force has been responsible for nuisance properties being declared substandard and torn down at the owner's expense. At the same time, the Task Force helps innocent residents find new housing, again, at the landlord's expense. In one instance, a location in the City was being used for rock cocaine drug sales and use. There were three separate residences on the property. Two of the residences were built without City permits and were not up to code. In one of the structures an elderly woman lived alone, and she was unable to afford relocation. The Task Force found much better subsidized housing for her at a lower rent and required the owner to pay the full cost of relocation.

The CAP Task Force found another elderly woman who was virtually being held a prisoner in her home by her grandson, who was a gang member and drug dealer. The elderly woman tried for over a year to evict her grandson without any success. An inspection of the property revealed the house was not up to code and was a health and safety hazard. The woman expressed a desire to sell the property and move. The Task Force recommended that Community Development Department purchase the house at a fair market value. As a result, she was able to relocate to a more desirable area away from her grandson and the house was torn down.

Neighborhood Volunteers
Community leaders from within problem areas assist the CAP process by providing insight to identify substantive problems and voice the concerns of the neighborhood. They are responsive to the needs of their neighbors and act as a monitoring group to maintain the quality of life of a neighborhood once problems have been resolved.

Neighborhood Watch
Neighborhood Watch meetings in homes are used to coordinate various strategies to mutually combat specific neighborhood problems. Citizens voice concerns about problems affecting their living environment and help develop solutions. These meetings are also used to educate residents on their legal rights, government sponsored assistance plans, help centers and family counseling.

What Community Policing is Not
Community Policing is not a tactic, technique, or program. Community Policing is not a limited effort to be tried and then withdrawn, but instead, is a new way of delivering police service to the community.

Community Policing is not public relations. Improved relations with the community is a welcome by-product of delivering this new form of decentralized and personalized service to the community, rather than its primary goal, as is the case with any public relations effort. Unlike police-community relations personnel, community policing officers are held directly accountable by the community.

Community Policing is not anti-technology. Community Policing can benefit from new technologies, such as computerized call management systems, if they provide line officers more free patrol time to engage in community-based problem solving. Moreover, community policing officers often benefit from access to computer terminals, cellular phones, telephone answering machines, fax machines, and other technological advancements.

Community Policing is not "soft" on crime. Community policing officers answer calls and make arrests like any other line officers, but in addition, they involve the community in short-term and long-term proactive initiatives designed to reduce problems in the future. The distinction is that Community Policing considers arrest as an important tool in solving problems, not as the primary yardstick of success or failure.

Community Policing is not flamboyant. Dramatic, tactical team actions make headlines, but Community Policing complements such efforts by tackling chronic problems that require long-term community based problem solving.

Community Policing is not paternalistic. Community Policing shifts the role of the police from the "expert" with all the answers to a "partner" in an effort to make the community a better and safer place in which to live and work.

Community Policing is not an independent entity within the Police Department. While community policing officers are often the most visible symbol of the new commitment to Community Policing, these officers must be part of an overall strategy to form a new partnership with the community. The goal is also to make community policing officers a resource that others within the department use for information and intelligence about their beats.

Community Policing is not cosmetic. Community Policing deals with real problems, such as serious crime, illicit drugs and fear of crime. It does so by addressing the entire range of dynamics that allow such problems to fester and grow.

Community Policing is not a top-down approach. Community policing shifts more power, authority, and responsibility to the line level by requiring that everyone in the department find ways to express the philosophy in their jobs.

Community Policing is not just another name for social work. Helping to solve people's problems has always been an integral part of police discretion, informally, if not formally. Community Policing merely formalizes and promotes community-based problem solving, while maintaining a strong law enforcement component.

Community Policing is not elitist. The goal is to ensure the police do not stand apart from the community, but that they become a part of the community. Community Policing requires the support and/or direct participation of all with citizens playing an equal role.

Community Policing is not designed to favor the powerful. Community Policing empowers the disadvantaged, thereby providing them greater clout in securing their fair share of a variety of public services.

Community Policing is not "safe." By challenging the status quo and encouraging risk-taking, Community Policing implicitly includes allowing for failure and embarrassing mistakes.

Conclusion
The CAP strategy is a routine part of daily activities in the City of Monrovia, and the community has benefited by solving several long-festering problems. CAP is as much a philosophy of policing as it is a set of techniques and procedures that helps bridge non-traditional department lines, provides a caring outlook towards solving community problems, and promotes a commitment to doing something about them. Community Activist Policing works because with it, everyone is working together.