Program Profile: Safer Cities Initiative

This is a place-based policing intervention that was designed to reduce crime and disorder associated with homeless encampments in the “Skid Row” section of Los Angeles, Calif. The program is rated Promising. The treatment group areas had statistically significant reductions in nuisance crime, violent crime, and property crime, compared with comparison group areas.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals

The main goal of the Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) was to reduce crime in the Los Angeles, Calif., area known as “Skid Row,” an area with a large homeless population concentrated in a densely packed area of economic disadvantage. The section had high rates of crime and victimization, including open-air drug markets, prostitution, theft, robbery gangs, and vandalism. As an attempt to combat rising levels of crime and improve public order in the Skid Row area, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) implemented the SCI as a 68-week program starting in 2005.

Target Population

The Skid Row area was targeted by the SCI based on the high-risk characteristics of the area’s inhabitants. At the time the SCI was implemented, the area had a 2:1 ratio of males to females. At least one third had substance abuse problems, one fourth were mentally ill, and one fifth had disabilities. Approximately half of the homeless population had a high school education, less than one fifth were employed, and at least one fifth of the population consisted of homeless families. A large fraction of the Los Angeles County homeless population was located in Skid Row, and crime among the homeless was a serious issue in the area.

Program Activities/Key Personnel

The first law enforcement effort to address Skid Row began with a pilot program conducted by the LAPD in September 2005. Known as the “Main Street Pilot Project,” it sought to reduce the density of homeless encampments using fines and citations. After a successful implementation of the pilot program, the full-scale version of the SCI was launched on Sept. 17, 2006. Fifty full-time officers were stationed to the streets of downtown Los Angeles, where they broke up homeless encampments, issued citations, and made arrests for various offenses. Specifically, encampments along South Main Street between Fourth and Seventh Streets, the Historic Core, were proclaimed a public health nuisance, and sanctions were mandated by a Los Angeles City statute. In conjunction with this effort, portable toilets were removed from the area to deter homeless people from loitering. The LAPD also targeted crimes, such as public intoxication, drug use, and prostitution, all of which were believed to make the area more inviting to criminals.

In addition, four to five officers were placed on foot patrol in the Historic Core area to concentrate exclusively on handling nuisance offenses and maintaining order. One of the LAPD’s mobile command stations was placed near Skid Row to facilitate law enforcement efforts. Undercover vice teams were placed in areas believed to be open-air drug markets and hotbeds of prostitution. Lastly, a special undercover squad concentrated on local robberies.

Program Theory

SCI was based on the “broken windows” theory of crime, which posits a connection between neighborhood disorder and serious crime. The premise of this theory is that public order offenses signal that neighborhood residents either do not care to maintain their neighborhood or do not have the resources to do so. Thus if a window is broken and left unrepaired in a neighborhood, it is a sign that no one cares about the neighborhood enough to repair it. Theoretically, then, if public order offenses are left unchecked, the social order in the neighborhood will decline and lead to an increase in serious criminal behavior (Berk and MacDonald 2010).

Study

Berk and MacDonald (2010) used a time-series quasi-experimental design to test the impact of the Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) on crime rates in Los Angeles, Calif. The experimental group selected was the Central Division, a downtown area designated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that included the Skid Row section of the city. Four bordering police divisions were selected as comparison groups: Northeast, Rampart, Hollenbeck, and Newton. These areas were selected based on their proximity to the Central Division, as well as their similarities in social and demographic features. Further, these areas did not have any type of operation similar to SCI in place during the time of its implementation. The comparison areas engaged in normal police operations during the study period, while the Central Division launched the SCI crime-control effort.

The data was measured by counts of reported crime per week, and was separated into three types of crime: nuisance crimes, property crimes, and violent crimes. This distinction was made to assess the impact that the program had on different types of crime, particularly nuisance crimes. Data from the LAPD was analyzed for the period of Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2007, and 419 weeks of data (8 years) were used in the analysis. The analysis included comparisons of weekly crime counts, taking into account when the pilot program and the SCI were in place. The pilot program began Sept. 27, 2005 (week 300); while the SCI operation began Sept.17, 2006 (week 351) and continued for 68 weeks until the end of data collection.

Counts of weekly crime were analyzed over the time period in order to observe changes that could be attributed to the SCI intervention. A regression analysis was done to isolate the impact of both the pilot program and the SCI on different types of crime in the Central Division and in the comparison areas. Crime counts were also analyzed for the city overall, which included treatment and comparison areas. No subgroup analysis was conducted.

Diffusion and Displacement

Berk and MacDonald (2010) conducted additional analyses to determine whether criminal activity was displaced from treatment areas to nearby comparison areas. They found no evidence of crime displacement in the comparison areas. In addition, they found evidence of positive spillover effects—which are effects detected outside the targeted area. That is, the Safer Cities Initiative produced indirect crime-reduction effects for all three types of crime (nuisance, violent, and property) in the surrounding comparison areas.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: