When Captain Mary Schauf reviewed the Downtown Safety Plan with me, I was very pleased. However, you likely didn’t hear about the parts of the plan that I particularly liked. I liked the part that Ald. Verveer and Susan Schmitz from Downtown Madison Inc hinted at. The newspapers seemed to focus on the temporary cameras and increased patrols, but there’s some other very good things in the plan.
Objective 2: Enhance district-wide community policing efforts and engage the community in crime reduction efforts and reduce levels of fear from crime.
Strategies include some community policing strategies I hope they carry through on:
- Assign each Central Community Police Team (C-CPT) member a neighborhood or district as a liaison for areas not served by neighborhood officers.
- Improve accessibility by providing a cellular phone number for citizens to use to report and discuss non-emergency issues.
- Require C-CPT attendance at central neighborhood association and district meetings.
- Have Central District command staff host a district-wide community meeting at the end of every other month beginning in February 2007 to share and discuss crime statistics and disorder concerns.
- MPD will encourage expansion of the Neighborhood Watch programs by providing staff support and training to residents.
- Welcome and educate new district residents on their role to being a good neighbor for the prevention of neighborhood crime problems by providing a pamphlet for distribution by neighbors.
- Provide and administer a survey in February 2007 and November 2007 aimed at soliciting information on levels of fear of crime.
- Provide information on the Central District section of the MPD web page.
- Participate in downtown safety list service.
I think all of the above are very good steps to take to increase community involvement of the Police Department. Obviously, I’d rather see more community police officers, but with these enhancements, I think it is a good first step.
Mostly, the newspapers focused on Objective 1: Work to reduce violent street level crime from 11 p.m. to approximately 3 am for the Central District. The criminal activity peaks before and after bar time, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, into the following morning.
Those strategies included most of what the papers wrote about:
- Directed patrols of two to six mobile or foot patrol officers deployed to specific areas for street-level enforcement.
- Deploy cameras in areas with the highest concentration of street-level crime. The cameras will have the ability to move if a crime pattern is identified in another area.
- Directed patrol on bicycle, motorcycle, and mounted patrol for street-level enforcement.
But I think a huge thing that can help people be and feel safer downtown is about the lighting in the street and this strategy should help with that:
- Seasonal assessment of lighting and forestry issues with MPD, Forestry, and Streets staff,
I’d like to see us also explore the use of pedestrian scale lighting in the downtown area. The great trees we have downtown block many of the lights in the summer and instead of massacring the trees, I think we should have lighting that works with the trees.
The plan also included Objective 3: Improve voluntary compliance with alcohol-related ordinances in licensed and unlicensed establishments.
Those strategies include:
- MPD staff will conduct Safer Bar Training for tavern staff.
- MPD will work to expand Safer Bar Training to include community involvement.
- Conduct compliance checks at licensed establishment using both uniform and non-uniformed personnel. Repeat random visits would occur at non-compliant addresses. University of Wisconsin Police would be invited to participate in areas adjacent to student housing.
- Notify potential nuisance property owners of concerns in writing.
- Provide case files for prosecution to the Office of the City Attorney.
All the talk about security cameras did remind me to go back and look at the report we did a few years ago. I thought the APM was written, but I’ll have to follow up. Page 19 of the report suggests a policy that requires:
Video camera/electronic image recording use policies should include, but not be limited to, the following:
1. A statement regarding the agency’s objective behind video surveillance and the scope of surveillance given the stated objective.
2. The manner in which individuals will be notified that video cameras are in use and they may be recorded. Such notification will not be required in cases where video surveillance is used pursuant to an investigation of law violations.
3. Placement of cameras and whether they will be permanently located.
4. Whether, and under what circumstances, portable cameras will be used.
5. Guidelines regarding retention and storage of videotapes/digital image recordings.
6. Guidelines regarding use and viewing of videotapes/digital image recordings.
7. Staff training regarding the use, retention and storage of video surveillance/digital image recordings.
8. Identification of individuals authorized to operate the video surveillance system.
9. Identification of the custodian of video surveillance tapes/records.
Hopefully these policies are in place and as noted, the cameras are to be used for temporary purposes. If that’s the case, and with the new neighborhood community policing activities, this is a good plan. I hope it works!
