City Commission approves crime strategy in Newtown

The Sarasota City Commission unanimously agreed with a new Sarasota Police Department plan to attack a crime problem that saw seven of the city’s eight murders in 2011 happen in Newtown.

Vice Mayor Willie Shaw and a group of city and community officials traveled to High Point, N.C., last month to hear about how a program instituted there that’s led to a 57% reduction in the city’s crime rate.

The long-term goal, Shaw said, involves the entire community, including local ministers, like himself, and community outreach programs.

The program also involves the assistance of criminologist David Kennedy, who has devoted his career to reducing gang and drug-related inner-city violence.

Kennedy’s homicide reduction program, called “Operation Ceasefire,” brings gang members into meetings with community members they respect, social services representatives who can provide help for them and police officers who want gang members to stay alive and avoid arrest.

Kennedy’s program has reduced homicide rates in Boston as much as 66%. The program, now dubbed “The Boston Miracle,” has been implemented in more than 70 cities nationwide.

The strategy examines the public’s perception of the police while promoting community involvement to help reduce crime. Part of the program involves trying to give repeat drug offenders second chances with help from community leaders and their families.

The program maps out the areas where most of the city’s violent crimes occur, keeping tabs on where local drug dealers operate and performing undercover operations to make cases against them. Next, contact is made with family and community leaders to reach out to the suspects to try to get them help, instead of putting them in jail. Criminal cases made against the suspects will be used as leverage, as a last resort, if the criminals don’t agree to turn their lives around.

“It’s a coming together of law enforcement in a new transparent effort,” said Police Advisory Panel Administrator Peter Graham, who noted that part of the program encompasses officers going to the community and apologizing for making past mistakes and agreeing to move forward to help the community. “It’s a cultural change on behalf of law enforcement and the community.”

The program is not expected to cost any additional money and involves working with a small number of officers, at first, to facilitate buy-in from Newtown residents.