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A VISION OF SUCCESS A glimpse of the future
How will policing in Grand Rapids look five years from now, after the strategic plan to implement community policing has been fully implemented? Envision first how the new Neighborhood Police Service Centers (NPSCs), in their six locations around the city, have helped stabilize the surrounding neighborhoods. Easily accessible, these facilities provide user-friendly police and government services, directly alongside the Neighborhood Associations. The West Side facility, built in partnership with Youth Commonwealth, reflects community policing’s emphasis on young people. The new mentoring program, computer lab, and recreational facilities allow kids of all ages the chance to learn and grow, with guidance from police and other public servants. Another NPSC provides on-site parenting and nutrition classes. Another focuses on the needs of seniors in the area, including an innovative program where retirees provide emergency child-care for single mothers in the neighborhoods, allowing stressed parents a break, while reducing the fear and isolation of both groups. Code enforcement teams work from each facility, while some offer neighborhood courts that bring justice closer to the people with the most to gain or lose. Wisely as well, all of the buildings were constructed with built-in flexibility, so that the mix of services can change as needs in the neighborhood change. The facilities quickly became a critical hub in the community, particularly since the community room offered opportunities for a broad range of groups to meet at the NPSC, including the regular neighborhood problem-solving sessions. The facilities also offer people a convenient place to pay their utility and telephone bills. The new Community Resource Specialist helps people access the city services they need, and some centers offer Internet access and touch-screen kiosks, with information in English and Spanish on the services that city agencies offer. Yet the facilities, unique and important as they are, tell only part of the story. New as well is the bond of trust and partnership between people and their police. Within each service area are the neighborhood beats, served by a team of officers whose mission is to work directly with residents, city agencies, schools, non-profit agencies, the business community, the faith community, and other stakeholders. Many of the teams include a Community Policing Officer, a generalist who has the time and continuity to tackle chronic problems and to focus on enhancing the overall quality of life in the community. On the one end of that spectrum is the police department’s ability to intervene with complex problems such as domestic violence, which not only devastates families today, but which perpetuates the cycle of violence into the future. Instead of dispatching different officers to the same address, time after time, often to little avail, community policing holds line-level officers accountable for exploring creative ways to solve the problem. That can mean having the Community Policing Officer work with the Neighborhood Association, to identify neighbors who can talk with the victim during non-crisis times, to help her plan an exit strategy. Or it could mean providing information on personal protection orders, or a referral to a shelter, to counseling, or to substance abuse treatment. Another part of the solution can mean working with traumatized children in the home, by providing them access to recreational and educational programs -- and to adults that care. On the other end of that spectrum is the renewed emphasis on the small but corrosive disorder issues – barking dogs, booming car radios, litter on the street. The line-level teams of officers and other service providers are now evaluated on how effective they are in enhancing the overall quality of life in the communities they serve. Success can mean big achievements, such as driving drug houses out of the community. It can also mean intervening effectively in the life of just one child. Instead of police that stand apart from the community, the police officers of Grand Rapids are now truly a part of the community. The people of Grand Rapids have police officers that they know by name, who stand ready to work with them on problems large and small. The strategic plan provided the overall blueprint for change, so that the system now provides identifiable milestones and formal and informal rewards for achieving them. The challenge has been to implement community policing and community-oriented government so that everyone can help to make our neighborhoods better and safer places in which to live and work and raise children -- and have fun. |
