A Win-Win Solution

Low-income housing may attract those who are down on their luck, and their neighbors often include vagrants and drug dealers. A police program to reduce crime in low-income apartment communities in Lenexa, KS, is an outstanding success.

By Ann M. Harkins, President and CEO

In some parts of the country, aging, dilapidated apartment complexes litter the urban and suburban landscapes. Some are the refuge of the under employed and the unemployed who seek to create what homes they can in their decaying surroundings. Some are also havens for vagrants, drug dealers, and prostitutes.

George Kelling’s Broken Windows theory espouses that a single, untended repair can cause a whole community to deteriorate. In many of these communities, neighbors are rising up to clean up and take back their homes from the criminals who besiege them. In doing so, many have enlisted the help of their local law enforcement departments.

Law enforcement personnel are eager to work with these residents and the buildings’ managers and owners. After all, the more criminals they can help to displace, the fewer the number of calls they will get and the fewer the number of disturbances they will have to quell.

In an article in this issue of Catalyst, Master Police Officer David Lewis-Jones of the Crime Prevention Office of the Lenexa, KS, Police Department reports on the success his agency has had in eradicating crime in multiple-unit dwellings. Lenexa’s program is noteworthy: A small bedroom suburb of Kansas City, the city has a population of only 46,000 and a small police force. Still, its initiative has met with great success. It proves that law enforcement agencies of any size can successfully make aging, crime-infested apartment complexes decent places to live.

The Lenexa program is based on trust between the police and apartment managers. When managers report that a problem is getting out of hand, they call a specially designated crime prevention officer who has established a relationship with them. Then the police arrest a suspect, resolve a disturbance, or help the apartment manager evict a problem tenant.

These programs are a boon for law enforcement. They also improve the lives of tenants. No longer do residents have to cower in their apartments when a fight breaks out or be home before drug deals start going down in the hallways. By ridding these communities of the criminals that besiege them, law enforcement and local residents, working in concert, are practicing crime prevention at its best.