Santa Cruz's New Cops Do Intensive Crime Studies

It sounds like the setup of a joke, but the extended study that Santa Cruz Police Officer Forrest Crowell did of a donut shop on Ocean Street is a serious new approach for the local police department in handling crime and training officers.

Crowell did what is called a Neighborhood Portfolio Exercise, which requires recently-hired officers not just to get out and meet people in the community, but to find a problem and write a full report on ways to solve it.

Then the beat cop gives a presentation, complete with powerpoint slides,  to the police administration, city councilmembers and business or community people who were affected by the study.

"This is a way for officers to focus on one small neighborhood and take those skills to a larger beat when they go out on their own," said Roger Buhlis, a training officer with the Richmond Police Department who is on the board of the national Police Society for Problem Based Learning.

It is a part of a new way of community policing, said Buhlis, that reflects the way policing used to be done.

"This is what we were doing 80 or 100 years ago when we had officers walking the streets talking to people in the neighborhood from store owners to kids. They knew everyone. In the sixties or seventies when we got into police cars and drove through neighborhoods, we weren't doing that anymore."

The Neighborhood Portfolios have an added element, however. Officers don't just meet people, but they study a problem and give a sophisticated presentation, something that for a time was reserved for administrators or specialized researchers in the department.

"Much of law enforcement these days involves speaking to people," said Buhlis. "They need to speak to community groups, families, residents, chamber of commerce members. It is a critical skill they need and why not learn it in the training process?"

Santa Cruz Police have gotten some new directions from the reports, which may change things for the entire city. A report by officer Travis Ahlers suggested that stores can handle the process of citing shoplifters and presenting evidence online, without an actual policeman taking hours to respond to a call. The program, used in some other cities, could save 600 hours a year in police time.

"The Neighborhood Portfolio Exercise gets them to look at the deepest levels of crime," said Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel. "They don't just respond to crime. They get to the bottom of why the problem exists and what they can do to take away the cause."

Officer Steve Pendleton studied the reviews of hotels and motels on travel websites and corellated negative ratings to the liklihood of crimes. It concluded that enforcement of code violations could help raise the quality of the hotel clients and lessen chances of crime.

Officer Crowell's donut shop study took two Ocean Street businesses with the most calls for police service and made recommendations on how they could improve conditions. They were the 7-Eleven at Ocean and Laurel and the Ferrell's near the entrance to Highway 1.

He developed a plan to help managers cut down on crime by upgrading their sites, training employees in how to deal with problems and he made up a guide book to help them deal with police and trouble makers.

"You'd be surprised at the big differences they can make," said Crowell, touring the two parking lots at midnight. "Good lighting, clear striping, no trespassing signs can show people that this isn't a place to hang out."

He told the business owners to have their employees call police if someone is loitering, not to deal with it themselves. He also witnessed the positive effects of neighborhood groups doing what is called "positive loitering," which is hanging out by a group of people who might discourage others who hang out to deal drugs or solicit prostitution.

"It's worked for us," said 7-Eleven manager Ronald Rabdeau, who met repeatedly with Crowell. "I've tried to stop letting people hang out here and tried to get my employees to stop problems before they begin. I can't stop everyone who is going to shoplift, but we can do things to make this place safer."