Anthony
Williams for Mayor

1634 I Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
Ph.: 393-TONY
Fax: 393-3598
Fax 393-3567

Anthony Williams for Mayor:
Public Safety Plan

Public Safety — A Plan for DC

The residents of DC deserve responsive, effective and efficient public safety services accountable to the people, and sensitive to their civil rights and liberties. While much attention has properly been focused on the Metropolitan Police Department, public safety depends not just on a professional and responsive police force, but also on diverse neighborhood-based organizations working together to ensure safe streets, parks and schools.

Safe streets begin with a "zero tolerance" of crime. This must include enforcement of motor vehicle and pedestrian laws, but must focus on street crimes such as drug sales, drug use, and robbery, and extend to other disruptive and dangerous criminal conduct that impairs the quality of life in our neighborhoods. We can achieve safe streets through the tangible physical presence of community-based police officers in strategic locations throughout our city.

But secure streets, parks and schools are not the only benefits of improved public safety. The economic vitality of our city is linked directly to our success in fighting crime and ridding neighborhoods of the criminals that diminish our quality of life. It is a fact that businesses flee high crime areas, jobs disappear, property values decline, and the tax base erodes. Attracting new business to replace lost business becomes difficult, if not impossible. High crime neighborhoods are caught in this vicious cycle and the good citizens who live there are victimized yet again. In DC, too many communities and too many people suffer.

By providing for the safety of our citizens and the security of their neighborhoods, we can revitalize our city, strengthen our infrastructure and economy, create jobs, and provide for the future of our children. But to do so, we must take immediate steps to fix long-standing problems in the police department. The physical and economic health of DC -- and a generation of children that we dare not lose -- depends what we do next.

As Mayor, I will bring real reform to the police department and to other city agencies charged with protecting and serving our citizens. Crime will decrease. Seniors will feel more secure in their homes, children in their schools, and our neighborhoods and parks will flourish.

Here's what I will do:

The Police

Citizens once respected and admired police officers and other law enforcement officials; the bond between the police department and the community was strong. Today, all too often, relations between the police and the public are strained. Animosity and distrust underm ne public safety efforts. As Mayor, I will make the Metropolitan Police Department the best in the nation and work to restore trust between the police and the public.

In my administration, the police force will be accountable to the citizens for controlling and reducing crime, while remaining sensitive to the concerns of each community. To regain trust -- and to reopen the vital lines of communication — the MPD must become more professional and more efficient. It must expand its focus on solving problems in partnership with citizens, businesses and other government agencies. Chief Ramsey has made important strides, but we must do more.

Initiative: Emphasize Community Policing:

I strongly support community policing. Police officers should not be behind desks, but rather in the community, on foot or bicycle, and talking with the public that they serve. The police must be anchored in the community, not as "outsiders" present only when problems arise, but as "insiders" who know the residents as friends and neighbors. The MPD has moved in this direction with the creation of Police Service Areas (PSAs). Through this concept, 1600 officers have been moved out from behind the* desks and onto the streets. There they become part of neighborhood teams — teams of officers and citizens working together to make their communities cleaner and safer.

This is a good start, but we must do more. One thousand more officers should be transferred immediately to these PSAs. Civilians can be hired to fill their administrative and clerical positions. Further:

• Street officers should be on the street — either on foot or bicycle — and out of their cars. Personal contacts between officers and citizens build trust and understanding.
• Trust and understanding turn on continuity. Accordingly, PSA assignments should last longer, the working assumption in the MPD should be that officers remain in the PSA to which they are assigned.
• Continuity depends on reinforcement. The police must make community policing their focus and directly involve the community through training seminars and community meetings.
• Active citizen participation requires support and resources. Citizens groups should be reinvigorated and fully equipped (cell phones, pagers, and citizen-assigned police radios) to help keep their neighborhoods safe.
• Traffic control is critical to the maintenance of safe streets and the orderly operation of the City. Traffic laws for all vehicles and pedestrians will be effectively and fairly enforced.
• Police officers could be offered better incentives to live in the neighborhoods in which they work. Low-cost housing loans, for instance, can help bring officers into the neighborhoods to which they are assigned.

Initiative: Improve Police Facilities:

The best police force cannot function with inadequate facilities. The police need the resources to do their jobs properly and the citizens of DC deserve no less. As Mayor, I will:

• Ensure that 911 works. One in eight emergency calls currently go unanswered for so long that the caller hangs up. That is unacceptable. I will fix the system through equipment upgrades, cutting edge technology and better training.
• Get equipment, cars, and buildings up to standard. While more officers must be on foot, police cars must be fully functional. A component of any police force must be radio-deployed cruisers capable of rapid response. No excuses, no delays.
• Invest in management and crime information systems to modernize the MPD and to bring it into the next century. For instance, sophisticated computer databases can help police track crime trends and issue alerts to community leaders and citizens. The same technology will allow the police to more effectively assist public housing tenants and officials to maintain public safety.

Initiative: Better Training, More Accountability:

MPD must also institute policies and procedures that will enable it to train its officers, reward and promote the most deserving among them, and ferret out corruption and waste. As Mayor, I will:

• Establish a performance review and accountability system for all officers. Ironically, officers get "credit" for an arrest, but no credit for diffusing a situation that might otherwise lead to an arrest. Community policing recognizes the value — in some cases — of avoiding arrests and restoring peace. Performance review, too, must recognize this virtue.
• Require that full control of the police department be returned to the Mayor and accountable to the people of DC.
• Institute management training and policies based on the best practices of both private and public agencies. Make excellence in management the standard; accept nothing less.
• Make planning a given and involve citizens in the planning process.
• Pay good officers in parity with other jurisdictions, but institute meaningful standards to ensure that only fully qualified applicants are accepted into the police force.
• Hold supervisors directly accountable for the level of crime in their district; reward those that succeed; replace those that fail.
• Establish a professional internal affairs operation that includes former federal and state law enforcement agents from other departments and jurisdictions.
• Revitalize the Civilian Complaint Review Board, but with the independent authority, professional staff and experienced investigators to assure accountability.
• Require that crime statistics accurately measure crime and that these statistics are gathered and analyzed by established outside agencies, such as the FBI.

Initiative: Eliminate Drug Parks:

All too often in DC, beautiful neighborhood parks have become havens for drug use and trafficking. These open-air markets devastate our communities in a number of ways:

First, drug sales in a community make the whole neighborhood unsafe. Families with children are afraid to go out at night. And, in a vicious cycle, as fewer citizens venture out at night, the neighborhoods become even more dangerous.

Second, families that live in these neighborhoods leave. New families do not move in to replace those that left. Soon, entire blocks that surround these drug parks become deserted and economically depressed.

As Mayor, I will aggressively target these drug markets for elimination. We will enter these markets on a nightly basis, if necessary, and prosecute the offenders vigorously. Only by eliminating these drug markets will we reclaim our neighborhoods for our families.

The Prosecutors

In June 1996, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia instituted a pilot "community prosecution unit" in the Fifth District. Community prosecutors work in conjunction with the MPD to investigate and prosecute all crimes in the Fifth District -- from less serious crimes that affect the quality of life (loitering, prostitution, public intoxication, etc.) to major crimes including rape, robbery and murder. .

By assigning teams to focus on a particular district within the city, prosecutors and police become more sensitive to the needs of the citizens they serve. And just as citizens come to know and trust particular police officers, so too do they come to know and trust particular prosecutors. In turn, the U.S. Attorney's Office can better serve the needs of citizens throughout the city and remove the most violent and troublesome criminals from the streets.

Initiative: Expand the Community Prosecution Concept:

The pilot community prosecution unit has been a success and as Mayor I will work to expand it. Each of the seven police districts in the city should have a community prosecution unit assigned to it, with prosecutors knowledgeable of the problems within each community. Just as foot patrols and PSAs help connect the police to the citizens they serve, community prosecution units bring important government services to the people in a way that best serves-the public interest, engendering trust, cooperation, and communication between law enforcement officials and the communities they serve. I will work closely with Attorney General Janet Reno, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, and United States Attorney Wilma Lewis to expand the community prosecution project to the entire city.

But I think we can do more. The Office of the Corporation Counsel, for instance, prosecutes juvenile crimes in DC. It too should be structured along community prosecution lines, enabling it to better track and manage cases and to work, when necessary, with the U.S. Attorney's Office. Similarly, other city agencies — like housing, schools, etc. — should work with each of these community prosecution units to ensure a government responsive to its citizens and in touch with their concerns. This type of structure will also enable us to monitor progress and assess these programs.

Conclusion:

The police and the residents of DC must forge and maintain an effective and lasting partnership. The MPD must have the tools, management structure, and — perhaps most importantly — the will to see that these programs succeed. As Mayor, I will work closely with the MPD and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the people of DC and to make certain that their families have a safe and secure environment in which to grow, learn, play and thrive.