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Chicago hope
In the wake of two recent police shootings, rhetoric about police reform in the Windy City remains nothing more than hot air.
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[06/11/99]

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[06/11/99]

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The United Nations has learned some valuable lessons from a decade of dealing with Slobodan Milosevic.
By Ian Williams
[06/10/99]

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I wonder what my homicide guide thinks of Charlotte's program.

"Would you live here if you could get a low --"

"No."

"Not even with a fif --"

"No. I live way out where its almost rural. I have a wife, a daughter. No. I go to the mall and run into bad guys I've dealt with. I don't need them down the block, too."

But these programs didn't exist when my guide was a younger, struggling and maybe less world-weary rookie officer. For some of them, home-ownership help could make a difference. According to criminal justice scholar Morgan Reynolds, the median entrance salary for police officers was only $26,313 in 1995. The median maximum salary was only $36,597. That's a lot of money to anyone who makes less, but as much as 80 percent of officers have to moonlight. Officers in real estate markets like New York's and California's will be renting or commuting long distances for a long time without a leg up like this. In fact, Lancaster, Calif., in the Mojave Desert, has 115 law enforcement officers involved in HUD's program -- more than any other city (Chicago is second with 97). Officers in California contest bitterly over the properties; at least 300 are still awaiting homes there.

On the other hand, Memphis and Tulsa's programs, according to press reports, have few takers. "[The success of the programs] all depends on local conditions," says Lemar Wooley of HUD.

And when policemen live so close to crime, what do they see? One officer in South Carolina moved into a home he'd once raided. He found bullet holes in the walls and the previous tenants' (who were crack dealers) drug-hiding places. A D.C. cop coming home from his morning workout recognized a loiterer in his stairwell as a man he had a case pending against. A records check revealed him to also be a Virginia fugitive; the cop made an arrest on his own front door step. The same officer also seized drugs from a neighbor who pleaded guilty and was never seen again. His neighbors may be safer, but is this officer? What if a previous arrestee recognizes some grocery-toting off-duty cop first?

I wondered what residents might think about having cops as neighbors, so I wandered around some "fragile" and "threatened" neighborhoods in Charlotte without my police escort -- as their families, and the locals, have to do. "There go the neighborhood!" crowed one man, perched on an upturned crate, when I asked about having cops live in the 'hood. "There it go!" He laughed so hard at his own wit he coughed and sputtered.

"But seriously, would you or wouldn't you like to have cops here? Do you think they'd hassle you or help you? You know, community policing?" But he just kept braying at his joke.

The unsmiling man next to him cut in.

"Ain't no cop coming here." Whether a prediction or a promise, I couldn't tell.

Next page | But does it work?