Columbus Police Chief Joseph Daughtry hopes informational meetings with citizens in each ward will provide answers, dispel myths, create better police/citizen relations, create a better understanding of police operations and encourage citizens to organize neighborhood watch programs to help reduce crime in their community.
Daughtry hopes to have meetings in all six wards during the next three months. The first of those meetings was held Monday evening at East Columbus Gym. About 35 residents attended the meeting where Daughtry explained the CPD’s efforts to reduce crime, bring offenders to justice, create a better understanding of how the CPD operates and inform citizens about how they can be an active participant in fighting crime without putting themselves in danger.
The skeptic might argue these meetings are tantamount to preaching to the choir. Those in attendance are likely responsible citizens who share the CPD’s desire to make the community safer.
Yet it is always the law-abiding citizens who become the police department’s greatest assets, especially in high crime areas and understaffed departments.
In some parts of the city, crime is something of an abstract. Their neighborhoods are rarely victimized and the prospects of violent crime are unlikely. But there are areas in every ward where crime, both property crime and violent crime, are regular occurrences. Violent crimes, in particular, can traumatize whole neighborhoods, creating an atmosphere of fear, frustration and mistrust.
As Franklin Roosevelt once told a troubled nation, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
The best way to break through the fear that crime creates is to focus on what measures can be taken to change that narrative. Whether it is by creating a neighborhood watch program, sharing what they see and hear with police through anonymous calls to the CPD or CrimeStoppers or better understanding how the police operate and the technology they use to address crime, an informed and actively engaged community can be a powerful deterrent to crime.
To achieve that, police must develop trust with citizens. By taking the time to meet with citizens throughout the city, the CPD is making a good-faith effort to create that trust in neighborhoods that too often have been subject to crime.
It would be unrealistic to suggest that these meetings alone will reduce crime. But we do believe it’s a good start. The greatest assets any police department can have are partnerships with the neighborhoods they serve.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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