Hold and Clear in D.C.

By Fester:

Large scale sweeps have always worked so damn well when they are advertised in advance and take place in areas where the local population has conflicting primary and secondary loyalties towards the sweeping force. Isolating urban communities, denying them interactions and connectivity with other districts and squeezing local economies will be the result of large sweeps and haphazard clear and hold operations.  These results are not the best way to win friends and influence people who are persuadable to move in multiple directions within the social sphere.  We'll see if lessons learned in hundreds of different places will be relearned in D.C. as the city police will be conducting large sweeps and urban isolation efforts in several neighborhoods this summer:

The program will authorize the Metropolitan Police Department to set up public safety checks to help safeguard community members and create safer neighborhoods in the District by increasing police presence aimed at deterring crime....

Potential Neighborhood Safety Zones must be approved by the Chief of Police, and will be in effect for a maximum of 10 days. Public safety checks will be established along the main thoroughfares of the established neighborhoods. Anyone driving into a designated area may be asked to show valid identification with a home address in that neighborhood, or to provide an explanation for entering the NSZ, such as attending church, a doctor’s appointment or visiting friends or relatives. Pedestrians will not be subject to the public safety checks.

I can understand wanting to do something to decrease crime, but checkpoints are not a particularly efficient way of gaining useful intelligence, creating positive personal presence or embedding oneself into the local social milleau.  Instead embedding local cops and integrating into the local social mileau and connecting opportunities and prospects to neighborhoods has a much higher probability of reducing crime.  But those strategies, especially if backed up by good training, data, and multi-system service integration take time while roving roadblocks and hassling classes of people are visible and are evidence that something is being done even if it is ineffective. 

 

Comments

[Libby]

WTF? Can we call it call it a police state NOW? Sounds more like Baghdad than America.

[jandrewmorrison]

What percentage of the population will be targeted by these "sweeps"? What are the unifying characteristics of this population?

If we had race riots in D.C. just prior to a general election, who would it help??

Am I now suppose to be as afraid of crime which has been constant or on the decrease for the past few years as I am of terrorism? Am I suppose to believe there is some circumstance which has com about in the past few months which require this drastic action?

How can we stop this?

[cheflovesbeer]

I predict riots. I agree with jandrew. Also, I think it is unconstitutional.

[BJ Bjornson]

First thing I thought when I read this was Fallujah and other places in Iraq. It is possible to damp down violence and crime, but at the cost of isolating the city/neighbourhood and destroying economic opportunities.

I'll have to check, but I think I read this scenario being predicted at some point by John Robb. Still damned disconcerting to see it being put in place in a major US city already.

[John]

Worth mentioning that DC is entirely controlled by Democrats and the Police force is run and staffed largely by Democrats who are 'people of color', not whites.

It might also help people who've never lived there, that crime in the city is rampant largely because the thugs know that only uniformed cops have the means to resist their violence. The population at large is defenseless. Give law-abiding black homeowners the right to keep and bear arms and the neighborhoods would be 'sweeped clean' by those same locals.