To combat the epidemic of violence on Chicago streets, police have resorted to an old-school tactic: foot patrols.
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced that the department a week ago started its “return to community policing” by sending 24 rookie officers into a crime-ridden South Side neighborhood that he called an “impact zone.”
“Where officers are in the vehicle, they can get around quicker, but where they’re on foot, they can really lock down a location,” McCarthy said Monday during a news conference at the Morgan Park District police station on the South Side.
Officers receive six months of Police Academy training and 12 weeks of field training before they are sent out on the beat. As additional officers graduate from the academy, they will be added to 19 other “impact zones” across the city where gang violence is rampant.
“One of the philosophies . . . that we’ve adopted is what I like to call a return to community policing,” McCarthy said. “And in this case, it’s the same officers in the same zones every single night.”
While the 20 zones represent only about 3 percent of Chicago’s geographical area, they account for about 20 percent of the city’s violence, according to police.
The police union expressed some reservations about officer safety in the new plan.
“I’d much prefer to see officers in very violent areas in a police car just for officer safety purposes,” Fraternal Order of Police President Michael Shields said. “You always have to worry about officers being disarmed or approached from behind and disarmed, and the next thing you know the officer has his gun stripped from him.”
Meanwhile, foot patrols have been well-received by some communities and experts. Ald. Howard Brookins, for example, whose district includes the South Side’s Gresham District where the patrols have already started, said he believes the patrols will improve the police relations with residents.
“Foot patrol officers tend to know the community and the hot spots,” Brookins said after McCarthy’s news conference.
Homicides and shootings in Chicago have dropped sharply thus far in 2013 compared to last year, when observers blamed unseasonably warm weather on the rise. According to police stats, Chicago had recorded 69 slayings thus far this year through Sunday—down almost 35 percent from 106 in the same period last year. Shootings also have dropped by about 30 percent.
In response to the fears of the union, criminologist Arthur Lurigio told the Chicago Tribune he doesn’t believe officers face a greater risk patrolling dangerous blocks on foot than when riding in a squad car.
“Officers on the beat can gain a better sense of emerging crime and other social problems in the neighborhood,” said Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminal justice at Loyola University Chicago. “Foot patrols also help police forge more favorable, cooperative and productive working relationships with law-abiding residents and business owners.”
