This is the second story in a four-part series on issues related to crime in Durham.
Durham has always had a reputation as a high-crime area. But the city is working to prevent crime on a number of fronts, from focusing on solving more investigations to cutting off crime at its roots through more community involvement.
In the past, the Durham Police Department has been criticized for its low clearance rate, which represents the number of cases in which investigators can confidently assign responsibility to a suspect. In theory, if the clearance rate is high, more criminals will be convicted, creating a deterrent to crime.
Despite its past record, the department has drastically improved the figure in recent years. From 1993 to 1997, the rate was about 5 percent, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh. However, it rose to 16 percent by 2001, and continues to climb. The state clearance rate is currently near 22.5 percent.
"It's improved not as fast as we'd like for it to improve, but it has improved," said Lt. John Mozart, a DPD spokesperson. Mozart said the department has been taking several steps--such as facilitating more interaction among investigators and implementing a tracking system that allows for better documentation of each outstanding case--to push the clearance rate higher.
The police department is also working to renovate its crime lab with current crime-solving technology. However, these efforts have been hindered recently by a flood in the sub-basement below the lab, which forced its relocation to another city-owned building, though the lab was not damaged.
Mozart also said community initiatives are essential for combating crime, citing a push to clean up the Barnes Avenue neighborhood by getting rid of criminal activities such as drug dealing and prostitution. Mozart said the city's Housing and Community Development Department will soon work to provide better housing in the neighborhood.
"Any time you can improve the quality of housing and have people take pride in their homes--neighborhoods where you have homeowners as opposed to renters--crime statistics will be different," Mozart said. However, he said he does not see an absolute correlation between a neighborhood's average income and its crime rate.
Jackie Wagstaff, an activist for the low-income neighborhood of Northeast Central Durham and a former City Council member, agreed that community development is an essential part of crime prevention.
"If you're going to fight crime, first of all you have to decide what is the root cause of it," Wagstaff said. "When you're talking about vacant and boarded-up houses, basically what they do is, they're breeding grounds. When people decide to commit criminal activity, they go into communities that they see are not well taken care of."
Barbara Lofton, co-chair of Durham's District 4 Partners Against Crime, said her group tries to reduce the motivation to commit crime by providing people with basic necessities like housing, food and clothing as well as walking through a different neighborhood each month to look for potential problem areas.
"If I'm out of work and my kids are hungry, then I'm going to find some way to feed them," she said. "The police are trying to stop crime; we are trying to prevent it."
She also suggested that police officers try to develop one-on-one relationships with children in high-risk areas.
Of course, even the staunchest supporters of community involvement as a means for preventing crime agree that police initiatives to solve crimes once they are committed are still necessary.
"If you want [the police] to be successful, you have to make sure you provide them with the tools to become successful," Wagstaff said.
CrimeStoppers, a partnership between police and citizens, exemplifies a different kind of community involvement in fighting crime. The group pays anonymous tipsters who provide the police department with information that helps solve crimes.
Pat Ellis, chair of the board of CrimeStoppers, said the reward--on average about $200 from private donations--helps raise the clearance rate.
"Some people will give up their mother for a couple of hundred dollars," he said. "The clearance rate is something that needs to be better, but I will say: The more money we pay out, the better the clearance rate is each year."
While Ellis agreed that initiatives to clean up the community can also help to prevent crime, he also stressed that the state Legislature should toughen sentencing periods and other laws aimed at deterring future crime.
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