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On Wednesday night, there was a meeting of the Washington Village/Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council (WPNPC) Public Safety meeting. On account of the the rash of residential burglaries in the neighborhood, the turnout was pretty good. Some local media attention was also garnered via WBAL-TV. (If you look closely, you can see my balding pate in the background of one of the panning shots. Oy!)

The discussion we had with the Southern District folks was a good one, and I think it was a necessary one for a variety of reasons. Here’s a quick rundown of things from the meeting.

Burglaries

• The Southern District Commander admitted that the burglary numbers in Pigtown have been pretty consistent over the last 7 years. Essentially, the numbers to this point in the year have consistently been over 100. This year is shaping up to be in line with years past, and according to him this is truly unacceptable.
• One of the consistent issues comes with not the common sense things it takes to not be robbed, but what can neighbors do to staunch the problem. We have alarms in place and bars on windows, but how does one address the brazenness of a burglar when they are willing to prop a ladder up to a second story window and enter the home that way?
• One of the other issues–aside from being a target-rich environment with folks moving into the neighborhood–is the notion of a deterrent. A large number of the burglaries are happening during the hours that folks are not around. How hard is it to get a “deterrent”?
• A problem with this, though, is that there is one (1) detective working the burglaries in the entire Southern District. Talk about woefully inadequate staffing numbers.

Cameras

• For a few years, Pigtown has had a series of cameras in the neighborhood, very similar to the cameras that are placed around downtown Baltimore. The problem is that the data held on these cameras is being controlled by one person. As a result, the desired effect of these cameras is not being felt. Essentially, they are expensive tools just hanging around. The persistence of the criminal element lampoons this state of affairs.

Information

• As mentioned before on the blog, the lack of good information available for analysis is a problem.  The BCPD has an atrocious website, and there is lots of information that should be free to the public.  Let’s face it: an informed public is better than an uninformed (or misinformed) one.  Let’s get the information out there; it yearns to be free.  In all seriousness, as the criminal element gets more intelligent, citizens should use all of the tools at their disposal to keep them informed.

Recidivism

• Another problem is that most of the folks who are committing these crimes are the same folks who have been busted for the same or similar problems. How do you combat recidivism in a transitioning neighborhood that has had crime problems in the past and is slowly turning the tide? I think part of that comes from a more active WPNPC. Our current WPNPC does not seem to be treating the criminal element that exists in Pigtown the way it should be treated. I, and others, are a big fan of “lock their ass up if they do something wrong all the time.”

We have a little ways to go, but the turnout at the meeting on Wednesday was certainly heartening. There are neighbors here who want to make a difference, and I think that working together, the neighborhood can be a better place. Pigtown has a realism that some other Baltimore neighborhoods no longer have, but there is no reason why that realism cannot be tempered with safety.