MODEL BLOCK IS WORKING

Like any crime-fighting enterprise, Toledo's Model Block program has not
totally changed the location of all drug-runners in the city. But it has
helped reduce overall crime and overall despair in seven select
neighborhoods, with another just added. And it has improved housing values.

Skepticism abounded in 1998 when police began 24-hour patrols in the 1400
and 1500 blocks of Oakwood Avenue, declaring war on crime and drug
trafficking, when city inspectors arrived to label dilapidated dwellings
for repair or demolition, and when Block Watch people arrived to help
residents organize.

After that areas in North Toledo, Ironwood, South Toledo, the Renaissance
Area, the Roosevelt Neighborhood, the Bancroft, Upton, Monroe Area. all got
attention. Now the same care is being given to blocks bounded by Bancroft,
Monroe, and South Cove Boulevard, Rosedale Street, and Torrey Hill Drive.

The aim here, as it was in the New York City program that Toledo borrowed
from, was to get rid of invitations to crime: vacant buildings, poor
lighting, unkempt property.

Residents of these neighborhoods rightly complain that once the police have
left, the drug-dealing rats come out to feed again. And litter is again
despoiling the streets.

The police and other city intervention was meant to jump-start stronger
resident involvement in their respective neighborhoods. This means an
obvious block watch presence. It means picking up some litter even if you
didn't toss it - perhaps a monthly neighborhood street cleanup day that
involves all residents. And it means calling police when drug sales are
obvious.

For sure police can never be in designated neighborhoods all the time. But
it certainly wouldn't hurt for the department to schedule random sweeps in
these model block neighborhoods, based on intelligence from residents.
After all, it occasionally does that with parents who are deadbeats when it
comes to child support.

Random forays, behavioral theory tells us, are best used to keep people, in
this case bad guys, on edge - perhaps enough to quit?