CITY'S CRIME PROBLEM

Our view: Baltimore's police commissioner was right to say that the
police alone can't solve it; in the end, it's up to all of us

When Baltimore police roll into city neighborhoods known for serious
drug violence, the first thing they often hear are shouts of
"Five-O! Five-O!" from lookouts warning of their approach. The
lookouts, mostly men in their 40s and 50s who are considered too old
to play much of a role in the street-level drug trade, earn a meager
subsistence on the periphery of the business. Younger, up-and-coming
dealers pay them a pittance to keep watch, usually in the form of
just enough heroin or crack cocaine to get them through another day.

So when Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III,
who came up through the ranks and once walked those mean streets
himself, considers how to manage Baltimore's endemic crime problem,
he's got to be thinking of those middle-age guys on the street
who, broke, unemployed and addicted, are as much victims of the
city's violent drug trade as are the junkies who line up in the
shadows to buy their daily fix.

"The best thing I could possibly do to reduce crime in Baltimore
would be to give all my officers two kinds of cards to hand out,"
the commissioner says. "One would name a drug treatment clinic
people could enter that day; the other would tell them where to find
a job. If I had those two cards, it would be amazing what this city
would look like."

Mr. Bealefeld made headlines last week when he told a radio talk
show host that no matter how many cops he puts on the streets, the
city won't be safe until everyone starts doing their part in
combating crime: police, prosecutors, judges, educators, social
workers, health officials, neighborhood residents and, perhaps most
important, parents.

The commissioner wasn't trying to pass the buck. From where he sits,
the police are making progress against violent crime. But they can't
do it alone.

Here are some statistics: Overall, crime in the city is down 10
percent from this time last year. There have been 23 percent fewer
nonfatal shootings, and homicides are practically level, with only
four more cases than this time a year ago, when murders hit a
20-year low. Meanwhile, the department's focus on getting the
most violent offenders and their guns is paying off: Police seized
1,038 guns since Jan. 1 and arrested 482 people on weapons charges,
up 12 percent from 2008.

Getting guns off the street is the key to reducing homicides. But
the problem is huge, and Mr. Bealefeld says a gun task force that
monitors people convicted of weapons charges still needs to do a
better a job figuring out where the guns are coming from. Last year,
officers seized 2,900 illegal guns in the city. That surely helped
cut the number of homicides, but the figures are still daunting.

What more can police do? Officers can engage communities more
effectively to win residents' trust and cooperation; that's the only
way to overcome the city's infamous "stop snitching" culture of
witness intimidation. They can work with after-school initiatives
aimed at gang violence mediation and support prisoner re-entry
programs that help ex-inmates stay straight. They can coordinate
with agencies that provide educational and recreational
opportunities for young people, who are too often the victims of
gun crimes, and they can refer addicts to treatment.

But in the end, crime isn't just the police department's problem,
and to really make a dent in it Mr. Bealefeld and his officers will
need help from individuals and institutions across the city and
state. Over the long term, solving Baltimore's chronic crime problem
will take the work of many people, and it has to begin well before
the yellow crime-scene tape goes up - because by then, it's usually too late.