CURBING CRIME BY GETTING DOWN TO ROOT CAUSES

Crime causes include jail and prison overcrowding, wide availability
of drugs and guns.

Last week, two men robbed a woman at gunpoint in Savannah's Liberty
Street parking garage. The attackers, police said, hit the 21-year-old
receptionist in the face, took her purse and raced off.

Preventing such attacks -- there were 473 city street-robberies last
year -- means understanding why they happen.

Sounds simple enough.

But there's nothing simple about the causes of those crimes. Or the
causes of the other types of offenses that continue to frighten many
in the community, even though the overall crime rate is down a little.

No one knows, for example, why robbery and auto thefts surged in
Savannah and unincorporated Chatham County last year. Or why homicides
jumped by eight in the city and burglary increased by 38 percent in
the county.

To be sure, officials such as Savannah Police Chief Dan Flynn think
they know what's behind the overall crime plague. But the causes are
so varied that no single strategy will work against them, Flynn and
Chatham County Police Chief Tom Sprague agree.

"People want quick fixes, Flynn said. "But the truth is, dealing with
a crime problem is complex. It's been decades in the making."

Authorities are struggling, for example, to better cope with the
thousands of local residents on parole or probation and hundreds of
ex-convicts. Nationally, more than four out of every such people
commit additional crimes.

But whatever tactics might deal with that issue won't end the wide
availability of guns, which Flynn and Sprague identify as a major factor.

And whatever might get drugs and guns off the street won't keep
students from skipping school or being suspended, which the chiefs say
often leads to getting involved in crime.

Nor will it cleanse the community of drugs, which they also see as a
major culprit, or solve problems that make public housing
crime-prone.

The list of far-flung causes goes on.

Burglaries jumped 200 cases in unincorporated Chatham County from 523
to 723. Sprague attributes the rise to a growth in population and
business -- plus an overall loss of social conscience.

"That is 723 citizens who had one of the most invasive crimes,"
Sprague said. "If I was one of those 723, I would say that crime is
going through the ceiling."

Closing the Revolving Door

Last year, nearly 1,000 Georgia inmates convicted in Chatham County
were handed a $25 check, one outfit and a bus ticket -- which many
used to return home to Savannah.

They were released on probation, parole or without any supervision
because their sentences had ended or they were eligible for early release.

Because the judicial circuit that includes Savannah sends more people
to prison than other areas -- along with Atlanta, Augusta, Cobb
County, and Stone Mountain -- Savannah sees a high number of parolees
and probationers return. Five percent of the inmate population is from
the Chatham County area.

Released early because of prison overcrowding, many often return to
the communities where they were convicted.

Of about 500 offenders released into the Savannah area last year on
parole, 71 were not convicted in Chatham.

Those are the parolees Flynn wants to keep out.

"We don't need criminals from Atlanta and Macon being sent to
Savannah. Why should we have to suffer the results when there is a
national recidivism rate of 42 percent?" Flynn said. "That means
almost half of them are going to reoffend. The net result is Savannah
winds up with serious and violent criminals walking our streets."

Billie Tyler of Pooler, mother of the parking garage mugging victim,
agrees.

"The police are doing their job," Tyler said. "They are arresting
everyone they can possibly arrest. But the problem is, the system is
not working when they let these criminals back on the street. The
system is not protecting the victims. It's protecting the criminals.

In January, Flynn persuaded the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to
stop sending recently released offenders to Savannah. State parole
board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said the board will continue to try
to send offenders where they have jobs and family support.

"If there is an offender from Fulton County, who finds a job in
Savannah, it's better that we find him a transitional center around
Atlanta where his family is," Hedrick said. "We couldn't agree more
that prisoners that come from one community need to wind up back in
same community."

The number of parolees released into Chatham County dipped from 550 to
503 last year. But more offenders released after they serve their full
prison terms are coming to the Savannah area, Hedrick said. In 2002,
345 such offenders claimed Chatham County as home, up from 285 in
2000, according to the state Department of Corrections.

"These are offenders that aren't under the supervision of parole,"
Hedrick said. "They are serving longer sentences, but they are coming
back into the community."

Flynn likely will find it hard to reduce the number of people on
probation in Savannah. The Department of Corrections -- which oversees
the 3,833 probationers in Chatham County -- can't control over where
they live, unless it's part of sentencing. Only parolees are required
to have residence plans approved.

"We share the chief's concern about offenders returning to Savannah,"
said Brian Owens, Department of Corrections executive assistant to the
commissioner. "But we don't control where they go unless it's part of
the sentence."

More Guns Than Miami?

Flynn has said he has seen more guns on the streets of Savannah than
he ever saw in 27 years in Miami-Dade Police Department -- possibly
contributing to our city's crime problem.

Flynn cited a 1998 federal survey of 12 cities showing that 34 percent
of Savannah residents said they kept a self-defense weapon in their
home.

But legal gun sales aren't behind the city's crime problem, said Tony
Sterno, manager of Mack's Gun Shop in Garden City. In fact, the number
of applicants for concealed weapon permits is decreasing in Chatham
County. There were 1,116 permits issued countywide last year -- down
from 1,213 in 2000, according to court records.

Guns used in crimes are illegally traded on the street, mostly after
being stolen in residential burglaries, Sterno said.

"If we looked at civilian guns sales, it wouldn't come anywhere close
to Miami," he said. "To say easy arms sales are the root of the crime
is ludicrous. The current legal background check is working.

"Legitimate gun sales are a small amount compared to the guns that are
out there," Sterno said.

School Truancy and Suspension

High truancy in schools also incubates criminals, Flynn said.

Since the start of the 2000 school year, Savannah police have focused
on rounding up students skipping class. Of the 337 people Precinct 3
police officers in the truancy program contacted last year, 190 were
truants. Fourteen of those were arrested on various charges, including
drug violations and warrants.

"A lot more could be done, a lot more truants could be taken off the
streets, if we had additional staffing," said Precinct 3 Capt. Dean
Fagerstrom.

The program gets potential troublemakers with too much time on their
hands off the streets and back in school.

The law requires all children under 16 to attend school regularly.
Regardless of age, Chatham County public school students may not leave
campus without permission.

But after they're nabbed, truants usually are merely returned to their
school, where they face suspension.

Other Agencies Responsible in Crime Fight

Especially when public housing or from drug abuse are factors,
Savannah needs help from other agencies, Flynn said. And sometimes, he
added, those agencies have delivered.

For example, the Housing Authority of Savannah has beefed up its
relationship with Savannah police, meeting monthly with officers to
review problems, as well as talk about evictions and enforcement of
lease stipulations.

Public housing leases now clearly spell out the one-strike policy that
lets the authority evict residents if they, their children, or the
guests are caught with drugs or committing violent acts. The head of
household has to initial a separate section that explains the
one-strike policy and undergo a criminal background check.

"If they have a resident committing crime, they document the cases,
present it to the Housing Authority and move troublemakers out," Flynn
said.

Prevention programs -- such as the Housing Authority's long-term drug
elimination program -- also have helped by decreasing the number of
public housing youth involved in crime, said Ron Alt, manager of the
drug elimination program.

From 1995-2000, the number of public housing youth that were
Department of Children Youth Services offenders was reduced from 52 to
20, Alt said.

"There's a lot of juvenile crime citywide, but less and less Housing
Authority kids are involved," Alt said. "We really think it's the
result of our prevention programming Most people arrested in public
housing don't live in public housing."

Savannah police also plan to look to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
to help target higher-level drug traffickers. The focus of Savannah
police drug enforcement has been on street-level drugs. Flynn plans to
ask the DEA to put more agents in Savannah to work on higher-level
traffickers, so the Savannah police Narcotics Eradication Team (NET)
team can continue to focus on the streets. Currently, eight DEA agents
in Savannah are responsible for 33 counties in southeast Georgia.

"We have a long-standing problem with higher-level drug traffickers
bringing drugs to Savannah," Flynn said. "We need to start breaking up
the groups of traffickers who are supplying the street level sellers.
The street-level sellers are very replaceable."