Washington

Foot patrols have proven themselves to be the most effective means of enhancing feelings of safety.  Police, typically, see foot patrols as a waste of resources, which is where Guardian Angels come in.  A Guardian Angels patrol will absorb itself in the life of the area it is deployed in, often knowing by name, the regulars – residents, business owners, and street people alike.  Such a patrol keeps abreast of local problems, assumes a type of responsibility for key places or people, developing regular sources of information and becoming regulars at certain venues.

 

 

Community response to Guardian Angels foot patrols is uniformly positive. Overwhelmingly, fear declines and citizen approval for the patrols soar.  Even though foot patrol frequently does not reduce the occurrence of serious crime by itself, residents of foot-patrolled neighbourhoods feel more secure than do those in other areas, believe crime to have been reduced, and appear to take fewer measures to protect themselves from crime (such as staying home behind locked doors).  Normal street crime usually visibly reduces in a matter of weeks.  Even just a few hours of patrols on a consistent basis will have these effects.  A pretty small measure of foot patrols delivers a large amount of fear reduction.

Guardian Angels do not obtain their order-maintenance ‘authority’ from criminal law, or the police, but largely as a mandate from those they shield, that is, from people who use the streets, live in or perform their businesses in the local neighbourhood, and even those who “hang out.”  Over time, through regular interaction, residents and the patrol comes to know each other and to recognize their shared concern in the peace and order of the streets.  Eventually the patrol and residents ‘negotiate’ a “disorder threshold” for the neighbourhood, and rules of conduct that would be applied when that threshold was breached.  While the patrols’ immediate involvement in this process is key, their activities may also help to develop a consensus regarding appropriate neighbourhood conduct strong enough to persist even during those times of their absence, thus heightening the effect of actual patrol presence.

Reducing crime through order maintenance, in the final analysis, requires the exercise of good citizenship.  Citizens must accept responsibility both for their own behaviour and for helping to ensure the safety and security of fellow citizens.  Order arises out of the day-to-day respect with which people deal with each other and the concern that they exercise for their privacy, welfare, and safety.  Such respect and concern does not divide rich from poor, black from white, or one ethnic group from another. Instead, it unites diverse neighbourhoods against those who behave in outrageous ways, and who prey on the weak and vulnerable.

202-359-0601

email: washingtondc@guardianangels.org

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