They asked for a year. A year has passed. It’s time to check in and ask questions.
On May 9,
2014, I published a post about Norristown, Pennsylvania’s new program to
improve resident perception of itself, specifically the question of personal
safety. I attended the press conference
that announced the “Norristown Quality of Life Policing Task Force,” which I
quickly learned was not aimed at improving the public safety situation in the
town, but to convince residents that their condition was already good. The reality,
they claimed, was actually much better than the perception of that reality. As Council President Bill Caldwell phrased it,
“Urban communities often get a bum rap for being places where random crime
happens and we’re here to tell you today that this is not what happens in
Norristown.”
I admit to expressing
some skepticism. After all, this was a
PR event to announce the beginning of an extended PR campaign, which is pretty
much a working definition of “grandstanding.” What I found most heartening was that after the dog and pony show,
Norristown Council members asked the public to give them a year before making a
judgment. I believed that to be a fair
request, and said so. Here is how I
phrased it:
"The joint press conference was totally a media event...that
provides a clue as to how we should receive it. As with the pilot
episode of any show that we find promising, we should exercise “temporary
suspension of disbelief.” The first-rate cast stuck tightly to the
script and delivered their lines with the necessary panache, producing an
uplifting message, as intended. Even ye who are without sin should
not stone this cast; first let them actually act, and judge
the result by how it plays out before your eyes. Will the show
deliver on the promise of its pilot? You really need to stay tuned
for this one."
I did cheat a
little, writing about this perception versus reality thing in December of last
year. I did so because Pottstown had
climbed on the “things are better than everyone thinks” bandwagon, complaining
that people who spoke and wrote of Pottstown’s problems really didn’t
understand the situation. But this is
probably a bad time to voice that opinion, given that Pottstown last month saw
some 30 people arrested for their involvement in a gang war.
But let’s use
this one-year anniversary to discuss Norristown. It has spent the last year tending to the
public’s perception about safety, and thus about the police department
itself. Talk about good timing. For those of you that may have been in a coma
for the last few months, they have not been good ones for police-community
relations across our nation. The general public has
discovered that their perception of how things were in places as far apart as
Ferguson and Baltimore (not to mention that of their respective police departments) did not match the reality on the streets.
I’d like to
think that the convergence of tragic events that we have been witnessing in the
media will lead at least a few more people to conclude that the manner in which
local law enforcement conducts itself needs to change, whether it is a large
city or a small town. So how does a
small town like Norristown fit in? More
than you might think; urban police work is—or should be—undertaken pretty much
the same way regardless of the size of the urban area.
Just how does
a police department earn the trust of its citizens? By enforcing the law fairly, equally and with
consideration for people as human beings, of course. It’s easy to say, but not so easy to do. A recent article in the Pottstown Mercury added to the evidence that
Norristown may actually be onto something.
If so, then the reason may be Police Chief Mark Talbot.
He began the interview by
accepting responsibility, on behalf of his department, for the state of things
in town. He didn’t pull out the usual
complaints about uncaring residents, or social media. Here is how he phrased it:
“That means that myself and the Norristown Police Department at
the end of the year, or even at the end of the day, accepts the fact that we’re
responsible for crime and the quality of life in our community,” he said. “We
don’t point to bad people doing bad things, or citizens not helping us enough.
We own it. It starts with that.”
But it isn’t just
about the police. Like all law
enforcement officials, Talbot knows that citizen involvement is crucial to
establishing peace on the streets. “You can’t shut people out of the conversation. If they feel
like you’re not listening to them, they will find another way to be heard,
whether in a letter to the editor, or they will use social media,” said Talbot.
“We would rather they come to us first….If you talk to people in the neighborhood and tell them what's going on, they will talk to you and tell you what they know."
Talbot has been impressing this approach on
his department since he took over the post two years ago. Is it working? Official statistics say that crime in
Norristown has dropped by 20% over the last two years. Talbot, in his interview with the Mercury claimed that “people are telling
us they feel safer now in Norristown than they have in a long time.”
In my December post, I advanced my belief that the best way to improve the public’s perception of the situation is to
improve the situation itself. Remove the fear, and people’s
perception of reality will improve. Statistics say
things have improved, so now I want to hear from YOU, the residents of
Norristown. It’s a simple question:
Do you feel safer now, in your home and on the streets, than
you did a year ago?
Is lowered crime in
Norristown a reality? Statistics say
so. What is your perception, and why? Does anyone see this as a result of the “Norristown
Quality of Life Policing Task Force” (it was to involve more than one agency),
or could there be a simpler, more personal reason? Let me know what you think.
Either way, could you communicate that to Pottstown?
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