If the future of San Jose’s public safety boils down to trust and communication between police officers and residents, the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative has been instrumental in establishing these relationships, resulting in lower crime rates in many of the city’s underserved communities.
The program, however, has been hard hit by budget cuts to the San Jose Redevelopment Agency.
“We are updating our business plan and reorganizing the program in the context of the limited resources,” says Sal Alvarez, SNI’s interim manager. “It used to be capital-intensive, but the capital dollars aren’t there. How do we continue progress in the neighborhoods we work in without capital dollars?”
San Jose’s community policing model may provide some answers in helping each of the 19 neighborhoods within SNI achieve their top 10 priorities. These priorities usually include street improvements and neighborhood safety.
The community policing model is supposed to be used throughout the city, but realistically works best when incorporated with the SNI program.
“By and large, the highest priority is public safety in high crime areas,” Alvarez says, “and we already have the connection with police department.”
Community members play an active role in their own safety by being aware of what is happening in their neighborhoods, who should and shouldn’t be there and when to call the police for help. The other part of this model is to have working relationships with their beat officers, which requires trust.
“We meet with neighborhood groups weekly, and the biggest thing is to sit around a table and hear the problems and offer solutions,” says assistant chief of police Dan Kaz. “It should be a collaborative process.”
These meetings happen monthly, but community members argue that the current six-month rotation cycle of beat officers in and out of neighborhoods is detrimental to the model.
“We hear the community loud and clear on this one,” Kaz says.
Currently, police officers are assigned to a beat for six months. After their time is up, they are rotated to another beat.
Neighbors argue that just about the time their relationship with the police officer is established, the officer is rotated out.
According to Kaz, the rotation is a labor issue, not something the department chose.
“There is value in the one-year deployment, but the matter is in labor negotiations and this did not rise to top of priorities,” he says. “It’s something that we want to do, and we’re working on it. We recognize the value.”
Current investigations into public intoxication arrests and use of force have also hurt community trust in police.
“There’s a culture of fear, and residents don’t want to call police when they really need them for fear of retaliation or because of their [immigration] status,” says Adriana Cabrera-Garcia, a community member present at an April 1 community meeting.
Kaz says the department is working to improve current policy. Already in effect is the change in public intoxication arrests.
Previous policy had an officer arrest and book individuals, with the case being heard by the district attorney’s office. Now, the officer can still arrest and book, but the individual would be released after sobering up and no charges would be brought unless it was his or her sixth arrest within a year.
“We’re still going to strive to have this model work; we just have to see how everything with the budget settles out,” Kaz says. “We definitely don’t want to lose those relationships.”
The Public Safety, Finance & Strategic Support Committee will have its next meeting on the subject of public safety on April 14, 6-8 p.m. at San Jose City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St.
