Fattah Crime Plan: A lot from Column A, a lot from Column B (The Next Mayor)

Wow. Ok. I'll admit it. I am impressed.

I just got back from Congressman Fattah's event to unveil his "Plan for a Gun Safe Philadelphia" and boy is my note-writing hand tired.

I'll try to recap a little but I'm sure I'll miss something so stay tuned for further coverage from the Daily News's Catherine Lucey and WHYY's Shai Ben-Yaacov.

First we heard from a guest speaker named Nick Filopoulos, a shop owner whose store in North Philadelphia is on a block that had, until a few months ago, been beset with all kinds of gun violence and illegal activity. As far as I could tell, and the gentleman had a very thick accent so this is what I picked up, Congressman Fattah was responsible for funding surveillance cameras for that block which led to a dramatic decrease in the number of incidents.

Fattah then took the podium in the chapel at Mercy Hospital in West Philadelphia, a hospital which probably has seen more than its fair share of gunshot victims, and began by - get this - acknowledging all of the work that his fellow candidates have done on this issue. No one was left out - Nutter for helping to get funding for more cops, Evans for his work in Harrisburg, Knox for his petition drive, Dougherty for his "Enough is Enough" program and Brady for convening two violence summits. Can't say I've ever seen anyone do this before and it kind of gives me hope that this election may actually stay clean, civil, and issues-based. But I guess that remains to be seen.

Fattah then proceeded to lay out most of the 7 major themes of his plan and the 27 specific points of the plan. These points ranged from some proven evidence-based strategies based on the work of Professor Lawrence Sherman at Penn (more on that later) to other more "feel good" measures like a proposal for a gun buyback program (Goods for Guns), which have been shown through studies to be somewhat ineffective. Ironically, Sherman, who apparently headed the group that came up with this policy paper, was once quoted as saying that gun buy back programs are "the program that is best known to be ineffective." But hey, I can't fault the guy for offering to give grocery money to people for guns.

You can read the whole plan if you want. The coverage of the event will probably focus on the 1000 surveillance cameras that Fattah is proposing, his ducking and weaving when the questions came up about how he plans on paying for all of these proposals and his ideas for where he'll find the next Police Commissioner.

My questions were simple. Having heard Lawrence Sherman at least three times now (on Radio Times here and here with Dwight Evans and at the NCC at this event), I know that he's been touting the effectiveness and evidence-based success of programs designed to find illegal guns and remove them in an effort to prevent gun-related deaths. Many in the media would boil it down to "stop and frisk" but that phrase doesn't adequately describe the method and conjures up images of cops wantonly stopping people on the street for no cause (other than being the wrong color and on the wrong corner) and searching them.

Sherman's study focused on a program used in Kansas City in which a number of cops were taken off of routine duty and specially trained to spot very specific behavioral and physical cues that a person does when he or she is carrying a gun. According to this method, with the proper training, a cop is able to tell that someone is carrying a gun and be able to prove that he had constitutionally allowable probable cause to search that person. In essence, using this training, cops can stop someone, engage them in conversation and search them, and if they find a gun (most often a gun possessed illegally), they can arrest the individual and confiscate the gun. Sherman's point is that the program doesn't often end up increasing the number of gun confiscations but it does provide a deterrent effect in that people who would normally carry guns, if they know that "the gun patrol" is out and about, are more likely to leave them at home. The evidence in the Kansas City case shows (and this can be found in Fattah's plan) that in the target areas, there was a 49% drop in gun crimes.

Now, as I mentioned, I heard Professor Sherman present this plan at the National Constitution Center where he had met with a great deal of skepticism from DA Lynne Abraham and Commissioner Sylvester Johnson. Abraham basically said that such a program would just lead to lawsuit after lawsuit as people claim a violation of their civil rights. So there is some resistance out there to this program, even when an expert like Sherman is able to explain it fully and lay to rest any fears that this is just a "stop and frisk" policy as it is known in its most negative connotation.

If you read Fattah's plan, and if you heard him speak today, you'd notice that he effectively danced around exactly what it is that the "specially trained patrol officers" would be doing. From the plan:

Designate Patrol Officers to Go After Illegal Guns. With our existing police force, we will designate specially trained patrol officers in each Police District to go after illegal guns and the criminals who are most likely to use them. This targeted enforcement has been proven to be effective in other cities.

I read that twice. Can we agree that it doesn't specifically mention the exact procedure used by the cops according to the Kansas City program studied by Professor Sherman? Fattah even mentioned what the training was, ie being able to spot those physical and behavioral cues. But I listened very carefully and don't remember that he actually said that those officers could then stop and frisk the individuals under suspicion. So I asked him whether he specifically means that cops would be able to use their "special training" to stop and search people who were otherwise not committing any crimes and not running away from police. Would cops be able, based soley on this training and the physical and behavioral cues being exhibited by the gun carrier be able to stop and search that individual?

I expected him to dance around the answer some more. But this is where the dancing stopped. He said that he has no disagreement with anything I said. (He then proceeded to point out that if I read that point in the paper, I'd have gotten my answer... something that I still disagree with.) And that's where I was impressed. A very politically difficult proposal, something that could be spun by saavy opponents playing up to the fears of an audience without all of the background, as a violation of civil rights, but also an effective, evidence-based solution, and Fattah agreed with it.

As I said, the DA had her own problems with the program back in December at the NCC and I'll try to reach her for her comment, but I gotta admit, if Fattah can commit to that and succeed in having such a program implemented throughout the "hotspots" where gun violence is most prevalent, we may actually have an effective crime fighting strategy.

For those of you with a little time on your hands, try this little game, which actually looks more like an essay question on an "AP Criminology" exam.

Compare and contrast the Evans Crime Plan to the Fattah Crime Plan. I'll have my essay done by the end of the week.

Comments (4)

Dave

Agreed. I'm not sure how "impressed" would be at a mayoral candidate who has to be cornered and forced into answering a question about his own policy proposal. I'm assuming he avoided tha question because the answer appears not to poll very well in certain demographics:

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/pulse_guns_are_for_girls

Posted by Dave | January 9, 2007 12:35 PM

Dan:

"Impressed" in parts of the plan. The next phase will be to convince everyone whether he will actually do it.

And a mea culpa out to you Nutter folks out there. As you can see, Wendy posted his crime plan here. I'm a sucker for numbers and for using strategies that have an empirically-proven track record. So yes, I'm impressed that that point is in Nutter's plan too.

However, I'm a little perplexed as to why the mainstream media hasn't picked up on that part of Fattah's and Nutter's Plans. I've read over the Inquirer, Daily News and Tribune articles and can't find any mention of what has been a somewhat controversial tactic. Like I said, it's a tactic that has come to be known as "stop and frisk" (which has gotten its own negative connotation), and that phrase doesn't appear anywhere.

Posted by Dan | January 9, 2007 1:10 PM

sheth

The inquirer did a detailed article about stop and frisk a while ago. I am glad people noted that Nutter had already voiced support for this tactic months ago. I attended the event at the NCC and Johnson and Abraham's responses to the professor were pathetic. Johnson was the absolute worst and basically said he is more concerned about minimizing conflicts between the cops and guys on corners than he is about aggressively getting guns off the street. Sherman had concrete answers to all of their concerns and yet Johnson didnt yield one bit until Abraham attempted to save face by saying the three of them would sit down and "talk".

When you have a radical problem you need radical solution. Paying cops to sit in their cars for an entire shift isnt doing much to scare teh gun toting criminals in this city.

Posted by sheth | January 9, 2007 2:32 PM

I think that the main problem is not being delt with.Most of these murders are related to drugs,gang violence,and a gangster mentality that is all to obvious in young people today.A young man from a lower income rowhouse area is likely to see the allure of this type of lifestyle as desirable.He can make a lot of money quickly,achieves a level of respect among his peers,and these things also attract girls.On the other hand school is work and the payoff takes many years to achieve.We actually have young singers in our society who have become very rich from this type of lifestyle.Young people look up to these gangsters as some type of heroes.To stop the violence in this city we need to change the mentality of these young people and the allure of the street.This cannot be done without changing the home life of these children,and holding there parents accountable.We also need to decrease the revenue made by illegeal street activities.If there is no paycheck in being a gangster there is no reason to be one.

Posted by j | February 14, 2007 10:45 AM

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