Our Views: Taking back a community

While there is a great deal of tough talk about Baton Rouge’s new plan for attacking its homicide crisis, the architect of the plan puts a lot of emphasis on the power of one of the city’s poor communities to rally around the program.

The new BRAVE program — Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination — starts off in 70805, the ZIP code area of a few square miles and many shootings over the past few years.

Even in that generally poor and rundown area of town, said consultant Jim Fealy, the community resources that law enforcement hopes to mobilize on its side can be keys to the program’s success.

Fealy, a former North Carolina police chief, and District Attorney Hillar Moore III sketched the program at the Press Club of Baton Rouge. And while there was a lot about law enforcement in the traditional sense, Fealy said that BRAVE’s focus will be on the larger issue of making the neighborhoods of 70805 safer to live in.

Moore said churches and other institutions in the area are integral to the effort, although Baton Rouge Police Chief Dwayne White has already assigned five officers to the area to ramp up the enforcement wing of the program.

The BRAVE plan hopes to use data about offenses, large and small, to identify networks of “bad actors.” That would allow authorities and community leadership to threaten a full-court press if someone in those groups is involved in a violent crime.

That’s the hard power, in which police threaten consequences to the group, not just the shooter.

Yet the soft power of the community is also a key element of focused deterrence, Fealy said, recalling how a poor neighborhood in High Point, N.C., turned around after years of sullen indifference or even anger at the authorities.

“We had to win back the communities we had lost,” Fealy said. After a short time, the effective response to crime brought the community together with its police force, he said.

Moore said part of the BRAVE plan would allow individuals who want to turn their lives around to get help — drug counseling, or job training, for example. It’s not a carrot-and-stick idea, because individuals would still have to deal with their legal issues, but it’s a way for the community to bring pressure on young people to opt out of a life of crime, Moore said.

“Community moral voice, laugh if you will, is a very, very powerful tool,” Fealy said.

We hope so and are glad to see that amplifying that voice is part of BRAVE’s agenda.

Comments

1) Comment by Attila - 12/07/2012

"Poverty" is merely a convenient excuse for lack of personal responsibility, values, and work ethic. I am not accusing all poor of being lazy, but there is a large segment that can wear that shoe. There are is also a very large segment of poor blacks who continue to buy into the psychobabble that their predicament is all the white man's fault. No amount of policing is going to change that mindset. Until that segment of our population decides they want to better themselves educationally, financially, and morally nothing will change. The "code of silence" is proof positive that a different value system is at work here. Most of this can be laid at the feet of the "progressives" who constantly reinforce the perpetuation of the criminal mentality by creating generation after generation of people who are raised to believe they are "entitled" to the fruits of someone else's labor. Barack Obama is the poster child for what is wrong with that doctrine.

2) Comment by ScotB - 12/07/2012

Poverty does not equal crime. In fact, most poor people are honest and good folks. To imply poverty causes crime is to insult all the good poor people who obey the law. These people do not "accidentally" commit a crime, they choose to do so. Moral decline equals crime. Lack of values equals crime. Not valuing an education. Not valuing one's self. 70% of black kids are born to a single mother. Half do not graduate from high school. 40% of black youth are unemployed. Much of this crime is a problem for the black community and the people who live there. When people start giving a hard time to young ladies who get pregnant out of wedlock and lazy, dumb punks who don't graduate from high school & get educated - when it is no longer socially acceptable in the black (or white) community to be a "loose woman", a deadbeat father, and a school dropout - then we will be making progress. When our ideals and standards are on a higher level, then the crime rate will decline. White communities have seen an increase in these negative statistics as well, just not to the same degree. America has been in a moral decline. Telling the truth is uncomfortable. We need to quit dancing around the truth and make people (white or black) who make ***** choices uncomfortable about their behavior and hold them accountable. Or not. Like everything, it's a choice.

3) Comment by GoldenSage - 11/07/2012

Part of it is this country, Baton Rouge, needs jobs. Taxing the rich isn't the answer. Helping the rich, to make money to invest, and businesses is the answer. Not hurting them for a few billion dollars that won't last more than a few days. Don't believe the hype out there. Taxing the rich doesn't raise that much revenue...putting people to work does, and I don't mean government jobs. Government jobs do not create new taxes and income/revenues. Private businesses do. And low-income people do not have the money to invest, so we need to encourage the rich to invest their money in the country, Baton Rouge, not take it to other countries. Think Reagan. We Need To Do It Again.

4) Comment by [e-mail] - 11/07/2012

Nimby? Finally a truth that none can spin or obfuscate; plain and simple the third estate has fallen on hard times and debate notwithstanding there is no hope for it until it does some hard introspection. Physician, heal thyself is apropos.

5) Comment by nimby? - 11/07/2012

I don't think the Advocate has any political agenda . they are just trying to stay in business doing what ever they can to interest readers . professional journalism , investigative reporting have been replaced by sloppy writing , controversy and sensationalism . grammar and the truth are of little relevance these days ....

6) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 11/07/2012

I am glad to see someone else objects to the Advocate Brown Shirts not allowing comments or seeing there were 12 comments and when you scroll down there are none. The Advocate should allow all comments and delete none until several days pass without any new one appearing.

7) Comment by 8point6 - 10/07/2012

I love when this medium won't allow comments on some topics: "Stakes rising over voucher option", "Tax-cut salvos fly over D.C.", and my favorite: "Jindal move causes stir". I'll wager that my "progressive" friends are foaming at the mouth for not being able to comment on the latter.

8) Comment by DMJ - 10/07/2012

****Comment Removed for Violation of Terms of Use****

9) Comment by Whatchange - 10/07/2012

Well the first four comments make no sense at all, the "Stupid Yahoos" comment has no place on here, "nimby" is right on the money and tradewinns has a good idea. It takes the people to turn the neighborhood around, no matter how much law enforcement and money you dump into a place it will not change until the people want change. Case in point, New Orleans, how much money and law enforcement has been poured into that city since Hurricane Katrina and it has not changed. You have to want it for it to work, this turning a blind eye and the code of silence has to end for the rest to end.

10) Comment by DMJ - 10/07/2012

Fair enough.

11) Comment by ABayouBoy - 10/07/2012

My family & property is protected by "Smith & Wesson".

12) Comment by nimby? - 10/07/2012

nor are they helpless . in order to reclaim their neighborhoods , lives they need to make the first step ...

13) Comment by DMJ - 10/07/2012

By the way.....to all the stupid yahoos, the vast majority of people in these high-crime zip codes are not crminals. They're not rats either. In fact, they're more likely to be victims of violence than those who live in their safe little enclaves in Shenandoah, Sherwood Forest or wherever. Try and have have a little empathy for those who actually deal with violent crime on a daily basis. Unless you were really, really dumb, why would you lump victims and criminals together? Nevermind. I think I answered my own question.

14) Comment by DMJ - 10/07/2012

So far this year, homicides are more prevalent in 70802. I like the approach, but are they going about it correctly in terms of geography?

15) Comment by tradewinns - 10/07/2012

the "kansas city experiment" shows that specfic targeting doesn't work on crime. the community has to do it themselves to make a difference. and the difference starts at home with proper parenting. as the majority of some groups' children are born to single parents, proper parenting is off to a bad start. till the public becomes disgusted with the way their tax dollars, and themselves, are abused, crime and the resulting murders will not decrease. they'll probably increase. want to decrease murders? start enforcing the death penalty rigorously. for some to state the "death penalty doesn't work/ or the death penalty cost too much to enforce" is an untruth at best. we do NOT enforce the death penalty as it was intended. the statement swift justice becomes a joke when connected to the DP. the only way the DP is enforced in under 10 years is if the criminal stops all efforts to reverse or postpone the sentence. and then others continue to appeal on his/her behalf! five (5) years is more than sufficient to review and appeal any and all issues on a sentence of death. then justice, and the ever familiar "closure" (there is none for the victim or their family/friends) can be met within a reasonable time frame. at the very least a killer would be removed from society.

16) Comment by [e-mail] - 10/07/2012

Pablum sophistry avails nothing; "counseling" violent offenders and convincing them that they are not bad people but just have made "bad choices" because they've been victimized by society is usually what something like this morphs into because.

17) Comment by 8point6 - 10/07/2012

New CATS bus routes in 70805 will end these homicides.

18) Comment by CountryBoysCanSurvive - 10/07/2012

Yup, burn it down and then rebuild. That way you can catch the rats as they are scurrying out. Basic rule of rat catching 101.

19) Comment by Cousin Dave - 10/07/2012

Forget the carrot, we need a giant stick to clean up 70805. That, or a nuclear warhead.