Providence police chief to lecture on crime reduction

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January 25, 2008

Providence police chief to lecture on crime reduction

I can hear some people's reaction to this already: "We don't need no Yankee cop coming down here to tell us how to run our city." But I have read before about the successes that Providence, Rhode Island has had in moving from a city quite known for its crime rate to one that is much safer for its residents (and more tourist-friendly to boot).

From a press release:

The Community Research Council, in partnership with the UTC departments of Political Science and Criminal Justice, is pleased to sponsor a presentation by Col. Dean Esserman, Police Chief of Providence, Rhode Island. Col. Esserman’s talk will be entitled “Reducing Crime in a Midsize City: The Providence Model.”
Col. Esserman is a nationally-renowned expert on community policing and crime data measurement. His innovative policing techniques have contributed to a double-digit drop in Providence’s overall crime rate for three years running.

This presentation will be held on Thursday, January 31st at 1:30 pm in the Raccoon Mountain Room of the University Center on UTC campus. It will be open to all students and UTC faculty, as well as any interested members of the community.

You'd need to RSVP to Lori Quillen, whose email address in the release is lquillen [at] researchcouncil (dot) net. Please do so by the end of day today.

And here's one more thought: crime statistics (and jail overcrowding) could be almost instantaneously reduced by a lot if nonviolent drug offenses were not treated (and therefore counted) as crimes requiring arrest and incarceration, but rather as offenses requiring court appearance and/or payment of a fine. (We'd have to work through shifting the load balance from Sessions to City courts, but that would be do-able. And the processing would theoretically be faster, and reduce demands on public defenders, and on and on.)

But I guess the Legislature might have to weigh in on that one; or is that similar to what Denver and other large cities have done on their own?

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