“Community policing,” the new doctrine here in Chicago, is hard to get a grip on. Sentiment conjures up the amiable constable of yesteryear strolling down an urban lane, woolgathering with local merchants while cocking an eye at young miscreants gathered on the corner.
Nor is community policing the age-old practice of working a string of informants. Hermann scoffs at a Sun-Times article that gushed, “Thanks to community policing, a tip from a neighbor led to the arrests,” and at a Tribune piece–on a cop who set up anonymous drop boxes–that explained, “It’s one man’s variation on the concept of community policing.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Enter the modest but pinpoint resources of niche journalism. Last November CANS signed a $2.9 million contract with the city to organize and train residents of all 279 police beats in the principles of community policing. Looking at the example of the Community Renewal Society, which had founded the Chicago Reporter to cover race relations and Catalyst to cover school reform, CANS concluded that successful community policing required a journal that championed, monitored, and analyzed. Federal VISTA funds gave CANS the wherewithal to hire an editor, and last winter it launched Neighborhoods.
“Reactions have been really varied from the police department,” Lutton said. Some have been angry and defensive, but, she adds, “There are some things the newsletter says that people in the police department can’t say openly, so they’re glad the community voice is there.”
“The mayor has called this vital to CAPS,” says Warren Friedman, executive director of CANS, referring to the street-level training. “But they’ve cut outreach in half. No department has taken a hit like that.” What this means, he said, is that the demoralized high-crime areas where people need extra help to organize aren’t going to get it.
For example . . . Dang, my old stack of Digests must have been tossed by mistake. No matter. The dubious merits of condensation can also be appreciated by examining the Chicago Tribune.
On to a more poignant example of Tribune piggybacking. Last week the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who’d joined the University of Chicago in 1936 and won the Nobel Prize in 1983, died at the age of 84 in the university hospital.
