Another
Tale of Two Cities*
Neighborhood
Watch: from
Ann Arbor to Baghdad
Sandra L. Arlinghaus
Fall, 2007
In Ann Arbor, a
number of variables underlie the success of the neighborhood watch
program. Recently, this program celebrated its 40th year (or
so). The crime rate in Ann Arbor is low. Indeed, in 2003,
Ann Arbor was voted, in a journalistic poll, the safest city in the
U.S.A. for a single woman to live in. There are no doubt many
reasons for this, including the care taken by the local police
department.
- Climatic
and weather systems, including the water cycle, may relate to patterns
in crime. In cold, snowy weather, crime is not as easy. In
the hot summer months, many local residents head north. The
pleasant weather in a city with fewer inhabitants than it has during
the rest of the year may make summers in Ann Arbor times of higher
crimes of certain sorts (such as breaking and enterings). To test
ideas such as this one, crime reports are displayed here in Google
Earth. They are organized on an annual basis and within each year
on a monthly basis. Thus, the reader may make interactive use of
the files, viewing both space and time together to look for pattern.
- Terrain
and topographic formation may serve to shelter homes and offer hiding
places for equipment to be used in crimes or for criminal activity
itself. Because terrain is visible in Google Earth, once
again the reader may interactively look for crime pattern in relation
to terrain.
- Population
settlements and movements--in Ann Arbor, much of the population is
present only for nine months of the year--the student population.
Neighborhood Watch may remain relatively constant in size while the
population base of Ann Arbor shifts on a seasonal basis. One
might look for corresponding shifts in crime patterns.
- Family
establishment--caring for ones neighbor is a simple conceptual
extension of caring for ones family. The neighborhood is a
"family" at a more global scale.
- Political
institutions' operations control the amount of funding allocated to
programs such as Neighborhood Watch. They are the fiscal life of
these programs.
- Social
institutions' operations may control the local success of neighborhood
watch programs. Some neighborhoods may see such programs as
extensions of family and may warmly embrace them. Others may view
these programs as having a "big brother" component and reject them out
of hand. For the latter groups, a program such as that provided
by i-neighbors may offer some
support while appearing less invasive.
- Economic
institutions' operation including land use systems' operation--parcel
size can influence the effectiveness of a watch program. Smaller
parcels mean denser living. Denser living may mean ease in
monitoring the actions of a neighborhood but there it may also mean a
corresponding increase in targets of crime (just in sheer
numbers). An important component here is to include the road
network as part of the land use system. Freeways offer quick and
easy in/out for car theft and other crimes. Consider the pattern
of car theft in Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor, for example. The
City of Ann Arbor GIS street files were uploaded to overlay on Google
Earth. Thus, names of all streets can be seen on Google Earth.
This GEOMAT
includes a number of different formats for displaying evidence:
- Maps show the
features of the areas where significant
events took place. Google Earth is well-suited to this
task. See the accompanying Google Earth file that shows annual
crime patterns on a month by month basis. This file can be used
interactively by the reader to switch on or off crime records from
different months of recent years.
- Calendrical
timelines showing the sequence of different kinds of
events at appropriate scales. Nested time lines, particularly in
the case of Ann Arbor where the time span is longer than it is in
Baghdad, offer a spatially and temporally sequential view of events.
- Identification
of specific events, especially landmark events
which irrevocably changed the situation being chronicled by the case
study. There is a possible close association between the Detroit
riots of 1967 and the establishment of neighborhood watch in Ann
Arbor. That association is undocumented but might make a fine
topic for further research, including the impact of weather in Detroit,
as well as a variety of other issues. The bombing of the World
Trade Center on September 11, 2001, triggered heightened emphasis on
Neighborhood Watch programs throughout the U.S.A. and certainly in Ann
Arbor.
- Biographies,
accounts, and images of human actors--numerous reports of criminal
activity, as well as accounts of how and where the crimes occurred, are
present in this GEOMAT. The pattern of association of actors in
Ann Arbor, shortly after the 9/11 incident, is shown in a Java Applet
that displays connectivity among individuals. The general pattern
is one that shows efficiently in linkage through the use of electronic
networks.
- Reports about
and images of other actors such as plants, animals,
landscape features, terrain, mineral deposits, productive land use,
weather and climate. Crime reports often include detailed
information not only about the suspect and the victim but also about
the setting in which the crime occurred as well as the time of
day. Again, crimes may tend to be more frequent in good weather
and so the reporting of crimes, separated by month, might suggest
pattern.
- Arrays of
archival documents, records of messages exchanged, oral
history accounts and contemporary images. The oral history of
Adele El Ayoubi, Neighborhood Watch Coordinator for the Ann Arbor
Police Department sets the stage for the presentation of evidence in
the GEOMAT form. The GEOMAT is filled with detailed crime reports
exchanged between El Ayoubi and Ann Arbor Neighborhood Watch Block
captains. These are actual records compiled over a period of time.
- Accounts of,
documents and images from contemporary settlements
such as cities, towns, villages, resorts. Google Earth offers an
array of interesting images surrounding different crime scenes.
GIS software also offers other evidence and has been used by AAPD in
the solution of crimes.
- Documents
and images from archeological sites and records of past
settlements. Some past settlement patterns in Ann Arbor have
created "brownfields"; these are lands that are difficult to develop
and may lay barren or may have vacated buildings on them. These
lands might serve as an interesting topic for future research in
relation to crime patterns.
Sources:
- Adele ElAyoubi,
Crime Prevention Specialist, City of Ann
Arbor Police Department
- Participation
in meetings of the Neighborhood Watch Advisory Board/Panel, 2001 to
present.