Pubdate: Sat, 02 Sep 2006 Source: News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) Copyright: 2006 The News and Observer Publishing Company Contact: http://www.newsobserver.com/484/story/433256.html Website: http://www.news-observer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304 TOUGH ON CRIMINALS Raleigh smartly joins other North Carolina cities in adopting an approach that offers hard-core criminals hard time or a hand up Talk about an offer too good to refuse. The City of High Point, and the City of Durham not too much later, rounded up a group of chronic criminals, and offered to direct them to jobs, housing, food and clothing. Refuse the help by stubbornly following a life of crime, the offer went, and the book would be thrown at you hard, by local, state and federal prosecutors looking to lock you up for the maximum time possible. Raleigh police plan to adopt the program soon, beginning in Southeast Raleigh. The program was applied to the West End neighborhood of High Point beginning two years ago, and it has happily been credited with cutting crime by 33 percent. The decrease has held. West End residents told The News & Observer's Jennifer Brevorka and Janell Ross that what had been an open-air drug bazaar and crime market was transformed into a place where the elderly can enjoy an evening on the front porch and kids can wander to the local park and play in safety. A minor miracle has happened, probably because the approach combines the best of both responses to crime. Chronic lawbreakers are treated as they should be -- with steely-eyed toughness. Habitual criminals are more likely to turn streets into Wild West affairs and are the reason crime rates spiral up and stay high. A hearty dose of no-nonsense crime-fighting is warranted. The fact that police know where to find chronic criminals sends the message that police probably can pick them up when the time is right. Durham's approach, called STARS for Strategies to Alleviate and Reduce Senseless Violence, emphasizes to career criminals that when possible, their crimes will be funneled to federal courts, which tend to mete out longer sentences. At the same time -- usually during the same meeting -- representatives from government, civic and religious organizations offer their services to law-breakers who want to break the crime habit. An argument can be made that repeat criminals don't deserve such aid. And it's true that law enforcement officials have to engage in some careful judgment calls here, not appearing to tolerate those who break the law while acting on behalf of the larger community. And certainly those criminals who have done violence to others or led children into the world of drugs have to be dealt with in a tough way. But a compassionate -- and realistic -- society with an ounce of belief that people can change and a recognition that a program such as this can change a chronic trend offers a chance for that to happen. In High Point, it took the village to achieve success. A former Harvard University professor helped develop the program, at the request of a new High Point police chief. The chief, in turn, was pressured and aided by two churches in a troubled neighborhood. The church had organized groups to shield youngsters from the drugs and violence, and had deployed members regularly to tidy up their tattered neighborhood. But they needed police and prosecutors to do the hard work of enforcing the law. The coordinated approach offers communities a decent chance of seriously denting crime. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin