North End

What methods to you think are most effective to prevent crime and increase safety in our Payne Phalen neighborhood?

It takes a community

I believe that it is very important for you to know your neighbors, have a presents in your home, and be aware of what is going on in your neighborhood. I believe if everyone did just a small part in helping there community it would make are district safer.

Graffiti

I heard a suggestion that I thought has great merit. It was suggested that people dedicated to living peacefully declare so by marking the neighborhood with positive graffiti--flowers, greenery, making it cleaner, etc. At first I thought yeah, some flower pots are really going to intimidate drug dealers and thieves but then I thought more about it and I think that it would actually work (even more so than it already does if we put more energy and resources into it and more people helped those already doing it).

The reason I think so is because of how I felt when I saw grafitti on the rocks down in Swede Hollow Park (it looks like gang grafitti to me). I felt scared and unsafe and I thought I better not be down here by myself. Then I thought that is the power that grafitti has--if I stopped walking down there with my dogs, doesn't that make my neighbors who use the park more likely to be alone and potentially victimized? I enjoy the park greatly because of how well-maintained and cared for it is and I think it gets used because of that. I think that the same effect could be made street by street and block by block until our district is as unpleasant to those who thrive on fear as walking down certain streets after dark in our neighborhood currently is to us.

If we know each other, then we can better stick together to watch each other's property, to watch over the projects that we work on together, and to minimize the presence of fear.

Positive Grafitti would have a positive psychological effect which I think would further transform our neighborhood.

Effective

I beleive,along with getting to know your neighbors,and individual responsibility of property maintenence,A consistant patroling(beat officers)should be of most importance in high incedent areas.Funding for this should not be a part of general funding issues(any taxes allocated for financing should go for that only)Tax increase for increased accountablily.personally i would gladly pay a higher tax patrolling.Provided that extra tax paid for increased patrolling.