Councilman Tom Simplot's
North Central News Column

August 2005

Fighting Back Against Crime

Residents of our neighborhoods often wonder how they can effectively combat crime in their communities. Law enforcement should be left to the police, rather than neighborhood vigilantes, but residents can still be vigilant in keeping their communities safe from drugs and crime. The most important role you can perform to this end is caring about the condition of your neighborhood and making sure that blight does not take over the area.

When residents stop caring about their communities or are just afraid to do anything about it, blight can overrun a neighborhood. It’s called “broken window” syndrome. When criminals see that a neighborhood has been neglected, they’re encouraged to move in and set up there. If these neglected properties go unreported, they become much more than just eyesores. Rundown, vacant buildings give shelter to vagrants, drug dealers and criminals. Likewise, abandoned cars, neglected yards and illegal dumping in the streets give the impression that the city has left neighborhoods behind, causing residents to lose faith in their own ability to help.

But simple attention and care on the part of neighbors can make sure that blight doesn’t grow to encourage criminal activity. By reporting problems and crimes in your neighborhood, you can help prevent crime. Yet, many people either ignore these issues or do not report them for fear of retaliation. My job as a councilman is to convince residents that Phoenix does still care and will address any concerns about their community in an efficient manner.

The City Council has worked with citizen groups, including District 4 Crime Summit attendees, to help implement changes that make it easier to recognize the signs of blight and quickly deal with them to stop criminal activity before it takes root. Working with the Neighborhood Services and Development Services departments, the Council created a new team to respond to complaints of illegally-built structures and landowners who fail to maintain their properties. We also gave our neighborhood inspectors the power to issue citations to problem-causing individuals and quickly impose penalties to force them to fix blighted properties.

The City Council passed a pilot program that starts this month to collect abandoned shopping carts that clog streets and blight neighborhoods. That will help get abandoned carts out of an area including much of north central and west Phoenix. When citizens complained that drug dealers, gangs and homeless transients took over neighborhood parks — increasing criminal activity and adding to blight — we passed the “urban camping” ordinance. This ordinance makes it easier to stop transient “campers” from sleeping in city parks, while protecting the rights of youths and families to utilize the parks for recreation. Removing these illegal campers has helped reduce criminal activity in neighborhoods caused by transients.

Yet, even with all the city has done, it is up to residents to help report crimes. Without your watchful eye, blight would go unnoticed, unreported and unaddressed. I have seen communities achieve success in the fight against crime: they know that reporting blight helps. They expect prompt action and they get it because of their vigilance and unity against crime.

We’re making progress, but to succeed we need you. Working with the city and police, regular people can make a difference. When you report unkempt properties, suspicious activities, litter and graffiti, you make your neighborhoods unwelcoming to criminals. Please, pick up the phone and call the police at 602-262-6151 or our new Neighborhood Services team at 602-262-7844 to report problems. Working together, we can wipe out blight and stop crime before it starts.

Councilman Tom Simplot represents District 4, which includes parts of north central Phoenix. If you have questions, comments or suggestions on this or any other issue, please contact his office at 602-262-7447 or e-mail council.district.4@phoenix.gov .