Title
Community Safety Plans Update
Description
This report provides the Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee an update on the City’s Community Safety Plans (CSPs) dedicated to improving the safety and quality of life in focused areas along the Interstate-17 (I-17) corridor and Hatcher Road in west Sunnyslope.
THIS ITEM IS FOR INFORMATION AND DISCUSSION.
Report
Summary
In 2022, the City Council approved the CSPs to address community safety concerns through a multi-department, collaborative approach leveraging technology and community-based resources. The Neighborhood Services Department (NSD) and Phoenix Police Department along with the Office of Homeless Solutions (OHS) and Prosecutor’s Office are working together to improve the safety and quality of life for area residents, students and businesses.
Staff continues to meet monthly with the established Community Committees for each focus area to provide updates, gather feedback, identify problem areas within neighborhoods, and establish additional collaborations with the community to improve the safety and quality of life.
Below are key updates within each strategy area for the CSPs.
Crime Detection and Response
This strategy focuses on reducing violent crime and quality of life offenses through the Phoenix Police Department’s use of Real Time Operations Centers (RTOCs) in conjunction with field operations and criminal investigations.
The RTOCs in the Cactus Park and Desert Horizon police precincts have been fully operational with all remaining technology installed in February and April, respectively. Both precinct RTOCs are fully built-out with more than 260 gunshot detectors, 80 license plate readers, and 90 point-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras providing real-time coverage throughout the CSP corridors. Additionally, the Bell Road CSP focus area, within the Black Mountain police precinct, is provided with RTOC coverage through the Desert Horizon RTOC.
In the first six months, RTOC personnel have focused on fully integrating the technology within patrol and crime suppression operations as well as in an investigative capacity. The RTOCs have shown early success in aiding patrol and criminal investigations. In April, a road rage incident escalated into an aggravated assault shooting. The suspect fled the area; however, through PTZ cameras and license plate readers, the vehicle was identified, stopped by patrol units, and the suspect was apprehended. In May, investigators worked with RTOC personnel for assistance in locating a suspect vehicle involved in a shooting. Using the field technology, the suspect vehicle was identified, and in July, the suspect was successfully apprehended and placed in custody. RTOC personnel continue to tailor the technology to best support precinct and citywide operations. A full summary of Real Time Operations, for both police precincts, is available on Attachment A.
Throughout the CSP corridors, the Police Department continues to provide increased operations to strategically address violent and repeat offenders.
2024 Strategic Operations Highlights through July
There have been 38 Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit (HEAT) operations along 27th Avenue resulting in:
More than 280 prostitution related arrests,
16 traffickers identified,
50 individuals offered social services; and
15 juveniles recovered.
On September 24, the Royal Inn Hotel was seized through a joint effort between the HEAT Unit, FBI and U.S. Marshals. The Royal Inn has been a prolific neighborhood problem and a major hub of illicit activity, including prostitution and drug crimes, within the 27th Avenue corridor. The seizure of the property is the result of a nearly two-year long investigation by the HEAT Unit and the FBI. The property is now fenced and boarded and is awaiting civil asset forfeiture proceedings. The closure of the Royal Inn has been applauded by neighborhood leaders who have long advocated for increased safety and action regarding this area. The communities advocacy and continued reporting of the issues on the property were instrumental in the successful closing of this hotel.
The Cactus Park and Desert Horizon precincts have conducted undercover drug buys in and around area parks, and other hot spot locations along the corridors.
Along the 19th Avenue and Hatcher Road corridors, the Police Department continues to provide 10 hours of Bike Patrol five days per week in parks and focused areas.
In response to community complaints of criminal activity, the Transit Unit has conducted more than 150 enforcement operations at transit stops and light rail platforms along the CSP focus areas.
Additionally, the Police Department, NSD and the Prosecutor’s Office staff continue to collaborate on properties with the highest, or increasing, levels of criminal/code compliance activity driving crime or quality of life offenses within the corridors. Staff has relied upon calls for service and community feedback within the focus areas to identify these locations. The departments meet regularly to discuss the issues and identify solutions to improve the safety of the properties. Since 2022, staff has identified 26 properties within the CSP focus areas to address through a multi-department collaborative approach. To date, 14 of the properties have entered a “maintenance” status with reduced levels of criminal or code compliance activity.
Community Prosecution
The Prosecutor’s Office staff continue to engage with the community in identifying solutions to issues within the corridors as well as coordinating with the Police Department and NSD in the prosecution of criminal and code compliance complaints. The Prosecutor’s Office and Police are working closely to address the concerns of prostitution along the 27th Avenue corridor. The City Manager’s Office, Police Department, and Prosecutor’s Office staff meet monthly to review statistical data of prostitution charges and determine areas of opportunity within prostitution enforcement operations. Through mid-July, the Prosecutor’s Office has received 256 total prostitution related charges of which:
33 percent remain active cases,
30 percent are on warrant,
25 percent have entered a diversion plea,
10 percent were dismissed, and;
2 percent were taken to a non-jury trial.
Upon removing cases dismissed as part of a plea, or furthered for additional information, the dismissal rate comes to an 8.5 percent dismissal rate. The Police and Prosecutor’s Office staff are engaged in productive conversations to review cases and communicate throughout HEAT operations to ensure successful prosecution outcomes. Prosecutor’s Office staff are proactively communicating area travel restrictions for prostitution related offenses to the HEAT Unit and the Cactus Park Precinct’s RTOC personnel so the information can be used in real time during HEAT operations. Additionally, the Prosecutor’s Office, Police and the City Manager’s Office are working closely with community leaders along 27th Avenue to gather community impact statements from neighborhood and business groups, non-profit organizations, and corridor schools. Prosecutor’s Office staff will utilize the community impact statements in the judicial process to help convey the impact of the issue on the community when asking for increased bail, release conditions or sentencing of prostitution cases.
Education and Prevention
This strategy focuses on proactively addressing community concerns by providing the community with information on resources and services and actively working with the community to identify solutions and inform the service approach.
Phoenix Police staff have worked with property and business owners throughout the CSP corridors to conduct more than 56 Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) education opportunities. Additionally, Phoenix Police has secured or renewed more than 919 Authority to Arrests on private properties. This past June, in partnership with Arizona State University, the City launched a new, online crime prevention webpage to help local property owners better protect their properties from criminal elements. The online CPTED guide offers business and property owners practical advice and strategies to effectively secure their properties. The new webpage has been well received by community property owners and can be found at phoenix.gov/cpted.
NSD staff continue to work with the community to identify potential alleys within the CSPs to provide technical assistance in the gating of those alleys. Below is an update of total alleys gated for each CSP focus area through June.
27th Avenue
31 alleys gated.
7 pending.
19th Avenue
27 alleys gated.
19 pending.
Bell Road
5 alleys gated.
1 pending.
Hatcher Road
5 alleys gated*.
*One alley gated within Mountain View Park funded by the Parks and Recreation Department.
NSD staff continue to provide community education on the Graffiti Busters program and reporting tools to empower neighborhood leaders and residents to quickly report graffiti. Through August, staff has closed nearly 3,900 graffiti cases in the CSP focus areas in 2024. Additionally, staff is developing graffiti heat maps to review any changes from last year to proactively address removals in active locations.
To provide additional crime prevention and improve safety in the area, Street Transportation staff installed 17 new streetlights along 27th Avenue from Bethany Home Road to Maryland Avenue. Sixty additional streetlights were repaired along 27th Avenue earlier this year.
Safety of Public Spaces
This strategy builds and maintains relationships with residents, businesses and stakeholders to improve the safety around buildings and public spaces. City staff continue to work closely with the City Council offices, neighborhoods, and businesses to coordinate community cleanups and celebrations within the focus areas. Multiple community cleanups are being planned for fall 2024 and spring 2025. Additionally, staff continue to align the CSPs goals and interventions closely with community partners/programs such as the 27th Avenue Midtown Public Safety Collaboration, Metro Collaboration, 19North, 27Collab, the HUB, the Bell Road Business Alliance and Valley Metro.
NSD Inspectors continue to conduct arterial reviews within the focus areas to proactively address common blight issues. Through August, 1,311 blight and 47 Vacant Property Registry cases have been opened within the CSP corridors this year. In response to community concerns, NSD Inspectors are actively addressing illegal mobile vendors on private properties throughout the plan areas. Additionally, NSD and Police are currently partnering to address the illegal mobile vendors in the right-of-way.
NSD staff continue to work with internal and external partners to identify proactive solutions in priority areas to prevent encampments from forming. Through July, more than 480 PHX C.A.R.E.S. cases have been opened within the CSP focus areas, and staff has provided 22 educational opportunities on the PHX C.A.R.E.S. program to area businesses and residents encouraging them to report encampment issues to the City. Staff meets regularly to discuss and identify solutions for areas along the corridors such as under/overpasses, bus stops, alleys, etc. In response to community concerns regarding sidewalk obstruction, trespassing, and drug use on the I-17 under/overpasses, a series of coordinated, multi-department/agency outreach efforts were organized to address the concerns. The efforts included multiple police precincts, OHS, the Street Transportation Department, Prosecutor’s Office, Community Bridges Inc. (CBI), and the Arizona Department of Transportation. As a result, approximately 130 contacts have been made with 24 individuals accepting services, 21 cited, 43 individuals arrested, and nearly 3.5 tons of litter removed. Additional coordinated efforts are currently scheduled and will continue, as needed.
Access to Services
This strategy focuses on the increased coordination of outreach services to residents experiencing homelessness, mental/behavioral health issues, and/or those victimized by human trafficking.
OHS continues to lead the ongoing coordination of outreach services within the CSP focus areas. This includes efforts and collaborations to improve referrals to health and social services through multiple service access points. In addition to supporting the I-17 coordinated efforts, OHS supported Police in outreaching individuals along the Arizona Canal from I-17 to 51st Avenue on two occasions. OHS and CBI engaged with a total of 16 individuals of which five accepted services. More coordinated efforts are currently scheduled and will continue, as needed. Since July 11, OHS, the Parks and Recreation Department and PHX C.A.R.E.S. have conducted outreach in Washington Park seven times. There have been a total of 28 contacts with five individuals accepting services. In April and May, Police, OHS and CBI held four weekly coordinated efforts to address people congregating at the I-17 and Bell Road underpass. In total, Police made four contacts while OHS and CBI had 13 unique contacts resulting in four individuals accepting services.
In response to the Hatcher Road CSP, neighborhood concerns, and the closing of the St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Chris Becker Resource Center, OHS implemented an outreach and engagement strategy to address the unsheltered homelessness on Hatcher Road between 7th and 19th avenues. Walk-up services and hot meals at the Resource Center ended on February 23, 2024. Beginning on December 4, 2023, OHS Homeless Liaisons and caseworkers conducted outreach in the specified area. The outreach was focused on individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness, who were relying on the Resource Center to meet their basic needs, and those seeking to be connected to a sustainable solution, such as emergency shelter and substance abuse treatment. OHS partnered with the Police Department's Community Action Officers and the bike squad to conduct periodic enforcement operations, as needed. Between December 2023 and February 2024, OHS engaged 277 individuals with 252 of those individuals’ accepting services. The Hatcher Road community and businesses have expressed the area has vastly changed for the better and quality of life issues have improved. As of May, the bi-weekly biohazard and Private Property Cleanup Program cleanups have ended and are now on an on-call basis. Homeless Liaisons working out of the Sunnyslope Family Services Center continue to provide on-going outreach to individuals who remain in the area.
This year, OHS staff and the Office of Public Health have been coordinating bi-monthly community agency roundtables with area service providers to establish new partnerships and increase access to substance use treatment and harm reductions resources. The agency roundtables have been a success in assisting service providers in connecting with one another and in informing the providers of how different City departments interact with those in need of services. Through the roundtable discussions, area service providers have identified two service gaps presenting challenges to their delivery of services along the CSP corridors:
The need for the live tracking of shelter/detox resources for outreach teams; and
Access to shelter/detox resources 24 hours per day, seven days a week.
Staff will continue to engage the service providers through these discussions as well as similar efforts held by community safety partners throughout the corridor.
Outcome Measurements
The City is collaborating with ASU to study the CSP areas pre- and post-intervention. The outcome measures for the RTOCs and other intervention methods were established through feedback from the City, the Community Committees, and initial Perceptions of Safety surveys.
Staff has worked with ASU to analyze the first six months of 2024 crime incident data. Attachment B provides a summary of the consensual and non-consensual crime incident data for each CSP focus area. The 2024 data is compared to the first six months of 2023 incident data and the average of the first six months of the pre-CSP intervention years (January to June). With the RTOCs reaching full build-out in February and April, the initial 2024 crime incident data provides only an early assessment of the impacts of the RTOCs. However, an increase in certain crime incidents is expected early in the RTOC implementation as the technology is used to respond to more incidents. Attachment B only provides a macro-level comparison of crime incidents at the consensual and non-consensual levels, as it would be premature to compare individual crime incidents with only six months of data. Due to the unique nature of Police operations, individual crime incidents can fluctuate throughout the year based on the time of year and operations.
Additionally, staff is measuring various desired outcomes through community perception of the issues through the issuance of the CSP Perceptions of Safety surveys. In 2023, staff issued the first survey to gather a baseline measure of the communities’ perceptions on a variety of crimes and neighborhood problems. In June 2024, a second round of the survey was sent out to measure the communities’ perceptions of safety. The outcome measures related to the communities’ safety perceptions are also summarized on Attachment B for each CSP focus area.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Assistant City Manager Lori Bays, Deputy City Managers Gina Montes and Alan Stephenson, the Police and Neighborhood Services departments, and the Homeless Solutions and Prosecutor’s offices.