Americans becoming their own policemen

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33095, 9 December 1972, Page 11

Americans becoming their own policemen

(From

JOSEPH GLASCOTT

in New York)

Throughout the United States, Americans are taking the law into their own hands. These Americans are not members of radical, protest groups defying established authority. They are average homeowners determined to provide the security for their families and property that the police are failing to give them. In the cities and suburbs in recent months a large number of voluntary civilian patrols have sprung up to guard the streets at night and put down crime and violence. One such group is the Parkway Civic Club of Houston, Texas, whose members patrol a neighbourhood of 1000 families near the edge of the city. Until two or-three o’clock in the morning they work in radio-equipped cars in the Houston suburban streets. Police called Members of the club do not make arrests, but report crime to their base station which informs the police. An example of their effectiveness occurred one night recently. » A figure passed through a* commercial district in northeast Houston, breaking open money boxes in vending mafchines with a crowbar. He did not know that he was being watched by two men sitting quietly in f a parked car nearby. The observers radioed to their club president, Mr J. E - Gum, an electrical engineer, sitting by a receiving set in the den of his home. The police were quickly on the scene and arrested the robber while he was still prying open machines with his crowbar. Mr Gum explained that the club operated under strict rules. No members wore permitted to carry fireaflns. The only weapons permitted were clubs made from the ends of billiard cues. No costact was made with persons found breaking the law. No uniforms “Our purpose is to observe and notify the police,” he said. “We do not wear uniforms. Our only identification is a club membership card we clip on our pocket.” The club meets monthly, with an average attendance of about 100, in a local community hall.. Dues are-$2.75. The money from dues and contributions from businessmen pay the expenses of the radio cars and radio equjjsnent. Houston has one of the lowest number of police per capita in-the United States. However, Mr Gum does not blame this or police inefficiency for the need to form civil ian'patrols. “The trouble is that the public does not give the police the support they need,” he says- “We are trying to do this.” Volunteer civilian patrols have been a feature of some American cities for some years- Now they are spreading rapidly to the suburbs. More patrols The president of the Urban Research Corporation of Chicago, Mr John Nesbitt, says the number of patrol groups has grown sharply in the last eight months. Neighbourhood patrol clubs have been formed in such widespread places as the central city areas of Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. , There are clubs in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Cedar Rapids, lowa, as well as in the suburbs of Los Angeles and Long Island, New York.

Many of the new patrols have been set up by blacks in black jwighbourhoods, others by whites in bluecollar districts where crime is rising. . Some of -die clubs have official santtion by local authorities, but others are looked on with suspicion by the police. Some police forces regard them as ettra-legal law enforcement agencies which could get out of hand, or merely -as “men playing games ,wth patrol cars and radios.” Nevertheless, the appearance of the civilian patrol clubs is part of a wide development in America in recent jears—a reduced reliance m police force security aid the organisation of private protection against cruftfiiiarrls and dogs ,Ws includes the hiring of gards and police dogs and tie installation of more burgalarms and safety deuces. ’ln New York and other Jirge cities, for instance, all 'large apartment blocks and business houses employ their own 24-hour a day door guards and have elaborate electronic locking devices on parking lots. Another phenomenon is the appearance on the outskirts of the cities of walled and guarded housing developments. They attempt to be as selfsufficient as possible with their own shopping centres.

banks and churches, golf courses and other recreational areas. Walled communities Many are surrounded by walls and maintain private sentries at entrance gates. One suburb in California, Westlake Island, even has a moat surrounding it like an ancient castle. A housing development near Houston has an Bft high cement wall, elaborate iron gates guarded by sentries carrying muskets and dressed in eighteenth century uniforms.

Bixby Hill World, another Californian development, has a system under which visitors are mailed tokens to allow them to enter automatic gates. Many communities have closed-circuit television systems to enable residents to identify callers before allowing them to enter. At a development named Sugarcreek in Houston, the residents will be protected by a $200,000 computerised system designed by a former N.A.S.A. engineer.

Many local government officials are worried by the appearances of these walled and guarded communities on the fringes of their cities. They are concerned about people leaving the cities to confine themselves away from the general community. However, as police forces fail to check the increase in crime, the move by American home-owners to provide their own security continues apace. ,