Section 1 of the Colored People of Chicago. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Colored People of Chicago by Louise DeCoven Bowen. Section 1. Colored People in County Jail. In the course of an investigation recently made by the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago upon the condition of boys in the county jail, the association was much startled by the disproportionate number of colored boys and young men. For although the Colored People of Chicago approximate one-fortieth of the entire population, one-eighth of the boys and young men and nearly one-third of the girls and young women who had been confined in the jail during the year were Negroes. Maids in Houses of Prostitution. The association had previously been impressed with the fact that most of the maids employed in houses of prostitution were color girls and that many employment agencies quite openly sent them there. Although they would not take the risk of sending a white girl to a place where if she was forced into a life of prostitution, the agency would be liable to a charge of pandering. In an attempt to ascertain the causes which would account for a great number of delinquency among the color boys in the public opinion, which would so carelessly place the virtue of a color girl in jeopardy, the Juvenile Protective Association found itself involved in a study of the industrial and social status of the Colored People in Chicago. Morality in Environment. While the morality of every young person is closely bound up with that of his family and his immediate environment, this is especially true of the sons and daughters of colored families who, because they continually find the door of opportunity shut in their faces, are more easily forced into their early environment, however vicious it may have been. The enterprising young people and immigrant families who have passed through the public schools and are earning good wages continually secede in moving their entire households into more prosperous neighborhoods where they gradually lose all trace of their tenement house experiences. On the contrary, the Colored Young People, however ambitious, find it extremely difficult to move their families or even themselves into desirable parts of the city and to make friends in these surroundings. The First Negro in Chicago. Because the fate of the young people was thus so inextricably a part of the life of the Colored People in Chicago, the investigators found themselves studying the entire history of the Negro on the shores of Lake Michigan, following it to the very beginning where it is said that the first cabin was built in 1779 by a Negro from San Domingo. Slavery, of course, prevailed in Illinois just as everywhere else in the Northwest Territory, having been introduced during the French occupation and allowed to continue under the English. When by an act of Congress in 1787 slavery was forever prohibited northwest of the Ohio River, this act was so strenuously objected to in the territory of Illinois that it was construed to refer only to the introduction of new slaves, not to the emancipation of those already enslaved. When Illinois became a state in 1818, its compromise constitution forbade perpetual slavery but allowed indenture for 25 years of service. Illinois Liberal and Slave Time. Although the state of Illinois was bound by this compromise, the early city of Chicago itself was most liberal to the Negro as the following incident illustrates. In 1842 an industrious and well-behaved colored man in Chicago was arrested on the grounds of being in the state without a free certificate. It was taken before a judge who promptly committed him to jail to be sold at auction if no owner turned up. In the meantime friends of the colored man printed handbills announcing that a man will be sold at auction next Monday morning in the jail and distributed them on Sunday among the churchgoers. When the sheriff brought out his wear on Monday to auction him off, he faced an angry and scowling audience, and when he began his auctioneering he found no bids were forthcoming. What will you bid for a strong man who can do all kinds of work he called again and again? But meeting with no response he threatened to take his man back to jail and lock him up. This threat had the desired effect and he received a solitary bid of 25 cents for Mr. M. C. Ogden, a prominent man in the early life of Chicago. The purchaser then addressed the colored man in the presence of the crowd and assured him that he was free to go where he pleased. Chicago police did not aid in Fugitive Slave Law. The passing of the Fugitive Slave Law in Congress in 1850 created a great excitement in Chicago when the colored people of the city met in convention and resolved not to fly to Canada, but to remain and defend themselves. A few days later the city council passed a resolution that the city police should not be required to aid in the recovery of slaves. Colored children admitted to public schools in 1873. In 1854 Stephen A. Douglas was hooded off a Chicago platform when he tried to speak for his pro-slavery resolution in the Senate. From that day Chicago took a leading place in the anti-slavery fight, but it was not until 1872 that all laws discriminating against the colored people were taken off the Illinois statute books. In the next year, 1873, the colored children were by statute allowed to attend the public schools of the city. High school education of no value. Although no separate schools have ever been established in Chicago, it was found that many colored young people became discouraged in regard to a high school education because of the tendency of the employers who use colored persons at all in their business to assign them to the most menial labor. Many a case on record in the Juvenile Protective Association tells the tale of an educated young negro who failed to find employment as a stenographer, bookkeeper, or clerk.  He was sent with other graduates of his class to a big electric company where in the presence of all his classmates he was told that niggers are not wanted here. The association has on record another instance where a graduate of a business college was refused a position under similar circumstances. This young man in response to an advertisement went to a large firm to ask for a position as clerk. We take colored help only as laborers, he was told by the manager of a firm supposed to be friendly to the negroes. Business colleges and industrial schools discriminate against the colored people. Although leading business colleges in Chicago accept one, frankly discriminate against negro students. The one friendly school at present among 1,200 white students has only two colored students, but its records show as many as 30 colored students in the past. The manager, however, claims that his business has suffered in consequence of his friendliness to the negro. Even the superintendent of the Illinois Industrial School for Boys at St. Charles complains that it is not worthwhile to teach trades to the colored boys in his institution because it is so very difficult for a skilled colored man to secure employment. Resulting reaction against education. This reaction against education is one of the indirect results of the difficulties that young colored people encounter in their efforts to find work. The investigators considered this difficulty one of the gravest features in the entire situation, affecting alike most disastrously all of the colored people in Chicago. Uncongenial employment often cause a criminality. From the interviews with all the boys in the jail, it was clear that the lack of congenial and remunerative employment had been a determining factor in their tendency to criminality. But because the colored boys suffered under an additional handicap, and because the opportunities for work are the essentials for all economic progress, the entire investigation had much to do with the basic question of employment. Labor unions and the colored man. The colored man believes that the labor unions discriminate against him, either openly or secretly. A few of the organizations have a clause in their constitutions stating that whites alone are eligible to membership. But most of them allow the colored man to pay his initiation fee and become a member. They, however, take no pains to secure him a place. And when he finds it difficult to find work because the contractor and his fellow workmen discriminate against him and only gets a job here and there, he is frequently tempted to work with scabs. And after several fines for this infringement of rules, he drops out of the union. The investigators found that this was not the exception, but the rule. Mechanics who are members of the building trades do not complain because they have been refused membership in the unions, but because they are discriminated against when it comes to working in a building. Although this discrimination is not extended to the unskilled colored man. Therefore, while many colored mechanics come to Chicago for work return to the south, where there are fewer unions and white men more willingly work with colored men, this return to the south almost never occurs among the unskilled in attempt to compel admission to labor unions. The investigators found that a movement was being discussed among the colored people in Chicago to organize unions for colored artisans to act as strike breakers whenever possible, till the American Federation of Labor asked them to join the white unions. This, of course, is the very worst thing they could possibly do, as the colored people in Chicago have not yet recovered from the animosity excited against them during the stockyard strike when colored men from the south were imported as strike breakers. The colored people themselves believe that their difficulty in finding work is often due to the objection of the employers to treating the colored man with the respect which a skilled mechanic would command. Certainly, the colored labor is continually driven to lower kinds of occupation, which are gradually being discarded by the white men. Corporations usually refuse employment. Certainly, the investigators found that the great corporations, for one reason or another, refuse to employ negroes. Department stores, express companies, and the public utility companies employ very few colored people. Out of 3,795 men employed in Chicago by the eight leading express companies, only 21 were colored men. 15 of these were porters. The investigators found no colored men in Chicago but as boot and shoemakers, glove makers, binary workers, garment workers, trades, and factories. Cigar box makers, elevated railroad employees, network trades, suspender makers, and printers. No colored women are employed in dressmaking, capmaking, lingerie, or corset making. The two reasons given for this non-employment by the employers are first, the refusal of the white employees to work with the colored people. Second, that the colored help is slower and not so efficient as the white. Some employers saw the second difficulty by paying the colored help less. In the laundries, for instance, where colored people do the same work as the white, the latter average a dollar a week more. The field of undesirable occupations. The effect of these restrictions upon the Negroes are first, that they are crowded into undesirable and underpaid occupations. As an example, about 12% of the colored men in Chicago work in saloons and pool rooms. Second, there is a greater competition in a limited field with consequent tendency to lower the already low wages. Third, the colored women are forced to go to work to help earn the family living. This occurs so universally as to affect the entire family and social life of the Negro colony. Pullman Company, the largest employer of colored men. A large number of Negroes are employed on the railroads, largely due to the influence of the Pullman Palace Car Company. There is a tradition among colored people that Mr. Pullman inserted, a clause in his will urging the company to employ colored men on the trains wherever possible. But while the investigators found 1,843 Pullman porters living in Chicago, they counted 7,625 colored men working in saloons and pool rooms. There is also a high percentage of them employed in the theaters, more than one fourth of all the employees in the leading theaters of Chicago being colored men. Contrast between employment by local and federal government. The federal government has always been a large employer of colored labor. 9% of the force in all the federal departments are Negroes. In Chicago, the percentage of colored men is higher. Out of a total of 8,012 men, 755 or 10.61% of the whole are colored. Approximately they're just proportioned to the population. The Negroes, however, do not fare so well in local government. A study made of the city departments in Chicago, showed the percentage of colored employees to be 1.87%. In Cook County to be 1.88%. Three colored men have also been elected as county commissioners. And there is said to be no instance on record in Chicago of a Negro office holder having betrayed his trust. The colored man in business. The investigators found in regard to the colored man in business, one that the greater number of their enterprises, are the outgrowth of domestic and personal service occupations. Two, that they are in branches of business, which call for small amounts of capital and very little previous experience. They're at present in the city of Chicago, managed by colored men. 23 manufacturing establishments of various kinds. 72 barbershops, 63 van moving in storage places. 50 restaurants, 34 pool rooms, 26 real estate dealers, 26 tailors, 25 coal and wood dealers, 24 hairdressers, 23 groceries, 20 cigar vendors, 12 builders and contractors, 11 undertakers, 9 printing plants and 8 hotels, besides a small representation of 41 other lines of business. Here is a table showing the number of colored men employed by the city of Chicago. Department of police, 83. Fire department, 11. Corporation council office, 1. Health department, 22. Board of education, not including educational employees of the board, 9. Department of public works, 32. Board of local improvement, 3. Mayor's office, 1. Municipal court, 1. Municipal court bailiff's office, 1. Municipal tuberculosis, Santerium, 2. Department of smoke inspection, 1. City comptroller's office, 2. Public library, 23. Labor service, 100. Total colored, 292. Total number employed, 15,597. Percentage colored, 1.87. In the colored belt on the south side of Chicago, there are a number of business houses managed by colored people and patronized exclusively by members of their own race. There's also one bank located in a fine building in which a colored man is president and 80% of the depositors white. According to the evidence confirmed by the figures of the United States census, however, there is little possibility for a colored businessman to make a living solely from the patronage of his own people. The census report holds that he secedes in business only when two-thirds of his customers are white. This affords one explanation of the fact that most of his business is of such a character that a white man is willing to patronize it, barbershops, expressing restaurants, and other business suggesting personal service. The principal business street in the black belt. In a mile on State Street from number 3,000 to 3,900, the investigators found 108 colored men in business who employed 270 colored men. Of these business undertakings, 12 were saloons, most of them newly open, 12 barbershops, 7 real estate offices, only three of them 10 years old, 10 restaurants, 5 of them having been there for more than 5 years, and 2 for more than 10 years, 6 pool rooms all recently open, 4 hairdressers, and 3 tailors, in addition to confectioners, bakers, cleaners, decorators, dressmakers, druggists, and the other miscellaneous shops usually found in a self-contained neighborhood. As ministering to the higher life, there were found in the same block 3 music stores, one art store, one piano store, 2 printers, and if they may be included in such a list, a photographer and a florist. All the latter save one have been in existence for more than 5 years, in sharp contrast to the more ephemeral life of the pool rooms and saloons, only one of which has survived so long, while 11 others have changed proprietors recently. This may be partly owing to the fact that it requires very little money to run either, since both the breweries and the pool room manufacturers readily accommodate their salesmen with their goods and other fittings, and many young colored men who have been employed in them are ambitious themselves to become proprietors. While in a measure the decency of such a place depends on the proprietor, he usually responds to the pressure of the large concern who is his creditor. The total amount of capital invested in the mile by the 108 colored men was found to be $15,750. In addition to the colored men carrying on business in the mile were 26 Americans, 79 Jews, 18 Germans, 13 Irishmen, 10 Greeks, 9 Chinaman, and six other white men whose nationality was not ascertained. Several colored women manage independent hairdressing establishments in Chicago. On State Street there are two successful restaurants conducted by women, also one Saloon and one Flora shop, two widows of their original owners.  The Negro dealer often becomes the agent for houses which the white dealers refuse to handle. Colored people are very eager to own their own homes and many of them are buying small houses divided into two flats, living in one and collecting rent from the other. The contract system prevails in Chicago, making it possible for a man with two or $300 for the first payment to enter into a contract for the purchase of a piece of property, the deed being held by the real estate man until the purchaser pays the amount stipulated in the contract. End of Section 1 Section 2 of the Colored People of Chicago. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Colored People of Chicago by Louise de Coven Bowen. Section 2 Four colored settlements in Chicago. As a careful study of the housing conditions of colored people made by the students of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy ascertained, there are four well-defined districts in which colored people have resided for a number of years. One at Englewood, one at 55th Street and Lake Avenue, one on the west side and the largest known as the Black Belt, which includes the old 22nd Street and the Vice District. In this so-called belt, the number of children is remarkably small, forming only a little more than one-tenth of the population, while the lodgers constitute 37% of the population. The investigation made by the School of Civics showed that only 26% of the houses on the south side and 36% of the houses on the west side, Colored District, were in good repair. Colored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the necessary repairs or to release them from their contracts, but that it was so hard to find places in which to live that they were forced to endure unsanitary conditions. The investigation by the School of Civics confirmed the general impression that the rent paid by Negro is appreciably higher than that paid by any other nationality. In a flat building formerly occupied by white people, the white families paid a rent of $12 for a six-room apartment for which a Negro family are now paying $16, a white family paid $17 for an apartment of seven rooms for which the Negroes are now paying $20. Real estate and the Colored Tenant The Negro real estate dealer frequently offers to the owner of an apartment house which is no longer renting advantageously to white tenants cash payment for a year's lease on the property, thus guaranteeing the owner against loss, and then he fills the building with Colored Tenants. It is said, however, that the agent does not put out the white tenants unless he can get 10% more from the Colored People. By this method, the Negroes now occupy many large apartment buildings, but the Negro real estate agents obtain the reputation of exploiting their own race. Lodgers and Necessity High ransom on the Colored People, as everywhere else, forced the families to take in lodgers. Nearly one-third of the population in the district investigated on the south side, and nearly one-seventh of the population in the district investigated on the west side were lodgers. While this practice has always found dangerous to family life, it is particularly so to the boys and girls of Colored Families who are often obliged to live near the Vice Districts. To quote from the report, the history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately connected with the Colored Population, and verily the larger Vice Districts have been created within or near the settlements of Colored People. In the past history of the city, nearly every time a new Vice District was created downtown or on the south side, the Colored Families within the district moved in just ahead of the prostitutes. Difficulties of buying property When it becomes possible for the Colored People of a better class to buy property in a good neighborhood, so that they may take care of their children and live respectably, there are often protest meetings among the white people in the vicinity and sometimes even riots. The striking example of the latter occurred within the past three years on the west side of Chicago. A Colored Woman bought a lot near a small park, upon which she built a cottage. It was not until she moved into the completed house that the neighbors discovered that a Colored Family had acquired property there. They immediately began a crusade of insults and threats. When this brought no results, a Night Raid Company was organized. In the middle of the night, a masked band broke into the house, told the family to keep quiet or they would be murdered, and then they tore down the newly built house, destroying everything in it. This is, of course, an extreme instance, but there have been many similar to it. Quite recently, at Will Met, a suburb of Chicago, animosity against Negro residents, resulted in the organization of an anti-Negro committee, which requested that dismissal of all Negroes who were employed in the town, as gardeners, janitors, etc., because the necessity of housing their families depressed real estate values. Housing of the well-to-do Colored People The Juvenile Protective Association as a supplement to the previous housing investigations studied the conditions of 50 of the better homes occupied by the Colored People of Chicago, those in the so-called black belt in the city, those in a suburban district, and other houses situated in blocks in which only one or two Colored Families lived. The size of the houses varied from 5 to 14 rooms, averaging 8 rooms each. The conditions of the houses inside and out compared favorably with similar houses occupied by white families. Classified according to occupation, the heads of the household, in nine cases, were railroad porters. The next largest number were janitors, then waiters, and among them were found lawyers, physicians, and clergymen. In only four instances was the woman of the house working outside the home. Only four of the homes took in lodgers, and children were found in only 15 of the 50 families studied. The total of 33 children found in the 50 homes averages but two-thirds of a child for each family. And but for one family, a janitor living in a ten-room house and having eight children, the average would have been but half a child for a family. Confirming the statement often made that poor colored people in the agricultural districts of the South, like the poor Italians in rural Italy, had very large families, when they moved to the city and become more prosperous, the birth rate among colored people falls below that of the average prosperous American family. From the home situated in white neighborhoods, only two reported indignation meetings when they showed up, and at it quiet now. One other reported no affiliation with white neighbors. Still another white neighbors visit in time of sickness, and the third was able to say neighbors friendly. Of the ownership of the 50 homes, 35 were owned by colored men, 12 by white landlords, and the ownership of three was not ascertained. 34 of the houses were occupied by their owners. Few prosperous colored men born in Chicago. In addition to the 50 families living in comfortable homes, 100 more cases of fairly prosperous colored families were investigated. It was found that only six of the heads of these families had been born in Chicago, that 77 had come from the South. All of the southern states were represented. 24 of the men were from Kentucky, and 19 from Tennessee. Only six of the 92 men born outside of the state had been brought to Chicago as children, while 71 of the number had come to the city between the ages of 16 and 26. They, as well as the older men, had come hoping for better conditions, their reasons being variously put as higher wages, learning a trade, to get a home, to make big money, to get a position, for more freedom, for more schooling, etc. Although in 19 cases, the reason given was curiosity, an attempt doubtless to formulate the desire for adventure. Prosperity does not remove race prejudice. Other men from the South, everyone had improved his condition. Those who said their condition had not improved had been formally working in the large cities of the Eastern North, where living expenses were less than in Chicago. Only one received lower wages than Chicago. He had earned $16 a week before coming to the city, and now earns $9. Two said their conditions had not improved because they had been let off by a fast company. The incomes varied from $9 a month to $153.60 a month. The average wage was $67.32 a month. 16 of the men owned real estate, and six others had liberal bank accounts. These results probably compare favorably with 100 white immigrants. But the colored man insists that the immigrant has the advantage for when he learns the language of the country and adopts American ways, he gradually lives down and he prejudices against him while the colored man can never make himself acceptable to the white man and believes he is often disliked in proportion to his prosperity. Family life among the poorer Negroes. In contrast to these 100 cases of Negro men who were fairly successful, 100 cases of colored families were taken from the files of the Juvenile Protective Association, representing, of course, as do the white families whose names are on the records of the association. People who were unable to adequately protect their children. These cases, however, proved to be typical in so far as the occupations of the men were confined to very few lines of activity. 45 of them were porters, 16 janitors, 13 laborers. The rest scattered in different kinds of work. Teamsters, waiters, cooks, musicians, etc. The striking difference between them and the prosperous families lay in the fact that the women were obliged to work. Of the women in these families, only 14 stayed at home. Of the others, 26 were day workers and households. Twelve worked in laundries. Seven were prostitutes. The others worked at various occupations. Two were hairdressers. One a music teacher, etc. Of the 100 families, 30 were self-supporting. 16 did not support their families at all. While 54 were dependent on outside assistance. In regard to their family status, 66 lived in unbroken family. In 21 cases, the husband and wife were separated. Seven women were deserted. There were three cases of illegal relationship. Out of the 100 cases, there were seven intermarriages. In two instances, white men had married colored women. In five instances, white women had married colored men. 86 mothers out of 100 go out to work. Out of the 100 poor families taken from the juvenile protective association records, it was found that 86 of the women went out to work. While there is no doubt that this number is abnormally high, it is always easier for a colored woman to find work than it is for a colored man. Partly because white people have the traditions of colored servants and partly because there is a steadier demand and a smaller supply of household workers. Washington's grub women. Then there is a kind of unskilled work done by men. Even here colored people are discriminated against and although many are employed in highly respectable families, there is a tendency to engage them in low-class hotels and in other places where white women do not care to go. Percentage of colored women working. No figures are available later than 1900, but in a governmental report made then, the colored women in Chicago constituted 42.5% of the breadwinners of their race, slightly lower than the 43.2% given in the census reports for the entire United States. This is more than double the proportion of white women employed, which the census gives as 20.6% of the entire white population. Only .04% of working white women are married. School irregularity common among colored children. As 60% of Negro working women over 16 years of age are married, there is no doubt that many colored children are neglected. Investigators found from consultation with the principals of the schools largely attended by colored children that they are irregular in attendance and often tardy. That they are eager to leave school at an early age, although in one school where there is a great deal of manual work, this tendency is less pronounced. Color children more than any others are kept at home to care for younger members of the family while the mother is away at work. A very persistent violation of the compulsory education law recently tried in the municipal court, disclosed the fact that a colored brother and sister were, alternately, kept out of school to care for the younger children, who had been refused admittance in the day nursery that the old woman who cared for the little household for 25 cents a day was ill and that the mother had been obliged to keep the older children at home in order to retain her place in a laundry. At the very best, the school attendance of her five children had been most unsatisfactory, for she left home every morning at half past six, and the illiterate old woman took little interest in school. The lack of home discipline perhaps accounts for the indifference to all school interests on the part of many colored children. Although this complaint is not made of those in the high schools who come from more prosperous families, the most striking difference in the health of the colored children compared to that of the white children in the same neighborhood was the large proportion of the case of rickets, due of course to malnutrition and neglect. The colored people themselves believe that school authorities are more interested in a school whose patronage is predominantly white. No congenial employment for refined girls. It was found that young colored girls, like the boys, often become desperately discouraged in their efforts to find employment. High school girls of refined appearance, after looking for weeks, will find nothing open to them in department stores, office buildings, or manufacturing establishments. Save a few positions as maids in the women's waiting rooms. Such girls find it continually assumed by the employment agencies to whom they apply for positions that they are willing to serve as domestics in low-class hotels and disreputable houses. Of course, the agency does not explain the character of the place to which the girl is sent, but on going to one address after another, she finds that they are all of this kind. Quite recently, an intelligent colored girl who had kept a careful record of her experiences with three employment agencies came to the office of the juvenile protective association to see what might be done to protect colored girls less experienced and self-reliant than herself against similar temptations. Quite recently, a young colored girl who at the age of 15 had been sent to a house of prostitution by an employment agency was rescued from the house, treated in a hospital and sent to her sister in a western state. She there married a respectable man who is now living in a little home almost paid for. The case of Eliza M., who has worked as a cook in a disreputable house for 10 years, is that of a woman forced into vicious surroundings. In addition to her wages of $5 a week in food, which she is permitted to take home every evening to her family, she has been able to save her generous tips for the education of her three children, for whom she is very ambitious. Insult to Girls Common Colored young women who are manicurists and hairdressers find it continually assumed that they will be willing to go to hotels under compromising conditions, and when a decent girl refuses to go, she is told that that is all she can expect. There is no doubt that the few colored girls who find positions as stenographers or bookkeepers are much more open to insult than white girls in similar positions. All these experiences tend to discourage the young people from that education, which their parents so eagerly desire for them and also makes it extremely difficult for them to maintain their standards of self-respect. End of Section 2. Section 3 of the Colored People of Chicago. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Colored People of Chicago by Louise DeCoven-Bowen. Section 3. Life Insurance Popular. It was found that colored people in Chicago do not patronize these life insurance companies so successfully managed by colored men in Atlanta and other cities. The investigators, however, found many colored agents employed as solicitors among their own people. Two hundred colored agents, for instance, are writing policies for accident insurance companies. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company alone has approximately sixty-five thousand industrial policies on the lives of colored people in the city of Chicago. Many colored people having more than one policy on every member of the family. Many professional men of high standard. Chicago has a large number of fine, negro professional men. This is due largely to the number of schools and universities. Accessible to the negro's use. There are in Chicago sixty-five colored physicians, four of whom are women. Twenty-five lawyers, eighteen dentists, twelve pharmacists with many students in attendance at the universities and professional schools. One of the physicians is on staff of St. Luke's Hospital, and others are responsible for the fine medical work carried on at the Provident Hospital, the leading hospital for colored people in the United States. The colored people are justly proud of this hospital, found it in 1891, where there is no discrimination between white and colored people on the staff of physicians and nurses, nor among the patients. The hospital is managed by a board of trustees of fourteen members, six white and eight colored, and has a good standing among the hospitals with Chicago. Although colored women have an aptitude for nursing, there are not enough training schools in the country where they can be properly trained as nurses, such as the Provident Hospital in Chicago, the Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Hospital in New York, and one in Philadelphia. One of the colored dentists of Chicago is a leader in his profession. His practice is exclusively among white people. Two colored dentists are women. Several of the colored lawyers have been in the State Attorney's General Office. One of them, an assistant there from 1896 to 1911, was most active in bettering conditions for the juvenile offenders. Still another colored man was District United States Attorney for some years, and several Nero lawyers have been admitted to Supreme Court practice. One of the prominent colored lawyers who was for five years head of the department of the city damage suits has become a specialist in track elevation suits with big corporations as his clients. Physicians and lawyers real factors in social improvement. The colored people often state that the colored professional men, lawyers and physicians, rather than the minister and social workers, have been the real factors in the social improvement among the Negroes of Chicago. The Frederick Douglas Center has staunch supporters among the professional men that the president of their newly built YMCA is a colored physician and that professional men are very active in the Chicago branch of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. Musicians of prominence. Among the many colored musicians in Chicago are at least a score who may be called professionals. Two of them direct orchestras. One is a pianist of local reputation. At least four of them, seeing in Vaughnville, are also composers of song. Two are young colored women who have extensively traveled as singers in Cuba and South America, as well as in the United States. Every year several young people graduate at the various musical colleges and a gifted young violinist is now studying in Paris. The Art Institute often has colored students and there are a goodly number of colored people who write credible, poetry, chiefly words to songs which are set to music by their friends. Four newspapers edited it in Chicago by colored men as well as contributions to the crisis in other magazines give evidence of a remarkable ability for writing. In addition to several clergymen and attorneys of undoubted forensic ability, may be cited several lecturers, one of them a woman with a gift for public speaking, who years ago roused interest throughout England in the condition of colored people. Church, chief factor in social life. The church among the colored people has always been the chief factor in their social life. In Chicago there are 29 regularly organized churches in addition to various missions with approximately 20,000 members. This includes nearly half of the color population of the city, a much larger proportion than the church membership among the white population. The church has owned property to the amount of $600,000, although every church is carrying a debt. The church is a center for the colored people for lectures, literary societies, civic meetings, and so forth. Many churches have young people's societies meeting every Sunday afternoon, united to the extent of sustaining in Chicago an annual oratorical contest to which they all send representatives. Two of the churches, one on the south side and one on the west side, at one time carried on institutional work, which has been discontinued because of lack of funds. One of the Baptist churches supports a religious training school which has 11 teachers and 150 students. The clergymen are, as a rule, men who have been educated in some of the best northern and southern theological seminaries, but they are inclined to be sectarian and to confine themselves to the conventional church routine. The colored ministers of one denomination seldom meet with the colored ministers of another denomination and almost never with the white ministers of their own denomination. They complain that they meet with public approval when they work for the religious advancement of their own race, but are rebuffed when they enter into general movements for civic betterment. Young Men's Christian Association A Young Men's Christian Association building in Chicago represents the largest investment ever made by that association to be devoted to the interests of colored men and boys. Its entire cost approximates $195,000. It contains the standard equipment of gymnasium, restaurant, dormitories, etc. and has a membership of $2,000, although the annual fee is $10. Juvenile Officers and Social Workers Among the colored social workers of the city are five juvenile protection officers and one adult probation officer. The county agent employed one colored investigator and the Juvenile Protective Association one colored officer. There are three colored nurses employed by the Visiting Nurses Association and three others upon the staff of the public school nurses. The standard of all these social workers is as high as the average and several of them, notably two young women living at the Wendell-Philip settlement have taken the full course at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. The colored people themselves feel that there is urgent need for more trained social workers. The clubs of colored women which are beginning to study the social needs of their districts urge their members to more serious study. Of these clubs, the Civic Club is devoted to rescue work. The Phyllis Wheatley Club to maintain a permanent home for colored working girls. The Parent School Club to securing better school conditions. The Neighborhood Club to making local improvements. Several other women's clubs which take care of a special cases in need of relief and cooperate with the United Charities are eager for guidance as to the best method of charitable administration. There are 41 aid societies found in all the colored churches. Two clubs for colored women are of a somewhat different character federated with the Cook County League and cooperate in general social movements. Social settlements There are four settlements in Chicago in or near the neighborhoods of colored people. The pioneer was the Frederick Douglass Center on the south side of Chicago founded to promote a better understanding between white and colored people and to help remove the arbitrary disabilities from which the latter suffer in their civil, political and industrial life. The founder and head resident who had for years been troubled by the increasing race antagonism against the colored people believes that much can be accomplished by a frank discussion of the situation between the two races that is carried on with justice and goodwill. Cases of unusual discrimination are often arbitrated and adjusted. The Wendell-Philip settlement was also organized by a board of white and colored people who were concerned over the conditions obtaining in the colored district on the west side of the city. Two young colored women, graduates of Fisk University are in charge and have developed an excellent system of clubs and classes. Both of these settlements own their own property. The Negro Fellowship League was founded as an outgrowth of the discussion following the Springfield riots and the difficulty arose from idle young men out of work. Maintains a reading room, a lodging house and an employment agency on State Street in the midst of the black belt. The League performs many offices for the colored men who have newly arrived in Chicago similar to those of the League for the protection of immigrants. In fact, the needs of the two classes of people are similar in many respects, implying lack of adjustment of ability. The Enterprise Institute on State Street has classes in various lines at present numbering 150 pupils. There are in Chicago an entire group of institutions which have arisen as colored people were discriminated against in existing institutions such as the Home for the Widows of Colored Soldiers and the Home for the Agents all supported by associations Race Prejudice found even in day nurseries and dependent homes. A day nursery for colored children was organized a year ago because several day nurseries refused to receive colored children on the ground that the other people objected to them. There are likewise five homes for colored dependent children. Two were the outgrowts of apparent discrimination against colored children in two state and industrial schools receiving public funds. Although in the case of the Illinois Industrial School for Girls situated at Park Ridge, Illinois the institution is responsible for the branch maintained in Chicago for colored girls and to phrase all expenses. The board managers believe that this segregation is equally valuable to both sets of children. The similar school for boys at Glenwood, Illinois does not maintain a separate branch but in various ways avoids taking colored boys into the school. At the time of the investigation the Glenwood School contained 500 white boys and 15 colored boys a number disproportionate the cases of colored boys brought into the juvenile court. It is becoming a custom on the part of many places to refuse colored children with the cryptic utterance of children. In order to provide for dependent and delinquent colored children a colored workman previously a probation officer established the Louise juvenile home which cares for 20 dependent boys. The Eldridge Home and the Marcy Home each provides for smaller children. The Amanda Smith Home was founded by an ex-slave with a remarkable gift for public speaking in great religious devotion. At 12 years in China, Japan and Africa under the auspices of the English Missionary and Temperance Society returning home to Chicago in 1900 she invested the savings of her lifetime $10,000 in the home which is chartered under the provision of the industrial school act. The home cares for 50 children but since Mrs. Smith left on account of ill health she was greatly crippled for lack of funds. All of these homes for colored children are supported wholly by colored people. The Illinois Technical School for colored girls is maintained in Chicago by the Catholic Church. There are 51 girls in the school ranging from 4 to 16 years of age and receiving most excellent care. In spite of these various efforts the care for dependent delinquent colored children is totally inadequate. The situation which is more remarkable as the public records all give a high percentage of Negro criminals. The police department gives 7.7% the juvenile court 6.5% the county jail 10%. Those familiar with the police and the courts believe that Negroes are often arrested on the excuses to hold a white man. That any Negro who happens to be near the scene of a crime or disorder is promptly arrested and often convicted on evidence upon which a white man would be discharged. The Juvenile Protective Association has on record cases in which Negroes have been arrested without sufficient cause and convicted on inadequate evidence and it is well known that a certain type of policeman, juryman and prosecuting attorney have apparently no scruples in sending a nigger up the road on mere suspicion. Negroes frequently convicted on suspicion. To take one record from the files of the association the case of George W a colored boy 19 years old who was born in Chicago and had attended the public schools through one year at the high school. He lived with his mother and worked steadily for three years as a porter in a large grocery store until August 22, 1912 when he was arrested on the charge of rape. On the late afternoon of that day an old woman of 83 was assaulted by a Negro and was saved from the horrible attack only by the timely arrival of her daughter who so frightened the assailant that he jumped out of a window. Two days later George was arrested charged with a crime. At the police station he was not allowed to sleep was beaten, cuffed and kicked and finally battered and frightened. He confessed that he had committed the crime when he appeared in court his lawyer advised him to plead guilty although the boy explained that he had not committed the crime and had confessed simply because he was forced to do so. The evidence against him was so flimsy that the judge referred to it as instructions to the jury. The state's attorney had failed to establish the ownership of the cap dropped by the fleeing assailant and the time of the attempted act was changed during the testimony. Though the description given by the people who saw the color man running away did not agree with George's appearance nevertheless the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and the judge sentenced the boy to 14 years in the penitentiary when one of the men who had seen the guilty man running away from the old woman's house was asked why he did not make his testimony more explicit.  The case was brought to the juvenile protective association by the employer of George W who convinced of the boy's good character felt that he had not had a fair trial the association found that the boy could absolutely prove an alibi at the time of the crime in his making an effort to get him out of the penitentiary. A man's fate decided in 16 minutes Occasionally it happens that very little time is given to a case where a negro is concerned. Some time ago a colored man was arrested and charged with murder. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the judge to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary. It took just 16 minutes from the time to the court to the time he left it to have his case brought up to plead guilty and have a sentence of lifelong imprisonment pronounced. It surely seems as if such a serious crime as the taking of life and the commitment of a man to prison for as long as he lives should at least require less haste and more mature deliberation. Economic conditions largest factor in production of crime. The reasons given by the leading colored men of Chicago for the large amount of crime among their people are curiously confirmed by the results of this investigation. They contend that first the negroes in Chicago are so limited in the choice of employment that they underbid each other and are forced to work for the smallest wages. This obliges the wife and mother to go out to work and the consequent neglect of the children leads to bankruptcy, incorrigibility, and crime. Second, that the colored people of Chicago are obliged to pay such a high rental that a large number of families are forced to take in lodgers which results in much immorality and indecency among colored people who otherwise remain respectable. Third, that the colored people are forced to make their homes in and near the openly immoral districts of the city so that the white people many colored children ever see are those frequenting the vice district. Fourth, the disproportionate number of negro criminals is due to the fact that their desire for the friendship and sympathy of the white people is often exploited by white criminals who wish to secure shelter from the police. Some obscure colored family happy to render a service to a white man takes him in sometimes for weeks or months and he naturally influences the colored men with whom he associates. Reminis suggested as remedies against the unjust discrimination against the colored men suspected of crime, a leading attorney of the race in Chicago suggests A, generalizing against the negro should cease the fact that one negro as bad should not fix criminality upon the race. The race should be judged by its best as well as by its worst types. B. The public press never associates the nationality of a criminal so markedly in its account of crime as in the case of a negro. This exception is most unjust and harmful and should not obtain. C. The negro should not be made the universal scapegoat. When a crime is committed the slightest pretext starts the rumor of a negro suspect and slimy headlines prejudice the public mind long after the white criminal is found. The colored man complains of race prejudice exhibit at first in the readiness to condemn the untrod negro as a criminal. Second in the refusal to give him employment fit it to his skill and capacity. Third in crowding the colored population into the most undesirable houses in the city. He does not resent social ostracism but he does make a vigorous demand for his civil and economic rights. In order to test the many times repeated statement that colored people are discriminated against at public cafes a young colored woman at the request of the investigators visited sixteen of the leading confectioners of Chicago in the most crowded portion of the city asking to be served with a cup of hot chocolate. At every place she was served always by white men or women and the white patrons seated at adjoining tables paid no attention to her presence. At one place however she was obliged to wait for a long time but was fondly served without remark. At another place after waiting for twenty minutes she was asked to take a seat at the counter and told that white people would not sit at the same table with her. She said that she was made fun of by the waiters but in none of the places did she encounter actual rudeness. Possibly this treatment would not have been accorded to her at the hotels. Quite recently the county federation of women's clubs arranged a luncheon at one of the leading hotels of the city. When the proprietor objected to the presence of the colored delegates the officers of the federation although the objection was made so late that a committee was obliged to stand at the door of the hotel to tell the members that the luncheon had been given up and the program postponed. Naturally some of the delegates objected but the large majority approved the action of the officers in spite of the great inconvenience involved. Color people especially fond of music. All color people are especially fond of music but almost the only outlet the young people find for their musical facility is in vaudeville shows, amusement parks, and inferior types of theaters. That which should be a great source of inspiration tends to pull them down as their love of pleasure lacking innocent expression draws them toward the vice district where alone the color line disappears. Model dance hall opposed by white people. An effort was recently made by some colored people on the south side to start a model dance hall. The white people of the vicinity assuming that it would be an objectionable place successfully opposed it as a public nuisance and this effort toward better recreation facilities had to be abandoned. Color boys cannot bathe in Lake Michigan. They are not welcome by the white children at the bathing beaches and late last summer one little colored boy who attempted to bathe at the 39th street beach was mobbed and treated so roughly that the police were obliged to send in a riot call. This investigation would certainly explain the presence of so large a proportion of color boys in the county jail on the following grounds. Color children are forced to live in the very worst neighborhoods in Chicago and even there the colored families are charged such high rents that the house is filled with floaters of a very undesirable class. So the children witness all kinds of offenses against decency within the house as well as on the streets. Second the fathers of the families because they are so circumscribed in their lines of occupation work for very small wages with the inevitable outcome that the mothers go out to work and neglect their children. As a result the colored children are underfed, irregular in school attendance, make slow progress in their studies and drop out of school at the earliest possible moment. Third there are not enough places in Chicago where negro children may find wholesome amusement. Of the 15 small parks and playgrounds with field houses only two are really utilized by colored children. They avoid the others because of friction and difficulty which they constantly encountered with white children. The commercial amusements found in the neighborhoods of colored people are of the lowest type of pool rooms and saloons which are artificially known risk because so many young colored men find their first employment in these two occupations and with their experience in very little are able to open places for themselves. Perhaps the greatest factor of all is the difficulty which all colored people have in finding employment and after an ambitious boy has been refused employment again and again in the larger mercantile and industrial establishments and comes to the conclusion that there is no use in trying to get a decent job is in a very dangerous state of mind. I'd only discouraged his neighborhood environment's vicious such a boy quickly shows the first symptoms of delinquency and the remedial agencies which should be prompt in his case are the very weakest at this point. Added to this is the conviction held by many colored boys and young men that the police have it in for them and do not accord them fair treatment. In suggesting remedies for the state of affairs the broken family the surrounding of a vicious neighborhood the dearth of adequate employment the lack of preventative institutional care and proper recreation for Negro youth the juvenile protection association finds itself confronted with a situation stated at the beginning of the investigation that the life of the colored boy and girl is so circumscribed on every hand by race limitations that they can be served only in so far as the entire colored reputation in Chicago is understood and fairly treated. For many years Chicago keeping to the tradition of its early history had the reputation among colored people of according them fair treatment even now it is free from the outward signs of segregation but unless the city realizes more fully than it does at present the great injustice which discrimination any class of citizens entails we shall suffer for our indifference by an ever increasing number of idle and criminal youth which must eventually vitiate both the black and white citizenship of Chicago. End of section 3 End of the colored people of Chicago by Louise DeCoven Bowen


Funding for this program is provided by the National Institute of Justice. Hello, I'm James Wilson. The fear of crime is often far greater than the actual risk of being victimized. And that fear harms everyone. People avoid the streets, become suspicious of their neighbors, and spend less time in community activities. People have always, the police have always come to the aid of victims of crime. Now they are beginning to help people who fear crime. Many believe that reducing the fear of crime may even help reduce crime itself. Houston is a large, sprawling city. Two million people spread over more than 500 square miles. There's no way police can patrol it on foot. But if they patrol only in cars, they're likely to meet only criminals and victims. The Houston Police Department has been conducting experiments to see if more direct police-citizen contact can help police solve crimes and citizens reduce their fear of crime. What we'd like to do is get the information from you so that we can keep in touch and develop a means of communication with the people in the neighborhood. In one experiment, police went door to door, introducing themselves, distributing newsletters with neighborhood crime information, and leaving business cards with their phone numbers. At first some people were surprised, sometimes even nervous, seeing a police officer at their door. But they soon welcomed the police presence and began talking about neighborhood problems. We're finding out that while all the citizens are very fearful of victimization, of being direct victims of crime, and the big crimes of robbery and burglary and aggravated assault, they're just as fearful of traffic problems in their area, of rowdy juveniles in the corner, of the abandoned car or cars that seem to stay week after week on their street. The result of this direct contact with citizens, fewer people victimized by crime, fewer people saying their neighborhood was disorderly, more people satisfied with the police, and an overall reduction in the fear of crime. In another experiment, police set up a storefront office in a residential neighborhood, inviting people to drop by, discuss problems in the community, and receive assistance. And that was all that was stolen? Four hubcats? Four hubcats, yes. The police also used the office as a base, from which to organize the neighborhood. What we're searching for here is to get the citizens who live in that neighborhood to visit the community station, utilize the services provided there, and know that at any time in the morning or evening hours, they can feel free to come in and find that information about a case that they may be involved in, or just talked to an officer about what's going on in the neighborhood. Why these changes? Will they last? Here to discuss this is Lawrence Sherman, professor at the University of Maryland, and Officer Robin Kirk of the Houston Police Department, a member of the Experimental Unit. Officer Kirk, you helped run this storefront in Houston. What did you actually do there? We set out originally to organize the community and break down the barriers that existed between the police officers and the citizens in our community. And by being in the storefront and putting it in the geographical area that we had defined and putting it in there and trying to organize and get out and get actively, socially, actively involved in the community, we felt like that we could break down that barrier. Did the neighborhood ask you to come in, or was this something where the police took the initiative? No, we selected this area because it had a triathletic mix of people and we wanted to be able to relate with different types of people. I see. Now, when you went in there and established the storefront, did it change the neighborhood? Did it change how people thought, how they acted? Well, originally, I think some people didn't really realize that we were there, so we set out to more or less market our program. And we had to use different ways of marketing the program. We used the grocery stores. We put out leaflets in the grocery stores where people come through with stuffing in their bags. And to answer your question, yes, over the long haul now, we've been there a year, there has been a different attitude of the people. How is it different? They feel a lot better about the police. At one of our recent community meetings we had, I guess, more or less a testimonial. People got up and were saying that now, since they know us on a first name basis and stuff, when they see us, one lady got up and said, well, I no longer, when I see a police car behind me, try to get away from that part, try to get away from the offshore. I see if it's one of you guys that are working out in the community, so we really feel good about the police. Some people might say that that's good community relations, good public relations, but does it have anything to do with the fear of crime or the actual rate of crime? I think so because the people feel better about the police and the police are concerned about them. So in turn, they feel better about their crime. Their fear of crime is different. Do they give you leads and information that you might not otherwise get? Oh, sure, sure. There's no doubt about it. We've been able to conquer a lot of criminals in our area just simply because of the relationship we have with our citizens. Think about yourself for a moment. You were in regular patrol in Houston before you became connected with this storefront. How did you change as a result of this experience? I have a lot better attitude towards the people because I've got a chance to meet the good people in the community on a different basis, rather in a proactive way, rather than a reactive way. So it's changed me in a lot of ways. I look at people a lot different now than I used to. How did you used to look at people? Well, in my opinion, I was getting to the point that I felt like everybody was bad no matter whether they were a good citizen or a bad citizen. When I got a call, I didn't look at them as a different individual. I just felt like there was all one, all bad. And now you're meeting some of the good guys, some of the victims. Exactly. Not necessarily victims, Jim. I'm getting a chance to meet them even if nothing's happened to them. I've met them before. How do other officers in Houston feel about this? Do they think you're doing just public relations or do they think you're really doing police work? To be honest with you, Jim, when we first started it was a big hoopla that, you know, it's just another thing that the politicians are trying to do to get votes. But I think now the police officers are really seeing the benefits of this program. It is really, the officers have a positive, the ones that are directly involved and ones that are just kind of on the outside and beginning to peek in or realizing that it has benefits and they do have a positive attitude towards the citizens now. Let's discuss those benefits and let me ask Larry Sherman the following question. The police foundation went in at the invitation of the Houston Police Department to evaluate this experiment. What did they find? We found a really remarkable thing. I think far exceeding our expectations. This storefront operation that Officer Kirk directed took a neighborhood in a rapidly growing city where people had no roots, where they'd come from all over the country, a neighborhood that had no identity and they gave it an identity. In fact, they even gave it a name as a result of the focus the storefront provided and the effect of doing all that, of the kind of outreach the police were involved in was to substantially reduce the fear of crime in that neighborhood as it was measured in extensive public surveys before and nine months after the storefront went into operation. It didn't reduce the rate of crime itself but it greatly enhanced the quality of life because people felt safer, they felt better about their neighborhood, they felt better about their police department and there's every indication that this kind of police approach helps to integrate it, creates a community where there was none before. If they feel better about the community and they have less fear of crime but crime hasn't actually gone down, are they really better off? Well, I think they are psychically in the sense of how people feel about their city, how likely they are to stay there rather than move out to the suburbs which has very major implications for the tax bases of our cities. And the question of actual victimization is of course another goal the police have and in another program in Houston was something that the police were able to address, the program we'd seen about knocking on the door. Tell me about that. When they were knocking on the doors as opposed to the storefront operation did this produce any reduction in crime or reduction in victimization? The program of assigning one group of officers to one area and to have them contact up to one-third of the households throughout the study period which is what they reached that produced as far as we can tell a whopping decrease in victimization a 50% reduction in the percentage of the households victimized. A percentage of the households victimized after a year or so was a 50% less than it had been before. Why did this happen? How can such a strategy have such a dramatic effect? Well, when we're cynical we say maybe they caught the one burglar in the neighborhood who was doing all the bad crime but even doing that in itself may be an achievement. The other alternative is that simply having that kind of visibility having the sense that the police are there that the police are paying attention to this neighborhood may have created a kind of community awareness that in turn had payoffs in keeping criminals out of the area. Another way to deal with neighborhood safety is to organize the community so that it can help protect itself. Community organizing is going on in hundreds of cities. One of them is Minneapolis. I'm getting ready to go. She said that they're going to leave on Saturday and wanted us to walk to the house. Oh yeah. So keep an eye on it and let the other walkers know about it. The Batemans live in this residential section of North Minneapolis. The neighborhood used to have a crime problem until residents got together to combat the problem. These days citizens take turns patrolling the two and a half block area twice each night. Since the neighborhood patrol began three years ago there's only been one house burglary. When we patrol we want to be very visible. We have our flashlights on and we walk down the alley down the street. We zigzag through the area. It's about the whole course is about one mile. And we shine our flashlights in between the houses and even into the windows of the homes. And a lot of times people like I say will come and come to the window and wave to us and they feel good about it. They feel secure. Neighbors meet regularly with block leaders and the Minneapolis Community Crime Prevention Agency to share information, hand out flyers and discuss ways to prevent crime. If you put your garbage cans in a wooden container, a restraining container, that makes it look owned and taken care of and that's done throughout the alleys we've noticed there's crime drops. We never had this kind of cooperation before. It's really neat to know your neighbors. Our neighbors are just super and I think this Community Crime Prevention has brought us all closer because we all have one goal in mind and it's to reduce the crime area and make it a safer place to live. This is Whittier, an inner city community in South Minneapolis. It's a high crime area with a mixture of small businesses, rental housing and single family homes. The neighborhood organized against crime and residents point with pride to their first major victory. Working with police, the community got rid of a long-standing prostitution problem. All of a sudden there was this big push to really crack down on street prostitution the Johns in the neighborhood and there was some initial resistance to that just because a lot of people have a lot of vested interest and that that continued. There's this little section of town where everybody can go and pick up prostitutes, you know, and just that's the way it's been for 50 years around here and that, you know, in the spring we started to seriously attack that problem from all angles. People have noticed a difference since the prostitutes took their trade and the associated crimes elsewhere. Our evening business gets better and better and better and better all the time. Our morning business was always good. As soon as it got dark out, the place would be empty. We were just like, there was nobody here anymore and that's not the case anymore. Our evening business is equal to our morning business and the only thing I could attribute that to is the fact that people feel safe walking down the street. A community crime prevention group called the Whittier Alliance helped organize the neighborhood. I don't look at it so much that the organization comes in and does for the community. We are of the community. All our volunteers, all in which over the years is in the hundreds are people of the community. It's helped impact that feeling of isolation and that we're just sort of on the edge of downtown where nothing more than an area that the bus goes through where the cabs go through. That we are in fact a neighborhood. Committees within the Alliance concentrate on various community groups. Business owners, senior citizens and youth. I sort of see this group as really getting involved in something for these kids that's more meaningful than just a football game or just a dance. Some police officers, however, say that community crime prevention efforts have a limited impact on crime. Citizens can patrol but only increased arrests by the police will make a real difference. If the police don't respond by attempting to use their job to make arrests on the street I don't think you're going to get anywhere. You can get a lot of lip service, maybe police attend various meetings but eventually the police have to fulfill their part by going out and making effective arrests. Neighborhood organizers admit it's sometimes difficult to sustain interest and enthusiasm for community crime prevention when the sense of urgency is no longer there or people move away. But for many residents, crime prevention efforts have paid off. The community realized it is a community and that in this day and age perhaps is the best thing of all that could have happened. Here to discuss this is Lucy Geralt, director of the Minneapolis Crime Prevention Agency here in Sherman. Lucy Geralt, how in Minneapolis do you get people to organize, especially when the winters are so cold and the Bateman's did not look like they were having a good time out there? Well, this is winter, not summer. We organize people on the block level with volunteer block leaders with the assistance of the crime prevention staff. If they're interested in other programs we will work with volunteer leaders to develop the kind of program and the need that is there. Can you keep their interest up over the long term? It's extremely difficult in some areas. We aren't sure yet what the key is. Some neighborhoods, some programs have gone on and on and it seems to make a difference who the leader is and the kind of interest that individual has in sustaining the effort. In others, once the initial urgency is gone the impact seems to wane. But the network, the group of people is still there to call on some problem comes up and we need to begin to use that network again. Is it better for the neighborhood out of a sense of crisis to organize itself and then for the city to help out? Or is it easier if the city or your agency comes in first and tries something in order to get the neighborhood organized? In my experience it works much better if the community comes to us and says we have a problem, we're ready to work with you rather than us going to them and saying you've got a crime problem, can we do something? If they're not interested it is just to develop that interest. Now we saw foot patrol by citizens. Is that the best strategy to combat crime on the part of citizens or do you have to have different strategies for different kinds of neighborhoods? You must have different strategies for different neighborhoods. The most commonly used one across the country and in Minneapolis is the neighborhood watch concept of organized blocks. That doesn't work in all neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods need foot patrols. Some need maybe the McGrath safe houses and apartment clubs where there's a high density area. Another time maybe the problem is really a lack of cohesiveness in the neighborhood and a mediation project might resolve some disputes that could bring the community together. So another issue is maybe the actual physical security of a home and a hardware program that improves the physical security is needed. So depending on the issue, the program needs to be developed around that problem rather than just saying there's only one way to do it. The police officer from Minneapolis that we saw a moment ago expressed, if not criticism, perhaps a reservation. He said that the bottom line is the police still have to make a rest. Is that your judgment as well? The effort certainly is cooperative. We can't do it without the police. The police have their role, but there's also a role for the police that is involved with the community. There's a block where officers go out and work with the community, attend meetings, do some door-knocking. The officers have a much better feeling about the community and also they get information and are more likely to get some information that they need to make those arrests. So there is a role for the police other than just enforcement but working with the community. What we've seen so far, older people, adults, middle-aged people were involved in these community organizations and they were primarily a problem created by young people. Are you able to reach young people and make them part of this process? Currently I'd say the youth are most involved in programs through schools and we are working with a juvenile mediation project where we're mediating juvenile disputes and we're also trying to develop something right now for youth because I think it's imperative that they're involved early so that they take some responsibility realizing that they need to do that. Let's go back to Larry Sherman for a moment. Larry, what have we learned from the Minneapolis experience? The basic question about whether this kind of community organizing reduces crime is still unanswered, we're still collecting data and that's down the road to peace. What we've learned so far is some things about how hard it is to do this kind of thing. Lucy and her people had always in the past gone into areas that were not that in being organized and that's been the way neighborhood watch has been done around the country. One of the effects of that is that middle class areas which tend to have lower crime rates tend to have more block watch organizing against crime. The areas that have the higher crime rate the lower economic areas do not have this kind of program and they need it the most. The bold step that Lucy took was to go into areas where they hadn't been invited to try to assess in the face of that problem. But we know how hard it is to do it now even better than before. We also know that the police can make this or break this from the standpoint of making the arrests that Officer Otterson was talking about. Police only make arrests when the citizen gives them the information about who committed the crime or who the likely suspect is. And if they don't bother to get that information from the public other than in the 911 emergency call context or to make the arrest, if they cooperate, if they take the block they've been assigned to work with and cultivate that block, get the information then they're going to be doing a lot more than social work, they're going to be making those arrests. But if they resist the idea of getting out of their cars talking to people and informally putting together an information network then it won't be as successful as it could be. So what we perhaps need is some combination of the Houston effort to get the police out into the community who organized it. So if the two can be brought together that may offer the best chance for success. Let me ask you this, people all over the country form neighborhood watch organizations and yet you said that we really don't know whether these neighborhood watch organizations are having an effect on crime. Is that the case? I think that's right. It's something that has not been tested in a rigorous experimental fashion before. What happens is somebody says here's some money you create a neighborhood watch program, you do it in one area and you compare it and it looks good. And on the basis of that we've put a lot of effort into this process around the country. It's faith rather than fact and maybe the faith is right. But Lucy again was bold enough to test it and indeed if we find out that it doesn't have a strong crime reduction effect then she may have some explaining to do. Let's hope she doesn't have to explain too quickly. Officer Kirk, a lot of police officers around the country are very skeptical of citizens going out of patrol by themselves. In many cities they've actively opposed it. How do you feel about it? Well, as long as the people have an understanding that when they go out they're supposed to be looking and not taking any action. As long as they're schooled on that matter, I'd like to say something in reference to Larry. What Larry just said, the officers have got to realize that without the cooperation of these watch programs we can't function on a level other than just getting the calls for service to our dispatcher. So it is very important in my opinion that we get the community organized. The problem you have with the watch programs throughout the nation, I feel like is the police department go in and help form these watch programs. But then they don't do any maintenance on them. They go in they help form them, they say here gang y'all got it, now we're gone. Y'all do it. And the problem is you have to do maintenance on those programs. You have to keep an officer involved in that program once it is developed. You can't pull the officer out of it. He's got to stay with it and do maintenance on it and it'll be successful. If the officer stays with the program the officer is going to be doing something very different from what he or she has been doing in the past. I mean a lot of time in front rooms and in store fronts and talking to people rather than answering calls for service. Won't some police officers think well this is not real police work. I'm not catching any crooks I'm just talking to nice people. I think so because once they get out there they're going to realize that through those watch programs the people are going to build a trust in them and even then they're going to start making, they're going to have more rest, big time of rest. They're not in burglaries and things like that that they really like to do. And once they get involved with that community it all works hand in hand. And that's what our project in Houston, we first everybody thought we were a community service project. Well we are. But that's 50% of it. We organize some people with us. They're the eyes and the ears and then we do the enforcing. And that's the way we're set up in our community. Let me ask Lucy and Larry something you've observed this process in two cities Houston and Minneapolis. Both of them are racially divided cities. Does it make a difference what kind of neighborhood you try to organize in or what kind of neighborhood the police try to organize in? Are they more successful with some groups than with others? Success varies yes but I don't think it's racial, racial lines I think it's economics and trangency. Neighborhoods that have lower economic levels and which may be more transient because of high density tend to be more difficult because they're not stabilized or they have other pressing issues that they need to deal with. And in dealing with those issues or the trangency issue you don't have that community cohesion which seems to be a real key to the success. Larry what about the reaction in terms of reduction in victimization and reduction in fear of crime and improved citizen attitude toward crime does that break out along class or racial lines at all? Well we haven't really tested enough areas to know but I think that the evidence suggests so far middle class areas respond much more to this kind of overture from the police. Many areas even middle class areas are suspicious and in fact one program in Brooklyn where the police were knocking on doors generated lots of calls to the police to complain about somebody impersonating a police officer. We know the police would never come introduce themselves at our doorstep. There's got to be a revolution of expectations. People have to redefine the police role and indeed if they expect the police to do more of this thing perhaps the police will be more comfortable doing it. It may have to come both ways. I think that the danger is that when we go into poor neighborhoods and when we go into the transient neighborhoods that the people are going to slam the door in the face of the police that happened to Minneapolis already and that in turn turns the police off and it tends to put up those barriers that Robin was talking about. We've got to keep trying to overcome that and understand the origins of the hostility against the police or indeed anybody who's trying to get the neighborhood together to fight crime. How have you cut through this hostility or have you encountered it? Has the door been slammed in your face? Have you had to do things that required you really to hang in there for a long period? Have you experienced that problem there as much as people throw in the door in our face? You've got to remember in Houston we have a bad reputation because of some incidents that occurred back in the 70s early 70s with some people doing some officers being involved in some different types of crime related things where they Well be specific the police were accused of having killed Yeah they were accused of killing some citizens while they were in custody so in turn the people in Houston didn't have a real good attitude towards the police and we were real fortunate they were more or less scared, they got to the point that they were scared of the police so that's what we were trying to do and to answer your question no we haven't really encountered that. I think we have a surprise element where they're surprised, they're very surprised and once they know us we have so many people now that actually know us personally or whatever it's Robin, Mike Charlie or whatever and that's what we want that's what we set out to do they still respect us as a police officer but they know us personally. Lucy very briefly you think there's any incentives we could offer people especially in low income neighborhoods to organize suppose the merchants were to say we're so concerned about public safety if people will join a certain organization or do a citizen patrol we'll give them a discount in our store has that ever been tried? we have tried to do discounts on locks and that kind of thing that doesn't seem to work we are currently doing I'm sorry we can't hear more about that but we have to cut away. Thank you for joining us for Crime File. I'm James Wilson