My neighbor, my savior
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talkpoliticsHello, fellow cringing sissies brave vigilantes! When most Americans think of the volunteer vigilante security neighborhood groups, probably the first name that comes to mind is George Zimmerman. No matter that his actions in that rainy evening in 2012 that led to the death of 17 y.o. Trayvon Martin may have little to do with the established practices and rules of action in those groups. Just on the contrary actually, it's exactly because in Zimmerman's case the circumstances and the mix of prejudices led to a tragic outcome, the case has turned into a symbol for the uncomfortable grey area between noble civic vigilance and taking the law in one's own hands.
The ensuing debate that grew like avalanche and the whole palette of controversial arguments somehow obscures the fact that the general tendency in the US has been going in the exact opposite direction. Due to the shrunken municipal budgets and the growing social and economic stratification in the American society, the civic watch groups have been going through a revival in recent years, their number steadily growing.
The parallels with the current situation in my country Bulgaria are rubbing themselves in our face, especially in recent days, when the problem with (mostly Roma) burglaries that has plagued huge chunks of the countryside, has reached a point where some voices have started insisting for starting a neighborhood patrol program similar to the US one. New "watch groups" are being formed by volunteers, especially in areas bordering on minority ghettos, and the situation may've started looking very similar to that in the US. But there are some significant differences. Like the fact that guns are almost absent from the Bulgarian populace, and the chance of a Zimmerman scenario is rather slim. Still, the enormous US experience in that area, and the ongoing debate in the US can't help but give a lot of food for thought to our people too, as well as some reasons for asking the question when are volunteer security groups efficient, and when the negative effects tend to outweigh the positive ones.
Because, outside the issue of Zimmerman's controversial motivations and the US gun laws which are generally seen as rather loose by most people at my side of the Big Water, there's also the issue of the thin line between civic vigilance and arbitrary overreach of power, which is actually pretty universal. It's a line that every volunteer group should be treading very carefully, wheter it's in Texas or, say, Plovdiv.
Say you're member of a US volunteer watch group, and you notice a damaged street lamp in a backstreet, or a quarrel going on somewhere that's about to grow into a storm of fists. You could take out your cell phone, dial the police and identify yourself with your personal member code. While describing the problem, you know exactly what details the cops need to decide how to react. Because you've been trained so. You're not supposed to get involved in the incident, and neither should you be waving your membership badge in front of the perpetrators, and least of all are you expected to take the law in your hands and start dispensing justice. All you have to do is report and wait for the cops. While bringing your legally possessed gun is not prohibited, in many areas it's actually discouraged. Because these watcher groups are supposed to be serving as the police's eyes and ears, not their hands.
The stats points out that 41% of Americans [.pdf] live in places where such neighborhood watch groups operate. Those started in the 70s, when lots of US cities went through waves of violence. Then they almost disappeared in the 90s due to the low crime levels, only to regain their popularity a few years ago. NYC for example boasts of the largest program of this kind, with 4+ thousand active participants, acting mostly in suburbs like Astoria, which are at the brink of slipping out of the middle-class segment.
These volunteer groups vary from the sort of group in the previous paragraph, i.e. ones that only report of incidents, to footed and car patrols, to armed neighbor groups like those in West Virginia and Texas, where the closest sheriff could be half an hour away. Their format corresponds to the particular regional specifics and needs of the place. In the best case, the volunteers have gone through a training course, their functions are clearly stated, they wear distinctive signs, they know the local authorities personally, they patrol in couples, they're trained in self-discipline, and there are seldom aggressive or problematic types among them due to the vetting procedures. When the system works as it's supposed to, it reflects the US tradition of not waiting for the clumsy state apparatus to move a finger, but allowing the citizens to actively participate in solving the local problems when that's urgently necessary.
That's why for the supporters of the neighborhood watch, the Zimmerman case is perceived more like a glitch in the system rather than a pattern. When in that February night in 2012 Zimmerman was patrolling with his car around an Orlando suburb, he disregarded the orders of the police coordinator, starting a direct confrontation with what he perceived to be a suspicious lad. Then as things escalated, he hastened to reach for his gun - which has been a behavioral pattern of his, as it turns out. The advocates of the neighborhood watch argue that his case is the worst-case scenario that could happen to a volunteer program. Zimmerman's unilateral cowboy actions have nothing to do with the princples of neighborhood watch.
The Zimmerman trial ended last summer, and he was acquitted, mostly thanks to the forgiving gun laws in his state (Stand Your Ground, etc etc). But the debate hasn't ceased just yet, and for better or for bad, it has brought the flaws and controversies of the volunteer organizations to the surface.
One could argue that the problem goes way deeper than that, too. The Zimmerman/Martin drama may've been rooted way back in the real estate crisis that has devastated countless US suburbs since 2007. Desolate, abandoned homes have become easy targets for burglars, and ironically the shrunken local budgets have led to major cuts in the police forces. So, anxious neighbors like the ones in Zimmerman's suburb may've been compelled to fill the safety vacuum. Beyond the apparent differences, we could say the situation is painfully familiar for the inhabitants of the ever shrinking smaller settlements in the Bulgarian hinterland as well, where the disrupted social and economic fabric of the local communities is opening the gates wide for all sorts of crimes, burglaries, and chronic suspicion of any newcomer, particularly if they're of an ethnic minority (very long story).
The same explosive spiral was launched on that fatal night in Florida, when Zimmerman decided to disregard the orders and follow an African-American lad, who in turn, intimidated, responded with fists. Long after the fatal bullet had been shot, it turned out Trayvon Martin had been living in the neighborhood with his father, and had been on his way back home from the gas station where he had bought some candy and ice tea. The wave of burglaries that had stretched the nerves of the locals, has probably won the heart and mind of at least one member of the jury at the ensuing trial, but it has hopefully also prompted the authorities to learn a lesson and realize the dangers that lurk behind the decision to allow the citizens enough leeway that'd give'm the tools to fill the vacuum by taking the law in their hands. But more importantly, they should be asking themselves what has prompted the citizens to resort to that in the first place.
The initial proposals for a federal law to regulate the issue were soon abandoned, due to the regional differences and the varying needs of the different regions. Still, local authorities nationwide have significantly tightened the procedure for volunteer registration. For example in Illinois, New York state and New Jersey, they're first required to pass through a rigorous training course. In turn, an increasing number of municipalities are imposing background checks.
Another potentially positive effect of the public debate from the last couple of years is that it has made the experts look closer into the thousands of acting volunteer groups, and find out if those are having the desired effect, namely limiting crime - and if yes, then how are they achieving that and why. One of the most intriguing researches is that of one Wesley Schultz and Jennifer Tabanico of the the California State University, which shows that these programs do have different results in different communities. The wealthier ones, and those with a traditionally lower crime rates, where people often organize themselves in response to concrete incidents, the neighborhood watch does tend to strengthen the social fabric of the community, it decreases the opportunities for committing crime, therefore they work well. Whereas in the more problematic municipalities, on the contrary, neighborhood watch could actually increase the sense of insecurity and anger against the state institutions which have apparently abandoned the people to deal with the problem on their own - in some extreme cases, that could lead to mass paranoia, and have disruptive effects on the community. The conclusion is that neighborhood watch can never be a universal cure, not in a society as diverse as the US.
The experience of other groups suggests that those tend to be successful when they act within a wider framework, without trying to limit the scope of their member base. For instance, the Guarding Angels which started as volunteer patrols around the NY subway in response to the violence wave in the 70s, have turned into a broad volunteer organization, which is trying to integrate youngsters from the minorities, and give them a chance to pass various training courses, and direct them toward various ways to improve their own neighborhoods.
I'm sure 30-40 years ago when those programs were starting, many people were arguing that you just can't gather African-Americans and Latinos from the ghettos with white Americans from the middle-class suburbs, and make them work together for the common good. But groups like the Guarding Angels may've proven that wrong. I think that's a lesson we Europeans could learn from America, ourselves being so suspicious of the Roma minority in particular (among others). So, if we're to really consider creating neighborhood watch groups, they better include youngsters from the minority communities as well - they should be actively involved, they should be working together with the rest, so they could together find solutions to common problems.
This, along with the presence of clear and simple rules, plus the fact that volunteers are not supposed to substitute the state, but rather enhance its functions, could be the most important lesson we should be taking from the American experience. Neighborhood watch would have a real effect if it's more "neighborhood" and less "watch". That is, if it focuses on building communities rather than surveillance.
The ensuing debate that grew like avalanche and the whole palette of controversial arguments somehow obscures the fact that the general tendency in the US has been going in the exact opposite direction. Due to the shrunken municipal budgets and the growing social and economic stratification in the American society, the civic watch groups have been going through a revival in recent years, their number steadily growing.
The parallels with the current situation in my country Bulgaria are rubbing themselves in our face, especially in recent days, when the problem with (mostly Roma) burglaries that has plagued huge chunks of the countryside, has reached a point where some voices have started insisting for starting a neighborhood patrol program similar to the US one. New "watch groups" are being formed by volunteers, especially in areas bordering on minority ghettos, and the situation may've started looking very similar to that in the US. But there are some significant differences. Like the fact that guns are almost absent from the Bulgarian populace, and the chance of a Zimmerman scenario is rather slim. Still, the enormous US experience in that area, and the ongoing debate in the US can't help but give a lot of food for thought to our people too, as well as some reasons for asking the question when are volunteer security groups efficient, and when the negative effects tend to outweigh the positive ones.
Because, outside the issue of Zimmerman's controversial motivations and the US gun laws which are generally seen as rather loose by most people at my side of the Big Water, there's also the issue of the thin line between civic vigilance and arbitrary overreach of power, which is actually pretty universal. It's a line that every volunteer group should be treading very carefully, wheter it's in Texas or, say, Plovdiv.
Say you're member of a US volunteer watch group, and you notice a damaged street lamp in a backstreet, or a quarrel going on somewhere that's about to grow into a storm of fists. You could take out your cell phone, dial the police and identify yourself with your personal member code. While describing the problem, you know exactly what details the cops need to decide how to react. Because you've been trained so. You're not supposed to get involved in the incident, and neither should you be waving your membership badge in front of the perpetrators, and least of all are you expected to take the law in your hands and start dispensing justice. All you have to do is report and wait for the cops. While bringing your legally possessed gun is not prohibited, in many areas it's actually discouraged. Because these watcher groups are supposed to be serving as the police's eyes and ears, not their hands.
The stats points out that 41% of Americans [.pdf] live in places where such neighborhood watch groups operate. Those started in the 70s, when lots of US cities went through waves of violence. Then they almost disappeared in the 90s due to the low crime levels, only to regain their popularity a few years ago. NYC for example boasts of the largest program of this kind, with 4+ thousand active participants, acting mostly in suburbs like Astoria, which are at the brink of slipping out of the middle-class segment.
These volunteer groups vary from the sort of group in the previous paragraph, i.e. ones that only report of incidents, to footed and car patrols, to armed neighbor groups like those in West Virginia and Texas, where the closest sheriff could be half an hour away. Their format corresponds to the particular regional specifics and needs of the place. In the best case, the volunteers have gone through a training course, their functions are clearly stated, they wear distinctive signs, they know the local authorities personally, they patrol in couples, they're trained in self-discipline, and there are seldom aggressive or problematic types among them due to the vetting procedures. When the system works as it's supposed to, it reflects the US tradition of not waiting for the clumsy state apparatus to move a finger, but allowing the citizens to actively participate in solving the local problems when that's urgently necessary.
That's why for the supporters of the neighborhood watch, the Zimmerman case is perceived more like a glitch in the system rather than a pattern. When in that February night in 2012 Zimmerman was patrolling with his car around an Orlando suburb, he disregarded the orders of the police coordinator, starting a direct confrontation with what he perceived to be a suspicious lad. Then as things escalated, he hastened to reach for his gun - which has been a behavioral pattern of his, as it turns out. The advocates of the neighborhood watch argue that his case is the worst-case scenario that could happen to a volunteer program. Zimmerman's unilateral cowboy actions have nothing to do with the princples of neighborhood watch.
The Zimmerman trial ended last summer, and he was acquitted, mostly thanks to the forgiving gun laws in his state (Stand Your Ground, etc etc). But the debate hasn't ceased just yet, and for better or for bad, it has brought the flaws and controversies of the volunteer organizations to the surface.
One could argue that the problem goes way deeper than that, too. The Zimmerman/Martin drama may've been rooted way back in the real estate crisis that has devastated countless US suburbs since 2007. Desolate, abandoned homes have become easy targets for burglars, and ironically the shrunken local budgets have led to major cuts in the police forces. So, anxious neighbors like the ones in Zimmerman's suburb may've been compelled to fill the safety vacuum. Beyond the apparent differences, we could say the situation is painfully familiar for the inhabitants of the ever shrinking smaller settlements in the Bulgarian hinterland as well, where the disrupted social and economic fabric of the local communities is opening the gates wide for all sorts of crimes, burglaries, and chronic suspicion of any newcomer, particularly if they're of an ethnic minority (very long story).
The same explosive spiral was launched on that fatal night in Florida, when Zimmerman decided to disregard the orders and follow an African-American lad, who in turn, intimidated, responded with fists. Long after the fatal bullet had been shot, it turned out Trayvon Martin had been living in the neighborhood with his father, and had been on his way back home from the gas station where he had bought some candy and ice tea. The wave of burglaries that had stretched the nerves of the locals, has probably won the heart and mind of at least one member of the jury at the ensuing trial, but it has hopefully also prompted the authorities to learn a lesson and realize the dangers that lurk behind the decision to allow the citizens enough leeway that'd give'm the tools to fill the vacuum by taking the law in their hands. But more importantly, they should be asking themselves what has prompted the citizens to resort to that in the first place.
The initial proposals for a federal law to regulate the issue were soon abandoned, due to the regional differences and the varying needs of the different regions. Still, local authorities nationwide have significantly tightened the procedure for volunteer registration. For example in Illinois, New York state and New Jersey, they're first required to pass through a rigorous training course. In turn, an increasing number of municipalities are imposing background checks.
Another potentially positive effect of the public debate from the last couple of years is that it has made the experts look closer into the thousands of acting volunteer groups, and find out if those are having the desired effect, namely limiting crime - and if yes, then how are they achieving that and why. One of the most intriguing researches is that of one Wesley Schultz and Jennifer Tabanico of the the California State University, which shows that these programs do have different results in different communities. The wealthier ones, and those with a traditionally lower crime rates, where people often organize themselves in response to concrete incidents, the neighborhood watch does tend to strengthen the social fabric of the community, it decreases the opportunities for committing crime, therefore they work well. Whereas in the more problematic municipalities, on the contrary, neighborhood watch could actually increase the sense of insecurity and anger against the state institutions which have apparently abandoned the people to deal with the problem on their own - in some extreme cases, that could lead to mass paranoia, and have disruptive effects on the community. The conclusion is that neighborhood watch can never be a universal cure, not in a society as diverse as the US.
The experience of other groups suggests that those tend to be successful when they act within a wider framework, without trying to limit the scope of their member base. For instance, the Guarding Angels which started as volunteer patrols around the NY subway in response to the violence wave in the 70s, have turned into a broad volunteer organization, which is trying to integrate youngsters from the minorities, and give them a chance to pass various training courses, and direct them toward various ways to improve their own neighborhoods.
I'm sure 30-40 years ago when those programs were starting, many people were arguing that you just can't gather African-Americans and Latinos from the ghettos with white Americans from the middle-class suburbs, and make them work together for the common good. But groups like the Guarding Angels may've proven that wrong. I think that's a lesson we Europeans could learn from America, ourselves being so suspicious of the Roma minority in particular (among others). So, if we're to really consider creating neighborhood watch groups, they better include youngsters from the minority communities as well - they should be actively involved, they should be working together with the rest, so they could together find solutions to common problems.
This, along with the presence of clear and simple rules, plus the fact that volunteers are not supposed to substitute the state, but rather enhance its functions, could be the most important lesson we should be taking from the American experience. Neighborhood watch would have a real effect if it's more "neighborhood" and less "watch". That is, if it focuses on building communities rather than surveillance.
