Fight Crime, Walk Your Dog!

As budgets are shrinking in cities, councils and mayors are looking for ways to continue to provide the services they always provide without cutting back on services. States and cities are starting to get creative. What if I told you there was a creative way to reduce crime in your neighborhood without impacting the policing budgets?

Can crowd sourcing police work actually help reduce crime without putting added pressure on the policing budgets? Los Angeles thinks so, in fact they believe this so much they are using what is now commonly known as "predictive policing".

In an article in the Atlantic  Los Angeles talks about the power of predictive policing combined with neighbors simply walking the streets or walking their dogs

In an effort to do this we are deploying as many resources as possible to the box areas. To further increase the effectiveness of Predictive Policing we are asking the public to spend any free time that you may have in these areas too. You can simply walk with a neighbor, exercise, or walk your dog in these areas and your presence alone can assist in deterring would be criminals from committing crime in your neighborhood.

This tactic seems to be working when this was deployed in one Los Angeles neighborhood it coincided with a 12% reduction in crime. This makes certainly a very interesting case study. Can neighbors just out walking their dogs help impact the overall crime in a given neighborhood? In a city? What is the impact on police budgets? Tax rates? The economy of the neighborhood or city?