In his weekly Facebook live update, Chief Roderick Porter shares the numbers behind the drop in crime with a few days remaining in 2022: homicides down 20 percent, rape down 18 percent, robberies down 32 percent, burglaries down 42 percent, motor vehicles thefts down 21 percent.
Crime stats
1+
Those level 3 “less urgent” quality of life issues are what drove me, and eventually my tenants out of the city. Seems trivial, but after a few weeks of not sleeping because of loud noise, or constant trash or illegal dumping, and derelicts at your door, or packages being stolen…yeah, you just say i’m out.
Quality of life violations usually are the most ignored, or I should say unattended to, by police departments. Especially departments which are understaffed. What could anyone expect from a department that is most SEVERELY understaffed?! Hello people! Bridgeport police department fits that description.
Called “broken windows” by some, this type of enforcement basically deploys a no tolerance policy for noise, bad behavior on neighborhood streets, trespassing, petty crimes, and all the things that drive area residents crazy!
It works, no doubt about it. It’s been proven. Giuliani cleaned up NYC by implementing it. Stamford did it back in 88, 89, etc. It takes commitment from police as well as residents AND court systems. Police on their own can NOT do it, even if fully staffed. The lawsuits and claims of discrimination will pile up and politically, a program like that would be shut down. Until you can get that commitment you will never see results. Good luck.
Cheers!!
To Rich’s point: The Bridgeport community policing initiative, established by the Moran Administration under the auspices of Police Chief Tom Sweeney, which managed to survive G1, thrive under the Fabrizi Administration, and survive most of the Finch Administration, was given the final coup de grace under G2 (for obvious reasons — same as in the lack of support in G1) and has been keep in suppression mode during this latter period. Highly successful during periods of mayoral support, the Bridgeport block Watch/community policing system will have to be re-established as a public-safety priority if the BPD is going to maintain any degree of livability in the city in the coming years. Chief Porter will have mount a successful effort to resurrect such a city-wide community policing effort as he once oversaw — that includes organized neighborhood block watches carrying out regularly by neighborhood patrols, in conjunction with neighborhood /BPD meetings, to address problematic areas of public safety in Bridgeport’s neighborhoods. The LFBW/NP — one of the most successful of the Sweeney-encouraged block watches — had established a neighborhood-wide, e-mail alert system and had pushed, for years, for a municipal, Internet-accessible video surveillance system that could be used for “virtual,”, safe neighborhood patrols — such a model, for neighborhood-level/coordinated, citywide community policing should be adopted by Chief Porter in his efforts to engage the community in necessary, public-safety related community activity. Hopefully, the next mayoral administration will see fit to encourage public-safety activity/activism at the neighborhood level in a BPD coordinated, citywide program to maintain/improve the livability of the City of Bridgeport in coming years. This has to be a cornerstone of any serious effort to preserve the municipal integrity of Bridgeport for any future that a city of Bridgeport might hope to have…