In recent years, the alarming increase in violent crime rates has proved resistant to the best efforts of police and politicians. These trends have also given us reason to reconsider the tried and true crime-control strategies that once kept American streets safe. In particular, it is time that American tax policies begin to reflect the age-old presumption that private citizens, rather than the government, are primarily responsible for the defense of their neighborhoods from criminals.
Accordingly, the federal government should offer a tax credit or some other comparable financial incentive for Americans to participate in Neighborhood Watch programs or similar community crime-control organizations. By giving each participating household a credit of, say, $ 250 a year, the federal government could do far more to deter crime than spending the same amount for more police officers and prisons.
To receive this tax benefit, citizens would be required to patrol their neighborhoods without weapons, armed only with walkie-talkies and other communications gear capable of informing police of any criminal activity discovered. Their sole duty would be to inform police of crimes in progress.
Such a system would not be some untested anti-crime proposal born of frustration with the current crime problem. It is, rather, a return to the system of community self-protection that the Founding Fathers inherited from Great Britain. Under the system called the “frankpledge,” men without property were organized for community self-defense and required to serve as night watchmen. This arrangement served for centuries as an effective deterrent to crime. It was not abandoned until the 1800s, when Americans became confident that the new police departments being created could singlehandedly deter crime.
By offering tax credits for community crime-control service, the government would not be making such service mandatory. This is an important distinction from the classic frankpledge and is more consistent with the ethos of our time. Rather, the American frankpledge would enlist volunteers for defense of their own territory, modestly compensating them and thereby demonstrating government’s support for this indispensable service.
It would also be a better investment of federal money than simply sending mor e funds to police departments. While policemen cannot be everywhere at once, ne ighbors, in a sense, can. Now, the probability of arrest for a crime in progres s is about 33 percent, while a mere 15-minute delay in giving chase reduces the probability to 5 percent. One prominent criminologist, Herman Goldstein, has es timated convincingly that a 5 to 10 percent increase in citizen anti-crime invo lvement could “possibly prove of much greater value in combating crime than a 5 0 to 60 percent increase in the number of police officers or an equally large i nvestment in technical equipment.” An example of the kind of dramatic success t o be reaped from such widespread citizen involvement was evident recently i n Detroit’s reaction to the annual real-life Halloween horror of Devil’s Night. In response to the local tradition of an arson festival on the nights preceding All Hallows Eve, Detroit residents in 1991 banded together with fire extinguishers, flashlights, and radios in a massive display of community deterrence.
With the help of police helicopters and a dusk-to-dawn juvenile curfew, the 4,000 volunteers cut the number of fires from 141 the prior year to 62. In the following years, there was less community involvement and more fires, thus proving the reverse point as well.
Active governmental support of such community efforts is crucial. There is only so much that private citizens can do without a coordinated governmental strategy for fighting crime, one that issues a common call to civic duty supported by proper financial incentives. We must recognize that our duty to defend the community against criminals does not end when we pay our taxes to fund police squads. Ultimately, the people must be willing to roll up their sleeves and help out more actively.
As crime rates continue to rise ominously among juveniles, especially white juveniles (among whom crime rates are rising at more than double the rate of growth among black juveniles), we must all be prepared to assist our beleaguered police forces in the daunting task at hand. Tax incentives for community anti-crime service are a sensible place to start. For without the help of the currently disengaged masses, America’s police off*cers will continue to languish in a siege that promises to end unpleasantly. ,
Andrew Peyton Thomas is an assistant attorney general for Arizona and the author of the book Crime and the Sacking of America: The roots of Chaos. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
