成人X站

When longtime Belltown resident Tracy Roberts began to complete the new , she noticed something odd: The questions from the crime survey focused on her perceptions about police and about her neighbors rather than a simple accounting of neighborhood crimes.

She answered questions such as do you 鈥渟trongly agree鈥� or 鈥渟trongly disagree鈥� that Seattle Police Officers are 鈥渉onest鈥� or 鈥渄o their jobs well.鈥� She submitted responses detailing if she thought her neighbors would be inclined to report a crime if they saw one and if she thinks officers treat everyone equally.

鈥淚t surprised me that they were asking about your interactions with the police and neighbors,鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淚 thought, 鈥榃ell this (survey) is going completely different from where I thought it was going.鈥� 鈥�

That was by design. Currently, in its , the Seattle Police Department Public Safety Survey is an attempt to gauge the gap between actual crime data and how people perceive crime and police in their neighborhoods. More strikingly, it is also an effort to create a blueprint for police to respond to the perception of crime and policing even when that view differs from what actual data says.

鈥淧erception is reality,鈥� said Assist. Chief Carmen Best said. 鈥淪o if people are perceiving there to be to be an issue, obviously, whether it exists in the data or not, we need to recognize that.鈥�

So if residents see gangs as a problem but the data shows burglary is a far more pressing issue, police should deal with both, Best said. And if people see cops as mostly non-responsive to car prowls in Columbia City or as untrustworthy in Crown Hill, Best said, those precincts will be expected to make changes.

Broadly, the crime survey is a response to local and national concerns about the way policing happens at a city level. In Seattle, it鈥檚 a product of Police Chief O鈥橳oole鈥檚 effort to improve the department’s sometimes frayed relationship with its constituents.

The survey data, Best said, should allow neighborhood police to tailor efforts into what the neighborhood has identified as the top priority. This will not change how police are dispatched by 911, she added. But rather, what crime initiatives officers will focus on.

鈥淪o instead of chasing down something else 鈥� shoplifting for example 鈥� I鈥檓 going to work on what the neighbors have identified,鈥� she said.

The crime survey, which takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete, is part of the SPD鈥檚 broader micro community policing initiative. Paid for by a federal grant and managed by Seattle University criminologists, the survey is the only one of its type nationally, law enforcement experts and researchers said.

The anonymous questionnaire breaks Seattle into the same. The questions focus on how residents see each other, police and crime. But they also focus on the respondents themselves including age, education, gender, race, income, employment, marital and citizenship status.

For example, numbers crunchers should be able to tease out what a self-employed single mom sees as the biggest problem in Magnolia or what married African American dad with a master鈥檚 degree thinks of police response times in Capitol Hill. Do Ballard residents see police in a different way than people in Georgetown? Researchers should be able to see what a neighborhood thinks the police should be doing and make recommendations to fit.

鈥淚t gives police an idea how people are experiencing crime at the micro-community level,鈥� said , the Seattle University criminologist who is running the survey which ends on Nov. 30. 鈥淚t鈥檚 based on the idea that perception is as important as the reality.鈥�

In Belltown, Roberts said her perception is that she鈥檚 had more negative run-ins with police in Seattle than in any major city she鈥檚 lived in, including New York, Baltimore, Boston and San Francisco. 鈥淚 am a big supporter of the police,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut generally here I鈥檝e found them rude. (Seattle cops) look right through you.鈥�

鈥淚s that their idea of community policing?鈥� she asked. Still, Roberts hopes for the best and that鈥檚 why she filled out the survey.

Helfgott said the way people see their neighborhoods and police often is a product of the crimes law enforcement deems low-priority, such as graffiti, loitering or a vehicle break-ins. The first year of the survey, they received approximately 7000 usable responses. (And in fact, ranked highest nearly everywhere in 2015 data.) Student researchers also have been doing in-person surveys at food banks, tent cities and places where people might not have access to a computer.

Helfgott said the safety survey should help uncover what criminologists call hidden crime data, the unreported occurrences that erode the quality of life but don鈥檛 end up in police statistics or in the media.

鈥淵ou know, what if you have an elderly senior citizen who鈥檚 doesn鈥檛 have a car and is afraid to walk to a place through groups of people who are engaged in open-air drug activity,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 show up in the media and the crime stats but it could have a huge impact on that person鈥檚 quality of life.鈥�

In practice, it is going to create an interesting dilemma for law enforcement. Helfgott said researchers haven鈥檛 yet compared perception data with actual crime data. In other words, they can鈥檛 yet say if people see big problems in their neighborhoods that aren鈥檛 backed by crime data 鈥� or the opposite. 鈥淚 expect that is going to happen in some places,鈥� she said. 鈥淔inding that is one of the hopes of this project.鈥�

But in the end, she said, even where perception and data don鈥檛 match up, police will want to deal with both.

Best agreed: 鈥淲e鈥檒l go where the data takes us.鈥�