Community efforts can aid fight against crime

[The Streets Don't Love You Back]

Police can catch armed robbers, but they can't prevent armed robberies.

To do that, it takes a community.

Residents need to work with police by reporting what they see and what they know, said Tod W. Burke, a criminal justice professor at Radford University in Virginia and a former police officer.

By being aware, such as noticing a vehicle circling a convenience store, someone can provide the clue an investigator needs, Burke said.

Everyone needs to reduce the risk of being targeted, such as not flashing money, and businesses need to increase security and set policy and procedures on what employees should do if there is a robbery, Burke said.

And a community needs to find constructive things for young people to do.

"My advice to a community is to think about it now," he said.

William Kervin is a believer. People in the neighborhood of his convenience store, Kervin's Korner, helped police catch the teenagers who robbed his store in August.

Those who saw the teens running away after exchanging gunfire with Kervin called 911, he said.

"The neighborhood caught them. I was so proud of them," he said.

Since the robbery, he has noticed that if he or an employee is alone at the store, there are people who show up just to hang around until another employee shows up.

At night, there's often someone from the neighborhood stopping by and staying awhile, he said.

"It's really been something," he said.

The best protection a community has against crime is cooperation, said William A. Reese, a sociology professor at Augusta State University.

"We need to target fear," he said.

Armed robbery can paralyze a community -- it's a form of terrorism, Burke said.

People who are afraid often withdraw from the community and lose trust in others, fostering a climate that is ripe for more crime, Reese said.

The answer is to be proactive and involved with children, said Henry Armstrong, who founded the Augusta nonprofit OPPS, which works with at-risk youth.

"It's past time," he said. "It can't get any more serious than it is now."

Parents need to be more involved in their children's lives and everyone in the community needs to take part, Armstrong said. Good people must step into children's lives to counter the culture of violence springing from music and other media, he said, and the community needs to start early with children.

Children who are left to drift will seek companionship in gangs, Armstrong said.

"Without someone in their lives, they just don't care about themselves or others. 'I'm going to do whatever I want to do regardless of how many laws it breaks or who gets hurt,' " he said.

A major problem for children, especially boys, is the lack of fathers, and Armstrong said men need to step up: "Mom can't teach Johnny how to be a man."

Augusta attorney and part-time juvenile judge Willie Saunders agrees. The recipe for trouble: a child who isn't going to school, lives in a single-parent home and is using drugs.

"If you're trying to catch them before they stick a gun in somebody's face, you have to grab them as early as 6 or 7," Saunders said. "If you're waiting until they are 12 or 14, it will be too late."

Armstrong's program stresses education -- making children aware that if they commit armed robbery, it means adult court and adult prison sentences for teens as young as 13.

In Reese's view, crime is a societal problem, not a psychological one. The key to preventing it, he said, is to involve children in their community, then steer them toward constructive and positive activities with other children.think