Casinos keep a close eye on crime
by Nancy Cassidy, Outpost contributor
The slot player whose purse is now tucked into the man's oversized coat hasn't noticed her loss. But Circus Circus security personnel have.
The thief makes it out the door before Circus Circus staff can cut him off. Immediately, all along the street, portable radios worn by Reno police, casino security personnel and downtown's own private bicycle patrol crackle with a transmission from Circus Circus.
Our fugitive zigs and zags through the pedestrian traffic on the street but ducks into The Silver Legacy when he notices two helmeted bicycle police coming toward him. Silver Legacy security camera operators see him enter, and they radio his movements as he passes briefly through the building and back out onto a side street.
He crosses a parking lot but pulls up short when two more helmeted bikers spot him. They aren't police, but at this distance they look like it. They're actually two of downtown's private security officers, picking up litter at this particular moment. They also have radios.
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Circus Circus security patrols the dowtown area on mountain bike. Photo by J.D. Wilson |
The arrest is swift and uneventful. Few pedestrians even notice it, and that's the point.
To stay competitive, downtown businesses know it's not enough to rely on encouraging recent crime statistics that simply tell tourists they are safe. Tourists need to feel safe if they are going to keep coming back. Private and public agencies in downtown Reno are cooperating to build a coordinated crime prevention system that combats not only actual crime but also the perception of crime.
"Perception is as important as fact," said Bill Osgood, director of the Downtown Improvement Association (DIA). "We're going to take our big urban city and turn it back into a small town again."
In fact, statistics show that overall incidents of crime in downtown Reno have gone down every year for the last five years. Despite of the fact that the populations of Reno and Washoe County have grown 17% since 1992, crimes in downtown have actually declined 27%.
Reno police officers credit this good record to the increase in officers on the street. The Downtown Bicycle Enforcement Team (DBET), created in 1995, put 14 new officers on the street after downtown voters passed a tax increase to fund the program.
Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim
Johns estimates that the area of high public activity in
downtown has doubled over the past five years, and the
number of people on the streets has more than doubled. But
crime incidents keep going
down.
Security cameras help the casinos keep an eye on
the streets below. Photo by
J.D. Wilson
"I would attribute that (decrease) directly to the foresight of the property owners to vote that special tax assessment district for those extra 14 officers," Johns said.
Johns also said the concepts of community policing and problem-oriented policing have helped bring crime rates down. The concepts concentrate on solving the root problem rather than just reacting repeatedly to the crimes that arise from the problem.
"To have a crime, you have to have a victim, a suspect and a location," Johns said. "If you cut one part of that triangle out, the crime doesn't happen."
Just arresting a suspect, however, does not effectively eliminate that part of the triangle, because another criminal is always waiting to take his place. To get at the root problems, police officers maintain regular contact with perhaps a dozen downtown community groups, including the Tax Assessment Advisory Board, the Lions and Rotary clubs, several downtown district advisory boards working with the Reno City Council, and the casino security directors' subcommittee of the Downtown Improvement Association.
These contacts help Reno police develop plans to make their crime prevention programs more effective.
"If I don't know what [their] view of the problem is, I can't possibly address it," Johns said. "I would be acting purely in a reactive mode and I wouldn't be addressing the real problem issue."
The private sector agrees, according to the Downtown Improvement Association's director.
"We're very satisfied with the officers out there," Osgood said. "We worked with the police in setting up the criteria for [the DBET] team, including personal and professional appearance standards. We also wanted to give the officers some personal ownership of their beat. The [police department] responded to our concerns, and we have officers who feel personally offended by crime in their area."
Another effective Reno police program tested this year has been what Johns called the "carrot and stick" approach to deal with alcohol sales to minors. Illegal sales contribute to the perception of downtown being rowdy and unsafe. Alcohol vendors are kept wary by frequent sting operations to catch them selling to undercover minors. But the police also offer free workshops to vendors to help them identify underage buyers and false IDs.
"We'll run that program once or twice a month - probably forever - to keep the vendors on their guard," Johns said.
Both Reno police and the downtown businesses acknowledge that communication and cooperation among public and private agencies is the key to making downtown safe - for tourists and residents alike. The Downtown Improvement Association's Eyes and Ears Program is an example of that cooperation.
The full program is not a reality yet. Some of the pieces are not in place - like the DIA's own bicycle patrol, which will handle everything from litter abatement and helping tourists to playing an active part in criminal apprehensions.
But even with some gaps, the system works pretty well already. It's a neighborhood watch program for the downtown core, but with the advantage of some high-tech surveillance gadgets and trained personnel. It's goal, like all neighborhood watch programs, is to spot criminals before they perpetrate their crimes.
"That's how we want our Eyes and Ears program to work," said DIA's Osgood. "We want a good, clean line of communication, everyone reading off the same page."
But the DIA's crime-fighting plans go further than tracking criminals through the streets and helping to make unobtrusive arrests. Its members support programs such as Artown Downtown and the street fairs that encourage Reno residents to reclaim the downtown core as the heart of their city.
The Downtown Improvement District also supports Reno City Council's efforts to improve the physical appearance of the downtown, especially - but not exclusively - the river corridor.
Reno's growth has increased the loss of downtown retail businesses to the lure of new malls. Osgood said that the casinos have taken the rap for this exodus, even though it has happened in cities all across the United States. Whatever the cause, empty buildings are dark buildings, and they give the perception of danger.
"Lighting changes perception and has a positive impact on tourists and residents," Osgood said. "If we can provide a safe, clean, bright environment for the local residents, it will be better for the tourists also."
The nature of the gaming business has changed over the past five years, too. Casinos have shifted from attracting gamblers who visit, to attracting visitors who gamble.
"And visitors stroll when there is something to do and something to see downtown," Osgood said. "If we put a lot of strollers on the streets, the criminals go away."
Posted Aug. 26,
1999
Copyright 1999, Nevada Outpost
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