Athmar Park

Too Many Broken Windows

Jul 09, 2005

by Carol e Campbell, Karen Cuthbertson, and Rick Taylor

If your home has a broken window, you HAVE to repair it or more damage follows - the wind, rain, and varmints will get in. It?’s the same idea for neighborhoods regarding crime. Since the early 1990?’s, some Athmar Park residents have understood the validity of the ?“Broken Window?” theory that Mayor Guiliani used to turn crime around in NYC. (Check out www.post-trib.com/pulse/pulse0630b.html for a great article on the subject.)

A ?‘broken window?’ includes all forms of property neglect including weeds, trash, and graffiti. According to the theory, these types of neglect signal to criminals that ?‘no one cares?’ and that - just like the neglected property - crime will also go unreported.

Inadequate consequences for the property neglect leads to a spread of blight and an increase in petty criminal activity; leading to an escalation of more violent criminal activity; i.e., the wind, rain, and varmints getting in. It is vital that neighborhoods keep their property upkeep standards high to avoid this spiral to urban decay and criminal activity.

Denver has not consistently enforced high property maintenance standards. The result is that neighborhoods-of-change (like ours) are experiencing the consequences. In the last 6 weeks, a robbery suspect hiding in the Alameda Square Shopping Center forced the lock-down of Valverde Elementary School. A stray bullet from an altercation at the Jumbo Car wash hit a woman shopping across the street. Detective Donald Young was tragically shot and killed at a baptismal party, and a four-year old girl was abducted from her back yard.

In 1999, there were 28.1 total offenses per 1000 Athmar Park residents. In 2003, the last year for which figures are available, there were 105.6 offenses per 1000 residents. Adjusting for the population increase, that?’s a 350% increase in reported offenses. These numbers are intolerable.

Besides crimes committed by armed thugs, there?’s been a sharp increase in lesser crimes:
?? Graffiti and vandalism are on the increase.
?? Noise from bars along AP?’s periphery regularly disrupts the lives of residents.
?? Drug dealing and prostitution are so prevalent along W. Mississippi that DPD have declared the area to be an ?“Area of Restriction.?”
?? Homes are so overcrowded that we can?’t consider our neighborhood to be predominately R-1 housing.
?? The City administration says illegal immigration is a federal issue but fails to address the local consequences, such as excess trash and cars and illegal peddlers with their honking horns.

A primary responsibility of government is to provide for public safety. Yet NIS cannot keep up with the large number of out-of-compliance properties on every block of our neighborhood. And, Mayor Hickenlooper?’s administration follows in the shameful tradition of City administrations for some 30 years in its failure to increase DPD staff levels at all, much less to what is needed to effectively combat the chaos that criminals know they can likely get away with. The result is plain to see. There are too many ?‘broken windows?’ all around us.

In 2003, this Mayor pledged that Denver would be a better place to live. If you believe, as we do, that Denver is a worse place to live in 2005, please help us ensure that our voices are heard. Join APNA, attend our meetings, and PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATION: DAILY - IF NEED BE, until our elected officials do the job they were elected to do.