Chief Ruben Greenburg, Police Chief of Charleston, South Carolina, has an innovative way of keeping crime off the streets. He uses common sense and has generated an impressive lineup of statistics. In 1994 there were no fatalities and only four robberies in public housing areas, no one paroled for robbery, burglary or sexual assault, no juvenile fatalities during past five years, and the lowest number of homicides, robberies and burglaries in the past 30 years.

Remarkable as it seems, they made these accomplishments with no additional staff, no additional money, and no new laws. While all this was going on, Charleston experienced a 50 percent growth rate in its population. Here is one result of their innovative efforts.

Public Housing-Today in Charleston, public housing is the safest place to live in the city. Your chances of safety are highest in public housing versus the higher priced neighborhoods. It is the only place in town where cabbies and pizza deliverers feel safe. Greenburg applies common sense management to this situation too.

Charleston runs public housing like other people run exclusive apartment complexes. The city set the admission guidelines. Applying a law that has been on the books for decades, the city decides who can live there and who can't. Common sense dictates, keeping those people out who commit crimes will result in less crime.

The guidelines had the following qualifications: Applicants had to be free of convictions from 11 types of crimes during the past 10 years. The list of crimes included no child molesters, no arsonists and no rapist's etc. In 1994, there were only four robberies and no homicides. There are 10,000 people who live in public housing. In fact, crime rates are significantly higher in private homes and communities than in Charleston's public housing areas.

Charleston's' public housing now provides a safe and secure haven for economically disadvantaged people. Greenburg says, "these 'poor' people now have the same dreams and hopes as 'rich' people."

Problems With Parole-Communities that have parolees have higher crime rates. Greenburg reports 86% of burglars who are released on parole are rearrested within three years. One burglar, on the average, is usually responsible for 60-70 burglaries in a community. As you can see it becomes quite expensive rearresting and processing criminals only to have them released to repeat the crimes again.

Greenburg created a special department of three or four people targeting three crimes--burglary, robbery, and sexual assault. The department set goals to stop all paroles in these offenses--no exceptions. When a prisoner comes up for parole, a member of this special department attends the parole board meeting.

They take the arrest photos of the prisoner and sometimes take the victim to the hearing. In most parole hearings across America victims, get little representation. Rarely does anyone represent the victim or the family. Years go by and the emotion surrounding the crime fades away. The potential parolee puts on a business suit, gets a haircut, and you figure the rest. Police officials now take a punitive approach. They feel it is safer for the community to keep prisoners off the street and in prison.

In 1994, no one was paroled for these three offenses. In return, crime has returned to the same low rates they had 30 years ago. The city has saved money by not having to recapture, rearrest, and retry criminals who have been released on parole.

Gregory P. Smith is a speaker, management consultant, and the author of the book, The New Leader: Bringing Creativity and Innovation to the Workplace. He is on the faculty at Clayton State College and was selected as one of the nation's top-ten "Rising Stars" in human resource management. For a free copy of his Navigator Newsletter please call (770)860-9464. More information and articles are available at http://www.chartcourse.com

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