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COMMERCIAL EDITORIAL -- ZERO TOLERANCE JUST MAKES SENSE -- WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 11:36 PM CDT

Those living on the margins of crime might disagree, but Pine Bluff’s strategy of Zero Tolerance looks to be having its intended effects. The other day, we saw an example of it when a couple of men were arrested on drug-related charges after being stopped for playing music too loud in their vehicles.

One of the principles behind Zero Tolerance is that few people go directly from a law-abiding existence straight to violent crime. There usually are a number of stops in between, and the best way to prevent violent crime is to crack down on those committing petty offenses before they graduate to burglary, assault or worse.

Zero Tolerance is an umbrella term but it involves strict, non-discretionary enforcement and police action against minor offenses and disorder. The concept had a celebrated success years ago in New York City. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani worked with the police department to crack down on a number of smaller offenses including the minions of “windshield washers” who were harassing motorists.

The windshield washers really weren’t washing windows as much as shaking down drivers and intimidating visitors. When cars stopped at street lights, an army of young men would rush to the cars and begin wiping windshields — whether requested or needed — and expected a nice tip from motorists for the work they did. The young men did not look kindly on those who did not tip.

It was clear that the young men were merely using the window washing as a scam to shake down drivers, so police used a variety of laws on the books as a basis for arresting or at least chasing away the offenders.

That was not the only way New York cops employed the Zero Tolerance philosophy. In a BBC report, a New York cop explained the process this way:

“ ‘If you have four guys drinking on a street corner playing dice, and one of them has a gun, something can easily go down.’ By clamping down on small crimes — such as drinking in public — before they escalate, the streets become safer ... so the argument goes. ‘We took a lot of guns and dealers off the street.’ ”

Naturally, there are a lot of critics, who argue that police are just harassing people and that New York’s success with Zero Tolerance is overblown. Common sense, however, suggest that when police are able to focus on smaller offenses, they might be able to prevent petty thugs from becoming violent criminals.

Pine Bluff’s crime problems might not be as big as some people (particularly outsiders) perceive them to be, but there is always room for improvement. Zero Tolerance, when applied sensibly, seems like a common-sense tool to crime prevention that any police department should have.

Our apologies

We owe Peter F. Daniels Jr. an apology — a couple of them, as a matter of fact. A week ago today (Wednesday, July 16) The Commercial inadvertently published an ad that was critical of Daniels’ opponent for mayor of Pine Bluff, Greg Gustek. Turns out, Daniels had had second thoughts about the ad and had decided not to run the ad. We published it anyway — mistakenly.

We also bollixed a few words in Daniels’ ads and stories recently. We apologize. No excuses.

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