"Perception is Reality."

We had an exceptionally good CrimeWatch meeting this AM.  You should not have missed it.  The whole meeting was a presentation by our Police Chief, with Q&A after what he had to say.

The Chief offered us a number of important insights.  For one thing, our actual rate of victimization by criminal acts is very low.  For another, specifically our rate of motor vehicle accidents is very low.  The Chief said most municipalities would kill (well, not exactly kill) for a rate like ours: 2-3 accidents per month, almost no injuries.  Of course, we're also tiny and relatively compact, with few thoroughfares, so we wouldn't expect much of a rate of MVAs.  But still, the Chief reassured us we should be relieved and proud to know we're so safe, from crime in general and from MVAs.  The Chief also pointed out that until two recent arrests, a significant majority of our typical crimes-- burglaries-- were committed by two people.  One is now incarcerated for 4-5 years, and the other was more recently arrested.  So we were low to begin with-- fourth best in the County-- and we're about to be lower.  FYI, the Dade municipalities that are better than we are are Indian Creek Village (an island, gated), Golden Beach (I think also gated now, and both of them quite awash in money, to hire as much monitoring and enforcement as they like), and Virginia Gardens.  The latter is a tiny Village (a bit smaller than we are) just north of the airport.  I have no idea why their crime rate is so low.

I know all of this, because the Chief stated it very clearly in the meeting.  But the meeting was called specifically because of concerns raised by a variety of Village residents.  They felt that our crime rate was up, and that enforcement, and monitoring, were down.  The word "perception" was mentioned several times by different BP residents during this meeting.

Clearly, there was a discrepancy.  The Chief told us our crime rate was very low, and about to get considerably lower, owing to the two arrests, (and lower still, if people would lock their doors), but some BP residents had the feeling the crime rate was increasing.  One related statistic was the rate of "clearance" of crimes.  "Clearance" occurs when an arrest is made.  In the recent past, we were said to have had a shockingly high clearance rate.  Today, on paper, it is notably low.  This can give the impression that crime was very recently under excellent control, and now, it is out of control.

But the Chief explained, sort of, that what we're seeing is a few different things.  One was mislabeling of crimes, and another was whether an appropriate arrest had been made.  (The Chief did not address this latter point, but we already know about it.)  Yet another was the current Chief's decision, on the part of his staff and the Village, not to report crime events as "cleared," if he and the Department are still working on it.  The Chief was never clear as to why an event was not considered cleared, if it had the features that could allow it to be considered cleared, and what it means to call an event cleared, if it's still being worked on.

All of this aside, there was still the matter of perception.  One BP resident said that just a few years ago, if he called 911, a cruiser was there before he hung up the phone.  Now, he says it can take 45 minutes or more for a cruiser to arrive.  It was not made clear why he had a frequency of calls to 911.  But his perception, although certainly close enough to actual reality, if we assume that his description is accurate, was that police, at least as accessed through 911, are less attentive and prompt now than they were not long ago.

Other BP residents had other versions of their frustrating perceptions.  For example, some said they felt the police were more distant or detached than they were in the past.  Specific indicators were things like whether a cop on the beat (in a car) waved at them and stopped to say hello.  Another was that the windows of our police cruisers now seem to be tinted, making it hard for a resident outside the car-- on foot-- to see who was on duty, see the officer's face, and be able to tell whether the officer was waving or otherwise acknowledging or responding to the BPer's presence.

So it felt to some of us as if we were more endangered, and that "crime" was increasing, when this doesn't appear to be true.  And people more or less demand a response to what they perceive to be true, even if it isn't true.  The one exception offered was when one of our neighbors recalled the occasional "Click It Or Ticket" campaigns initiated by the prior Chief, and she said in what sounded like an authoritative way that crime was decreased as a result of those campaigns.  (Our current Chief told us today that from his perspective, and presumably based on a career as a policeman, the main underlying purpose of giving traffic tickets is to lower the risk of accidents.  Since the Chief also told us we have a very low rate of accidents, and if we accept his theory, we should conclude that it doesn't matter how many or how few tickets are issued, since the goal has been achieved.  This also assumes that we believe a Police Chief and career officer knows more about police work and theories than we do, and that we should somehow accede to what such a person tells us.)

I don't know what the reality about this was any more.  Our prior Chief told us, in what sounded like the most logical possible way, that stopping people to ticket them for something, or arresting someone, even if the arrest didn't stick, would reduce crime, by discouraging criminals from coming here (too much trouble and too much risk). But he also told us about our "clearance rate," which turned out not to be true.  So was our crime rate lower, as a result of  "Click It Or Ticket?"  I don't know.

Today, the Chief shared with us a form of reality.  Unless we don't believe him, we have to consider what he told us.  But in contrast to that reality, some of us also entertained, and elevated,  our own perceptions.  And we wanted them treated as the equivalent of reality.  I put the title of this post in quotes, because it is a known phrase.  It might be a matter of philosophy.  It might even be a mistake.  But it's common enough, and well enough known, to be an accepted phrase.  We have to decide what to do about the intrusion of perception, especially when we are informed of a reality that doesn't match it.  At some point, and at some level, we have to over-ride, or even dismiss, one of them.  Unless we have plenty of discretion ($) and can do something like hiring lots of police officers, because we somehow feel unsafe, even if we're not unsafe.  But since some of us don't like spending money, either, we have a dilemma.