The number of federal firearm indictments in Little Rock nearly quadrupled in 2018 in response to a spike in violent crime the previous year, according to data from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
In late 2017, the Police Department partnered with U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland and the U.S. attorney's office to federally prosecute repeat and violent gun-crime offenders. In 2018, Hiland's office nearly doubled the number of cases it opened overall and tripled the number of Project Safe Neighborhoods gun cases from 106 in 2017 to 392 in 2018. Of those cases, 229 resulted in indictments, up from 62 in 2017.
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide program that seeks to unify local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
"We have heard the success stories coming from officers on the streets, and the numbers bear it out -- violent crime and gun crime is down in Little Rock," Hiland said.
The push to prosecute repeat and violent offenders came as part of a crime-reduction partnership involving local police, other state and federal agencies.
And, according to area law enforcement leaders, it's working.
Violent offenses in 2018 fell 8 percent from 2017, violent crime dropped by 13 percent, and nonfatal shootings in the capital city were down 54 percent, according to city data.
Despite what law enforcement leaders are calling a notable difference in area crime, Trisha Rhodes, who is part of a group of researchers studying the Police Department's Gun Crime Intelligence Unit, said 2018 should be seen as a return to normal crime numbers after 2017's spike. Rhodes said 2017 was a high-crime year across the United States but was still 11 percent lower than the violent-crime rate from 2007 and far less than that of the 90s.
Hayward Finks, Little Rock's interim police chief, said he understands there are still areas of the city that have seen little change.
"We know that even though there was a decrease in crime, there are neighborhoods where the residents don't feel that we had any decrease in crime," Finks said. "They're still experiencing the same criminal activities that they've been experiencing for years. However, we feel we're [heading] in the right direction now."
Some neighborhood association presidents, like Erma Peterson, whose community experienced a triple homicide in late 2018, said they haven't felt the difference.
"It's no better here," Peterson said. "I've been here, this is 42 years, and I'm not leaving, but something's got to be done. It's not any worse than it's been, but it's not getting better, either."
PART I OFFENSES
In 2017, the Little Rock Police Department reported more than 17,100 Part I offenses -- eight crimes specified under the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting guidelines. The Part I offenses are murder, non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor-vehicle theft and arson.
In 2018, 15,700 such crimes were recorded, according to preliminary department data.
The approximate 8 percent decrease in Part I offenses, Finks said, is evidence of success in the department's data-driven policing model and federal partnerships that targeted gun crimes in late 2017 and 2018.
In the intelligence-led police model, officers use data to track historically high-crime areas and place extra patrols there with the intention of preventing criminal activity, as opposed to "chasing crime," Finks said.
Efforts to decrease crime have historically been measured by an increase in arrest numbers, but that metric does not work when the emphasis is on prevention, he said.
"When you look at an intelligence-led policing model, you can't gauge what you're doing by arrest numbers," Finks said. "You have to gauge it by the decrease in crime. Coincidentally, in 2018 we have had the lowest number of Part I offenses that we've had since 1990."
Rhodes, an assistant professor with the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said intelligence-led policing is "the most effective policing strategy currently available."
Rhodes said that though data-driven policing can be costly -- requiring statistical analysts and specific technology to parse and evaluate data -- the strategy is worth the cost and effort.
"Violent crimes are extremely costly, whether you consider health costs, loss of income, costs to taxpayers, or other nontangible costs like fear and human suffering," Rhodes said.
The long-term effect of intelligence-led policing, however, is reducing violent crime, thereby cutting those costs, she said.
Alice Fulk, assistant chief in the Police Department, said in a recent interview that the 13 percent decrease in violent crime in the past year is evidence of the department's success.
"That's huge," Fulk said. "I think it shows that the model is working."
Terroristic acts, the firing or projecting of an object toward an occupied or habitable structure or vehicle, are down by more than 16 percent, according to data from the U.S. attorney's office.
One of the few areas that increased in 2018 was rape, though Rhodes said this trend has been reflected across the nation and may be a result of an increase in reporting rapes as opposed to an increase in the crime itself.
Reports of rape increased from 164 in 2017 to 184 in 2018, a 12 percent rise, according to city data.
Looking at 2019, Hiland said his office intends to continue pushing for federal indictments on gun crimes.
"Criminals should know we intend to keep constant pressure on them, and we will not stop federally prosecuting appropriate gun crimes," Hiland said. "When local police officers tell us that they are seeing less and less guns on the street, and coming across people they would expect to have guns who don't, that tells me we need to continue what we are doing and keep that pressure on."
NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERNS
"It's really hard to say [whether crime has decreased] because every time you look at the news, you see shootings here, shootings there," said the Rev. Benny Johnson, president of Arkansas Stop the Violence. "You wonder if it's getting any better. When you hear about it all the time, it doesn't feel that way."
Johnson's organization places crosses at the scenes of homicides and advocates on behalf of victims' families. Though homicides in Little Rock dropped from 55 in 2017 to 41 in 2018, Johnson said that this year has felt as busy as any before.
In Hope, one of a string of neighborhoods between Interstate 630 and Asher Avenue where crime is concentrated, Peterson said she sees fewer police patrolling the streets than she did in previous years.
"We were told when they built the 12th street station that they were going to clean this area up, and nothing has happened," Peterson said. "We asked that they set a patrol, just somebody to drive through the neighborhood, but it didn't happen."
Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said in a recent interview that he'd like to increase the number of police officers at the department by at least 100 over the next four years, and Finks said the additional officers would allow the department to put more police out in the community.
"With the increase [in] officers that the mayor would like to add to our department, it's going to get us to our destination even quicker," Finks said. "We'll have more resources to deploy in the places that we need them and allow us to be even more proactive and less reactive to criminal activity."
Carla Coleman, president of the OUR Neighborhood Association, said her community has seen neither an increase nor decrease in crime in recent years.
"We don't usually have very much [crime] in my area," Coleman said. "People always say crime is highest in southwest Little Rock, but not here. It doesn't feel like it's changed."
RETURN TO NORMAL?
When viewing crime from a broader perspective, Rhodes said, it's true that crime in Little Rock rose in 2017, but 2018 was, more than anything, a return to normal.
"It is impossible to know what the future holds with regard to crime, but there is no compelling evidence at this point that Little Rock has experienced a major change in crime, and the 2018 rates are encouraging," Rhodes said. "It is likely that law enforcement efforts have had some impact on managing the crime rates, but it is also important to recognize that many factors cause crime that are beyond the ability of law enforcement to control."
Still, Rhodes said, the focus on data-driven policing and gun violence is likely a key factor in fighting crime in Little Rock.
Alongside a dropping crime rate, Fulk said, there have been other major successes for the Police Department in the past year.
The Police Department brought on six new cadets in the telephone reporting unit who in their first year took more than 6,300 reports, Fulk said. Three new traffic-safety officers took more than 1,000 accident reports for the department, she said.
"Think about how many hours that saves a patrol officer," Fulk said. "And keep in mind both of those programs weren't fully in affect until about April, so I really only think we'll see those numbers go up in the future."
Police officers with the department used Narcan -- an emergency narcotics treatment that can save people who have overdosed -- more than 70 times in the past year, Fulk said, and the department received more than $9,000 in donations to purchase new Narcan units, which are approximately $75 per pack.
"Those [donations] show that the community has been really dedicated to this, too," Fulk said.
Fulk, who in her position as assistant chief oversees the training division, said the more than 45 officers who either graduated in 2018 or began training in 2018 are helping to fill vacancies in the department.
The number of vacancies in the department dropped from 72 in July 2017 to 11 in September 2018, city Finance Director Sara Lenehan said in a recent Board of Directors agenda meeting.
Finks said that in 2019, he intends to continue the intelligence-led policing and hopes to increase police relationships with the community.
"We feel we're on the right direction now," Finks said. "We're not at our destination, but we feel we have a good plan, and we feel that it's working."
A Section on 01/21/2019