Making the city
Street legal

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

Cracking down on truancy is one of Mayor John Street’s passions.
"If they’re not in school, they’re getting in trouble," he said.
Street has held sit-down sessions with large numbers of truants and their parents. In general, he doesn’t blame the parents, noting that many of the truants brazenly show disregard for authority.
Right now, the city has 160 truant officers, with another 400 scheduled to be hired by the start of the next school year. Street reasons that, if the city cannot control young people when they are in middle school, the problem will fester.
The mayor fears that truants often become dropouts and permanent members of the underclass. Worse, he said, many of them turn to lives of violent crime.
"The truants are the next shooters," he said.
Truancy was just one of several issues discussed by Street and top officials during a session with community newspapers at the mayor’s cabinet room at City Hall. The focus was on violence and the workings of Operation Safer Streets, the city’s program to prevent and reduce it.
Besides his interest in truancy, Street is high on his administration’s efforts in the area of conflict resolution. Too often, he said, neighbors come forward with valuable information after a petty dispute has escalated to a violent confrontation. Many individuals involved in heated disputes are "packing" guns, according to the mayor.
"We need people snitching before the crime," he said.
Citizens can pass on information anonymously, Street said. The important thing is that they alert a police district’s community relations officer, their block captain, a member of the local Town Watch, church pastors or other community leaders.
"This is the kind of information we want: ‘The Joneses are fighting with the Smiths,’ " he said.
Street was joined at the June 6 session by Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson; new city Managing Director Loree Jones; social services director Julia Danzig; and the Rev. Marguerite Handy, executive director of the city’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
Johnson explained that the overwhelming number of murders in Philadelphia this year have been committed by people using handguns. Almost all of the suspects have criminal records. Most of the homicides have followed arguments, with about one-third taking place indoors.
While there has been a spike in murders, overall shootings are down 5 percent from a year ago. Still, Johnson and other commanders have been patrolling the streets to tackle the crime problem. He’s frustrated that some media outlets focus on violence while ignoring the recent nine-day span between murders.
Johnson, who is leaving office along with Street at the end of the year, is not a big fan of the so-called "stop-and-frisk" policy outlined by Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter. He questions the constitutionality of the policy and worries that it will lead to confrontations on the street between officers and citizens. He also thinks it will lead to a general breakdown in the goodwill between the police department and communities.
The commissioner explained that a little more than 100 officers will graduate from the Police Academy on Friday but that the same number will retire this summer as part of the city’s Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP). A new class of 160 recruits will begin training in September.
As for the term "community policing," Johnson wants residents to be fully engaged partners with the police in identifying criminal activity. He praised Northeast communities for sticking together to oppose outdoor drug sales.
"There are no drug corners in the Northeast because they won’t tolerate it," he said.
Jones, who served as secretary of external affairs before replacing Pedro Ramos last week as managing director, announced that the city has spent more money to provide youths with summer jobs and for services for prisoners re-entering society and will increase the number of surveillance cameras on public streets.
The city, she said, is working with cities and towns at the regional, state and national level to address the problem of illegal guns. Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor, is backing efforts by the city to win legislative approval to make its own gun laws.
Jones said the police department’s strategy of deploying additional officers in areas of the city most prone to violence is working. There’s been an increase in gun and drug confiscations and arrests for violent crime, property crime, quality-of-life crime and violations of the Uniform Firearms Act.
"In all of the critical categories, our numbers are up," she said.
Danzig, who leads the social services unit, said the city is happy with its six curfew centers. The first opened last summer, with the other five debuting earlier in the spring. Five more are planned this summer.
The centers include one stationed at Frankford Group Ministry. Police officers have taken 179 curfew violators to the center since it opened on April 26.
The idea is to take minors off the streets after hours so they don’t commit crimes or become victims. Services are provided at the intake centers for the young people and their parents. The U.S. Conference of Mayors is so impressed with the innovative idea that it will give the city an award at an upcoming meeting in Los Angeles.
Among those apprehended are runaways.
"We’re a safe haven and a deterrent," Danzig said.
If all of those anti-crime programs aren’t enough, the Rev. Handy — the head of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives — has another idea: prayer. She noted that after a recent community prayer session, the city went 72 hours without a murder. ••
To make an anonymous report of illegal guns or criminal activity, call 215-683-GUNS. To become a block captain or a member of a Town Watch, dial 215-686-1459. To volunteer at a curfew center, contact 215-683-5770.
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com