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By Kelley Ford
Sunflower Community Action
Wichita, KS
Another gun goes off in the middle of the night. 911 is a joke and so is police patrol in the neighborhoods. Residents are tired of the high crime that is constantly happening in their communities and want to make much-needed change.

So, you an organizer, begin with having a public meeting with the police to hold them accountable for their lack of a presence in the community.

Neighborhood residents fill out this hot spot card from
Sunflower Community Action to anononmously report
crime in their communities to the police.

At the meeting, angry and frustrated neighborhood residents yell to the police, "We need more of you around, I'm sick of the crack houses on my block!" The police, feeling the pressure from your outstanding leadership and the neighborhood, agree to your demands.

Everything seems to turn out great, but only a short time later and bang, bang, bang! Another gun goes off. You're right back were you began.

I think it's safe to say, that we cannot eliminate crime all together, but we can find a rational way to help decrease it in our communities. In Wichita, the need for the hot spot program is great. Drugs and crime have affected so many lives in our low-income neighborhoods that the community feels the need to do something about it.

One of the safest and easiest ways to get neighborhood residents involved is by starting a hot spot campaign. The hot spot card provides a safe way for residents to report to police suspicious activity in their neighborhood. Although the police might be aware of the activity once the community says it is a problem the police are more likely to give it more attention. It gives your organization a means to follow-up with police for a report back regarding specific police activity.

The Hot Spot Card is a fundamental tool that a community can use in its initial efforts to close a drug-dealing location.

The purpose of the hot-spot card is to:
l Give residents the opportunity to anonymously report suspicious activity.
lAlert police to suspicious activity. Even if the police know about the location it alerts them that the community knows and wants something done about it.
l Give your organization a reason to have a public meeting with police and follow-up meetings.
l Provide a sense of hope to residents that they can do something about the crime issue in their community.

In January of 1999 Sunflower Community Action (SCA) had a community meeting with the police in Wichita, Kansas to establish a systematic program of getting police to work with neighborhood residents for a safer community. SCA condensed two hot button issues onto one hot spot card for Wichita neighborhoods, including, "Drug & Crime" and "Rental Check / Abandoned Buildings."

The hotspot cards are passed out in community meetings, churches, businesses, neighborhood associations, etc. The information is anonymous. The person filling out the card drops the postage paid card in any mailbox. Sunflower Community Action then processes the cards by making copies and faxing them directly to the narcotics department.

Sunflower leadership meets with representatives from the police department on a quarterly basis to receive reports on actions take on specific addresses submitted through the cards. Sunflower holds monthly community meetings that allow the community to hear official reports on the program. These meetings also provide us the opportunity to get feed back from the community about how they feel the program is going.

In our third year with the Hot Spot program, it has involved hundreds of community residents and has established a formal partnership between neighbors and law-enforcement. Most importantly the community has ownership over the program and are empowered to keep their neighborhoods safe.