Overall crime rates between 2003 and 2005 dropped 14 percent from crime rates between 2000 and 2002, according to PPD statistics. Murders decreased by 21 percent, while incidents of both rape and aggravated assault increased by 1 percent. Robbery decreased by 20 percent, burglaries by 22 percent, motor vehicle thefts by 15 percent and larcenies by 12 percent.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Kennedy credits community policing with the turnaround.
New strategies for preventing crimeBefore Esserman implemented changes, lieutenants commanded all officers who worked the same hours. Esserman broke the city into nine patrol districts to encourage officers to think in terms of neighborhoods rather than shifts. "People are now responsible for geography, not a shift (for a specific amount of time)," he said.
The decentralization of responsibility allows officers to learn more about the neighborhood in which they work, Kennedy said. Esserman hoped this knowledge would help officers fight crime throughout Providence, he added.
Kennedy emphasized the importance of statistics in detecting crime trends and pinpointing potential trouble spots. At weekly meetings, command staff share problems in their districts and analyze statistical information, he said.
Lieutenant Paul Campbell, the District 9 commander who directs the police substation on Brook Street, said the creation of special units, such as a robbery squad, a drug task force, a gun task force and a gang unit, have also helped limit crime problems.
In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the PPD started a homeland security division, Kennedy said.
"We have identified (trouble) areas within and around the city," he said. "(Terrorism) is one of the things we take very seriously here."
The PPD's license enforcement unit checks nightclubs for overcrowded conditions, Kennedy said. In 2003, 100 people died in a fire at The Station, a nightclub in West Warwick, R.I.
The gun task force has been particularly successful in removing guns from the streets of Providence, another means by which the department hopes to preempt incidents of violent crime.
But violent crime - which is defined as murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape and robbery - has increased in the past three years, Kennedy said, and there has been a spike in homicides in the past year. Although he could not explain the increase, he said factors such as the health of the economy and the availability of drugs often affect rates of crimes like murder and rape.
Three times as many rapes per 100,000 people occur in Providence as do in New York City, according to 2003 statistics from City-Data.com.
Still, Kennedy said, there are fewer incidents of violent crime today than there were 15 years ago, in part because the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s has subsided.
"We had a lot of senseless violence (then)," he said. "Drugs are still involved with a lot of our crimes, but not at the same level," he added.
The long-term decrease in violent crimes since the early 1990s is a national trend, as statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show. In 1991, there were 48.8 incidents of violent crime for every 1,000 Americans, while in 2004 there were only 21.1 such incidents.
Rebuilding the PPD's reputationIn January 2000, a white officer, Michael Solitro III, fatally shot a black off-duty officer, Cornel Young Jr., who had pulled out a gun to break up a fight outside a restaurant. The on-duty officer, who had only been on the police force for 12 days when the incident happened, mistook the off-duty officer for a suspect. The case became controversial because many Rhode Islanders, including the victim's family, believed Young Jr. would not have died if he had been white.
From 1998 to 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a probe of corruption in City Hall and discovered that officers had been cheating on written exams in order to get promoted, according to the Providence Journal. One officer, Lewis Perrotti Jr., received answers to a test before it was administered from a close friend of then-Chief of Police Urbano Prignano Jr., who retired in 2001.
Prignano denied any involvement, but the case and others like it undermined the credibility of the PPD.
Since then, the department has reached out to Providence community leaders to rebuild its reputation in addition to reducing crime.
"One of the things (Esserman) was hired to do was change the culture here," Kennedy said. "People are now accountable for their action - it's a totally different police department," he said.
Campbell called the improvement in fair testing and promotions "a total turnaround."
"There had been a lot of political interference in the police department, in terms of hiring and promotion," Cicilline told The Herald. "That is gone," he said.
Kennedy said good relations between the community and the police department have strengthened since Esserman took office.
"I think that the trust from the community is back here - (the relationship) was strained at times," Kennedy said.
The PPD substation on Brook Street provides visible evidence of the department's stronger relationship with Providence neighborhoods. The University donated the space for the Brook Street substation and spent $70,000 on renovations.
When a spate of robberies hit the neighborhood in October of 2004, the PPD "deployed a lot of their resources to address the problem in College Hill," said Walter Hunter, vice president for administration. On a visit to the substation at that time, he recalled seeing approximately 25 officers prepared to patrol the campus. "This is one of the results of enhanced collaboration (between PPD and the Department of Public Safety)," he said.
The University pays the department for officers who serve as additional patrol on campus, Hunter added.
The department has strengthened collaboration with programs outside of the law enforcement arena as well, Kennedy said. Partnerships with Family Service of Rhode Island, the Probation and Parole Unit of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and the Providence Public School District are crucial to preventing crime in Providence, he said.
The PPD has helped DPS deal with disturbances caused by Hope High School students on campus, said Mark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety at Brown.
Porter said the PPD's relationship with DPS has improved especially over the last two years.
"We've become more of a partner," he said. Porter added that the PPD has invited him to its weekly meetings since he arrived at Brown last April.
"It's a much more solvent relationship than probably most of your other college police have," he said of DPS' relationship with the PPD. The rapport between the Boston Police Department and the Public Safety Division at Northeastern University, where he worked for 12 years, was much less "fluid," he added.
