Los Angeles city leaders launched a campaign a year ago to reduce crime in downtown's skid row by deploying 50 additional police officers and declaring they would step up prosecutions.
On Wednesday, even as officials declared success, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton acknowledged that the Safer City Initiative essentially has shifted some of downtown's homeless and mentally ill residents to other parts of Los Angeles.
"Is there some displacement? Certainly," Bratton said at a news conference where he, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials touted the drop in skid row crime.
"But what's wrong with that in some respects? Why should one square mile of the city be impacted by something that's effectively a countywide problem?" Bratton said. "So if there is displacement, all well and good."
The police chief characterized the displacement as "minimal," but his comments added fuel to a continuing debate over how best to address one of the city's most violent and chronically troubled areas.
Homeless advocates and those who provide services to downtown's indigent community argue that the city should de-emphasize policing and instead focus greater resources on healthcare, shelter beds and affordable housing.
Stepped-up policing, they said, has only pushed the homeless farther away from vital social services concentrated in the skid row area.
The director of a needle-exchange program said, for example, that his client load has dropped 25% since the police crackdown began.
"A lot of people are getting shortchanged because of the policies we have downtown," said Mark Casanova, executive director of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles. "At what cost does the safer city come?"
A report released last week by a UCLA law professor said that crime has dropped since the additional police officers arrived but that most of the roughly 1,000 citations issued each month were for jaywalking and loitering. Many of those who received tickets were being jailed for failing to pay fines, the report said.
"If this is meant to change behavior, it is not working," said professor Gary Blasi, the report's author.
On one point most everyone agrees: Skid row has long been a magnet for drug dealers, gang members and itinerant travelers who prey on its vulnerable residents, many of whom suffer mental illnesses.
