If you follow the daily crime report from the Police Department you will notice a lot of reports from the 400 and 600 blocks of Westover Hills Boulevard.  There is a lot of disorder in those blocks.

Headed north, the 400 block is immediately past Crutchfield Street (just after you leave the Midlothian Turnpike bridge).  Except for the three commercial structures at 400, 402, and 404, the Somerset Glen apartment complex occupies all of the 400 block on both sides of street.

The next set of apartments to the north is in the 600 block.

The disorder here shows up in the Police Department's IBRS Database.   Indeed, it shows much too frequently: Here, from that database, is the list of blocks with the highest count of offenses reported for calendar 2008:

Thus you see our neighborhood in the company of the Midlothian Village and the worst blocks in RRHA.

Just for context: There are about 5349 blocks reported in the database for the year (the "about" comes from the way the database reports some addresses).  The average block has 5.03 offenses for the year; the median block has 2 reports.  Thus, all the "leaders" here have over 14 times the average number of offenses reported per block and over 36 times the median.

A glance at the data reveals some patterns: The commercial areas predominantly report commercial crimes.  For instance, 32 of the 84 entries for the Wal-Mart block are shoplifting; another 8 are hit and run, i.e., vehicles whacked in the parking lot.  The 3d place block, 900 block N. Lombardy, is dominated by the Kroger there with 91 shoplifting reports and 5 hit and runs out of 143 total reports.

The apartments show two patterns: the RRHA blocks and the 4000 block of Midlothian Turnpike (i.e., the notorious Midlothian Village Apartments), show the drug market pattern: High rates of drug and violent crime and high burglary rates with relatively lower rates of other property crime (doubtless much of it unreported).  For instance, here is the top part of the offense list for the 4000 block of Midlo Tpk. for the year:

The other apartment pattern shows less drug and violent crime, more property crime.  For example, 400 block of Westover Hills Blvd. (just across Midlo Tpk. and down the Boulevard from the Midlo Village):

The higher rate of property crime here suggests that much of the disorder is imported, i.e., that the 400 block is a target more than a source of disorder.  In any event, the landlord is the key to preventing the disorder, whether indigenous or exogenous^[1].

The apartments in the 400 and 600 blocks are just over Bassett Ave. from the 4th District; they are split between the 5th and 9th Districts.

Do you suppose that Ms. Graziano of the 4th, Mr. Jewell of the 5th, and Mr. Connor of the 9th (and, perhaps, Ms. Trammel of the 8th) would like to encourage the City to persuade these landlords to clean up their acts?  Or, still more to the point, perhaps our Civic Association would like to focus some energy on this problem?

^[1] This 1998 National Institute of Justice report to Congress discusses the place-bound nature of crime as follows: “Most places have no crimes and most crime is highly concentrated in and around a relatively small number of places. If we can prevent crime at these high crime places, then we might be able to reduce total crime.  [The] findings suggest that something about a few places facilitates crimes and something about most places prevents crimes.”  Of course, the something about most property that prevents crimes is an owner (and neighbors) who will not tolerate disorder.  In my view, the focus of community policing should be to encourage and assist the law-abiding landowners and to target the others.

As to drugs, at least, nuisance abatement is the sole tactic that has been shown scientifically to reduce crime in residential places.  The DOJ monograph says: "With the evidence available we are relatively certain that holding private landlords accountable for drug dealing on their property by threatening abatement reduces drug related crimes."  Indeed, whether as to drug activity or other disorder, the landlord is the only entity that can make the physical changes to the property, evict the troublesome tenants, hire the security, control the access, and enforce the lease terms necessary to make the property safe.