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From the Los Angeles Times

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Crime victims will get emails tracking offenders' status

Senate Bill 852 takes effect immediately and enables the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to update various persons affected by violent offenders about the attackers' status through email, along with the traditional phone call and certified mail.

"California's victim-notification system was antiquated and with this bill, victim notification will be brought into the computer age," Harman said in a news release. "It will make it much easier and quicker for victims to receive critical information on an offender's status."

Proposition 8, passed in 1982 and amended in 2008, requires the Board of Parole Hearings -- upon request by a witness, victim or victim's next of kin -- to notify when a prisoner is up for review from the parole board, of any crime committed by the prisoner while in custody, or when he or she is scheduled to be executed, according to the Daily Pilot.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/crime-victims-will-get-emails-tracking-offenders-status.html

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There's little privacy in a digital world

Users of TVs, computers and smartphones leave technological fingerprints wherever they go, and companies are lapping up the data.

by David Sarno, Los Angeles Times

During his two-hour morning bike ride, Eric Hartman doesn't pay much attention to his iPhone.

But the iPhone is paying attention to him.

As he traverses the 30-mile circuit around Seal Beach, Hartman's iPhone knows precisely where he is at every moment, and keeps a record of his whereabouts. That data is beamed to Apple Inc. multiple times each day, whether Hartman is using his phone to take pictures, search for gas stations or check the weather.

And it's not just the iPhone that's keeping track.

Buying milk at Ralphs? Playing World of Warcraft? Texting dinner plans to friends? Watching an episode of "Glee"? It's all recorded.

Over the course of a day, hundreds of digital traces pile up, each offering more insight into the way Hartman and his family live.

For this kind of surveillance, no fancy spy gadgets are needed. The technological instruments that capture details of the Hartmans' lives are the ones they use most often: their computers, smartphones and TV systems.

"Essentially, each of us is being tailed," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Whether you went to the family planning clinic or a psychiatrist, or to be treated at the cancer specialists' office," data gleaned from cellphones alone reveal "an enormous amount about us."

As a day with the Hartmans shows, few parts of our private lives remain shielded from digital observation. The modern home, stocked with networked devices, has become a digital transmission station, endlessly relaying data to a wide array of for-profit companies that are largely invisible to the average parent and child.

This explosion in the amount of data being collected has raised alarms in state capitols and in Washington, where lawmakers of both parties have proposed more than a dozen pieces of privacy legislation this year.

But regulatory efforts are drawing resistance from companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook that rely on personal information to sell advertising, and so far, none of the bills has passed. Privacy observers say it may be years before legal protections catch up to industry practices.

In the meantime, as more people become aware of the extent to which their actions are being recorded, some privacy advocates worry that people will begin to censor themselves when using technology and avoid going places or seeking information that others might find objectionable. That could include such areas as religion, sexual orientation and suicidal feelings.

"People might not bother to look into what they were going to look into," said Ryan Calo, the director for privacy at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. "It's too much of a feeling of being constantly watched and judged."

The Hartmans' digital devices, like those of millions of other U.S. families, feed into a massive river of personal data that flows back to the servers of technology companies, where it is often kept indefinitely. The data are sifted for behavior patterns that can be of great value to marketers eager to zoom in on the consumers who are most likely to buy their products.

Eric Hartman's iPhone, perhaps the best-known mobile device of all, has been a lightning rod for privacy concerns.

Like other smartphone providers, Apple keeps databases of locations sent to it from tens of millions of iPhones. The company uses those databases, it says, to improve its product offerings, which include a mobile advertising system called iAd that allows advertisers to target consumers based on their current location.

Increasingly, marketers are trying to reach consumers where they are, so that coupon services like Groupon and Living Social can offer deals to restaurants and yoga classes that might be right around the corner. Location-based services will balloon to an $8.3-billion business by 2014, nearly triple what it is today, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In addition to sending its location back to Apple, Hartman's phone also checks in frequently with AT&T, which tracks the phone's location so it can quickly send it calls and text messages when necessary. AT&T does not say how detailed its location logs are, but earlier this year, German politician Malte Spitz sued his provider, Deutsche Telekom, to see what data they'd collected about his whereabouts.

The resulting set of nearly 36,000 pieces of data was plotted by the German news site Zeit Online, and showed six months' worth of Spitz's movements around Germany — often at the street level, on trains, on planes — as well as when he made phone calls and sent text messages.

Earlier this year, after researchers discovered that the iPhone kept a detailed log of its precise whereabouts, Apple said bugs in the iPhone's software had caused it to store up to a year's worth of user location data. The software was later changed to store only a week's worth of the data.

Data collection can also pop up in surprising places.

When Evan Hartman, 11, logs into World of Warcraft, a popular online video game played by millions, Blizzard, the game's maker, records his location, what kind of computer he's using and information about his playing behavior.

Blizzard's privacy policy notes that it shares overviews on player usage with advertisers and partners. The company declined to elaborate on the specific types of playing data it collects, or to say how long it keeps the data.

When Eric Hartman and his wife, Nia, go grocery shopping, he uses an iPhone application called CardStar that stores digital versions of loyalty cards for a dozen retail stores. Instead of carrying around plastic cards for Ralphs, PetCo, BestBuy or Footlocker, he can use his iPhone to show a barcode for the loyalty program to the checkout clerk.

Loyalty cards allow those chains to capture years of data about what each customer is buying — data they farm out to companies that specialize in scrutinizing the information for buying trends. The stores can then better target certain customers for promotions, or cluster products that are more likely to be bought together.

"We've found grocery retail to be a rich and fertile vein," said Matt Keylock, an executive at Dunnhumby, which processes data for dozens of retail chains worldwide, including Home Depot, Best Buy and Ralphs owner Kroger Co. Whether the data tell them a customer is an adventurous, frugal, healthy or family-focused consumer, he said, "you can bring to life who a customer is based on the kinds of things they buy."

Building a behavioral profile of a customer becomes even easier in the world of social networks, where the first thing consumers do is create a detailed self-portrait.

When Spencer Hartman, 16, reaches for his iPod Touch to check Facebook, he is mostly interested in seeing what his friends are talking about.

"I usually check it to see if anyone is saying anything funny," he said. "Usually they're not."

When Spencer clicks on friends' profiles or photographs, or leaves messages on their walls, he may forget what and who he clicked on that day, but Facebook, one of the largest data harvesters in the world, does not.

On a Web page describing Facebook's ability to provide "precise targeting," the social network says that each of its 750 million users "fills out a profile where he or she shares information such as: what they're doing at the moment, their birthday, occupation, all-time-favorite band, movies, TV shows and other interests."

The tendency of social network users to declare their interests to friends has become a boon to online marketers. On Facebook, advertisers can target their pitches to thousands of sub-categories that users have identified with, whether that's "gay marriage," "World War II history" or "insects." (There are 6,600 U.S. Facebook users who have declared an interest in "insects," according to an advertising tool on the site.)

Facebook has frequently faced criticism over the way it handles users' private data. In one of the most recent instances, the security firm Symantec said a flaw in the social network for years left the personal information of hundreds of millions of users exposed to advertisers.

Indeed, consumers who spend hours each day using free Web search and social networking services from companies such as Yahoo, Google and Facebook may not always remember that the firms closely monitor users' online habits in order to generate detailed profiles about their behaviors, preferences and buying patterns.

"By watching transactions and clicks we have a massive telescope into human behavior at a scale we've never had before," said Prabhakar Raghavan, the head of Yahoo Labs, a division of the Web giant that invents many of its most powerful computing algorithms. Yahoo, which was the nation's second-most-trafficked website in August with more than 177 million unique visitors, makes nearly all of its $6 billion in annual revenue from online advertising.

That same level of data gathering is now ramping up in the living room. When the Hartmans sit down in the evening to watch TV together, their TV providers are watching back. When they flip through the channels, their cable box records their viewing choices, while their Apple TV and Nintendo Wii devices relay their movie and TV rentals back to Apple and Netflix, respectively.

TV ratings have traditionally been estimated using large groups of volunteers who actively log the shows they watch, often by clicking a remote control to indicate they haven't left the room. But set-top boxes are now thought to be a far better way to capture viewing data, without the need to involve the viewer. Boxes like those from TiVo, Time Warner Cable and Verizon can monitor what consumers are watching at any given second. Set-top-box data can include whether viewers have changed the channel, fast forwarded through commercials or muted the volume.

TiVo and Time Warner Cable declined to specify the precise types of data their boxes gather. They and other companies insist the data are "anonymized" — stripped of names and personal information that could identify the user.

But critics warn that even without identifying information, many kinds of data can still be traced back to individuals, often by comparing it with data from other sources.

"There is no longer any doubt that almost any type of data can be deanonymized if combined with external information," Arvind Narayanan, a computer scientist at Stanford who studies data privacy, said in an email.

For now, the Hartmans are trying to take a realistic approach to their data. They understand that information about their habits may be collected by companies they've heard of and some they haven't, and that it's up to them to be the watchdogs of their own privacy.

Emily Hartman, 18, prefers to keep her digital dealings to a minimum when possible.

"I communicate with my friends when I'm at school," she said wryly. "It's a whole new experience."

The Hartman family was located with the assistance of the American Public Media's Public Insight Network, a resource for news organizations to find readers and radio listeners interested in contributing to articles.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-no-privacy-20111002,0,7279202,print.story

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Idaho lab concentrates on cyber-security

At the Idaho National Laboratory, Homeland Security analysts are working to find and stop cyber-attacks. A federal think tank says the number of attacks is growing.

by Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau

October 1, 2011

Reporting from Idaho Falls, Idaho

In a gray office building across from the scenic Snake River, analysts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sift through the latest threat information on double-paneled, flat-screen computer monitors.

They are not searching for rogue missile launches or terrorist plots, as other analysts do in other secure government rooms elsewhere in the U.S. Their job at the Idaho National Laboratory is to find and stop what experts warn is a growing risk to America: a cyber-attack that could disable water systems, chemical plants or parts of the electrical grid.

Terrorist groups don't have that capability yet, but they could one day, experts say. Attacks could come from disgruntled employees or criminal networks intent on extortion, publicity or mischief. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea already have cyber-weapons that can target critical nodes in the U.S. economy, including utilities and private industry.

Outsiders "are knocking on the doors of these systems, and there have been a lot of intrusions," said Greg Schaffer, a deputy undersecretary of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a government-sponsored think tank, has concluded that hackers conceivably could crash trains, cause chemical spills, and darken the electrical grid. No such disaster has occurred in the United States, but the number of probes is growing.

As more utilities and industries link their computer networks to the Internet, shadowy adversaries regularly probe the control systems that run crucial infrastructure, officials said during a tour of the cyber-security unit at the Idaho lab, long one of the nation's top nuclear research facilities.

For years, industry leaders doubted a cyber-attack could cause physical harm. In 2007, scientists at the Idaho lab proved otherwise. In an experiment, they hacked the control system for a large diesel electrical generator — the kind used widely in U.S. power plants — causing it to self-destruct.

Further proof came with the so-called Stuxnet attack, computer malware that targeted and caused centrifuges to spin out of control at a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. It showed a digital weapon could cause major damage.

Stuxnet was a "game changer," said Marty Edwards, who leads the cyber-security effort at the lab. It made people recognize the destructive potential of cyber-attacks on industrial control systems.

Many outside experts believe U.S. agencies helped create the Stuxnet virus. The sophisticated malware took advantage of previously unknown vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and targeted a specific type of Siemens controller used to run Iran's centrifuges.

Edwards denied speculation that the Idaho lab, which conducted a vulnerability assessment of the Siemens controllers before Stuxnet first appeared in 2009, passed information to U.S. intelligence agencies that helped them target Iran's nuclear program.

"There was no research that was done [here] that was leveraged to create Stuxnet," Edwards said. He said the lab had identified "intrinsic system design flaws that have been known in the industry for years."

More than 90% of U.S. infrastructure is in private hands, and except for nuclear power plants, no regulations govern how to secure systems against cyber-attacks. Companies aren't required to report attacks unless they compromise consumers' personal data and trigger state disclosure laws.

Many cyber-attacks go unreported, experts say, because companies fear the financial and public relations consequences of disclosure.

The analysts in the Idaho watch center get their threat information on an ad hoc basis — some from the FBI and intelligence agencies, some from companies, some from news reports.

"Clearly, not everything comes to us," Schaffer said.

Officials said the lab's experts responded to 116 requests for assistance in 2010, and 342 so far this year.

The Obama administration has proposed requiring companies and utilities to hire commercial auditors to assess cyber-security risk and mitigation plans. Public companies would have to certify to the Securities and Exchange Commission that their plans were sufficient.

The proposal faces an uphill battle in Congress, where several cyber-security bills are pending. None are expected to pass this year.

"There are still folks who are in denial," said Mike Assante, former head of cyber-security efforts for the electric utility industry, adding that an attack that damages crucial infrastructure is inevitable. "It's a matter of time."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-idaho-cyber-20111001,0,1232722,print.story

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Supreme Court tests of our rights

Some of the most important cases on the court's docket this term involve individual rights. They offer the court the opportunity to play a role it often has embraced: reining in the power of the state.

October 2, 2011

In the term that begins Monday, the Supreme Court will address issues as diverse as the limits of copyright law, the appeals process for owners of wetlands regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and whether the government of California can order reductions in Medi-Cal reimbursements. It is also likely that the court will rule on challenges to the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, derided by its critics as "Obamacare."

As is often the case, however, some of the most important cases on the court's docket involve individual rights. They offer the court the opportunity to play a role it often has embraced in its history: reining in the overweening power of the state.

Perhaps the most closely watched case tests what privacy rights Americans have against the intrusiveness of modern technology. Police in Washington, D.C., without a valid warrant, attached a GPS device to the car of a suspected drug dealer and followed his movements for a month. In the past the court has said that a person driving on public streets has no reasonable expectation of privacy. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the reach of GPS monitoring made this case different. As Judge Douglas Ginsburg put it, prolonged GPS surveillance "reveals an intimate picture of the subject's life that he expects no one to have — short perhaps of his spouse." (The same might be said of continuous tailing by a police car, but the court said that "practical considerations prevent visual surveillance from lasting very long.") The court also will consider the separate question of whether affixing a GPS device violates the 4th Amendment right to be free from a seizure of personal property.

This isn't the first time the court has been asked to apply the 4th Amendment to modern technology. In 2001, it ruled that police violated the rights of a drug suspect when they aimed a thermal imaging device at his house to determine whether the heat inside was consistent with marijuana cultivation. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."

GPS devices are in wider use than thermal imaging machines, and the ones in this case didn't peer into the interiors of homes. But the logic of Scalia's argument may apply to their use to track a suspect's every movement. Just as the framers couldn't foresee devices that allowed for the electronic surveillance of a home from outside, so they couldn't contemplate a device that invades privacy by monitoring "public" movements that, as the court said, reveal a host of private relationships.

Advances in technology also figure in a 1st Amendment case originating in popular culture. The Federal Communications Commission has a policy of sanctioning broadcasters for "fleeting expletives" — spontaneous outbursts of vulgarity on live radio and television broadcasts. In one of those cases, the commission ruled that a televised music awards show had violated the indecency rule because Cher, in an unscripted acceptance speech, used the "F-word."

In a 1978 case involving a George Carlin monologue about "filthy words," the court said that the ease with which children may obtain access to broadcast material "amply justi[fies] special treatment of indecent broadcasting." But in the case the court will hear, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals noted that time and technology have changed the relationship between children and television. For example, every new TV set contains a V-chip that allows parents to screen out programming they consider inappropriate for their children. Quoting an earlier decision, the appeals court noted that "targeted blocking enables the government to support parental authority without affecting the 1st Amendment interests of speakers and willing listeners."

The appeals court also faulted the FCC rules for vagueness. "If the FCC cannot anticipate what will be considered indecent under its policy," wrote Judge Rosemary Pooler, "then it can hardly expect broadcasters to do so." Pooler also said there was "little rhyme or reason" in the way the FCC interpreted exceptions to the indecency rule for newscasts and programs in which expletives are allowed because of "artistic necessity." All the more reason for the Supreme Court to invalidate the FCC's regulation.

The court will deal with other important cases involving criminal law. In one, a New Jersey man arrested on a minor offense — dealing with a supposedly unpaid fine that in fact had been paid — was strip-searched in a particularly humiliating way. (The jail used the euphemism "visual observation.") He is asking the court to rule, as it should, that officials must have "reasonable suspicion" that an arrested person is carrying contraband before subjecting him or her to a strip search. A second case concerns the Miranda rule and whether an inmate jailed for one offense should be advised of his rights when he is questioned about another. In a case from Alabama, the court will decide whether a death row inmate should have lost his right to appeal because his attorneys quit their law firm and failed to receive necessary paperwork. Finally, the court will hear a case that will determine whether a forensic expert testifying at a trial can cite a laboratory test performed by someone absent from the courtroom without violating the right of the defendant to confront the witnesses against him. It should rule that the technician who performed the test must take the witness stand.

Vindicating individual rights isn't the only responsibility of the Supreme Court, but it's the most important. This term will test the court's commitment to that mission.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-scotus-20111002,0,905063,print.story

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From Google News

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North Carolina

Police outreach helps make it safer in Southeast Raleigh

Police charged five teens. Raleigh Police Chief Harry Patrick Dolan was blunt in describing the neighborhood, particularly the nearby stretch of East Martin Street, calling it "the worst street in Raleigh."

Wright's murder was the latest in a grim trend, coming just after Raleigh's deadliest year. Southeast Raleigh accounted for 60 percent of the 34 citywide homicides in 2008.

Since then, there's been a remarkable turnaround. The police department's Southeast District saw homicides drop to three last year. So far, there have been three this year.

While authorities say it's too soon to declare victory over violent crime, they credit a crackdown on the worst offenders and an equally intense focus on providing new educational and recreational opportunities to those most at risk of committing crimes.

Back to basics

And the police department has gone back to the most fundamental of policing strategies - getting officers out on the beat, consulting with residents to find new solutions and mentoring youngsters.

"What we are doing is what officers did years ago," said Capt. Andy Lull, commander of the Southeast District.

Lull, 50, and a 25-year veteran of the police force, sees the difference when he drives through those same neighborhoods. Children once afraid to go outside now play safely in newly constructed parks or under the watchful eye of a friendly police presence.

"Do we get more calls about kids playing basketball in the streets? Yes, we do. ... I can't tell you how refreshing that is. The issues are not gang issues or gunshots in the neighborhood."

Charles and Clara Exum own a strip mall in the 1700 block of East Martin Street, near where police set up a mobile command unit after Wright's death. Gangs, violence and drug activity that used to be commonplace along the strip just east of downtown have been in decline.

Clara Exum credits a continuous police presence for the lessening of illegal activity.

"A lot of it is because of the police," said Exum. "That began to bring about change. And then, a lot of people were locked up. Some got out and got locked up again."

Abeni El Amin, a former chairwoman of the city's human relations commission, funded Project Ricochet of North Carolina in 2009, days after Rodriguez D . Burrell was gunned down on Haywood Street while visiting his father's home.

"It's been a collaborative effort by many different people and organizations; law enforcement, community-based organizations, policymakers and families, especially families," El Amin said.

Fighting crime

Even before 2008, the homicide rate had been steadily climbing in Raleigh. There were 25 killings in 2007, up from 19 in 2006.

Southeast Raleigh - an area that begins east of downtown and extends to the city's farthest eastern boundaries - was the hotspot.

The vast majority of the district is populated by hardworking residents living in modest neighborhoods dotted with renovated homes, bustling community centers, red-brick and white-washed churches and parks. But there are also pockets that Lull described as " some of the more challenged neighborhoods."

These are neighborhoods that had been long afflicted by joblessness, chronic poverty and an overall lack of resources whose damage was most visible in decrepit houses that should have been torn down decades ago. Drug dealers and prostitutes took advantage of the chaos on these streets, brazenly plying their trades on the corners.

In 2009, the police department temporarily opened a mobile field office near Haywood and Martin streets. Eighteen community officers began walking or riding bicycles through neighborhoods.

Then the department developed a five-year strategic plan to aggressively target dangerous criminals, working with the federal government to secure maximum prison sentences for violent, repeat criminal offenders as well as identifying gang members who were committing robberies and selling drugs in Southeast Raleigh.

Police also partnered with other city divisions - solid waste, planning and zoning, public works and inspections - to help remove blight, set up more street lights and improve housing that didn't meet code.

The result was a drop in violent crime.

In addition to a steep decrease in homicides, robberies declined in the Southeast District from 363 reported in 2008 to 173 last year and 135 so far this year.

Going to the people

At the heart of the Southeast Raleigh strategy is a community-oriented government initiative. Police and city officials began meeting monthly with residents to identify problems.

The meetings started in late 2008 when more than 70 people showed up at the Tarboro Road Community Center after 16-year-old Adarius Fowler was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Those who attended were asked to list their three top concerns and any ideas for how to remedy the problems that had bedeviled their neighborhood.

"By involving them, we had a better idea of what we should be working on," Lull said.

It was clear the neighborhood needed more positive outlets for young people to help them resist the lure of gangs and crime. Even with the recent progress, the average age of the nearly 120 men and eight women identified as dangerous criminals and arrested in 2010 was 22.

So, the police department set up a mentoring program at the Tarboro Road center with retired police detective George Passley at the helm. Passley, a respected military veteran, has mentored hundreds of young people at the gang-free zone he helped set up several years ago at the community center.

The city's parks and recreation department was asked to set up similar initiatives at community centers throughout Raleigh.

The partnership has resulted in two basketball leagues, a baseball league that serves more than 60 youngsters, summer camps and a teen center at the old St. Monica's School, which educated African-American children for more than three decades.

The St. Monica Teen Center is quickly becoming one of the most vibrant resources in the city for young people, with its high ceilings, rich wooden floors and pastel-colored rooms that house a dance and art studio, computer lab, game room and lounge. The historic landmark reopened in February next door to the Tarboro Road center. And the Sgt. T. Courtney Johnson Center at Southgate Park partnered with police to create mentoring programs and sports teams.

Others step up

When he arrived in Southeast Raleigh to pastor the Ship of Zion Assembly of God on South Blount Street, Chris Jones recognized the same kinds of problems he saw as a missionary in South Africa: poverty, crime and joblessness. A cynical hopelessness prevailed while young men, some desperate for work, loitered on the street corners, selling drugs. Bullet holes dotted the church's wooden exterior. Prostitution was rampant.

So Jones' church joined others with a stake in the Southeast Raleigh community to establish Graduate Equivalency Diploma classes, job skills training, mentoring and youth recreation.

"It's been about helping young people get jobs, earn their GEDs and go to college," Jones said.

Those programs received a shot in the arm in 2008. The year before, Wake and Durham counties split a $2.5 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to combat gang activity. Wake County Human Services initiated Project 110 Percent to dole out Wake's share of the money where it could help most.

Job training works

Two years ago, Jones' church began the Transitional Employment Initiative, which - along with the Neighbor 2 Neighbor outreach program - contracts with local businesses that agree to employ the job training graduates through a 50-hour internship. The federal funds pay the participants' wages during their internship.

"It helps us find work for people with (criminal histories) who normally could not find work," said Royce Hathcock, director of Neighbor 2 Neighbor and pastor of the Tapestry Church of the Nazarene, which shares the same building at 1200 S. Blount St.

Ship of Zion also oversees a series of one-story apartments on South Blount Street that were leased in March to provide temporary housing for people returning to the neighborhood from prison. .

Ship of Zion, with the help of other churches, particularly Hope Community Church in Cary and First Assembly of God Church in North Raleigh, purchased an empty lot across the street where a dilapidated house had been torn down and the now boarded-up house next door was a haven for illegal activity. It will house a faith-based community center.

The nonprofit Neighbor 2 Neighbor program, arising in 1994 out of a series of conversations with mothers living in Southeast Raleigh public housing, sponsors an array of mentoring, recreational and jobs programs. In March 2010, Neighbor 2 Neighbor began offering classes to high school dropouts to earn GEDs and improve their employment opportunities.

A short distance away, the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Worship and Outreach Center on Sawyer Road began hosting Strategically Organizing for Action and Results - or S.O.A.R. - twice-weekly job skills training classes for women 18 and older. A similar program for men is hosted by Neighbor 2 Neighbor.

"We are trying to build a community of hope, justice and compassion," Hathcock said. "When you are hopeless, you lack solutions. We are looking for solutions."

Results are telling

Of the 402 people involved in the Project 110 Percent-funded programs since July 2008, 77 percent have completed the programs. Thirty-eight returned to high school to earn their diplomas, nine participants have earned their GED and 42 more are enrolled in GED classes.

Nearly 40 percent are ready for full-time employment after completing the jobs training program.

Meanwhile, gang-related crime is down 40 percent in the Southeast District and gang-related robberies are down by 36 percent since Project 110 Percent started working in the area, according to statistics compiled by the Raleigh Police Department.

The federal grant ended June 30, but there was enough funding left over for another round of S.O.A.R. men and women until the end of the year.

Cas Womack, who directs N2N's GED, men's and women's job programs, said the nonprofit has been sponsoring fundraisers and meeting with local businesses to get help paying for the job internships, which he described as essential.

So far, the agency has had the greatest success with T.J. Maxx.

"T.J. Maxx in Apex called and wanted a couple of our people. They performed so well, the store called back and wanted more people to work in their stores in Garner and Morrisville. So it's that type of partnership I'm looking for that helps build sustainability," Womack said.

Success stories

Charles Battle is on probation after being convicted of felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

Darius Anderson was expelled from two schools and the Job Corps over the past three years for fighting.

After serving five years in an upstate New York prison, Marcel Merritt moved to Raleigh, where he was unemployed, uninspired and hanging out in the streets.

Today, all three are participating in educational programs in Southeast Raleigh.

The tall, wiry, 20-year-old Battle was drumming with the Helping Hand Mission marching band and, in his words, "looking for a way out" when a friend introduced him to Neighbor 2 Neighbor.

"I'm working toward my GED," he said. "Hopefully, I'll get it by next month. It's a whole lotta work I got to do, but that's my goal."

Anderson, 20, earned his GED in April through N2N's program. He plans to enroll at Shaw University to study criminal justice. He wants to be a probation officer.

"I see that the way I was living and the way I was acting wasn't getting me anywhere," Anderson said. "I just wanted to do better for my family."

It was also family - the birth of his son two years ago - that pushed Merritt, 33, to seek a new direction.

"Basically, the streets had me until I had my son in 2009," he said.

Merritt's mother earned her GED through Neighbor 2 Neighbor, and now volunteers as a mentor with the S.O.A.R. program at Mt. Pleasant. Working at the Newsome Roofing Co. on South Blount Street, he began mentoring, too, with N2N. Womack urged him to further his education.

Today, he's an A student at Miller-Motte College and owns a fledging landscaping business.

"What impresses me are the youth (at N2N) are actually making a change in their life. They are listening. They want guidance," Merritt said. "If you are a gangbanger coming in, that's making a big step. This is definitely the best thing in Raleigh. We need more."

Phillip Walker, pastor at the Mt. Pleasant Worship and Outreach Center, agrees.

"Hope is moving through the community," he said.

Community Outreach Programs

Neighbor 2 Neighbor , job training, GED courses: Royce Hathcock, 919-833-7218 or royce@n2noutreach.org

Project 110 Percent , housing assistance, gang prevention strategies: David Barciz, 919-600-9519 or dave.barciz@wakegov.com

S.O.A.R. , job training: Cas Womack, 919-833-7220 or casanova19@bellsouth.net

Transitional Employment Initiative , job skills, community support: Chris Jones, 919-817-3464

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/10/02/1533367/safer-in-southeast-raleigh.html?tab=gallery&gallery=/2011/10/01/1531667/community-policing-in-southeast.html&gid_index=1

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Those Gosh-Darn Criminals Can Go to Heck

The police are known to curse a lot.

With a soaring homicide rate, rampant gang activity and a shrinking budget, officers at the Oakland Police Department have a tough job — and swearing has long been part of it.

But as part of an effort to transform the department from a traditional one into an agency based on community policing, Chief Anthony Batts is cracking down on bad language.

Several recent cases in which officers were disciplined for profanity have some officers rolling their eyes, highlighting a longstanding conflict within the department between two policing cultures that has come to a head under Chief Batts.

“I'm sorry. I'm not dealing with librarians. I'm not dealing with P.T.A. moms,” said Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, the president of the Oakland Police Officer's Association. “I'm dealing with criminals, guys who are in San Quentin, guys who are in prison. The last thing I want people to think is that I'm some softie.”

Community policing relies heavily on strong community partnerships to spot and solve crime. While the model has been the nationwide standard for policing for decades, Oakland officers say a history of underfinancing and a contentious relationship with the public have fed into a scrappy and aggressive internal culture, more in line with older models of policing. In 2003, a judge ordered the department to institute reforms after a group of officers, nicknamed the Riders, were accused of planting drug evidence on suspects in East Oakland.

When Chief Batts took the job in 2009, he began to tackle the reforms, which include improving officer discipline, and to work on repairing the department's relationship with the community. Under Chief Batts, officer disciplinary cases have tripled, but he has met resistance to internal changes among officers unsure of his commitment and leadership.

In one incident, according to officers familiar with the cases, an officer was disciplined after he was caught cursing to himself in his patrol car. In another, an officer guarding a crime scene was disciplined after swearing at a man who turned out to be a city employee.

“I don't want to say we have a runaway culture here, but I think we have a very traditional culture,” Chief Batts said. “It's not just expletives; it's their overall attitude.”

David Sklansky, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the department had a history of embracing the “go-it-alone” culture of the '60s and '70s. “It used to be that police forces were overwhelmingly white and male, pretty uniformly and aggressively homophobic, and politically and culturally conservative,” he said. But as departments have diversified and surveillance technologies have proliferated, “police officers are expected to get along better with people now much more than they used to be,” he said.

Demographic and generational changes in the Oakland department have mirrored these trends. According to the police officers' association, 50 percent of the department's patrol officers have been hired since 2003. The force is now 20 percent Latino and more than 20 percent black, and department veterans say many officers have college degrees.

“The idea of who is a police officer and what our job entails is changing,” said Sgt. Holly Joshi, a department spokeswoman. “It's been happening for a couple of decades.”

Cursing is not the only language-related issue that is out of sync with the community policing paradigm. Earlier this month, Thelton Henderson, a federal judge who oversees the federally mandated reforms, blasted the department's decision to name a summertime sweep of probation offenders Operation Summer Tuneup.

The judge said the department told him the name was chosen because “people tend to fix their cars during the summer months,” he said. But tuneup, it turns out, is a slang term used by officers to describe the beating of a suspect.

Mr. Henderson said that asking the court to believe the earlier definition was “akin to a baseball manager who tells his pitcher to throw a bean ball and says he means for the pitcher to really throw a ball of pinto beans.”

Chief Batts told the judge that he also disapproved of the name.

“We're not at war with our community,” he said. “I need to push that. I have to push that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/us/those-gosh-darn-criminals-can-go-to-heck.html

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Deleware

Two views on violence

Wilmington ranks third in violent crime for U.S. cities its size. Meanwhile, in Providence, R.I., a new approach has cut crime.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The News Journal searched nationwide for a successful model of dealing with chronic violence like that plaguing Wilmington. In Providence, R.I., we discovered once-corroded neighborhoods had been transformed through community policing and a new social services strategy.

Five years ago, the most dangerous open-air drug markets in Providence, R.I., looked a lot like Wilmington's worst streets.

Drug dealers occupied the corners around the clock. They'd rob customers and shoot each other if a sale went bad. Neighbors lived in fear, with few daring to venture outside after dark.

For decades, police in both cities employed a strategy of storming a corner and rounding up the bad guys only to see the drug dealers return.

By 2009, Wilmington's rate of violent crime had soared to be the third-highest in the nation among more than 450 similar-sized cities, FBI data show. It remained there in 2010. Homicides hit modern-day record levels in three of the past five years.

In Providence, police tried something new. In 2006, they combined traditional enforcement with more community involvement, more social services and second chances for a select few nonviolent dealers.

It worked.

"It changed a hell of a lot," said Wanda Perry, who moved into Providence's once-notorious Chad Brown housing project last year because police had cleaned it up and kept it safe.

"No loud music at night, nobody fighting, no cops coming in except to do their rounds," she said. "You can actually sit outside with your kids and do a cookout. Now when we see an ambulance, everybody rushes to see what's going on because it's so boring here."

In Wilmington, Police Chief Michael Szczerba was unfamiliar with the strategy and said he has "no interest whatsoever" in trying it.

"Would I buy into sitting down with drug dealers, drug traffickers, offering them a second chance?" Szczerba said. "No. Go to jail. Stay off our streets."

Wilmington Mayor James Baker said no single tactic will ever be enough to overcome the root causes of crime, such as poverty, unemployment, poor education and family breakdowns. Violence is especially acute in the city's black community, he said.

"Urban African-American families are disastrous," said Baker, who is black. "Everything is falling apart. Value systems are broken. There are kids out there who will tell you that being smart is dumb. Families have collapsed."

Baker and Szczerba have been saying the same things for a decade.

"[Baker] is right, but getting at the root causes is a very difficult challenge," said Alfred Blumstein, a public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "He's not going to fix any of that; it's too easy an excuse for doing nothing."

"The idea that police can't control crime went out with disco," said Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles.

"We're not fixing poverty and racism until we get the crime problem under control," Kleiman said.

During the same decade, several other cities -- including Cincinnati; Nashville, Tenn.; Rockford, Ill.; and Raleigh and High Point, N.C. -- have used the new ideas about deterring crime to effectively wipe out their most infamous drug markets. The ideas, largely coming from criminal justice professor David Kennedy of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and formerly of Harvard University, also are being applied to gang crime, domestic violence and probation.

Wilmington's police chief scoffs.

"He can leave it at John Jay College or wherever it came from," Szczerba said.

Veteran police officers, criminologists and the U.S. Department of Justice say the strategy has turned drug havens into peaceful neighborhoods. Still, the idea is ludicrous to Szczerba.

"You could have a police chief come in here and say, 'Chief, paint your telephone poles orange; they won't hang out on the corners because they don't like the color orange,' " he said.

"The answer is no."

'Revolving door' of criminals

Szczerba and his top commanders say their methods are working.

The latest effort, Operation Pressure Point, involves state troopers assisting city officers with patrols, as well as enlisting the help of state social workers, liquor-control officers, probation officers and licensing inspectors.

Police also have identified several dozen high-risk, repeat offenders as responsible for driving a lot of the city's violent crime. Those 61 people have faced 1,405 felony charges and have been convicted of 225 felonies, police said. Officers track their activities, and when trouble strikes, those offenders may be the first to attract officers' attention.

"We've learned that we cannot depend on the cooperation of victims and witnesses to address violent crime," said Capt. Nancy Dietz, who oversees the department's detectives.

That "revolving door" of violent criminals is one of the most serious issues that police face, Szczerba said. He said he has pressed state legislators for a law that would allow police to keep someone in custody if they commit a violent felony while out on bail for an earlier violent felony.

Reducing recidivism has become the primary focus of the HOPE Commission, formed in 2005 to address the root causes of violence in the city, said Executive Director Charles Madden. The commission is now raising money to open a one-stop center to help ex-prisoners get drug treatment, job training, housing and other services they need to re-enter society, he said.

Capt. Marlyn Dietz, who oversees the community policing unit, said police have modified their jump-out squad tactic to include several vehicles descending on a drug corner from various angles. The idea is adapted from a tactic used in East Orange, N.J., he said.

A six-hour effort last week netted two people charged with drug offenses, six people charged with misdemeanors, several others issued traffic tickets and a fugitive from Alabama, he said. Police also executed 16 warrants.

"There are a lot of people who love it," said Marlyn Dietz, who is married to Nancy Dietz. "They like to see their police department rolling in and cleaning up those corners."

The department also has strengthened its community policing effort this year, Szczerba said. Criminologists define "community policing" as a philosophy that focuses on close relationships between officers and residents to solve problems that cause crime.

"That's what we do on a daily basis, whether you're assigned to the community policing unit or you're riding in a patrol unit or you're in our detective unit," Szczerba said.

The efforts are bearing fruit this year, police said.

From this time last year, gun- and knife-related homicides are down 29 percent, shootings are down 40 percent and robberies are down 32 percent, police data show.

More people, fewer crimes

While Wilmington's violent crime rate over the past decade has generally risen, the national figure has gradually fallen.

It's also been falling in places like Providence.

While there are no perfect comparisons among cities, Providence would look familiar to anyone who knows Wilmington.

Both cities are the biggest urban centers in their tiny coastal states, and both have histories stretching back to the 1600s. Their populations peaked in 1940, Providence with 253,500 people and Wilmington with 112,500.

When I-95 was built, planners routed it through the middle of both cities, cutting neighborhoods in half and allowing travelers to zip through without stopping. Both cities saw residents follow good-paying jobs to the suburbs or other regions of the country, cutting their populations by a third to about 178,000 in Providence and about 71,000 in Wilmington.

And those residents face similar social problems.

A quarter of the people in both Wilmington and Providence are poor. Almost one in seven adults is out of work, and one in five households relies on food stamps. Single mothers make up 14 percent of each city's households.

Those are the kinds of social problems that Baker and Szczerba say are driving Wilmington's violent crime problem.

Yet while Providence has 2 1/2 times as many people as Wilmington, it experiences fewer violent crimes, FBI data show.

Providence police recorded 1,214 violent crimes last year, compared with 1,399 in Wilmington. For every 10,000 residents, Providence had 71 violent crimes and Wilmington had 191.

Among almost 200 cities with 100,000 to 250,000 residents, Providence ranked 53rd.

Wilmington -- which has more police officers per capita and per square mile than Providence -- has ranked in the top 10 for the past five years among cities with 50,000 to 100,000 residents, the data show. Wilmington would have to cut its 2010 number of violent crimes by almost 40 percent -- roughly 11 fewer homicides, 11 fewer rapes, 250 fewer robberies and 280 fewer serious assaults -- to drop out of the top 10.

The city set a modern-day record of 27 homicides in 2010. There have been 15 gun- and knife-related homicides this year, which is six behind last year's pace.

Szczerba said one reason for the fluctuation is that one year's shooters become the next year's victims.

"If you put up a mirror to your victims, your suspects will look essentially the same, as far as their criminal history," he said.

Szczerba said that means law-abiding people should not be afraid to visit the city.

"Just check yes or no: Are you on probation? Do you regularly carry weapons? Do you regularly carry drugs? Are you drug-addicted? Do you have an extensive criminal history?" he said. "The more yesses you have, the more vulnerable you are to violence in our city."

Residents disheartened

Denise Fountain isn't involved in drugs or guns. She spends most of her time at church and working as a health insurance appeals specialist.

A few months ago, she and her family had just returned to their row house in the 900 block of N. Spruce St. in East Side when someone outside started shooting.

"We just got in the door when we heard boom-boom-boom-boom-boom," she remembered. "We scattered."

Two more bursts of gunfire over the next few days kept Fountain and her family on edge. Police didn't catch the shooters, in part because most neighbors adhere to a no-snitch creed, she said.

"We didn't let the kids outside for a while," she said. "When they're shooting, they don't care."

Two shootings nearby on the night of July 3 left one person dead and another wounded. No one had reported the homicide; police patrolling the streets discovered 22-year-old Braheem Curtis with a gunshot wound to the chest at Ninth and Kirkwood streets. It was the city's third homicide that week and the 12th of the year.

Fountain said she often sees police officers drive through the neighborhood. But she doesn't report the drug selling she sees because the dealers don't bother her.

Imam Ismaa'eel H. Hackett, director for the North American Islamic Foundation on Fourth Street, said he hears drug dealers and users openly calling out one another outside his home. He has seen people light a crack pipe in broad daylight.

"The community doesn't care because the police don't really care," he said.

Hackett said police spend too much time on small problems rather than going after larger dealers. His wife, Tahsiyn A. Ismaa'eel, said convicted felons have little hope of living crime-free lives when they get out of prison. They need drug and alcohol rehabilitation and job programs, she said.

"When you've taken [hope] away, they're going to return back to the streets because they see there is no end for them," she said. "If the young men cannot return to society in a reasonable amount of time and regroup their life, you've taken all your resources out of your community."

Rafu Jahfe, 36, has been out of work for more than two years because of a long criminal history of selling drugs. He said he's out of the drug business now and makes money mowing lawns, selling gospel music and doing other under-the-table jobs.

"Seventeen years in and out of prison -- from Ferris all the way to Smyrna," said Jahfe, who grew up in Hilltop. "Every time I came home from jail, I had to sell drugs or I'd look like a bum."

He sees children in his neighborhood who are lost, like he was, and tries to give them hope with his gospel music.

"I look at my 'hood and I just cry sometimes," he said.

'Drug dealers had control'

Just west of downtown Providence, on the other side of I-95, is Lockwood. For decades, the neighborhood was synonymous with open-air drug dealing, shootings and murder.

"It was a mess," said Barbara Neal, president of the tenants association at Lockwood Plaza, a high-rise for seniors.

Neal, 66, grew up in Bridgeville, Del., and her sister lives in Wilmington, a place she feels unsafe visiting. She said drug dealers in Lockwood would approach people at all hours of the day, even at 7 a.m when she returned from working an overnight shift as a certified nursing assistant.

"They were out there, 'Can I help you? You want something?' " Neal said. "We were scared to even go out."

A few minutes north of downtown is Providence's Chad Brown neighborhood, another once-infamous drug market. Police used to pull 15 stolen cars a day out of Chad Brown, said Patrolman Paul "Porky" O'Rourke. Pizza delivery drivers and taxis refused to venture into the neighborhood. Once a dead body lay in the street for hours until a police officer drove by and saw it. No one had called because no one trusted the police.

"Coming out of the '80s, all these places were open-air drug markets," said George Lindsey, who grew up in Chad Brown and now runs the Davey Lopes Recreation Center a few blocks from Lockwood Plaza. "The drug dealers had control, people were afraid, kids had to stay indoors."

A community policing success

On the afternoon of Sept. 9, two Wilmington police officers got a tip that drug dealers, maybe armed, were at work inside a row house in the 800 block of W. Seventh St.

Officers got a search warrant, called for backup and converged on the home. "Search warrant! Search warrant!" neighbors heard the officers yelling as they rushed inside.

Within a few minutes, several handcuffed people sat on the curb. Officers found several grams of marijuana and a loaded .22-caliber handgun. They arrested three people on possession and dealing charges.

To the small crowd of neighbors and children nearby, it was, as a teenage girl said, "just a normal raid." Others were openly hostile; one woman cursed at the officers and called them ugly, corrupt racists.

"The majority of the people on that block were probably happy to see what was going on," said Capt. William Browne, who oversees the department's drug enforcement. "The people who were hostile to us were probably relatives and friends of the people we arrested."

For police, the raid was an example of effective community policing. The tip came in on the personal cellphone of Officer Jesus Caez, who patrols the neighborhood, Marlyn Dietz said.

"He's done an excellent job in West Center City, and people there know him by name," Dietz said.

Caez isn't assigned to the department's community policing unit, which has 28 patrol officers, two sergeants and one lieutenant. Those officers address long-term crime problems, such as nuisance bars and speeding, Szczerba said.

For example, officers earlier this year heard complaints about speeding in several city neighborhoods, Dietz said. They devised a plan and over the past few months issued more than 2,000 speeding tickets. They also caught several people with guns and heroin, he said.

The department's seven captains are each assigned to be liaisons with the residents of the eight council districts; one captain covers two districts.

"This police department works with the community more than any other in the region," Baker said.

Connecting with the people

Experts, though, say separating some officers into a special unit is the opposite of the community policing philosophy.

"It didn't work for us," said Acting Chief Hugh Clements, a Providence native and 26-year veteran of the department. "It causes resentment."

"You've got the 'touchy-feely' cops and the others, and there's tension between them," explained Major Steve Melaragno, a 33-year veteran and head of the department's patrol bureau.

Szczerba said Wilmington has not experienced that tension.

"The community policing unit in Wilmington is definitely not touchy-feely because it's a difficult assignment," Szczerba said. "It has a lot of demands."

Dean Esserman, a former federal narcotics prosecutor, brought department-wide community policing to Providence when he became chief in 2003.

Community policing means "the police aren't an anonymous, distant warrior group," Esserman said in April, about two months before he resigned over an underage drinking incident at his home. "They have a close intimate relationship with the communities they serve."

Esserman divided the city into nine districts and put a lieutenant in charge of each one. Lieutenants compete with one another to bring down crime in their districts and are taken to task if they don't, Clements said.

"He's the mini police chief in that district," Clements said. "We give them a lot of latitude, and they're held accountable."

The commander of District 7, which covers the Chad Brown neighborhood, is Lt. Dan Gannon, a 25-year veteran of the force. He said community policing has helped mend the decades-old rift between the mostly white police force and the mostly minority population.

"You can't be jumping out of a car and throwing people down," Gannon said. "Those days are over."

Building trust in the community

Department-wide community policing helps dispel the mistrust that has built up over decades between police and their communities, said Kennedy, the John Jay College professor.

Heavy-handed police tactics, like Wilmington's jump-out squads, instead can make the problems worse, he said.

"When you treat entire communities like they're criminal, they don't like it," he said. "They get angry, they withdraw, they stop calling the police. It doesn't stop the violent crime and the drug dealing, so they don't feel it's being done in their interest.

"It can make law enforcement the enemy, not the [bad] guys with the guns."

Over time, the approach also leaves more and more people -- especially young men -- with criminal records. That can prevent them from passing background checks and getting job training, education and housing.

"All of that is being done in the name of protecting the community, and it's all sincere," he said. Instead, it causes "permanent, irrevocable damage."

Neighborhood turned around

In the 1990s, Kennedy began applying his ideas to the real world.

He worked with Boston police to reduce gang and gun violence. In High Point, N.C., police used his theories to wipe out an open-air drug market. Kennedy then looked for a setting to try what came to be known as the High Point Strategy. Esserman was interested.

"This ain't about drug dealing, it ain't about drug use," Esserman said. "It's about open-air drug markets and the corrosive nature of open-air drug markets."

Esserman said the department's district commanders chose to target Lockwood, "our toughest neighborhood."

Many Providence cops resisted the idea, including Gannon.

"The first thing I thought was 'hug a thug,' " Gannon said.

In a 2006 sweep, police arrested 103 people in Lockwood and several other neighborhoods around the city. Then they called in seven nonviolent, low-level dealers to a meeting; each brought a family member. Cops showed them undercover video of their drug sales, plus an unsigned warrant for their arrest based on the indisputable evidence against them. You're now out of the drug business, police and prosecutors told them. You're destroying your neighborhood and your families, community leaders and their families said. We'll help you get straight, social workers promised.

The Lucky Seven, as they came to be known, all took the deal, and the Lockwood drug market dried up almost immediately.

"We didn't think it was going to work as well as it did," Neal said. "It's very different now. People aren't afraid to go outside."

Lush grass, mature birch and maple trees, and beds of white, pink and red impatiens are Lockwood's most prominent features today. Some residents tend small gardens of tomatoes, peppers and squash outside their homes. A crowd of teenagers from a nearby high school chat and laugh on a first-day scavenger hunt. Joggers and cyclists pass through.

"Ten years ago, you'd never see these people coming through here," Lindsey said. "It used to be people would run you over getting out of this neighborhood."

Around Lockwood, there are still plenty of weed-choked abandoned lots and dilapidated houses with boarded-up windows. It's still clearly a poor neighborhood, but it's calm, even at night.

A second success story

Two years later, police tried the strategy in the Chad Brown neighborhood, with similar success.

"Overnight, we eliminated the drug dealers from the street," Gannon said. "It took a little time to convince the residents that we weren't leaving."

Residents said the change is obvious.

"On a scale of zero to 10, it used to be a zero, and now it's a 10. That's how good it is," said Rolando Matos, who has lived in the neighborhood for seven years. "It's peaceful. You can be outside and not worry about people shooting."

Nelie Rodriguez swept leaves and trash off the sidewalk along Chad Brown Street, where she has lived since 1995. Rodriguez said she feels comfortable leaving her apartment door open and letting her grandchildren play in front of her home.

"It has changed a lot for the better," Rodriguez said. "There used to be a lot of fights, a lot of drugs. It has calmed down."

Waldy Rodriguez, a caseworker for the nonprofit Family Services of Rhode Island, remembers how families used to sleep on their floors to avoid the stray bullets that came crashing through the windows.

"It's a night-and-day difference," he said.

Only one of the Lucky Seven has stayed out of trouble. Lindsey and others said the jobs and social services they were promised never fully materialized.

When police applied the tactic in Chad Brown, they made sure the three dealers who got a second chance also got more social services and follow-up programs, Gannon said. As far as he and others know, all three have avoided trouble.

At Lockwood, Neal said, she knows where the High Point Strategy should be used next: her sister's city, Wilmington.

Mayor Baker said he doesn't put much weight in claims that one tactic could make a big difference.

"We're still struggling with young people with guns who think it's all right to shoot someone," he said. "If we're not going to deal with these things that create the criminals, then just get used to what you see."

http://www.delawareonline.com/print/article/20111002/NEWS01/110020327/Two-views-violence

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U.S. officials warn of possible retaliation over al-Awlaki killing

Al-Awlaki -- the face of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula whose fluency with English and technology made him a top terrorist recruiter-- was killed Friday in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, officials said.

The State Department alert, which is in effect until November 30, urges U.S. citizens abroad to register with the government to make it easier to contact them in case of an emergency.

The alert follows a joint bulletin issued late Friday by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security that similarly warns that al-Awlaki's killing may provoke attacks, if his supporters seek to portray him as a martyr in a supposed U.S. war against Islam.

It said the deaths "could provide motivation for homeland attacks" by "homegrown violent extremists," the type the two men allegedly tried to recruit or inspire.

A similar bulletin was issued following the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Three others were killed in the attack including Samir Khan, an American, who produced the terrorist network's English-language online magazine, Inspire.

A U.S. official told CNN on Saturday that there are indications that Ibrahim Hasan al-Asiri, a top bomb maker for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was at the scene of the attack but couldn't confirm whether he had been killed.

U.S. officials believe al-Asiri was behind the thwarted 2009 Christmas day "underwear" bomb as well as a failed October 2010 plot to put explosive devices on cargo planes headed to the United States.

A Yemeni official, who would speak only on background, said that as of Saturday, the other operatives killed had not been identified.

Al-Awlaki's father, Nasser al-Awlaki, left the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Saturday for Jawf and Marib provinces to confirm that his son is dead, family members told CNN. Tribesmen in Marib province said Friday that they had seen the victims of the drone strike and that their bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Tribesmen said Saturday that the bodies were under their control and they would be handed over only to direct relatives.

"It's any family's right to bury their loved one, and we will ensure that that simple right is granted," said a tribal leader in the town of Khashef, where officials said the CIA drone attack occurred.

Meanwhile, the chief of the U.N. team responsible for monitoring al Qaeda activities said he is keeping an eye on the reaction to the killing in Yemen and what it could mean for the country.

Yemen has been wracked by political and social unrest as protesters call for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule, a crisis that has allowed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to gain a foothold in the southern part of the country. Saleh has resisted calls to step down, saying the country would fall into the hands of terrorists and militants if he relinquished control.

On Saturday, Yemen's state TV quoted a military source as saying forces were making progress in their fight against al Qaeda and have cleared large parts of Zinjibar, a port city in the southern province of Abyan.

In the Arhab district, north of Sanaa, eyewitnesses reported airstrikes and rocket-propelled grenade attacks by government forces on residential villages. Witnesses said two people were injured.

Al-Awlaki was under the protection of his family's large and powerful al-Awlaki tribe, which was once aligned to Saleh, Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the U.N. monitoring team, told CNN.

Barrett called al-Awlaki's killing a significant setback for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

"I can't think of a single individual who could take his place," he said.

A U.S. administration official said the mission, codenamed Operation Troy, was similar to the one in May that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in that it was commanded by the CIA, in close coordination with Joint Special Operations Command.

The CIA and the special ops command had al-Awlaki under surveillance for at least two weeks, but were awaiting an opportunity to kill him without causing civilian casualties or damage, the administration official said.

U.S. military helped target al-Awlaki and manned American military aircraft were flying overhead ready to offer assistance. The drone was operated by the CIA, officials said.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the death is a "major blow" to al Qaeda, still reeling from the killing and capture this year of several top leaders, most notably bin Laden.

A Yemeni government official told CNN that the killing was the result of a "successful joint intelligence-sharing operation" between Yemen and the United States. The official asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.

The United States regarded al-Awlaki as a terrorist who posed a threat to American homeland security. Western intelligence officials said they believe al-Awlaki was a senior leader of AQAP, one of the world's most active al Qaeda affiliates.

Al-Awlaki was killed near Khashef town, east of the capital, Sanaa, said Mohammed Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.

Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, he lived in the United States until the age of 7, when his family returned to Yemen. He returned to the United States in 1991 for college and remained until 2002.

During his stay in the United States, he served as imam in California and Virginia, and interacted with three of the men who went on to become September 11, 2001, hijackers, according to the 9/11 Commission report. He publicly condemned the attack afterward.

U.S. officials say he recruited Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the Nigerian man known as the underwear bomber, who was charged with trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight as it landed in Detroit on December 25, 2009.

The militant cleric is also said to have exchanged e-mails with accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing a dozen fellow soldiers in Texas.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/01/world/meast/yemen-radical-cleric/

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