CRIME

By Michael Richard Amerian

Problem: Increasing crime rates as the economy worsens.

Solution: Increase cooperation between prosecutors and communities.

I will have a zero tolerance approach to all criminal activities in the City, regardless of whether the criminal is here legally or not. In order to enhance the safety of our communities, I will expand the circumstances in which we prosecute criminals who return to this country illegally after we have already deported them for committing crimes.

Community Based Prosecution

Our Neighborhood Prosecutor Program (NPP) has revolutionized the way our office solves specific issues by placing prosecutors in LAPD Divisions so they can work more closely with police officers and residents. Neighborhood Prosecutors achieve outstanding results because they know their communities so well. Using their success as a model, we can achieve similar results for prosecuting many of the other criminal cases in our office.

Every year, our office files more than 100,000 criminal cases. At present, the vast majority of cases we prosecute are randomly assigned to prosecutors. As City Attorney, I will specifically assign more prosecutors to work on cases by geographic area. Our office will then work more closely with police officers and community leaders, such as Homeowner Associations, Neighborhood Councils and Neighborhood Watches. This will make our communities safer and stronger.

In this time of economic hardship, this approach will prove to be a better use of our scarce resources to fight crime. This approach expands the successful concept of community policing to the prosecution of criminals.