University of Pennsylvania study links vacant-lot cleanups, reduced gun crime

November 25, 2011|By Tom Avril, Inquirer Staff Writer

From The Philadelphia Inquirer: http://articles.philly.com/2011-11-25/news/30441289_1_gun-assaults-crime-rates-gun-crime

By clearing trash and planting grass in thousands of vacant lots in Philadelphia, work crews did much more than beautify the landscape.

They also struck a big blow against crime, according to first-of-its-kind research from University of Pennsylvania scientists.

In the areas immediately surrounding 4,436 lots that were “greened” by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, there was a net reduction in assaults, gun assaults, and gun robberies compared with areas around lots that were not greened.

The reason? Part of it may be that once a vacant lot is cleared and planted, it is no longer a good hiding place for a gun, the researchers reported online last week in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

 

“You remove the abandoned automobiles, all the abandoned trash where you can hide firearms,” said lead author Charles Branas, an associate professor of epidemiology at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “All of a sudden, it makes it more challenging for illegal guns to move around the neighborhood.”

The authors said the decrease in crime might also be partly explained by the “broken-windows” theory, which proposes that boarded-up windows, vandalism, and other signs of decay can serve as a magnet for serious crime, because they suggest that no one is in control.

Told of the study findings, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said both explanations made sense – the elimination of hiding places for guns, and the broader perception that an environment is safe.

“If you bring something special to a neighborhood, it helps to make people feel a little bit better about where they are and where they live,” Ramsey said, adding that he expects the city’s Mural Arts Program to have a similar impact.

Other studies have linked crime rates with elements of the surrounding environment, including a Penn study on take-out liquor stores. But the new research appeared to be the first to look at the effects of transforming vacant lots.

The greening program, a major effort begun under Mayor John F. Street that has received national attention as a weapon against urban blight, involves trash removal and the planting of grass and a few trees. A low wooden fence is typically erected around the border.