Community Gardens - Anti-Crime Agents?

Community gardens can be anti-crime agents
Posted June 8, 2013 7:13 p.m. - Sentinel Standard

The MSU Extension Herb Garden is located on the south side of the MSU Extension Building at 50
E Sprague Rd. (the old Michigan State Police post on South M-66.) This garden is a partnership between the MSU Extension and Master Gardeners. Herbs are easy to grow and can be very
attractive. Feel free to stop by and check out this garden!

By Kristine Hahn
Michigan State University Extension

Gardens can function as anti-crime agents.

A local example of the restorative power of gardening is in Brightmoor neighborhood in northwest
Detroit. In 2005, Riet Schumack and her family bought a home on the Rouge River in Brightmoor
and began to renovate it. Most of the surrounding homes were in various states of disrepair and
abandonment. The same year, Schumack took the Urban Roots Community Garden Leader Training
Program that was developed and implemented in collaboration with Michigan State University
Extension staff and local partners. Schumack started a youth garden in a lot down the street from
her house. She purposely located the garden between a known drug house and a corner
frequented by prostitutes. The positive activity from the garden in addition to Schumack calling
the police to report illicit activity whenever she saw it eventually drove the bad actors away.
Today, many of the formerly abandoned homes have been purchased and renovated and this
Brightmoor neighborhood is well known for its beautiful community gardens and growing number of
well-kept yards. People are moving into the neighborhood instead of out.

In the Victoria Hills neighborhood of Kitchener, Ontario, there was a large, vacant corner lot that
was full of garbage and a popular site for illegal activity. In 1994, Regional Police Officer Rob Davis
spearheaded a successful transformation of the area by applying the standard Crime Prevention
through Environmental Design(CPTED) strategy of placing a safe activity in an unsafe or
vulnerable area. Specifically, Officer Davis introduced the idea of a community garden. The effect
was impressive. Within the first year that the garden was in place, the number of reported police
incidents for the surrounding three apartment complexes dropped 30 percent. The results
continued to improve in 1995 and 1996 when year over year, reported police incidents dropped by
48.8 and 55.7 percent.

How can a garden have such a powerful cascade of positive impacts? It is the ability of a garden
to draw people together around two common focal points: beauty and good food. When you take
a trash-strewn vacant lot that is home base for illegal behavior and turn it into a place of beauty
filled with positive activities, you will drive out the criminal element. Everyone eats and everyone
appreciates beauty. When neighbors walk by the garden and see their gardener neighbors, they
have common interests to talk each other about. And neighbors talking to each other can
eventually form relationships, connectedness, safer and more positive feelings about where they
live and to the development of a community where people look out for each other children.
This article was published by Michigan State University Extension.

For more information, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu. To contact an expert in your area, visit http://expert.msue.msu.edu, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

For information about community gardens in Ionia County, visit  www.ioniahost.com/garden/gardens/ionia/ionia.html.