Landscaping Fights Crime
Local News
by
Adam Uhernik
last edited on
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Police officers usually fight crime by patrolling the streets and different areas of the city.
But officials tell me, crime kept taking place under the East Boulevard Bridge no matter how many times cops patrolled that area.
So now police are taking a different approach to keep clean up that area.
Everyday many vehicles pass over the east boulevard bridge in Rapid City but what many people may not see is what happens under this bridge.
According to police, cops have seen everything from assaults, to fights, and other crime taking place there.
Captain Thrash says, "That was unique to that one location."
Thrash says before this landscaping a combination of rocks and asphalt, was put in people would actually spend the night here but, it wasn't just sleeping going on.
Officers say the more time people spent here the more crime took place
Rapid City Police Dept Captain Doug Thrash says, "So we did some environmental design to encourage people not to spend a lot of time under there."
These rocks are designed to look good but only to the frequent person passing by police say they don't want people spending the night here so they're using the stones as a deterrent.
"And try to prevent crime by making it uncomfortable it's an environmental design to reduce crime. And it's just unique to that one spot."
So far the landscaping in this spot has worked. Captain Thrash says people no longer spend the night under the bridge.
"It's just looking at the situation and tries to find an appropriate solution through past positive experiences on similar situations."
A situation police don't want to go bad and thrash says the rocks seem to be doing the job.
"So this is a good way to deal with the problem 24 hours a day."
Dealing with a problem under the bridge, as you pass over it Captain Thrash. The Police Department patrols the area but before the landscaping once cops would leave the area the crime would come back.
The rocks were an experiment, but so far Thrash says it's one that seems to be working.