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October 1990
DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE:
POLICE AND CITIZENS WORKING TOGETHER
by
William S. Sessions
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
October is National Crime Prevention Month. Most people
believe that law enforcement professionals should be the sole
preventers of crime; however, we cannot manage this
responsibility alone.
To understand this, all we need to do is to look at the
crime statistics for 1989, which reveal that crime is up all over
the United States. Both violent and property crimes rose last
year. In fact, the FBI's annual Crime Index total for 1989
showed an increase for the fifth consecutive year.
The challenge to those of us in law enforcement is to fight
crime harder and to cooperate more closely with citizens and
volunteer groups in our shared struggle against crime. And the
key to our success will be crime prevention--forming strong
partnerships with citizens of the community as we confront the
challenges of crime in the 1990s and into the next century.
Of course, crime prevention is not a new concept. In the
early days of our Nation, private citizens kept the peace in
their communities through respect for the law and through
voluntary involvement in peace-keeping efforts. For the most
part, the church, the family, and the community imposed social
sanctions that were the primary controls in preventing and
controlling crime.
Unfortunately, as cities grew and the populations changed,
this community support for law enforcement broke down. As a
result, the responsibility for crime prevention shifted. Law
enforcement officers, not citizens, became society's first line
of defense against crime.
But as today's statistics remind us, law enforcement cannot
prevent, or reduce, crime without enlisting broad-based citizen
participation, cooperation, and support. Moreover, our resources
and manpower are shrinking, while our responsibilities are
growing and the criminal element is becoming more sophisticated.
So, we must get back to the basics and use community-based
efforts to help control crime.
The FBI strives to increase citizen participation in many of
its investigative efforts. To illustrate, as part of our
approach to the drug problem, the FBI is involved in reducing
America's demand for drugs through the Drug Demand Reduction
Program. Selected Special Agents across the country go out into
their communities to work with community agencies and concerned
citizens to find solutions to the drug problem that plagues our
society.
In the war on crime, we must build better educational
systems for the public so that instead of fearing crime, they
will take measures to prevent it. Indeed, every time a citizen
becomes involved in crime prevention, our neighborhoods, our
communities, and our Nation are improved.