Cincinnati police are about to take on a mountain of new responsibility.

In June, they'll begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood rollout of a citywide philosophy called Community Problem-Oriented Policing, or CPOP.

Police officers will still do the nuts and bolts of their jobs - enforcing the law, arresting criminals, giving out traffic tickets.

But 44 "neighborhood officers" and their captains and district commanders also will systematically handle complaints about non-crime nuisances such as vacant buildings, abandoned cars, trash-strewn lots and unhealthy public areas.

The idea is similar to efforts in New York City and Boston, which cleaned up high-crime areas so they looked less like dens of criminality. As police and citizens worked together, homicides and violent crimes dropped.

Under CPOP, neighborhood officers will set up and lead specially trained teams of community members who'll pinpoint neighborhood problems and decide with police how to fix them.

Appearances matter

City residents will still be able to dial up City Hall to report neighborhood troubles. But contacting their CPOP team, theoretically, will be more influential, especially with a neighborhood officer involved.

Now, if a citizen calls City Hall with a complaint, there's no top-level department keeping track of it. Complaints get lost. Even inveterate activists get stymied by the bureaucracy.

Under CPOP, Cincinnati police are supposed to keep track of it all.

They'll enter into a publicly accessible database the fate of each identified problem: who in what city department was contacted, what was agreed should be done, and what if anything happened.

The database could become the most powerful tool in this effort, or its biggest bottleneck. It's supposed to be available over the Internet, accessible as your nearest public library or laptop.

That's if it works. The system and software haven't been purchased yet. Col. Richard Janke, assistant police chief and point man, expects that to happen in June.

CPOP also is supposed to broadly publish the names and numbers of each CPOP police officer, so residents know who to contact. That, too, could flop if all people get is their voice mail.

If some of this sounds familiar, it's because Cincinnati has tried similar things in the past.

Old strategies renewed

Police have practiced forms of "community-oriented" or "problem-oriented" policing, but it wasn't systematic or documented. Law enforcement isn't even in agreement on what those terms mean anyway.

Cincinnati also operates 14 Neighborhood Action Strategy teams, made up of community council residents who meet regularly with workers in city departments to resolve neighborhood issues.

Some of those teams are going strong, but others are ineffective or no longer exist. A survey of city residents in June showed most Cincinnatians don't even know what the Neighborhood Action Strategy program is.

Already CPOP is making more of a splash, if only because of controversy. CPOP was one of the mandates in the agreement between black groups, the city and police to settle racial profiling lawsuits.

CPOP has drawn skepticism from police officers to city workers to neighborhood leaders. They ask, are police the best ones for this job?

Good question. I expect more like it Saturday, at a neighborhood summit of community councils at Cintas Center, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

CPOP must stand scrutiny now, or it'll fold in the future.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395