Staff Blog
Is there a cost to keeping some pools open and closing others?
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In November, Mayor Michael Nutter said that he'd shut down 68 out of the city's 81 swimming pools. But then the people spoke, and Nutter listened (whether that's for the best or not, we have yet to see). Last Thursday, he said that he'd be keeping 46 pools open — a big difference from the original 13. This obviously means all sorts of great things: recreational departments like Mander Playground (33rd and Susquehanna) will be able to keep their summer camps robust, community members without AC will have access to a cooling alternative, and crime will likely be reduced because of the 'ol routine activities theory — keep people busy, and they won't get into trouble as often.
Or will they?
Caterina Roman, a criminal justice professor at Temple University, has an interesting theory about what may happen as a result of closing some pools and keeping others open. In 2003, she published a study on the effects of shutting down schools and displacing students to education centers in other neighborhoods. "We found that there was an increase in assaults, as a result of placing rival gangs together or just plain rival communities together." While she hasn't completed a study on displacing students or adults as a result of pools, she predicts that it may have the same effect. She emphasized that this was merely conjecture, but still thinks police should take it into consideration once pools open.
She also thinks officials should have thought about this while deciding which pools to close. When I spoke with Alan Joinville, public affairs coordinator for the rec department, a few days ago, he gave me a list of criteria that they used to determine which pools would stay and which would go — the pool's attendance, size, age, condition, access and location. He didn't say anything about gangs.
