Providence Patrolman Jose Pineda serves up hot dogs and hamburgers at a community barbecue yesterday on Lockwood Street. Viola Buchanan was one of the many residents who took advantage of the free food.

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The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE

Sterling Washington has buried two sons who were murdered in South Providence. But what he and other residents of Lockwood have been seeing lately has given them hope for the future of all children in their neighborhood.

These days, children, not drug dealers, are in the playground. Neighbors, not drug addicts, walk the streets and catch up with each other over the fences.

In less than two years, the police have created a community where there had only been fear and violence, Washington said. He praised Chief Dean M. Esserman and the officers for trying an unusual crime-prevention strategy and giving them their neighborhood back.

“I’ve been here 35 years, and I’m telling you, it’s the first time that the people in the community actually trust the police,” Washington said. “I feel so much safer today. We can come out, day or night. Any time we can celebrate this, it’s a good thing.”

Yesterday, the police and residents celebrated with a community barbecue on Lockwood Street that coincided with a Bureau of Justice Assistance conference being held in Providence to train other cities on the initiative. Law enforcement and community officials from Milwaukee, Dallas, Baltimore, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Durham, N.C.; Ocala, Fla.; New Haven, Conn.; and Cook County, Ill., are developing their own programs, following the lead set by Providence, Hempstead, N.Y., High Point, N.C., and other cities.

The other cities had heard so much about Providence’s work that the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice decided to hold the conference here. Yesterday, the attendees were invited to Lockwood to see the neighborhood for themselves.

Police officers and workers on the Salvation Army canteen truck were grilling on Lockwood Street late yesterday afternoon as well over a hundred people gathered, some talking about the before and after of Lockwood.

The “before” goes back decades –– with murders, gunfire, drug dealing and violent crime that kept the rest of the residents inside their homes and afraid.

“After” came a year and a half ago –– when the police swept the neighborhood of its outdoor drug dealing and collaborated with the Urban League and residents to maintain the peace.

“Before, you weren’t outside because of the drug dealers out here,” said Squire Felder, who’s lived here six years. “Since the cops came over, it’s been safer.”

In her 30 years of attending the Christ Church of Deliverance on Lockwood Street, Judy Galmer remembered how drug dealers would accost people, day and night. Someone shot a bullet into the church, she said. Children were always kept indoors.

Not anymore. The neighborhood is safe, she said. “I think the Police Department has done a wonderful job in cleaning up the community,” she said.

Three little girls, arm in arm, nearly skipped out of their grandmother’s apartment to the barbecue. Dynashia Hughes, 10, who lives in Lockwood, and sisters Aja Burris, 8, and Ashanti Dorsey, 10, who visit their grandmother nearly every day here, remembered when they were afraid to be outside. There were drug dealers everywhere, the girls said, and the streets smelled of their smoke. The grandmother always told the girls, be careful and stick together.

Now, the drug dealers are gone, and it’s the police officers whom they see all the time. “I feel safe,” said Briana Hutley, 14, who lives on Providence Street. “I haven’t seen no violence. I see the police around and I feel protected.”

The drug dealers have tried to come back. The residents and the police haven’t let them. Lt. George Stamatakos, who grew up in the neighborhood and now runs the district, recalled a young man who rode a bicycle aimlessly around and was stopped several times by the police. The man, who’d been connected with drug crimes, had just gotten out of prison. Haven’t you heard, Stamatakos said he told the man as he escorted him out, there’s no drugs in Lockwood anymore.

THE INITIATIVE was developed by David Kennedy, the head of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, who believed that having the police and community work together to rid their neighborhood of open drug dealing could have lasting effects in reducing violence and crime.

The police start by arresting the street-level drug dealers and their hierarchy in the worst drug-plagued area. Then, the police select a few nonviolent offenders who have the potential to be rehabilitated. Instead of arresting them, the police give the dealers a second chance and turn them over to the community groups, which provide jobs, education and counseling.

The police also hold meetings with the community about what they’re doing. The approach encourages the community to trust the police, which leads residents to work with the police to prevent more drug dealers from returning.

For this initiative in late 2006, the Providence police arrested 104 drug dealers, including one-third who were dealing in Lockwood. Of those, just seven boys and young men were given a second chance –– and only two of them stayed out of trouble.

The program has been successful in keeping dealers off the streets in communities that have tried it over the last several years.

Now comes the other hard part –– keeping the neighborhood going.

“What do the people need? They need to trust us,” said Providence police Sgt. Glendon Goldsboro, who’s been assigned to the neighborhood since last summer. “They need to know they’ll be treated fairly. There’s a lot of good people in this neighborhood, a lot of good people who want to work with the police. … A lot of people, they recognize the drastic change that occurred and they don’t want it to go back.”

James Summey, the pastor of English Road Baptist Church in High Point, N.C., walked around Lockwood and saw the reflection of his own community. High Point was the first to try the initiative and targeted its most crime-ridden neighborhood four years ago. Crime dropped substantially, and the neighborhood came back to life, he said.

Some of the women living in Lockwood told Summey about how they’d always felt unsafe here. Now, they said, it’s different. The drug dealers are gone, and the residents are free to walk. “That’s the same way that it happened in my community,” Summey said.

He called this conference the best one he attended. The police and community organizers from cities all over the country, in various stages of implementing the program, were sitting down together and sharing ideas about how they were making it work.

“Everyone has the same issues in common –– the one thing they want is to be safe,” Summey said.

amilkovi@projo.com