Letter to pastors in the Camp Springs area.

June 26, 2001

Dear Pastor,

I am writing to introduce myself and to call your attention to a problem that I believe ought to concern to you as a spiritual leader and member of the Prince George's community.

I have been active as a watch coordinator and de facto neighborhood manager in the Westchester subdivision of Camp Springs for about seven years. I moved here in 1986, purchasing what I thought was a perfect home. The neighborhood is very attractive, with large brick houses on sizable lots. I live across from Tinker's Creek, quite close to a beautiful, secluded park, where beaver, deer, possum, fox and a variety of birds and wildlife make their home. We are two miles outside the Beltway, far enough to be out of earshot, yet only 10 miles from the White House as the crow flies, and 3 minutes from Andrews Air Force Base, the most famous military air base in the world, where the President's private plane is garaged, and dignitaries of the highest rank come and go daily.

It should be an ideal location. Clearly the people who can afford to live here ought to be thankful for such a place. Not just thankful, but we should be working to preserve, beautify and even share our fortunate position on the planet. But I have discovered that just the opposite is true. Almost everyone takes their good fortune for granted, and the residents are doing little or nothing to preserve and maintain the quality of life. My Camp Springs neighbors are for the most part uninvolved and unconcerned about what is going on in their community. It's almost impossible to get their attention about quality of life issues, and when you do, the response is invariably that (a) they are too busy, (b) it's someone else's job, or (c) there is nothing that can be done. Quite often people blame the system, or blame parents, or blame "human nature", but never does anyone step forward to take some blame onto himself.

What issues am I referring to?

There are several, but the one that I would especially like to highlight for you as a clergyman is the problem of crime. I have attached a summary of the incidents of crime that occurred in the general area of Camp Springs over the past six months. The report also includes the more serious incidents that took place in Police District 5, which covers most of South County. (Camp Springs straddles Districts 4 and 5.) I believe you will agree after looking it over that the situation with robberies and thefts in our area is intolerable. In Camp Springs alone we are averaging 6 robberies per month; and double that if you count the rest of District 5. We had 347 property thefts since December. 80 of those were break-ins, and 51 of the break-ins were at residences. There is a break-in somewhere in Camp Springs every other day.

They say that crime has decreased in this area since it peaked in the mid-90s, but you couldn't tell by looking at these figures. And as bad as things are here, they are far worse in Police District 4, which covers Ft. Washington, Oxon Hill, Marlow Hts., Suitland, and areas extending to the D.C. line. Whereas District 5 and Camp Springs robberies numbered in the dozens, District 4's were in the hundreds. Where we had a few hundred thefts, they had thousands. Excluding Camp Springs, District 4 had a staggering 3624 thefts and break-ins since December. It's almost unbelievable. And keep in mind that these are just the reported incidents. Doubtless there are many more that don't get recorded.

So, what is going on here? How is it that we have come to accept this condition? Pardon me for speaking so bluntly, but I must point out that this is not Bogota Colombia, or Kabul Afghanistan. There is no poverty or deprivation in this community. Nor do we suffer from civil war, famine, epidemics, mass displacement of refugees, or some catastrophic environmental loss. On the contrary, even the poorest sections of Prince George's are luxurious compared to many other parts of the world. There is no reason for there to be crime. None.

Robbery is the forcible seizing of money or property from a fellow citizen, accompanied by the threat of violence, usually with a weapon. It's a despicable act. Perhaps not as violent, but equally disgraceful is the theft of your neighbor's property, particularly when you enter his or her dwelling, sneak into his private living quarters, and rifle his belongings. On an individual level, such behavior is inexcusable. But at the same time, one must realize that people who do these things don't act in a vacuum. They are part of a community. They may not recognize the community, but they nevertheless rely on it for fundamental support: food, clothing, energy, transportation, etc.. In a sense the criminals are dependents. I think of them as dependent children, who in their ignorance, are committing acts that actually hurt them more than they hurt others.

How are they hurt?

By requiring police everywhere. Bars and security systems at every home and business. Bullet-proof glass in every bank and gas station. Metal detectors. Hidden cameras. Residences that are more like bunkers than homes. Schools that are like jails. All of this so-called "security" requires resources and costs money - taxpayer money, community money. Our taxes our higher, our insurance rates are higher, our cost of living is higher, but our property values and our quality of life are lower. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it. I'm sick of having to live like I'm under siege. There is no way that bars, alarms and armed guards are natural or normal, and it's time we stopped acting like they were. It's time to take charge of these ignorant children, these criminals who are our dependents, regardless of what age they are. Someone needs to step up and be the man, the figurative father, in our communities. And it has to be done before the crime takes place - the robbery, the assault, the break-in - not after. After does no good. The damage is already done. Reaction is useless. Our government leaders have been reacting for decades and they are failing. Parris Glendening is failing. Wayne Curry is failing. Gloria Lawlah is failing. Steny Hoyer, John Farrell, the county council, the courts, and everyone else in the bureaucracy are failing. They are failing their constituents; failing the community. The whole mind-set of the government is wrong. All they want to do is throw more police at the problem. More guns, more force, more jail time. They are steeped in the wrong-headed notion that that community security is purchased with greater armament.

Here's an example: Three taxi drivers were killed in Prince George's last year; shot to death during robberies. What's the government's solution? Some Annapolis legislator has proposed that we require cameras in taxicabs.

What's next? Cameras in buses? Cameras in your kitchen? Cameras in church? People express outrage at the horrendous nature of the crime, but who, I ask, is outraged that we could have raised a child who would commit such an act, and then set him loose on the community? Who is outraged that such violence occurs at all in our society? What kind of world have we created where such outrageous acts take place? To my mind these legislators are as ignorant, and indeed as dangerous, as the criminals, because they are the ones who set the tone; they are the ones who are supposed to be leading the rest of us.

What we need is for someone to start working from the other side. We need to be looking at ways to eliminate cameras; to reduce our need for security systems; to balance the reactionary, forceful tactics of the police and the law-makers with a preventive approach. Someone needs to be influencing the potential criminals before they steal and rob. I'd like to suggest that this is where you as a clergyman need to enter the picture. In a sense, the clergy are already working to influence people, by calling them to service; to participate in worship. But I want to argue that this is not enough. There are dozens of churches in and around Camp Springs, with tens of thousands of people attending them. Yet crime is still happening. Preaching a sermon once a week is okay, but what we really need is direct, grass-roots interaction. Men of God like yourself should be leading not only from the pulpit, but from within the community itself, and the people you lead should not just be those who belong to your church, but everyone, regardless of what religion they practice, or whether they practice any religion at all.

I realize that some members of the clergy are already involved in politics and community affairs. Some of them have chosen particular issues - abortion, capital punishment, homosexuality, human rights - and are lobbying, writing letters, circulating petitions and so forth. Without taking sides, or judging which of these issues have merit, I'd like to suggest that what we really need is a broader, and lower kind of involvement - lower meaning, lower down in the communities. I want to suggest that personal, grass-roots, neighborhood-level involvement and leadership is more important than lobbying and law-making. And it really is necessary to meddle, in a sense, in people's affairs. Not to preach, not to proselytize, not to sit in judgement, but simply to reach out and serve one's neighbors as a committed, concerned friend and fellow community member; to assume the role of an elder who recognizes and shares the common interest; a mature voice that offers neighborly advice and counseling, but who never forces compliance, and never condemns or punishes anyone.

In this regard I would like to invite you to take a look at a program I developed, and indeed, have begun implementing here in my own neighborhood of Westchester. I'm calling it "Garden Zone Management". Rather than offering a full description in this letter, let me refer you to the guidebook that I wrote for it: Managing the Spiritual Neighborhood. I've put the book on a web site, and also printed a number of bound copies, and have been appealing to local government leaders to examine it (mostly without success).

It reports on my experience in Westchester over the past several years, and outlines a structure and mechanism for spiritually oriented individuals to engage their community; or, more precisely, to create a true community where none actually exists. The program calls for nothing less than a new social order, and a new kind of government. Not a government to replace the constitutional government, not a government of laws, but a natural, community-based government of conscience; a bottom-up, pro-active, prevention oriented service that counter-balances the reactive measures of the courts, lawyers and police. Though the plan may sound grandiose, it's actually quite easy to implement in a very informal way in relatively small geographic areas - like several hundred homes. I realize that such a scheme might appear radical on the surface, but when you think completely through these issues, when you get the bottom of them, it becomes clear that this type of approach is the only true solution. It's the only way to accomplish meaningful, enduring changes.

The reason I'm proposing this program to clergy members is because the clergy are among the few who make it their business to be concerned with matters of spirituality at the grass roots of society, and at heart, the problems we are addressing are rooted in a spiritual deficiency. Of course, it's not so simple to define what that actually means, but at least church leaders bring up such matters. For the government people and even the educators, it's a taboo subject. In fact, they have even written laws that prohibit any overlap between "church and state", as it's termed. But I don't see a real problem in this. As I understand it, the intent of the law is to keep people from forcing religion on citizens, and to make sure no special privileges are allotted to members of a particular group. Garden Zone Management has nothing to do with force, and truthfully, nothing to do with religion either. It simply calls on the wisest, the most committed, compassionate and enlightened individuals to step up and serve their community. Such folks may not be church men or church women at all. They may just be ordinary citizens. I would respectfully suggest that if the church-state thing presents a problem, I might actually consider giving up my ministerial orders; to put away my cassock and collar, and instead serve my congregation in a role that is not quite so conspicuously priestly, but is perhaps just as Godly.

Finally let me say that I am not trying to pick on Prince George's with this plan. It just so happens that I make my home here, and it just so happens that we are experiencing an inordinate amount of crime, but the underlying problems go far beyond the borders of this county. They are found at every stratum of society, among every demographic, in urban and rural areas across the country. Our very culture is suspect, as is clearly evidenced by the rampant materialism and general degradation of human attitudes and behavior. It seems we are sinking into courser and courser regions as courtesy, dignity and discretion gradually disappear from the socio-psychological map. But the most disturbing characteristic of our modern culture is the insidious climate of fear that we have created. Fear pervades our social and governmental structures, right up to the highest levels. Because of it, we live as isolated, anonymous units, pursuing our isolated, individual interests. It's a survivalist mentality, a win/lose competition where every person is on his own, and no one stops to consider how his or her personal success affects the greater good.

It seems almost overwhelming at times. Where does one even start when you try to address such problems? I submit that you must start right where you live, in your own community. For us that means Camp Springs, Clinton, Fort Washington, and the surrounding communities of Southern Prince George's County, Maryland.

Sincerely,

Alexander Gabis Jr.