BOUNTIFUL — Most people don’t want to find out the man living three doors down in their apartment complex has a police record for dealing drugs or any other crime.

Bountiful residents living in any of six apartment complexes don’t have to worry about such a thing.

They live in apartments which are a part of the city’s Crime Free Multi-Housing Program, a program Police Chief Tom Ross hopes will expand given time and increased staffing.

Ross said that as cities force criminals out, they move into other cities. Salt Lake City, Layton, Clearfield and Ogden all have crime-free apartment complexes in place.

“We didn’t want to be the last to implement the program,” he said.

In Bountiful, the program was officially approved by the city council in January 2009. But for a year before that the city operated a pilot program in partnership with the Davis County Housing Authority at its 418 and 424 West Center Street complexes. After approval, four other complexes have been added, and in that time the city has seen a 30 percent drop in crime at those complexes, Ross said.

Ross said officers involved with the Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) unit meet with management of the complexes, and together they are able to address many of the problems requiring a police response to criminal activity.

Managers of participating apartment complexes are taught strategies to deter criminal applicants and are encouraged to conduct criminal background checks on each applicant.

Managers are also required to use and enforce an addendum to their lease agreement which asks for information on any crimes the applicant may have committed, gang affiliation, bankruptcies or if the applicant has ever been evicted from an apartment and why.

Ross said that often an undesirable tenant will decline to complete the application because they don’t want to subject themselves to the credit and criminal background checks.

He sees the program as a good way for the police to be proactive, preventing or reducing crime in the first place.

Bountiful Police Sgt. Ed Biehler, who oversees the program, said the biggest benefit has been an improvement in the relationship between police and apartment managers.

When police are called on a resident of a crime-free apartment complex, the apartment manager receives a copy of the police report. “They now know what’s going on,” Biehler said.

“It’s not so much to get rid of people as it is to encourage them to change their behavior and get them to use resources available to help them,” he said.

The program is voluntary for apartment managers. Ross said sometimes apartment managers are pressured to keep all their units occupied and owners and tenants alike sometimes feel it’s better to put up with some crime than to have the apartment empty, or in the case of a tenant, to not have a place to live.

However, Ross said once the word gets out that a complex is crime free, there is often a waiting list of people wanting to move in who are willing to abide by the rules.

Ross is moving slowly in implementing the program. “I don’t want us to bite off more than we can chew,” because in terms of staffing, the department is currently doing all it can with the program.

“But I don’t want the program to go away,” he said, and he hopes that in time it can be expanded. He also hopes the other cities in south Davis County can implement similar programs.

mwilliams@davisclipper.com