Policing the City: misapplication or not?

I've been conducting a mini-observational experiment. As daylight savings time began to creep closer I began to notice the odd effect the diminishing amount of daylight had on the parking lot behind my house. Up on the third floor I sit in a tree-house like addition that appears to be quite literally attached to the siding of my apartment building supported by trees, to spy on the parking lot intermittently. I noticed that there were several tall lamps were arranged in grid formation and lit the entirety of parking lot. I have no concept of what the lot serves since my knowledge rests only on a birds eye view but here's some objective information.

• At most I've counted seven cars in the lot.
• The cars are what I would consider to be average makes and models. A van, a truck, but mostly early to mid 2000's style sedans.
• The lot is lit from before dusk and are still on early in the morning. 
• By seven pm the lot is almost always empty. I've yet to see a car in the lot overnight.
• Cop cars patrol the roads bordering the lot and often turn down the alley road that links the building to the lot.
• Since it has become darker earlier there appears to be an increase in patrols.

Weird right? I don't quite know what to make of the situation. The area is marked unsavory because of its proximity to the Heath Street. (Upon arrival I was told never to walk or bike down the street that connects my road to the lot area because it is extremely dangerous. However I can't say it looks any scarier than some of the places in the rural town where I'm from.) I've never seen a person nor heard an unsettling noise come from the lot but regardless tons of money is poured into keeping it lit all night an making sure the area is well patrolled. So is this a chicken or egg first scenario? Have these practices limited crime or was there limited crime before these practices?

The area is walled up by a large fence with barbed wire at the top. The only entrance point is one that faces the building, the road, several lights, and what appears to be an automatic gate. Yet every time I watch a cop car come down around the traffic circle, along the street they slow down as they pass the lot. Perhaps there is some type of training they've received about the dangers of restricted lots by troublesome neighborhoods. Yet I can't get beyond the fact that in the lot, in the dark, what crime beyond trespassing could some one even hope to commit? There's no cars to break into, there's no people to harass.

The cops on the other hand rarely come down my street. Oddly enough the only crime I've ever witnessed happened right across from my building. At 1:46am last Saturday a young man was attempting to hurl a large chuck of cement through a window on the lowest floor of a building. I walked past him and couldn't help but look. Judging by the way he blankly stared at me and shuffled from leg to leg I'm going to guess he was extremely intoxicated. He starred confused at me for a bit but probably only to see if I was calling the cops. I scooted with remarkable speed to the safety of my building and raced up three flights of stairs so I could watch him from my window like an aspiring anthropology student would. In short he attempted to crack the window several times but failed.

If he had been doing the same activity a couple hundred feet behind where we were standing he probably would have been arrested due to the increased chance of a cop seeing him.The whole situation of my earlier observation and the glass-breaking incident made me think about more about the regulatory sanctions of the city the African traders in New York are subject to. In some areas they are fined, in some areas they are left alone. Are police patrolling where they expect crime to take place or the places crime is considered unacceptable?       

I can't say for sure. Perhaps with more thought and research this could morph into a rounded thesis, until then I leave you all with a link to an interesting article from Cracked.com that suggests how seemingly awful ideas have helped to solve global problems such as crime, suicide, corruption. Enjoy!

- Alexis Brinkman