CMRJ 303Police and Crime Prevention StrategiesAmerican Milit, Lecture notes of Accounting

Download CMRJ 303Police and Crime Prevention StrategiesAmerican Milit and more Lecture notes Accounting in PDF only on Docsity! CMRJ 303 Police and Crime Prevention Strategies American Military University CMRJ 303: Criminology Law enforcement in the United States today can trace its roots to London. In the 17th century, night watchmen were unpaid amateurs that would attempt to keep the peace and would alarm others in case of emergency. As a response to increased resistance to providing this service for free, the Watch Acts were passed which allowed for paid night watchmen (Chriss, 2016). Eventually, in 1829, due to increased crime associated with industrialization and greater population density, the Metropolitan Police Act championed by Robert Peel became law (Chriss, 2016). The Metropolitan Police Act created the first municipal police force and the United States modeled their early 19th century municipal police departments after London's. Chriss (2016) defines three distinct eras of policing in the United States. The earliest era was one defined by politics and lasted from the inception of policing to the 1920s. Police officers were appointed by local political bosses and as such, those bosses often defined the goals of the police. Control of the individual officer was decentralized, and the primary method of crime control was walking a patrol beat (Chriss, 2016). Officers on the beat were known to citizens and available to respond to requests for service directly. Due to the influence of the politicians, there was generally a lack of accountability to the local citizens and as a result, the police were seen as corrupt, violent and of little value in maintaining order (Chriss, 2016). The second era of policing was the reform and professionalization era and lasted from the 1920s to the 1960s. Early reformers sought to correct the corruption, abuse of power and violence associated with early policing (Chriss, 2016). August Vollmer of the Berkeley Police Department was an early reformer and his protege Orlando W. Wilson's policing philosophy defined the professional era of policing. Vollmer was the Berkeley Chief of Police from 1909 until 1931. During his tenure, he brought about many recognizable police reforms such as the use bicycles, motorcycles, patrol cars and radios (Dinkelspiel, 2010). Further, Vollmer demanded college degrees for his officers and reimagined the goal of police as prevention rather than control and investigation (Dinkelspiel, 2010). Orlando Wilson wrote Police Administration in 1950, and it would go on to become virtually a professional policing manual. Wilson's strategy of crime control was preventative patrols and rapid call response using patrol cars and radios (Kelling et al., 2020). The professional era created a police force that was insulated from the community, not trusted in minority communities and reactive in nature. Police were mostly confined to cars, so most of the police-citizen interaction was after a crime occurred. This created distrust and division, especially in disproportionately patrolled minority communities (Kelling, 2020). Further, social upheaval in the 1960s because of the civil rights movement and increased resistance to the Vietnam War placed the police into a position between social change and the status quo which further eroded police and community relations (Chriss, 2016). The Community- Oriented Policing era began in the 1960s in the hopes of repairing the damaged relationship between the police and the communities they serve. Community-Oriented Policing works well in conjunction with other crime prevention strategies. Most policing in the early days was what would be considered a reactive method of crime control. A police officer, walking a beat, would interact with citizens and respond to calls for service. The police officer could then intervene in a crime in progress, investigate a crime that happened and in either case make an arrest. Thus, the criminal would be removed from the street and unable to commit further crime. Little thought was given to a more proactive approach or preventing a crime before it happened. Crime prevention strategies are based on theories that explain why crimes occur with the hope of informing intervention strategies that will stop crimes before they happen. Examples of crime prevention strategies include Developmental Crime Prevention (DCP), Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) and Problem-Oriented Policing's central idea is that policing should be proactive rather than reactive (Maguire, et al., 2015). Problem-Oriented policing groups incidents together based on certain characteristics, looks beyond the police data to identify non-law enforcement solutions and collects third party information for additional perspective on the problem (Maguire, et al., 2015). Police departments use the four step SARA model to implement POP. The SARA model is scanning, analysis, response and assessment (Maguire, et al., 2015). In the scanning phase, police identify a problem. A problem could be a city block, a street corner, a single-family home or a business. After identifying the problem, the police conduct analysis. Analysis is gathering data such as calls for service to the problem area, and then developing a hypothesis about the causes of the problem. They also determine response options by partnering with the community and other available resources. In the response phase, the police implement the solutions with the help of their community partners. In the analysis phase, data is collected to determine the efficacy of the solution (Maguire, et al., 2015). Due to the detailed nature of the SARA model, Problem-Oriented Policing requires data collection and literacy, which places an increased administrative burden on the officers. Additionally, POP requires some decentralization of the command structure of the department as officers are expected to be effective and creative problem solvers in addition to performing traditional law enforcement tasking (Maguire, et al., 2015). Community Oriented Policing is closely related to Problem Oriented Policing. Both models are proactive and a response to the failures and resultant loss of community trust in the professional policing era of the 1920s to 1960s. Community Policing seeks to reduce minor offenses and diminish fear of them while trying to find the cause of crimes in communities. Community Policing has a goal of increasing community trust of police by engaging the public in identifying goals for reducing crime and participating in the solutions (Suve, et al., 2015). In community policing, the police are seen as just one piece of the community rather than separate of it and solely responsible for controlling crime. Like POP, Community Oriented Policing requires decentralizing decision making and strategy and requires police officers to make decisions at their level. This decentralization requires a shift in hierarchy, behaviors and leadership styles as officers are expected to connect with resources outside of the criminal justice system and be flexible and able to work with others to achieve goals (Suve, et al., 2015). An example of community policing would be the police attending a town hall meeting where citizens determined that a priority of the community was reducing public intoxication and loitering near a local convenience store. A traditional reactive approach would be to patrol the area and make arrests, but a community policing approach would engage the business owner to participate in coming up with a solution, such as limiting alcohol sales to certain hours. The downsides to community policing are the cost, difficulty in measuring results and the resistance of the professional policing hierarchy (Suve, et al., 2015). COP often requires police to create additional presence in the community where law enforcement traditionally did not have a footprint. Examples of this increased community presence would be police participating in community events, utilizing bike patrols and providing School Resource Officers to assist in education and crime prevention in schools. This increased presence often requires additional officers and funding, or a reallocation of existing resources, which can be difficult to justify without being able to easily quantify the results of COP. Fortunately, the federal government through the Department of Justice offers grants to support COP efforts. Law enforcement's relationships with the communities they serve is under a microscope, but given the recent rise in crime, their presence is essential. The history of policing and crime prevention in the United States show that the institutions are capable of adapting, albeit not always agilely. Community-Oriented Policing will likely continue to be the underlying ideology for the police in the future. References Chriss, J. J. (2016). Beyond Community Policing: From Early American Beginnings to the 21st Century. Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635835 Dinkelspiel, F. (2010). Remembers August Vollmer, the Berkeley police chief who created modern policing. Berkleyside. URL: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2010/01/27/remembering-august-vollmer-the-berkeley- police-chief-who-created-modern-policing Hodgkinson, T., & Farrell, G. (2018). Situational crime prevention and Public Safety Canada’s crime-prevention programme. Security Journal, 31(1), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-017-0103-4 Maguire, E., Uchida, C., & Hassell, K. (2015). Problem-Oriented Policing in Colorado Springs: A Content Analysis of 753 Cases. Crime and Delinquency, 61(1), 71–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128710386201 Kelling, G. L. , Walsh, . William Francis , Brodeur,. Jean-Paul , Banton,. Michael Parker and Whetstone, . Thomas (2020, September 1). police. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/police Suve, P., Selg, P., & Sootla, G. (2015). Designing Multidimensional Policing Strategy And Organization: Towards A Synthesis Of Professional And Community Police Models. Baltic Journal of Law & Politics, 8(1), 28–54. https://doi.org/10.1515/bjlp-2015- 0010