Various social scientists have various opinions on how the police force affects crime. Some people contend that the cops are powerless to stop and manage crime. Others believe that police assistance significantly lowers the crime rate. Over the past ten years, violent violence has decreased in the United States. The methods and policies of American policing are to blame for this. Some of these policing practices include hiring more police officers, using neighborhood policing techniques, giving the police force more funding, and enforcing a zero tolerance policy. This strategy brings the police force and the community together to solve and prevent crime. Community policing is mainly to stop crime from happening rather than responding after the crime happens. The police are integrated into the community and become part of the society hence the police get a better sense of the needs and help develop trust between them and the society. This was mainly to address conflicts between the police and racial minority in the society. Some reforms in community policing include changing the organizational arrangements to avoid putting decision-making in the hands of only specific individuals and coming up with programs to stimulate the police and the community working together. Researchers have praised much of the crime reduction to improved community policing. The changing of organizational arrangements help to encourage and stimulate police officers to perform functions related to community policing. It has also enabled organizations to be flexible and willing to develop police-community partnership and come up with strategies to solve problems (Kappeler & Gaines, 2015).
In this policing, police officers are expected to work in the same geographical location for a longer time, since it involves less transfers. To assign the officers, expertise, and familiarity in an area is valued. Officers on the field are given broad discretion to manage their own time since policies set by the administrators are only used as guidelines. Community policing involves Community Building Policing, Crime Prevention and Peace Preservation Policing, and Communications Policing. Some examples of community involvement are Neighborhood Watch, National Night Out and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) (Kappeler & Gaines, 2015).
Advantages of implementing the community policing strategy are that the police are engaged in the activities of the community on a daily basis, and they have the community at their side to help in preventing and reducing crimes. Another advantage is that this strategy reduces fear in the society. With an increase of police presence, the society feels more secure, and trust between the community and the police is built. A disadvantage of this strategy is that with the involvement of many shareholders, there would be some varied ideas within the community. Some of the community members do not find it easy having the police at their neighborhoods. In some instances, this move may result in the lack of understanding and poor attitude towards the community by police officers.
Aggressive Policing Strategy
Unlike the community policing aimed at bringing order and reduce crime through community participation, the aggressive policing focuses on bringing order through strict enforcement. This policing is also referred to as zero-tolerance policing, broken windows or order maintenance (Parks, 2008). Broken window policy states that neighborhoods with high levels of unchecked disorder are likely to have violent crimes occurring. Helping maintain order not only improves the quality of life for the society, but it also reduces the opportunity and rate of crimes. This policy sparked a debate on the role of police in a free society with some people supporting the use of order-maintenance policing to maintain order and prevent crime. Others criticized the use of this policing practice claiming that this practice promoted abuse, violation of human rights and discrimination against minorities. Some political analysts say that the use of order-maintenance has no significant effect on reduction of crime. They relate demographic and economic changes to the reduction of crime. A report by Human Rights Watch in 1998, linked the use of aggressive policing strategy to brutality in cities that used this policing. Another similar report by Amnesty International in 1996, stated an increase in police brutality and excessive use of force in this cities (Parks, 2008).
An advantage for this practice according to a similar policing strategy implemented in Oakland police is that increased arrests for both violent and petty crimes there was a decrease in the rate of robberies and rape. A disadvantage for this practice is that it is only a short term policing strategy that reduces crime in the short-term and not a long-term solution to reduce crime. It only plants the seeds for an increase in crimes in the long-term. Another disadvantage is that this policing policy will result in an increase of hostility between the community and the police. The police department will have to deal with the consequences of hostility.
Of the two strategies, community policing and aggressive policing, the best practice is community policing. This policy and practice is an effective way to promote public safety. For this strategy to work, both the local administration including the police and the citizens must actively participate. Everybody in the community is kept responsible for safeguarding the welfare of the neighborhood. Unlike aggressive policing, where the police department separates itself from the society, the community policing changes the perspective of the police force.
Question Two
Proposed New Policing Policy or Practice that is designed to reduce Violent Crimes
To make people feel safe both in their homes and society crime must be reduced. The FBI reports the rate of violent crimes in the United States on a yearly basis and publishes in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006). There have been up and down swings on the violent crimes reported since the 1970s. These violent crimes include rape, homicide, aggravated assault and robbery. In the 1980s the rates of homicide, in particular among the young people had an upward shift. This increase was mainly among the African-Americans using handguns to commit this crime. New smart and aggressive policing policy must be introduced, and existing policy modified to reduce this numbers, one such policy is making a reform to how crime gets reported, recorded and analyzed by the different police departments (Skogan, 2004).
The police departments do not report a significant number of violent crimes of late to the administration of the police departments for the appropriate measures to be taken. A move that has left the police administration such as the FBI to the disadvantage, and they cannot respond to violent crimes as required of them. There are various reasons as to why there is poor crime reporting such as victims of violent crimes have to be referred to other locations to report the crime apart from the local police departments. The victims will most likely not bother to go to the areas they are to report such as the headquarters of detectives. Reforms on how crime gets reported must be done to end the trouble of poor reporting. Local police departments who are easily available to most victims should be trained on how to fill the forms to record the violent crime. With the digital technology at our fingertips, crimes reported can be entered, sorted, analyzed and stored for future reference easily. Police officers should have training on how to use such electronic gadgets and databases. This will ensure a significant number of violent crimes reported get recorded with accuracy and appropriate actions taken against the criminals.
To ensure the bosses of the police departments have such information on violent crime, they should frequently be updated if not daily. This move ensures that the bosses can give orders on violent crimes to be investigated. A good reform has a specific crime reporting system that must be followed day-in-day-out. By applying this measures in crime reporting and analyzing, cases would be solved with ease, and justice served accurately. Evidence can be shared across the criminal justice system. Criminals would be discouraged in fear of the new system and lead to violent crimes reducing.
An Experiment to evaluate the Effectiveness of the New Policy
In the experiment, states with the highest number of violent crimes will be used. In coordination with the National Crime Agency, Police ICT departments and the state’s police department. The first reform will require the local police force to be trained on how to fill forms and record any violent crimes reported to them such as homicide, rape, and robbery reported instead of referring the crime victim to other offices. Petty crimes reported do not count in the experiment. The second reform is to enter the details of a crime into computers or other gadgets. These details are then analyzed and stored in the database of the police department.
These details are then sent to the police bosses either by email or other appropriate communication methods. A follow up can be made to the chiefs to ensure they received and read the crime details sent to them. The bosses are then to assign the investigations into the crime reported to the relevant detectives for analysis. Justice is to be served on the crime as soon as possible and arrest made if need be. After a period of six to twelve years, the crime rate in the experimental state is expected to have reduced by a significant percentage.
Advantage. Crime reduction and openness in the police department. When justice is served as it is deserved, criminals would be afraid to commit more violent crimes and would opt to stop their criminal activities. With the digitization of the police force and the good analysis of details of a crime, rogue police officers will not have room for injustices. Disadvantage. Expensive to implement. Police departments have to go deep into their pockets to apply this reforms. Training of officers is needed and purchase of the digital gadgets to be used in the departments.
Use of new technology has a huge implication on crime rates. The police have access to large information and therefore they are better informed. Apart from the police department, this new kind of policing, digital policing, this strategy is also reliable to be used in the justice system. The justice system can rely on digital policing to get evidence on crimes and information on a suspect or a victim. This strategy also helps reduce the tedious paperwork used in the past. Therefore, both federal and state governments can adopt this new style of policing since it comes with more advantages.
Question Three
Crime Problem Since 1970
Crime falls into two broad classifications that is property and violent crimes. Violent crimes are mainly against other human beings such as rape, murder, manslaughter, robbery and aggravated assault. Property crimes include theft, burglary, and car hijacking. There have been fluctuations in the different crime rates. The homicide rate in 1980 was the highest at 10.2 per 100,000 population. However, this dropped to 7.9 by 1985. In 1991, homicide rate had increased by 24 percent recording a level of 9.8 per 100,000 people. Robbery rate also followed a similar trend with 1991 been the peak of robbery. Since 1972, robbery rates have been changing between 200 and 250 per 100,000 population. However, in 1998, the crime rate, homicide to be particular, dropped to 6.3 percent a level lower than any year since 1967. The robbery was at 165.2 the lowest rate since 1969. In 1998, the violent crimes reported by the FBI were homicide 16,910, rape 93,100, robbery 446,630 and aggravated assault was 974,400 (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006).
There is a difference in the trend of violent crimes and other types of crime. Rape one of the sensitive crimes has been difficult to measure because of the stigma associated with it. Police departments are viewed to be insensitive to the victims of rape, and therefore victims tend not to be ready to report this crime. Research done by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in over 40,000 household shows that the rape incidences reported are too few (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006). The increase in homicide in 1980 was mainly due to the young people shifting from using fists and knives in settling disputes to using handguns. They got access to weapons with greater lethality such as semiautomatic pistols. In this period, there was the recruitment of the teens to sell drugs in the streets. These sellers got armed with handguns to protect themselves, and this led to the reckless and casual use of firearms by the young people. More guns were used for murder and robbery, and hence the number of homicide increased.
Aggravated Assault
The rate of aggravated assault has shown a different pattern to the rates of homicide and robbery. Aggravated assault grew by 134 percent from 1972 to 1992 (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006). Unlike robbery and murder which are well-defined crimes, aggravated assault needs to be taken with discretion to distinguish it from simple assault. With the improved medical care services and emergency services, there is less chance that aggravated assault turns into a homicide and this could be a reason for the increased number of aggravated assault compared to the number of homicide. Another reason for increased aggravated assaults was an increased reporting of domestic assaults than before when the police viewed domestic assaults more of private matters. In 1985, there was a high level of aggravated assaults among the young people since most of them were involved in fighting. In this period, there were small numbers of lethal weapons available to the teenagers.
In 1994, there was a sharp increase in the number of aggravated assault. The ratio shifted to 39 from a previous rate of 15 in ages above 23, and this was mainly because, at the ages above 23, domestic relationships and assault are more relevant in people’s lives. In the 1980s, states adopted statutes requiring an arrest made in domestic violence. Therefore there is an increase in arrest for aggravated assault at the ages when domestic relationships were more likely. The increase in aggravated assault between 1985 and 1994 can be related to the increased police arrests (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006).
Homicide and Robbery
Both of these crimes are defined clearly, and their meaning not altered over an extended period. Murder and robbery are reported very well to the police. In the 1980s, homicide among teens was increasing especially among the Africans-Americans. In recent years, there has been a decline in the rate of violent crimes. According to Former New York City mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and former Police Commissioner William Bratton, smart and aggressive policing led to the decline in the number of violent crimes. Another factor that reduced the number of violent crimes is the reduction in the number of availability of firearms used in homicides and robberies. The police department had changes in policing such as they used the stop-and-frisk tactic to disarm the young people. In the period 1970 to 1985, there was a considerable shift in the robbery rates. In 1975, there was a rapid rise in robbery especially among the youngest group followed by a horizontal period from 1975-1980. After 1980, there was a strong decline in the rate of robbery (Blumstein & Wallman, 2006).
In other types of crime, the community was involved in helping reduce the number of offense. The community made efforts to mediate disputes among street gangs. With the growing economy, there was a creation of job opportunities to the low-skilled young people. A decline in homicide rates can be attributed to the decrease in changing demographics. The decline post-1980 was mainly due to the shrinking size of partners in the young people. However, in the 1990s the partner numbers increased in the U.S in particular for the late teens and early twenties. A larger number of crime partners means a higher rate of aggregate crime.
The crime rate would reduce significantly in the next ten years. Crimes primarily the street crimes, will fall significantly. With new technology, there is increased use of closed-circuit television (CCTV), improved locks and widespread use of home alarm systems. There is also an increased number of security personnel on our streets. All these factors have helped improve security and in turn, drive down crime rates. Technology has helped to keep the young people occupied through social media and computer games. They have therefore changed their lifestyle such as reduced use of drugs since they become distracted by the technology. The crime rate among the young people will reduce significantly. New technology has seen improvement of communication, police can now get informed of any crime, and they respond with ease to the crime scene.
References
Blumstein, A., & Wallman, J. (2006). The crime drop in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kappeler, V. E., & Gaines, L. K. (2015). Community policing: A contemporary perspective. New York: Routledge
Parks, R. B. (2008). Broken Windows and Broken Windows Policing. Criminology & Public Policy, 7(2), 159-161. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9133.2008.00499.x
Skogan, W. G. (2004). To better serve and protect: Improving police practices. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.
