Mabry Agency Case Study

Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.

Due to these apparent successes, the problem-focused approach has been used to address a diverse array of problems such as gangs, drugs, school crime and the management of police call for service in urban, suburban and even rural communities. The exploration of possible responses to a problem is handled by police officers. Once a problem is identified, officers are expected to work closely with the community members to develop a solution, which can include a wide range of alternatives to arrest. These may focus on the offender, the community, the environment, outside agencies, or the need for some kind of mediation. Problem-oriented policing grew out of twenty years of research into police practices, and differs from traditional policing strategies in many significant ways. For example, problem-oriented policing enables police agencies to be more effective. Currently, police agencies commit most of their time to responding to calls for service. Problem-oriented policing offers a more effective strategy by addressing the

Although most studies on police officer discretion is focused on racial profiling, it has also been shown that officers patrol hot spots. Hot spots are areas known to have a high rate of criminal activity. Focusing on hot spots is an officer’s discretion, because they are ignoring other areas that could potential produce criminal activities. All surveillance and enforcement efforts are focused on the “hot” area. Not only are officers ignoring other areas, but they have determined those areas are not as important as the hot spot. Hot spots can prove to be problematic if the criminal activity located in the hot spot before it was being patrolled is moved to a new location. The new location is prone to no police surveillance because all resources are focused on the old hot spot (Mastrofski, 2011).

Hot spots policing revolves around the idea that crime is focused in small problem locales, and that crime can be more efficiently reduced if police concentrate their efforts on those smaller areas (Papachristos & Hureau, 2012). By stopping crime in smaller areas, it is easy to prevent it from growing in larger parts. Activities like patrolling high crime areas and presence of law enforcement officers in the area are performed will reduced crime (Hot spots policing, 2017, What is the focus of the intervention?). “When authors calculated the overall

Beginning in the 1990’s, crime numbers began to fall and and there are many explanations for the decrease in crime. To begin, the police began using new catching approaches by changing aspects such as an increase in enforcement of nuisance activities. Additionally, they began to invest in their technology and started to identify crime hot spots. The hot spots are where crime is found most often but never recognized.

The policy and problem identified in this policy analysis recognized the significance of the problem. Their goal was to address the issue of deterrence, public safety, and restoring neighborhoods to a safe environment for kids and the elderly to live. The plan outlines challenges for interactions with local residents and attracting more business to make the area a desirable place for residents and visitors to patronize. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of police foot patrol as a means of deterrence through apprehension and as a means of risk reduction, community and problem oriented policing, high crime neighborhood hot spots, and violence prevention.

It is my opinion, that Hot spot policing is a fantastic idea orf thought. Personally my worry would be that even thpough crime rate might slow down in the area disignated, that the criminals just caught on to the police coming to a particular area. So these indivuals are probaly still breaking the law just somewhere else. For example if you announce a road block, subrity check point, most of the poeple driving under the influence are going to go another route.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss the three different policing strategies known as, broken windows, zero tolerance, and problem oriented policing. Each of these strategies have both their pros and cons throughout this paper I will be describing each of these strategies along with discussing a few articles in relation to these strategies. In light of the recent tension between law enforcement and the community, specifically minorities ill also be discussing how these strategies have either helped or hurt communities.

The Philadelphia foot patrol experiment: a randomized controlled trial of police patrol effectiveness in violent crime hotspots is an experiment that had over 200 foot patrol officers during the summer of 2009, in the Philadelphia area (Ratcliffe, 2011). This research covered 60 violent crime hotspots in twelve weeks (Ratcliffe, 2001). There was a noticeable reduction in the violent crimes within those area hotspots. Furthermore, 53% of violent crimes were prevented during the twelve weeks of the experiment (Ratcliffe, 2011). In conjunction the type of patrol that was utilized, was foot patrol in the hotspot areas, which was the independent variable. The dependent variable was the reduction

There have been several studies conducted on problem oriented policing which provide evidence that this method produces positive results. One example is the Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Experiment. In this experiment, Vice Police Officers were assigned to target areas (the variable) and control areas of high drug activity. Arrests were made in these areas and a follow-up was done with the landlords, local government regulatory agencies, and site-specific enforcement was recommended. After a week of follow up and monitoring the areas, the target area had a reduction in criminal activity, and it was found that this area fared better in reference to crime and deviant behavior compared to the control group (Weisburb et al., 2010).

Current models of predictive policing allow police to identify potential areas of criminal activity based on past data, including arrest records, district crime reports, lists of criminals and suspected criminals, and other critical police statistics. Some algorithms identify areas of high criminal activity based on previous incidents, which enables police to follow crime trends and target criminal hotspots. By focusing on the locations of past crimes, police are able to predict future ones and stop them before they happen. They monitor areas of high illegal activity, specifically burglary, break-ins, and car theft, and take action when people appear suspicious. Police can also take preliminary action after a crime occurs in a criminal hotspot.

Based on the methods and the data given, DDACTS could be considered another reactive approach to reducing crime and traffic safety. However, the College Station study conducted by Kuo established that DDACTS was anything but reactive. The College Station study concluded data from crashes and crimes can be clustered together aiding in the reduction of crime and dispatch times within the department (Kuo 2013). In 2008, Baltimore implemented DDACTS in two phases to address their concerns of robberies, burglaries, and auto thefts (Perry, et al. 2013). The first phase using hot spot mapping determined a series of traffic corridors related to criminal activities and car crashes. The second phase addressed the issue of crime displacement

Too often, hot spots encourage officers to bust cases in quantity and not quality in relation to the intensity of the crime committed. These lower crime busts come from officers getting too comfortable after all the major crime offenders are locked away. For example, the common and relatively harmless drug marijuana is a

and so forth, to identify crime patterns, clusters, suspects, and hot spots. Strategies are then

There are multiple approaches to engaging a police force with the community in order to most effectively prevent and respond to crime, and considering the relative strengths and weakness of each of these strategic models will demonstrate how models can impact the operation of daily policing practices and activities. The model under discussion here is called community oriented policing (COP), and focuses on building relationships and rapport between officers and the community in order to more effectively prevent crime. It is augmented by a model called problem solving policing (PSP), and depends upon rank-and-file officers identifying community problem areas through direct observation and analysis. Each model excels at slightly different things, and in practice most police agencies deploy a mix of models. By examining the Miami-Dade Police Department's handbook for school resource officers, it will be possible to view a COP/PSP policy in action in order to better understand how these models practically affect policing.