Predictive Policing : The Role Of Crime Forecasting

Discretion in policing and the court system is a necessary and unavoidable facet of criminal justice work, yet it is still very controversial. Discretion exists when courtroom actors (police officers, attorneys, judges) have the flexibility to choose an appropriate response to a situation. Police discretion is defined as “The opportunity of law enforcement officers to exercise choice in their daily activities” (Nowacki, 2015). This means that actors with a great deal of discretion at their disposal may allow biases to affect their decision-making. These decisions lead to important implications throughout the criminal justice process, especially in the courtroom. The process begins with the decision to arrest by a law enforcement officer in the field. Once the case is forwarded to the prosecuting attorney, multifarious avenues of discretionary decisions are available to resolve a case. Potential issues that could arise and that are ever-present in everyday policing include racism, sexism and socialism (Miller, 2015). These issues ultimately have a negative affect on the criminal justice process, leading civilians to not trust the one process and actors that are there to help them. While discretion should play a role in the actions a courtroom actor takes and cannot be eliminated entirely, instead it should be limited and controlled throughout the criminal justice environment so that citizens can once again trust the process and so that there will be no disparities.

These adjustments are more likely to be successful if they incorporate the understanding that biased policing occurs in the absence of explicitly “racist” thoughts because of well-documented, pernicious stereotypes that operate largely outside of conscious awareness and control. It’s very important for officers to make decisions on the facts presented and not stereotypes so they don’t treat people unfair and violent their

Analysis- officers working the well-defined problem seek Intel on the crimes from public and private sources. Not using the Intel that you would find in the system but the officer actually seeking out a more community

Racial profiling, stereotyping, and different styles of policing has led to the disproportionate targeting of minorities by law enforcement agencies. Warren et al. (2006) notes that law enforcement often use two forms of racial profiling. One is defined by Warren et al. (2006) as out of place profiling. This particular form of racial profiling targets an individual if they do not match the general make up of a certain community. Another method of racial profiling Warren et al. (2006) explains is drug interdiction profiles, which encourage officers to target drug traffickers using their racial background to make traffic stops and search their vehicles for contraband. Furthermore, Terrill and Reisig (2003) findings

Racial profiling in law enforcement is not merely wrong, but also ineffective. Race-based assumptions in law enforcement perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society. Retrieved November 15 2015 www.usdoj.gov

Public safety is a law enforcers priority and racial profiling aids. Not only is racial profiling effective, but as well as a logical implementation in the police force. A study that was directed in London, United Kingdom, in the 1999 showed that when police made fewer arrests and searches, the crime rate rose. The essence of Kops argument is that without racial profiling the public’s safety of the United Kingdom was put in jeopardy. If law enforcers begin to enforce unsubstantial implementations with the law it will result in higher crime rates. Kops point is to show how minorities need to be in check constantly to achieve lower crime rates. An abundant amount of individuals against racial profiling believe many law enforcers are racist. According to Bernard Parks, “[former chief] he doesn’t believe they [law enforcers] are racist for practicing racial profiling, doing their job” (Kops 58). Parks insists that law enforcers are not racists but doing their job, this shows that a former African American chief does not consider law enforcers to be racist. In addition, it is said that African American and Latinos are arrested more frequently for charges of illegal drug trafficking. Kops agrees when she writes, “Many who spend their work day trying to find illegal drug couriers believe that African Americans and Latinos are the foot soldiers of the drug

Based on the statistics I identified in questions # 3 and 4 of my blog, I believed many law enforcement have a legitimate reason in its use of aggressive, racial profiling of minority populations. There are cruel consequences of race-based policing. For example, racial profiling does not reduce crime. It causes tremendous harm to individuals, the criminal justice system and to the social fabric of the society. Many law enforcement officers trust the idea that statistical data are exceptional guide in guessing who might be a criminal. Since statistics demonstrates that African-Americans and Latinos set up the majority of gang members, law enforcement officers will have the intensity to investigate and arrest these individuals. Moreover, it leads

While these foreseeable critical issues certainly pose a set of substantial concerns for and potential threats to policing in the future, many can be dealt with and effectively addressed in the present-day through the implementation of a handful of changes. The first change that can start to take place in the policing world today is to establish

The one thing that civilians and policemen both have in common is stopping crime. However, the methods policemen use to determine criminal behavior is a controversial issue that needs to be addressed and stopped. In a groundbreaking article, Bob Herbert’s, “Jim Crow Policing,” states that, “An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three quarters of 2009 were of black and Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time,” (Herbert par 3). Herbert displays the ineffective method of racial profiling where the police of New York still believes it is a strong indicator to fighting crime. The statistics in this essay prove the argument that racial profiling is not an accurate method to determine criminals. Minorities are always being harassed because of the stereotypes of them being criminals and having no goals be given to them. Through the statistics, people are able to see that people who are usually stopped, blacks and Hispanics, actually do not follow the stereotypes and are not always doing illegal activities. Ironically, the civilians who were rarely ever

For this reason, ethnic profiling should carry less weight in the decision making of law enforcement agents and in the realm of criminal justice. In turn, the criminal justice system should promote the use behavioral profiling, a more effective alternative with a lesser rate of wrongful arrests.

Is the criminal justice system biased? Law enforcement has used techniques such as criminal profiling to achieve the responsibility of protecting and serving society. How they use this practice is the key to whether the system is biased. Criminal profiling is a research method used by law enforcement professionals to select the potential suspects of a specific crime. Zapf (2011) stated “Criminal profiling is the process of identifying behavioral tendencies, personality traits, geographic location, and demographic or biographic descriptors of an offender based on the characteristics of a particular crime” (para.1). Simply explained, specialists such as crime scene investigators look at the crime and try to fit a suspect to that crime based on a number of factors. Those factors could be what the crime scene looks like, the victim, and the area where the crime was committed. Based on those factors a profiler could predict who the offender may be and additional information regarding personality, psychological traits, and social status. For example, the crime is a murder, the victim is a white, thirteen year old boy, the crime scene is completely organized so no evidence is found, and lastly the crime was committed in a suburban area. Gathering all this information, a profiler may predict the offender is a black man, slim build between the ages of 30-35, perhaps has OCD, or is currently unemployed. Now to locate the suspect is up to police officers to use the characteristics

The results of this experiment was the reduction of 53 violent crimes comprises a reduction of 90 crimes in the targeted area, which was offset by a 37 offense increase occurring in the displacement areas immediately surrounding target areas (Ratcliffe,

Part 1: Nature, Extent, Impact of Crime Policy on Crime & the Administration of Justice in the U.S.

According to the statistics, I would say America does have a high crime rate. The crime rate is what the students from overseas care about, and I think Utah with the low crime rate apparently. The NYPD Compstat/Crime-fighting strategies effective in reducing crime, or was it just a fluke? I think in spite of just a fluke, it still works! It was a successful case, effective in reducing crime at that time. but next time might be required to use different strategies.

Displacement is the response of offenders to the crime prevention strategies, especially the ones that block criminal opportunities (Barr and Pease, 1990; Eck, 1993). Besides the most intelligible displacement, the change in the location of crimes (spatial displacement), researchers proposed five other types of displacements, which are: temporal displacement, target (victim) displacement, method displacement, crime type displacement, and perpetrator (offender) displacement (Reppetto, 1976; Garbor, 1990; Barr and Pease, 1990; Eck, 1993). Table 1 shows these six forms of displacements and their distinctions, as well as examples.