The Impact Of Policing On The Inner City Urban Areas

In addition, the success that has come from the implementation of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy only shows that in the future it will become more successful. This program has helped improve the residents’ confidence that the police are there to help combat crime, to ensure the community is a safe place to live as well as a reduction in major crimes. “Evaluations of the alternative policing strategy in Chicago show that from 1993 to 2002, the fear of crime went down by 20% among groups most fearful of crime and

What is a good policing strategy without its successes and failure? Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) was created around the 1990’s as an strategy to improve a society that have failed towards the prevention of crimes and it relations with citizens. This program involves a wide department transformation in the way citizens perceive police officers working towards stopping crime.The program is Reforming a decision making and involving new strategies to combat the wrong. The question is what implementations have worked with this program? Have been the policy of the program a success or a failure? The answer is the ties between policing and citizens.

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.

In the 1800s, America became extremely industrialized. Due to all of the new upbringings there was a need for organized policing. Policing in America went through many different stages beginning with organized American law enforcement, to formal policing. Michael Moore and George Kelling inferred that there were three eras of policing; political era, professional era, and community era. The political era came first along, as that era began to go downhill, the professional era arose. As the professional era began to take drawbacks, the community era started up and is still going on in present day. There are many positives and some negatives in today’s society living in the community era.

Policing today consists of three eras. These three eras have adapted and built off one another through history (Parr, 2014). The first era started around 1840 to 1930, and is known as the Political Era. The second Era is known as the Reform Era and lasted from 1930 to 1970. The last era is called the Community-Problem Solving Era and is still being adapted and used today. The Political Era emphasizes on meeting the needs of politicians. The police were given power through the local government and the community had very little say in what happened. The police and politicians worked together to control the city and neighborhoods (Palmiotto, 2000). This was often referred to as a ward. The ward politician controlled all the police in their neighborhood. The police officers tasks included not only crime prevention and order but a lot of social service activities that involved their neighborhoods. The officers resembled the ethnic backgrounds of the neighborhoods they lived and worked in and performed their patrols gaining trust from their community (Palmiotto, 2000). This allowed positive integration of police officers leading to more public service, and the trust of the officers to stop crime when is starts.

The 1980s and early 90s were home to an extreme wave of criminal activity that swept across much of the country. The dramatic uptick in crime can largely be attributed to the spread of the crack-cocaine epidemic and subsequent “War on Drugs.” New York City, for example, suffered from 2,605 murders and 208,813 burglaries in 1990, at the height of the violence . Much of this criminal activity centered around and affected the poorest individuals in those communities – which often included minorities.

Wilson and Kelling’s key idea is that disorder and the absence of controls leads to crime. Their solution is to crack down on any disorder using a twofold strategy. First an environmental improvement strategy that any broken window must be repaired immediately, otherwise more will follow and the neighbourhood will be on the slide. Secondly the police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy. Instead of merely reacting to crime, the must proactively tackle even the slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal. This

As the 20th century rolled in, the focus began to latch closely on the thought of policing

The Broken Windows theory predicts that police can most effectively fight crime by focusing their efforts on targeting disorder, minor crimes and nuisance behaviors. The theory has had a positive impact, but has also raised some challenges. The police can play a key role in disrupting this process. If they focus in on disorder and less serious crime in neighborhoods that have not yet been overtaken by serious crime, they can help reduce fear and resident withdrawal.

Urban centers throughout the United States of America and the world have experienced violence within the inner city communities. Many of the inner city communities are low-income and are poverty stricken. The spread of gang membership within the communities has influenced many young adolescents. Activities such as drug dealing, theft, assaults, and murders drive law enforcement to prevent crime. The justice system is also being changed due to the increase in minor violence. One of the reasons is due to people being part of minority groups. The charges pushed by the judicial

In addition to the categorization of areas the city, the categorization of the city matters as well. Those classified as a post-industrial, consumerist, playground city like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York are influenced by gentrification and as a result enforce a more aggressive, racialized policing. Cities defined as declining cities do not face gentrification issues but still have weak community and police relationship. This racialized policing reminds me of previous articles about using race as a proxy and the documentary mentioning the use of racialized policing specifically towards crack cocaine within the poor African American

New York City during the 1990s has experience crime rates dropping dramatically under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton lead. Both began new approach to policing by developing several new strategies under the proponent of “broken windows” theory. Under Bratton, the NYPD began to enforce statutes aimed at curbing “quality of life” offense, offenses that are minor and were overlooked in the past in favor to concentrate on serious crimes. Under the Broken Windows theory, small crimes leads to bigger crimes so taking a stance against the minor behavior sends a signal to the community that any kind of law breaking would not be tolerated. Community policing program was adopted in a minor form as police officials focused their

75). However, it should be noted that these new eras of policing did not immediately emerge due to specific actions or events (Henry, 2003); these policing eras came about with time “as law enforcement philosophies and practices of one period became anachronistic, as shortcomings became more and more apparent, as new ideas emerged, or as public dissatisfaction with police performance increased to critical proportions” (Henry, 2003, p. 75). The Reform/Professional Era had its most impact in American policing from the 1920s through the 1960s due to the formation of new policies, theories, leadership, and the overall professionalization of (Roberg et al., 2015). Professionalization, in this case, is defined as the “attempt to improve police behavior and performance by adopting a code of ethics and improving selection, training, and management of police departments” (Roberg et al., 2015, p. 41); in other words, it is the emphasis on implementing a single approach to an issue instead of handling an issue in a plethora of ways ” (Roberg et al.,

Once new technology stepped in it changed policing dramatically, police officers were removed from foot patrol and placed in patrol cars and given two-way radios and citizens were told to call police anytime they had a problem, according to Police: History-Policing Twentieth Century America^ C” the Reform Era, (n.d.) This new wave also isolated police officers from the citizens on the street and brought police officers into their homes to handle more personal problems. These changes would have a huge impact on how citizens looked at police officers who patrolled their neighborhood, police officers were no longer considered visitors but outsiders within their community. This was the beginning of a new era of policing which gave direction and is similar on how policing is today within the communities.

Many citizens have become annoyed with the crime in their neighborhoods. They have organized block watches, citizen patrols, along with neighborhood cleanups, and started harassing slumlords that allow drug dealers to use their properties. (Brown Art. 122). Among many of the crime fighting tools, the involvement of