You are sitting in your living room watching TV, you then hear gun shots and then screams of terror outside your home. You peek through the curtains to see a person laying on the sidewalk. You pick up the phone and dial 911. You are calling the police seeking help, but you are told that there are no police officers available because your city is suffering from a financial crisis and they laid off more than half of the police force. You think to yourself that this cannot be possible, you must dreaming, you reiterate that a person has been shot outside of your home and is in need of help. The dispatcher tells you there is nothing she can do at the moment because all the officers are on other calls and this will have to wait. This scenario may be extreme, however; right now across the United States, the financial crisis has effected law enforcement. Budget reductions are causing vacancies in police departments to go unfilled while at the same time crime rates in several states are rising.
The recession is not only effecting the United States financially, it is also effecting the safety of every person living in this country. Normally when we hear the word recession, you think of foreclosure, high gas prices, businesses going belly-up, drop in consumer spending and let's not forget major job losses, such as in factories, but most of us do not think about job loss in the criminal justice sector. It is happening and it is not a good thing either. The crime rates are rising, the community safety is decreasing and the risk of injury or death for officers is increasing.
In 2011, the city Camden, in New Jersey laid off just about half of its police force, leaving the crime laden city to the mercy of criminals. In North Carolina, pol...
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Shen, A. (2013, September 13). Think Progress. Retrieved from Police Budget Cuts Leave Rape Victims Waiting for Hours: hinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/12/2612901/police-rape-response-times/
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Violent Crime and the Economic Crisis:. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.policeforum.org/library/critical-issues-in-policing-series/VCrimeEconomyII_v3.pdf
When the Police Are Sent Home... (2013). Retrieved from The Real Truth: http://realtruth.org/articles/110103-001-crime.html
8 hours. It is the recommended numbers of hours one should sleep. However, between those 8 hours, something disturbing is happening. Every 8 hours, a police officer kills an American citizen. Only 1% of these police are indicted in killing compared to 90% of American that are hauled off to jail immediately (Cop Crisis). Whether it 's a police officer or an American citizen that commits the crime, there will always be an organization that supports the offender. The International Union of Police Associations is an organization that lobbies for the police department and its affairs. On the other end of the spectrum is the Communities for Police Reform. This organization fights to protects the rights of the average American citizen. Both organizations share the common ground to protect the rights of their members and can work together to reach a point of a compromise.
When New York City had a new leftist mayor, many foreshadowed there would be a significant rise in crime spanning over a few years. The new mayor, Bill de Blasio, was to blame. De Blasio wanted to reform city measure, but he went about it in a different way. De Blasio talked and listen more to ex-cons on this matter, putting their options and advice to the forefront of his mind. Many of them rallied for reducing police stratagems to reduce New York City’s crime rates. It was believed that de Blasio agreed with this idea because of his thoughts on some of the tactics New York City’s police officers used. De Blasio fought against “Stop and Frisk”, because of how they unjustly discriminated against young, African American males and put their safety at risk.
During the seventies in New Jersey created a program that could change life in society. This program occurred only in twenty-eight cities. Government and public officials were excited about this concept. Police officials were not so much. Foot patrol made officers walk in sleet and snow. Assigned foot patrol was a way of punishment for officers. State funding of foot patrol shut the mouths of some people. Silence stopped after the “Police Foundation”(Kelling) put foot patrol to the actual test. To contrary belief this rattled some arguments in the community an...
According to Kelling, Pate, Dieckman, & Brown (1974), patrol is the “backbone” of police work. This belief is based around the premise that the mere presence of police officers on patrol prohibits criminal activity. Despite increasing budgets and the availability of more officers on the streets, crime rates still rose with the expanding metropolitan populations (Kelling et al., 1974). A one year experiment to determine the effectiveness of routine preventive patrol would be conducted, beginning on the first day of October 1972, and ending on the last day of September 1973.
Rape Crisis (2013) Huge Rise in Demand for Rape Crisis Services [Online]. Available at: http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/news_show.php?id=98 Accessed: 11th November 2013]
Peak, K. J. (2006). Views. In K. J. Peak, Policing America: Methods/Issues/Challenges (p. 263). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
The documentary “Policing the Police,” by PBS, assists in providing insight into problems facing the city of Newark, New Jersey, and its police department. The documentary displays the opinions of both the police officers and the people of the communities on the most pressing crime related issues in the city and the solutions to them. The variety of perspectives that documentary provides is very informative and forces the viewer to look at the problems of police brutality in a more complex manner rather than black and white. Ultimately, the documentary exposes the failure of the Newark Police Department to work effectively and the solutions new leaders are beginning to implement.
Siegel, L. J., & Worrall, J. L. (2012). Issues in Policing. Introduction to Criminal Justice (13th ed., pp. 252-258). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Everyday law enforcement personal have the possibility to face dangerous events in their daily duties. In performing such duties a police officer could come by a seemingly ordinary task, and in a blink of an eye the event can turn threatening and possible deadly. When or if this happens to an officer they won’t have
& Forst, L.S. (2016). An Introduction to Policing (8th Edition). Boston, MA USA: Cengage Learning. p.243 (245). Retrieved June 6, 2017, from https://www.betheluniversityonline.net
Walker, S., & Katz, C. (2012). Police in America: An Introduction (8th Edition ed.). New York:
The author focuses on the U.S. Task Force on 21st Century Policing and Police Data Initiative or PDI to determine if it helps to restore trust and the broken relationship between and communities and police officers. The Task Force made by Barack Obama recommended the analysis of department policies, incidents of misconduct, recent stops and arrests, and demographics of the officers. The PDI has tasked 21 cities to comprehend the police behavior and find out what to do to change it. Also PDI was said to have data and information on vehicle stops and shootings by police officers. The use of statistics has a purpose to help rebuild trust and the relationship between and communities and police officers.
The caliber of officers that are coming out of the police academies these days is top notch and most police departments have the safe guards in place to keep officers from sliding down the slippery slope that would damage the confidence that the public has in the department. In the end gratuities, gifts and corruption will be a part of the police world as it has been from the beginning of the police community. It is incumbent upon the officers and the administration to keep the checks and balances in place so as not to damage the image of the police department and the city. Works Cited Dictionary, M.-W. O. (2010, June 16). The.
...0). Navy Hearing in Rape Case Raises Alarm. The New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/us/intrusive-grilling-in-rape-case-raises-alarm-on-military-hearings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
The future of policing is fairly clear in what direction it is heading. It has been slowly reforming to meet the needs of the people, reduce crime, and make policing more efficient. Some of the reforms that will probably take place in the future include, better educated police officers and police managers, consolidation of police departments to save on money and resources, upgraded technology, race and gender equality, better testing techniques to recruit and promote within the department, and improved proactive planning techniques. One of these proactive tools that will surely become more widely used and implemented better is community policing. It has been evolving since its first introduction into the police world and will see more reforms in the future. Compstat should also become more widely used by almost all police departments to make those in charge more accountable and for improved crime mapping.