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community policing theories
the basic elements of community policing
the causes and impact of discretion in the criminal justice system
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To residents of the suburbs, all economically distressed districts of the city may seem dangerous and threatening, however, to residents of these poor districts, it is just home. The local residents know the truly crime-ridden areas of each district. This essay will refer to these crime-ridden areas within poor communities as "hot spots" or "skid-row". Skid-row is generally an area of the economically distressed community that is plagued with vagrants, criminals, drug abusers and other individuals thought to be of exile from normal society (Bittner, 1967). This is an area where law abiding, poor citizens do not wish to venture (Bittner, 1967). Due to this stigma, skid-row is an area that is patrolled by police, who generally take on the role of a peacekeeper. Their role of peacekeeper is driven by their ability to apply a great deal of discretion in their law enforcement duties, as well as their need to contain the criminal activities specifically found in the skid-row areas.
The police are given a great deal of discretion in performing their duties. They make decisions on a daily basis, whether to arrest an individual on more minor offenses, or to give an individual a warning and promise to “keep an eye” on the person or area in the future (Bittner, 1967). When the officers make such decisions to not effect an arrest for a violation, they are essentially taking on the role of peacekeeper. The officer is trying to influence the actions of individuals, such as those in skid-row areas, to not commit further crimes (Bittner, 1967). The discretion not to arrest for certain crimes is likewise an attempt to contain the criminal activities to a specific area, as to not affect others (Bittner, 1967). Bittner (1967...
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...aining crimes to certain areas, has proven effective (Eck and Spellman, 1986).
References
Bittner, Egon. (1967). The police on skid-row: A study of peace keeping. American
Sociological Review, 32 (5): 699-715.
Brown, Michael K. (1981). Nonenforcement: Minor violations and disturbances. In Working the Street Chapter 7 (pp. 182-220). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Eck, John E. and Spelman, William (1987). Who ya gonna call? The police as problem
busters. In Crime & Delinquency, 33: 31-52.
Fyfe, James J. (1993). Good policing. In Brian Forst (ed.), The Socioeconomics of Crime and Justice Chapter 12 (pp. 269-289). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe
Nowicki, Dennis E. (1998). Mixed messages. In Geoffrey P. Alpert and Alex Piquero
(eds.), Community Policing: Contemporary Readings. (pp. 265-274). Prospect Heights,
IL: Waveland Press, Inc.
Marques, O. (2013, October 23). Issues in Policing [Lecture]. SSCI 1000 Introduction to Criminal Justice. University of Ontario Institute of Technology . Retrieved November 18, 2013
Officers were rewarded and reprimanded appropriately for the amount of arrests that were made. When Officers successfully prevented or deterred crime it didn’t show on paper. This tied in with officer morale in a big way. The book illustrates that when departments put out arrest quotas for the east side arrests fell, usually to the minimum. Mosko is often very critical of upper police managements distance and ignorance to the actual problems out there.
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.
Areas such as skid-row are filled with people that are without the ability to function in normal society, and simply the fact that they exist is offensive to those that do operate within the normal realms of a community (Bittner, 1967). Due to the primitive nature of those individuals living in these chaotic areas, most officers feel it is necessary to enclose the area in which the behaviors occur to keep it from assimilating with “normal” society. The necessity to contain the areas similar to skid-row is the responsibility of the police, and with few governing superiors to mandate guidelines and the large amount of discretion allotted to police, they assume the peace keeping role and abandon the role of enforcer (Bittner, 1967). Maintaining peace is a difficult task in itself because of the uncontrolled way of life in skid-row. Therefore, it is by focusing on maintaining order and protecting the outside normalcy from skid-row inhabitants (Bittner, 1967) that officers use tactics where they choose non-enforcement, or make a decision to ignore a violation (Brown, 1981). According to Brown (1981), ignoring offenses brings with it a bartering situation between the ...
confront smaller jurisdiction with limited police resources, a fractured neighborhood or a single residential streets where neighbors do not know each other and rarely communicate” (qtd. in Dean 1).
Mac Donald, Heather. "Stop the Killing, Keep "Stop-and-Frisk"" City-Journal. N.p., 23 July 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2013.
Quinton, P., Bland, N., Miller, Joel (2000) Paper 130: Police stops, Decision-Making, and Practice. London: Home Office
Police officers are faced each day with a vast array of situations with which they must deal. No two situations they encounter are ever the same, even when examines a large number of situations over an extended period of time. The officers are usually in the position of having to make decisions on how to handle a specific matter alone, or with little additional advice and without immediate supervision. This is the heart of police discretion. As we shall find, the exercise of discretion by police has benefits and problems associated with such exercise. The unfettered use of discretion can lead to the denial of citizen rights. Strategies that control the use of discretion are, therefore, very important. The benefits and problems of police discretion and controlling strategies are the focus of this essay.
In police-invoked law enforcement police initiate action against crimes that usually do not have victims (Wilson, 1968).
As taught in the lectures, it is impossible for police officers to win the war against crime without bending the rules, however when the rules are bent so much that it starts to violate t...
Muncie, J., and Mclaughin, E. (1996) The Problem of Crime. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publication Ltd.
Kappeler, V.E. & Gaines, L.K. (2009). “Community policing: a contemporary perspective.” Fifth Edition. Newark, NJ: Matthew Bender & Company.
Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions. This assumes a need for greater accountability of police, greater public share in decision-making and greater concern for civil rights and liberties.
Police decisions can affect life, liberty, and property, and as guardians of the interests of the public, police must maintain high standards of integrity. Police discretion concerning how to act in a given situation can often lead to ethical misconduct (Banks 29).