There are several initiatives that the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) is engaged in that are related to community crime prevention. Social development is a key feature of these initiatives. CPD prides itself in using problem-solving approaches when combatting crime, and is heavily involved in youth engagement. The Police Chief has placed emphasis on targeting at-risk youth and bridging the gap between youth and police. The Chief also stresses the importance of a working relationship with community citizens as well as with businesses and city departments. Overall, CPD has had a proven success rate in the methods used in crime prevention and problem solving.
The CIRV Initiative
One program, Cincinnati’s Initiative to Reduce Violence or (CIRV), (Ceasefire), targets the gun violence in the city. CIRV offers intervention for youth who have fallen into the gang culture. CIRV also offers youth an alternative to the gang way of life through a variety of social interventions. This initiative was adopted after the Boston Gun Project started in the 1990’s. The main focus of CIRV is to deter chronic offenders involved in violent crime and to mitigate gang and group violence. The objective is to offer violent groups or gangs alternatives to violence. CIRV has made job training, educational opportunities, and social programs available to these groups, and promotes them as providing “a way off of the streets.” If offenders refuse to take advantage of these opportunities, they are dealt with through the justice system.
Several local law enforcement agencies have teamed up with the CPD to ensure the success of this initiative. These include the Probation Department, the Community Partnering Center, and Outreach Workers. These law enf...
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...apping to determine which areas are hot spots. This is important to achieve success while using POP (Braga & Bond, 2008). (Braga & Bond, 2008) suggest that it is more difficult for small departments to achieve good results namely because most do not use computers and crime mapping. CPD is a larger department and officers use crime mapping, the SARA model along with empowering and teaching citizens how to prevent victimization by making their neighborhood a better place to live through behavior modification (Schneider, 2010, p. 150). It relays a message to citizens that crime prevention in a neighborhood is not just the duty of the police--but of the citizens as well (Schneider, 2010, p. 12). POP is the one of best tools to use for crime and disorder, and a significant amount of hot spot interventions have been proven effective (Braga & Bond, 2008).
Community and problem oriented policing are responsible for creating strong responses to public safety, fear and crime problems. They aim to analyze problems and frame strategic feedback using a variation of approaches. Through a procedure of analysis, evaluation, and problem identification; problem-oriented policing has been successful against a variety of fear, crime, and order concerns. The Boston Ceasefire program is considered to be problem-oriented policing it mostly aimed at taking on serious, widespread crime problems; like homicide victimization among the youth in Boston. Boston is one the cities in the United States that experienced an epidemic of youth homicide and illegal gun use between the late 1980s and early 1900s.
Spergel, I., Chance, R., Ehrensaft, K., Regulus, T., Cane, K., Laseter, R., . . . Alexander, A. (1994, October). Gang Suppression and Intervention: Community Models Research Summary. Retrieved March 23, 2014, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/gangcorr.pdf
However, how a community goes about dealing with this issue is controversial. According to the Office of Justice Programs, Operation Ceasefire “seeks to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities.” Officials for Operation Ceasefire advocate for local law enforcement to vamp up patrols in areas where violent crime is common. However, this could be an unintended consequence for those who live in these areas that don’t engage in violence. Essentially, maybe individuals in the community will not like the increased police patrols and will retaliate in a deviant manner. Also, it is important to understand that not all individuals get “chosen” to be part of Operation Ceasefire. Maybe those who don’t pass the screening process to partake will act out. In other words, when they see their friends partaking in the intervention and doing well, those who don’t get chosen may respond in a deviant manner. These are just a few unintended consequences that may be expected when communities implement this
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.
The character's prejudice was also evident when he asked about Robert's deceased wife. Upon hearing her name Beulah, he asked, "Was his wife a Negro?" Immediately, his wife seemed offended at the question. The paragraphs that follow are important to the story. The speaker informs the readers that his wife told him the story of Robert and Beulah. H...
In order for the police to successfully prevent crimes, public cooperation is needed. Various community policing programs have been implemented and it is important to discuss the benefits and limitations of these programs. Community policing allows the community to be actively involved and become a partner in promoting safety. This partnership increases trust of police officers and helps citizens understand that the police are on their side and want to improve their quality of life (Ferreira, 1996). The role of the police officers goes beyond that of a “crime fighter” and expands to multiple roles including that of a victim-centered
In 2003 as a response to communities with a large amount and growing number of youth gangs the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, initiated the Gang Reduction Program (GRP) (U.S. Department of Justice 2008). The formation of gangs is seen as a response to system failures and community dysfunction. As a result, one of OJJPD’s anti-gang initiatives is to make communities safer and have a pro-social environment (U.S. Department of Justice 2008). Furthermore, OJJDP plans to provide economic and social opportunities that gangs often promise to new recruits which are often obtained in an illegal and dangerous fashion (U.S. Department of Justice 2008). OJJDP believes that the GRP is capable of addressing the underlying issues for the increasing popularity and intensity of gang activity in specific suburban and rural neighborhoods (U.S. Department of Justice 2008). The program takes an integrative approach to dealing with the issue of increasing membership and participation with gangs. The following will discuss the program’s goal, theoretical basis, methods of operation, and overall effectiveness. After reviewing these major aspects of the GRP I will personally assess the value of this program and conclude whether or not the evidence supporting the program’s efficiency is strong enough for me to recommend it for implementation.
Several California cities recently moved forward with gang injunctions to reduce violent crime rates. Gang injunctions have become a distinct Californian approach to fight crimes since they were first introduced in the 1980s in Los Angeles. The injunctions that have been granted primarily affect impoverished, minority neighborhoods and may actually serve to further stigmatize and oppress innocent minority youth who also live in these communities. Cities have issued them to fight local gangs, and promise that gang injunctions will cut down violent crime rate, and make the neighborhoods more safer; ho...
The streets of Philadelphia are rapidly becoming a home to violent acts and random homicides. Innocent lives are taken every day due to the strong presence of gangs, and the streets are run by unruly groups of fearless young adults. Gang violence in Philadelphia is a major issue, and the citizens will never be safe until gang prevention occurs. Gang prevention is not a simple task, but with the right resources available, it is possible. Gang violence is a problem that will contribute to the collapse of Philadelphia, and it has yet to be solved throughout many generations. With gang violence on the rise, the best solution to gang violence is to educate the youth and parents about gangs and use family support to prevent the creation of gang members from the problem’s core.
This concept, however, is not new. Problem-solving justice programs can trace their roots to several innovations in policing including community and problem-oriented policing. This was the basis for replacing law enforcement’s traditional role of responding, identifying patterns of crime, mitigating the underlying conditions, and engaging the community (Wolf, Prinicples of Problem-Solving Justice, 2007). New p...
There are many different ways of policing in the 21st century and all address and apply different theories and ideas to try and control the crime this day in age. One of these methods is called community policing and many law enforcement agencies around our country and the world use it as a model for policing and interacting with communities. Community policing is based on the belief that policing agencies should partner with communities with the goals to prevent or reduce the amount of crime in those areas (Pollock, 2012 p. 99). There are 3 main aspects of community policing that I will talk about in this paper and they are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. After hearing about the
Virginia Woolf begins her memoir Moments of Being with a conscious attempt to write for her readers. While writing her life story, however, she begins to turn inwards and she becomes enmeshed in her writing. By focusing on her thoughts surrounding the incidents in her life instead of the incidents themselves, she unconsciously loses sight of her outward perspective and writes for herself. Her memoir becomes a loose series of declarations of her beliefs connected only by her wandering train of thought. Although Moments of Being deals largely with her conjectures, she is not trying to convince the reader of these beliefs' validity since she is so absorbed in the act of writing. What begins as an outwardly focused memoir evolves into Virginia Woolf's exploration of her thoughts and feelings.
Community oriented policing has been around for over 30 years, and promotes and supports organizational strategies to address the causes, and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem solving tactics. The way community policing works is it requires the police and citizens to work together to increase safety for the public. Each community policing program is different depending on the needs of the community. There have been five consistent key elements of an effective community oriented policing program: Adopting community service as the overarching philosophy of the organization, making an institutional commitment to community policing that is internalized throughout the command structure, emphasizing geographically decentralized models of policing that stress services tailored to the needs of individual communities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire jurisdiction, empowering citizens to act in partnership with the police on issues of crime and more broadly defined social problems, for example, quality-of-life issues, and using problem-oriented or problem-solving approaches involving police personnel working with community members. Community oriented policing has improved the public’s perception of the police in a huge way. Community policing builds more relationships with the
The key characteristics of community policing are as follows: Police officers are usually called upon to be particularly thoughtful, creative problem solvers. They are asked to listen to the concerns of community members, to logically reason out the roots of problems, to identify and research potential answers, to implement solutions, and to assess results. Police officers work in partnership with concerned citizens. The second characteristic is that police officers are visible and accessible component of the community and work with youths and other community members top address delinquency problems. On the third characteristic, police officers patrol a limited number of jurisdictions on foot. The so-called foot patrol officers are believed to be more approachable and offer a comforting presence to citizens. The fourth and last characteristic that will be mentioned on this paper is that the community policing have decentralized operations, which allows officers to develop greater familiarity with the needs of various constituencies in the community and to adapt procedures to accommodate those needs.
Otero, Juan. “Curbing street gang violence,” National League of Cities. 21 Dec 1998. General Reference Center Gold. Jan 2007