Introduction 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.
Discussion
The Boston Ceasefire program was originated to reduce the possession of illegal guns,
…show more content…
The objective of Operation Ceasefire is to perform comprehensives strategies to seize and prosecute delinquents who may carry firearms, to warn others that the offenders face serious punishment and to deter youth from following the same criminal path as the others. The intervention process is used as a deterrence strategy, it is based on the belief that crimes can be deterred when the cost outweigh the benefits of the crime. It targets high risk youths and violent juvenile delinquents. The program uses the pulling-levers technique which focuses on the prevention of gang violence by convincing gang members that there would be intense punishment following violence or illegal gun use; which would influence them to change their conduct. An important component in the intervention process is the delivery of a straightforward and clear message to only the gang involved youth so that it can target those that are in gangs rather than using resources on those who are not. The message was not a deal with the gang members but preferably was assurance to gang members that violent conduct would cause an instant and
This book also has the perspective of the police, which show the gang violence as a more black and white or good versus evil issue, and their militant approach to gang reformation. Jorja Leap holds a view that to stop gang violence, the same members that were once gangbanging need to divert the youth away from the same lifestyle.
It can be traced back that Thomas Hobbes first formulated the idea of deterrence. Advocates of deterrence theory “believe that people choose to obey or violate the law after calculating the gains and consequences of their actions” (Onwudiwe, Odo, Onyeozili). Essentially, as stated above, individuals will engage in crime when the benefit of the crime outweighs the cost of committing the crime (punishment). Personally, I believe that individuals that are part of the Operation Ceasefire end their “street days” because they are mostly scared of the harsh consequences that will follow if they continue to engage in a life of crime. Operation Ceasefire may align well with theories such as deterrence theory, but maybe not so much with others. When
Spergel and Curry (1993) discuss suppression and the activities under as, “arrest, special prosecution, incarceration, intensive supervision, gang intelligence, and networking” (p. 374). The implications of Thornberry et al.’s (1993) models illustrate increased criminal behavior during gang membership, thus suppression techniques could potentially reduce crime. These suppression efforts are an approach used against gangs in general, rather than preventing membership, which is the primary goal of community organization programs. Curry et al. (2014) explain the suppression efforts in detail as including, “prosecution, specialized enforcement efforts, specialized probation, targeting of gang members by the California Youth Authority, summer projects, and the use of gang injunctions” (p. 179). While these suppression efforts are extreme, they attempt to answer the issue of gangs and their criminal behavior. This in turn may lower crime and decrease gang expansion. Ultimately, programs that focus on gang membership prevention have the potential to inhibit increased delinquent behavior caused by gangs, while suppression strategies attempt to interrupt criminal behavior in gangs as a
A critical examination of police departments across the United States would show that while law enforcement agencies do common work, few agencies utilize the identical same strategy to tackle crime and disorder problems within their communities. Many agencies still deploy a traditional response model to address routine and emergency calls for service. The response model places a high emphasis on fast response times to calls for service and effective investigations which result in arrest and prosecution. However, more and more agencies are implementing variations of new strategies to deal with crime and disorder issues within their jurisdictions. Some of these newer strategies include community-policing, hot-spot policing and
Gun violence in youth has become much more prevalent. Today’s youth are more likely to turn to guns to solve their problems with bullies or to help them to fight a mental illness. Kids are taking guns from their parents or are just going to the streets and buying the guns from random people. Although there are jurisdictions that have started to use gun violence programs to help combat these issues the programs are not found everywhere and are not going to work forever. One such program that we will learn about later on is Operation Ceasefire.
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.
Throughout the whole book, Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and The End of Violence in Inner-City America David M. Kennedy uses multiple steps to implement Project Ceasefire and tries to make it work. If the chief of police approached me and asked how to implement Project Ceasefire I would follow these steps: selecting a target behavior analyzing the dynamics of local gun violence, assembling an interagency working group of largely line-level criminal justice and other agencies that were going to be involved, communicate with the targeted group, developing a strategy designed to have an impact on youth homicide and create a strong deterrent to violence, following up with the strategy and see if the behavior was controlled.
Problem-oriented policing presents an alternative approach to policing that has gained attention in recent years among many police agencies. Problem-oriented policing grew out of twenty years of research into police practices, and differs from traditional policing strategies in four significant ways.
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...
Community policing is a strategy used by various departments in order to create and maintain a relationship between the law enforcement agency and the community being patrolled. Community policing is composed of three critical components, community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving (Gardiner, 154, 2016). Community partnerships are pivotal in community policing since they increase public trust and create am improved relationship in law enforcement agencies better serving the community (Gardiner, 87, 2016). These partnerships not only offer public input but also encourage the public to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in order to minimize crime within the community (Gardiner, 88, 2016). Unlike, the traditional strategies of policing, community orientated policing has been adopted by two-thirds of agencies in order to improve public safety and control crime. (Gardiner, 148, 2016).
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
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
It all started in 1979 when Herman Goldstein made criticizing comments on police practices of that time in a Crime and Delinquency article noting that the police are more so focused on the “means” of policing than its “ends.” Due to Goldstein’s criticism a number of studies were done to figure out the level of effectiveness concerning policing methods of that time. Goldstein then introduced a new policing model called “problem-oriented policing” or POP for short, to empathize the call for police to focus more on problems instead of the everyday management of police agencies. POP was widely adopted and accepted by a large number of policing agencies. In 1987 John E. Eck and William Spelman elaborated and extended Goldstein’s model idea to create a straightforward model for implementing POP.
To conclude, Community policing represents a major development in the history of American law enforcement, but the extent to which this approach is a success and dominates contemporary policing remains a source of debate. In my point of view, community policing is good for communities. It has challenged the traditional concept of the police as crime-fighters by drawing attention to the complexities of the police role and function. In addition to the police officer hard work; citizens can also make a difference and contribute to make neighborhoods a better place to live. For instance, citizens can hold community meetings to talk about concerns and agree on solutions help organize healthy activities for children in your neighborhood, join or starting a neighborhood crime watch program, and talk to your community police officers and share information and concerns.
Otero, Juan. “Curbing street gang violence,” National League of Cities. 21 Dec 1998. General Reference Center Gold. Jan 2007