ONLY FOR MAESTRO CRIM 2100
Honeybee123
CRIM2100BriefingPaperTemplate-AngusZhao.docx
The Ferguson Effect
The recent rise in violent crimes in numerous cities has utilized the Ferguson effect; it is the he idea that increased scrutiny of police following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Furthermore, it has been used t to explain some controversial explanations and discussions about the number of these crime and homicide rates. For instance, the events that occurred in both Ferguson and MO offered two statements about the increasing rates of criminal activities. The first statement was the gun law regulation policies and the second statement was how to curb such atrocities.
The above process tends to affect the traits of individuals, and thus they tend to engage in challenging the legitimacies involved in law enforcement as much as there is a section of the population that do not turn to the law when looking for assistance in crime situations. Therefore, the shooting that occurred in Ferguson is believed to contribute to the increasing number of violent and homicide acts.
The United States is not on the verge of controlling the violent crime waves that have been hitting the communities. The illustrations have been indicated by using the summary of data collected on homicide and violent crime rates with a significant focus based on the largest 48 U.S. cities (Land, McCall, and Cohen, 1990). Moreover, the data collected illustrates that the country is still not capable of fully controlling these issues that have been tremendously increasing. Crime and homicide rates are always higher in large cities as much as the standard occurrence rates tend to fluctuate annually. For instance, the study indicates that some cities experience an increase in these acts due to policing methods, governance and administrative procedures within the system (Berman, Bowman, West, and Van Wart, 2019). Therefore, the paper looks into the Ferguson effect and how these issues can be controlled using the introduction of a policy when looking into the increasing number of convicts and felony charges in prisons.
This Briefing
Overview & Current Relevance P.1
Theoretical Connection & Program Analysis P.2
Program Strengths & Weaknesses P.3
Recommendation(s) A Closer Look
References P.4
Overview and Current Relevance
AUTHOR: Angus Zhao
HEADLINE:
The issue at hand is addressing the homicide and violent crimes in the society by analyzing the additional grant funding policies. For instance, the Federal Changes in the 1999-2000 legislative sessions.
Theoretical Connection
Theoretically, the ratio of arrests to offenses reported such as clearance rates has decreased from 2014 to 2015 mainly in cities that contain populations of over 100,000 individuals according to this study (Braga et al., 2019) and this however coincided with the increasing number of homicide and criminal cases in these major cities (Rushin and Edwards, 2016). Now, the growing number of incarceration cases primarily based on felony charges has led to an increase in the number of prisoners and convicts in jail and prison centers. Moreover, ex-felons have no right to the voting and are mistreated when looking into their powers and policies as accommodated in the government thus leading to an increased number of unemployment cases in the United States in accordance to the equality versus equity theory. This is better, but you could be more clear as to how this relates/connects to the equality vs. equity theory.
There is some evidence connecting some cities to the experiences of increased violence and homicide crimes as the current data has illustrated the country does not have control over the violent criminal activity wave. Congressional actions of supporting individual efforts that aim at reducing intense illegal activities in some of these majorly affected cities are offered by specific policies. The policy of additional grant funding as earlier stipulated aims at reducing violent crimes which involve efforts provided by the grant funds to local or state governments supporting the crime-reducing policies and initiatives.
Program Analysis
Additionally, no additional funding is received for prevention systems since the local governments would not need such assistance. Therefore, there can also be an amendment of the 34 U.S.C. §10157(b) to assist in setting aside a certain amount to the fiscal JAG appropriations that would help the administrative sector to combat and address the astonishing increase in certain types of criminal activities (Perry, 2013). The JAG grant is the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions and the main goals of the program is combating the increased level of criminal activities.
The Edward Byrne Memorial JAG (Justice Assistance Grant) program could receive more funding from the policymakers when looking into the reduction of these criminal activities (James, 2013). The grant program offers financial funding to assist reducing criminal activities by employing strict measures which require abundant financial support to the community. The local governments can use their grant funding to offer crime preventing efforts that include engaging programs aimed at addressing issues giving rise to violent activities.
However, additional funding will not only be limited to these major cities that experience the increases in violent and homicide rates as JAG is applied as a formula grant system. The additional funding can be distributed to eligible local and state governments as indicated by the statutory formula so long as the Congress increase JAG program appropriations.
One major advantage of the grant funding policy is it assists in offering the needed funds for discrete grant programs such as Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation, COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services’) hire, and Project Safe Neighborhoods program (Tiwari, 2016). Additionally, the authorization and appropriation funding for this grant program supports investments in crime prevention programs and policing evidence-based strategies. The policy would change the manner that the court proceedings are also undertaken as the additional funding can be used to pay defendant attorneys since it was noted that there were court convictions that needed appealing or were biased or wrongly conducted. Another strength of the policy was observed in reducing the number of crime and violent acts being committed as enough investment will be channeled in addressing these issues.
The government involvement in the change procedures would impact the whole city populations as there could be an increasing impact of citizens feeling the effects of their government in reducing criminal activities.
Additionally, the introduced policy aims at impacting not only the affected regions or cities but the whole country is put into perspective.
Furthermore, the involvement of the citizens and government in these policies would prompt the entire community to look into the issues leading to the increase of criminal activities, especially among the younger generation.
On the other hand, the policy's weakness is observed in control being undertaken by the administration, and thus there can be office manipulation, embezzlement of funds and a disconnected grant program especially if the administrative offices do not observe the effectiveness of the program. Moreover, the program can only be fully competent in the cities that it was designed and there is the increasing number of violent acts, and thus, small towns or regions will not fully be impacted as much as these regions also need protection and security from these criminal activities.
Program Strengths and Weaknesses
The policy presented would help in reducing the number of deaths and incarceration in both prisons and the outside community. The community should be entirely made aware of these policies and rights to have explicit knowledge of the parameters covering certain felony cases in court proceedings.
The issues above can be addressed using the national public safety partnerships where Congress may consider offering resources to the DOJ to expand the program. The officials protecting the whole population should undergo an individual assessment to assert they are fit to protect society. The process above would assist in reducing the number of mistake or error cases reported while conducting patrols in neighborhoods.
A Closer Look: Recommendation(s)
This section should simply cite at least 6 sources or articles used in writing this brief. References should be in APA format.
1. Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 9 (1), 7-26.
2. Cespedes, G., & Herz, D. C. (2011). The City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) Comprehensive Strategy; Los Angeles: GRYD Office
3. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). NY: Routledge.
4. Greene, R. (1991). Ecological Perspective For Social Work Practice (2nd Ed.) p. 259-308. New York Aldine DeGruyyer.
5. La Vigne, N. et al. (2017). How Do People in High-Crime, Low Income Communities View The Police. Urban Institute. Justice Policy Center.
6. Ratts, M. et al. (2016). Multiculturalism and Social Justice Counseling Competencies: Guidelines for the Counseling Profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development. Vol. 44 28-48.
7. Land, K. C., McCall, P. L., & Cohen, L. E. (1990). Structural covariates of homicide rates: Are there any invariances across time and social space?. American journal of sociology, 95(4), 922-963.
8. Braga, A. A., Zimmerman, G., Barao, L., Farrell, C., Brunson, R. K., & Papachristos, A. V. (2019). Street Gangs, Gun Violence, and Focused Deterrence: Comparing Place-based and Group-based Evaluation Methods to Estimate Direct and Spillover Deterrent Effects. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 0022427818821716.
Just a thought: All the highlighted sources, I don’t clearly see how you used them in the briefing paper? If you did, I should see an in text citation for them or the topic would clearly connect to them and I don’t see that in all cases. Just double check that you put in text citations where you should have.
References
pg. 4
