3-5 page paper

Policy enforcement strategies

Name

University

Introduction

The researchers and criminologists have sought out how to make the United State safer from crime and violence. In their research, they have tried to find nonpartisan policies the United States can apply to prevent or even reduce crime and violence which are becoming a threat to the citizens. Some of the factors that criminologists and researchers have decoded causing people to commit a crime or even violence include; socioeconomic diversities, cultural issues, guns assaults by police, and even addiction of drugs in the country (Rosenfeld,2014). Therefore, the scholars have focused on three significant policy strategies to be implemented to prevent crime and violence, these strategies include; hot-spot policing, focused deterrence policing, fixing blighted housing.

Hot-spot policing

Historically, in the United States, a series of detailed evaluations have indicated that when police are dealing with crime and violence can be more effective if it focuses on small geographic areas with high rate of violence and crime. Hot-spot policing or place-based policing is applied in this micro-unit geographic areas. The hot spot policing stands are contradictory to ‘traditional’ enforcement policing and prevention of crime which concentrates primarily on people in the whole geographic area. Police precincts, districts determine the police resources allocation and order officials respond calls and have patrol (Rosenfeld,2014). However, hot spots policing focuses on smaller geographic units with wider social environments of neighborhoods and communities, such as street segments, small clusters of addresses or even block faces in the city. As a result, the hot spots policing maximizes the effectiveness of crime and violence prevention since police utilize their resources on such small geographic units instead of the entire geographic area.

In each unit (hot spot) police use a specific strategy and tactics to address places highly associated with crime, therefore, are not limited to one way of implementing the placed-based policing. For instance, the tactics of hot spots strategy can be of increasing police time spent in the units or even can involve taking a more detailed approach to solving crime problems which can include; identification and analyzation of the problems, development of tailored responses, and maintaining crime control gains.

Evidence on Hot Spots Policing

Scholars have evidently decoded that; hot spots policing is one of the strong strategies which can prevent crime and violence in the United State. For example, National research council in the United States when they were reviewing the effectiveness of the police, they focused on police resources on crime geographic units and provided the strongest collective evidence of police effectiveness dealing with crime and violence within micro-unit premises. Scholarly, it has been noted that most of the statistic finding (from nineteen quasi-experimental evaluations reported notable crime and violence reductions), recommended that when officials focus in crime units, they can have a significant beneficial impact on crime in these areas since they are able to have an immediate response on crime and violence incidences.

Implementation of the hot spots policing can ease the effectiveness of the interventions in the targeted micro-geographic units thus reducing or even preventing crime and violence. In addition, programmes deployed in hot spots policing for handling a problem-oriented seem more effective than increased traditional strategies which involve increased enforcement or patrols, because the programmes include a number of approaches to deal with the crime. In conclusion, the hot spot policing can be implemented since manages to handle common crime such as violent crime, drug offenses along with property crime. Moreover, it can benefit the immediate areas surrounding the hot spot.

Focused deterrence policing

The idea of implementing deterrence policing is that police can increase the swiftness, certainty, severity of punishment in a various inventive approach, usually by directly interacting with the criminals and communicating clear incentives for compliance and consequences for criminal activity. The approaches used focus highly on drug sellers and gang members. For instance, in Boston, the approaches used the ‘pulling levers’ framework with Operation Ceasefire, where gangs were warned at call-in meetings that violence cannot be allowed and if it occurs, legal pulling lever would be employed to bring an immediate response in the community. This ‘tough’ message often delivered by prosecutors and police was accompanied by ‘soft’ message that intensified the willingness of the community to aid in these change efforts and the availability of services such as drug treatment and job training, for gang members having the interest to engage in more pro-social behavior (Braga,2008).

The multi-agency team monitored the call-in meeting and analyzed the youth violence problem in Boston was greatly concentrated among a micro- group of gangs. Moreover, drug market interventions use the same approach to prevent crime and violence. After police identify high rate drug sellers in the targeted region, through several undercover buys and surveillance, the offenders are invited to a call-in meeting and warned against the crime of drugs selling. The historical drug sellers associated with violence are arrested by police officers before the call-in meeting, thus implying to call-in participants that, they are serious about sanctions threats (Rosenfeld,2014). The strategy gives an opportunity to call-in participants access to services which include; job training and drug treatment that can help in compliance with the legal law.

Evidence on Focused Deterrence Strategies

A systematic review of focused deterrence policing by researchers implied that the policy has a significant impact specifically on the crime of violence. The researchers did a study on a Boston gun project (Operation Ceasefire) in Boston concerning the gang members and drug seller offenders, the intervention was associated with noteworthy declines in the young adult assassination in the city. The scholars found that there was a unique decline in crime in Boston unlike other major U.S cities when this strategy was applied to deal with crime and violence (Braga,2008). The strategy should be fully implemented since there is free interaction of police and criminal offering opportunity of change to the offenders when advocating the crucial crimes. Before police have a tough decision on offenders, they call in meeting to address the issues as well as offering services to the community willing to help in the efforts of dealing with crime and violence.

Fixing blighted housing

John MacDonald, Ph.D., a professor of criminology at Penn University during conference release noted that replacing broken doors and windows is an effective deterrent of crime as well as a low cost instead of demolishing abandoned houses. It was suggested that fixing blighted buildings could be potential for cities such Philadelphia when tackling issues of crimes and violence, hence being an effective strategy for municipalities to implement making their neighborhoods safer along with better health outcomes (Cozens,2008). Both abandoned and vacant places have been recommended to have a negative impact on safety and health of the community since there is the greening of vacant lots which can cause an outbreak of diseases which are infectious to life.

In conclusion, fixing blighted buildings ‘broken windows theory’ should be implemented, because with new windows and doors and a cleaned building façade signals to potentials offenders that a property is now occupied and incidences of crime and violence are not allowed within the premises along with beneficial to human health.

References

Braga, A. A., & Bond, B. J. (2008). Policing crime and disorder hot spots: A randomized

controlled trial. Criminology, 46(3), 577-607.

environmental design. New South Wales public health bulletin, 18(12), 232-237.

Rosenfeld, R., Deckard, M. J., & Blackburn, E. (2014). The effects of directed patrol and

self‐initiated enforcement on firearm violence: A randomized controlled study of hot spot policing. Criminology, 52(3), 428-449.