Students Post and Response Week 7

I believe we all can agree that a eye witness video from a on lookers cellphone camera, or a hidden surveillance camera catching a Police Officer miss using force or using excessive force is a huge problem for Law Enforcement around the country. Things to take away from that statement, first is that actually excessive force issues are at an all time record low around the country and continue to drop by false claims, proven false claims are at an all time high. Often what is precived or played on new media is just a small piece of a use of force puzzle that when put all together share a much different story. The news media gets paid on views so they will say what they have to and bend what they have to, to get you to watch.

A very unpopular opinion and sad truth to the matter is that use of force is a really nice way of saying violent controlled attack. Every time a police officer punches someone in the face, or kicks them in the stomach, or even shoots an individual it looks horrible, but more often then not it was the right thing to do. We will in a society that likes to soften the truths and unjust of the world with pretty verbiage. We call it “Use of Force,” when in is a violent physical act of one human on an other for a just cause. When society comes to terms with the fact that these acts are often required, it makes it easier for offices to do their job.

Not to beat a dead horse but one of the most ethical uses of force in the last ten years was the shooting of Michael Brown, not only was it ethical and moral, it was the only option Mr. Brown gave the officer to save his life from a violent felon. With that being said how did that help community relations, it did not it made everything worse for a very long time until that city burnt itself to the ground.

The real fight is not with ethical use of force practices, the fight is with knowledge, educating the public in what should and will be excepted by its civilians and police force. There are still so many Americans that do not know their basic rights and while this sort of education could be argued that it helps bag guys but in the long run it would help avoid so much confusion with the general public.

Discussing the topics of CompStat and Zero Tolerance enforcement in all enforcement , what are the challenges faced when pressured to reduce crime or produce certain outcomes in law enforcement in a short time period?

Deadlines, quotas, CompStat and Zero Tolerance are all a dangerous games when used improperly. The issue will never be that collecting data in order to predict trends is a bad thing its how a plan is then implemented to combat those statistics. If the plan is more staffing till a trend changes that seems fine enough but is the plan seems to be a quota based on old data then you have an issue, as said best by detective Sullivan in the movie Departed, “I’ll always have a job, Ill just start arresting innocent people.” And while this is being used as a joke the truth is by forcing police to act on crimes that might not be happening using data as a method of predicting crimes you could be setting yourself up for trouble.

This is of course an extreme but not impossible idea of what could happen. Over all though an easy way to combat any sort of crime is by retrieving data and using that data to attempt predictions in many ways helps law enforcement quell issues.

Can police actually predict crime before it happens?

Yes. Well, no. The answer: sort of.

The use of data to monitor crime in a city is hardly a new thing for police departments around the country, but recently, there has been a rise in what is called "predictive policing" -- that is, using statistics not only to map what already happened, but what could happen in the future.

A new report in Slate details the latest trend, which involves using data to predict "micro-trends." One major city using the technique? Los Angeles.

The LAPD recently won a $3 million grant from the U.S. Justice Department for a pilot program in predictive methodology. (They're not alone, either: Chicago's fuzz recently created a new "criminal forecasting unit" for this purpose.) -ZDNet

What are the specific advantages of police community partnerships to reduce crime?

Constantly proven over many decades using many different terms, police and community partnerships have always been the best way for any police force to do their job and the breakdown of these partnerships have always been the quickest way to anarchy. Every community since the dawn of time has looked to string leaders for protection and justice. This is no different then the communities in the United States that look at the Police as a all knowing and helping way to guide them in times of need. The one thing that rings true is that no matter how much we condemn our police forces they are still who we need when things are going bad quickly.

5 Reasons Police-Community Partnerships Are Valuable

A partnership can be defined in many ways, but essentially, it is a cooperative relationship between two or more organizations to achieve a common goal. Effective community partnerships are essential to a police department’s and community’s efforts to address crime. Partnerships can:

-Increase organizational accountability. Partners have the ability to hold each other accountable by reporting to each other and establishing performance measures and programmatic controls.

-Reduce fragmentation and duplication. When people and organizations work together, they can ensure that their efforts are coordinated and resources are used more effectively.

-Increase awareness of public safety strategies. This transparency can lead to more trust in the community. When community members know what the police department’s strategies are, they are more likely to cooperate with the police, report crime and even participate in implementing those strategies.

-Strengthen organizations. As organizations work together to solve problems, they leverage each other’s strength and become more effective.

-Permanently alter the way of doing business. As partners work together to address issues and begin to see successes, they realize that engaging in partnerships is an efficient and effective way to address different types of issues and problems. –Hillard Heintze

What are the possible accountability and ethical challenges with strong community partnerships?

I believe the best thing about a strong Police and Community partnership is that not only can the community hold their police accountable but the police through educating the public can hold the community accountable. I believe that there is a notion that the community can not be wrong that community culture is what the police need to adapt too. I think we can all agree the current community culture and climate of some of our big cities has gone too far, from the public defecation in San Francisco to the murder rate of Chicago, it often falls on the police to remedy the situation but again this is only something that can be done with the community helping the police, otherwise it becomes a war where both sides see it as the other being solely against them.

We are told to call the police and rely on the criminal justice system to address violence within our communities. However, if police and prisons facilitate or perpetrate violence against us rather than increase our safety, how do we create strategies to address violence within our communities, including domestic violence, sexual vioelnce, and child abuse, that don’t rely on police or prisons?

Community accountability is one critical option. Community accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a police/prison-based strategy, to address violence within our communities. Community accountability is a process which a community – a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc – work together to do the following things : -Transformative Justice

This is a good example of a community that does not trust its police, the lack good community partnerships has led the community to think its on their own to prevent violence, when it should be a joint venture.

What were the key learning/observations for you while writing the final paper?

The issue I have had most with my paper is that there are really two topics at hand and a side topic that drives them both. So my paper address policy policies concerning social media usage, and the issue I have found is that monitoring social media is the next big argument of our time, even the CEO of twitter is having a hard time keeping up with the usage and things needed to make the platform safe. The second part is if social media it self is having a hard time keeping up how will police agencies especially given their new employees have grown up on social media. The third factor is what drives the issues and of course it’s the main stream media and news that will take almost anything out of context to make headlines. All three topics deserve their own paper, and yet I’m trying to tie them all in without falling down a 40 page tangent.

References

Nusca, A. (2011, January 25). In Los Angeles, using statistics to predict crime. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/in-los-angeles-using-statistics-to-predict-crime/.