Crime Prevention Criminal Justice

Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

After reviewing your classmates’ responses, what assumptions need to be made to incorporate the crime prevention strategy in other areas of the country?

FIRST RESPONSE DISCUSSION FROM NOAH C.

The article that I am reviewing talks about an incident where a teenage boy was shot and killed by a man on the neighborhood watch. Law enforcement officers are bound by legal standards that are different than that of a neighborhood officer. People participating in the neighborhood watch do not have the same rights as police officers. Nevertheless, neighborhood watches are used to deter criminal activity within the community. Neighborhood watches also assist police with responsibility, they are able to contact the police when they witness crime. Some people feel as neighborhood watches have a too much authority being they are allowed to carry guns and use them when they feel threatened. “The Fourth and Fifth Amendments that restrict police efforts in detaining, searching, and interrogating suspects do not apply to neighborhood watch organizations” (Finegan, 2013). Police are granted permission to use their weapon as defense but only if it is the last resort. Neighborhood watch officers are not bound by the same rules thus shows why this incident occurred in the first place.

This article addresses the issue with the neighborhood watch members; they do not have the proper training that they need to make the best decisions on the streets. A member of a neighborhood watch does not have training and will react to a issue with their personal instincts. A properly trained law enforcement officer is able to use their training and knowledge to handle the situation more effectively. Although neighborhood watch provides policing for the community, it should include actual police officers on occasions. Neighborhood watch is a form of crime prevention, however, I feel as though it needs to be revamped some. Neighborhood watch members should receive training and certification from law enforcement. If police officers trained the neighborhood watch member while they were on watch, it would save money. “Some neighborhood watch programs involving the police have been found to be effective at helping to reduce some crimes” (Robinson, 2013). With watch member having police certified training we can ensure that a case like Zimmerman would be less likely to reoccur.

References:

Finegan, S. (2013). Watching the watchers: the growing privatization of criminal law enforcement and the need for limits on neighborhood watch associations. UMass Law Review, 8(1), 88.

Robinson, M.B. (2013). Crime Prevention. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Second Response Discussion from Amanda C.

This article is based on the author’s experience as Britain’s first school-based police officer and his subsequent experience of policing schools in the United States. It outlines the current practices of the Metropolitan Police Service in its quest to introduce the concept of placing police officers on a fulltime basis in schools. This is in response to the alarming number of young people becoming

Involved in crime and is part of the package of measures being taken forward by the Prime

Minister’s Street Crime Action Team to combat street robberies and related crime. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of such a scheme as experienced by the author and the strategies used to address the problems of youth violence and compares and contrasts these findings with those of his experiences in several schools in the US over a five month period as an observational evaluator. The article also looks at the different ways in which the work of the schools officer is perceived in the two countries and the support structure which is available in each. The challenges which need to be met in order to form partnerships are outlined. Such efforts can collectively tackle the issue of juvenile delinquency through a common vision. In addition the need for a comprehensive training manual to be developed and implemented to assist these processes is discussed.

The paper concludes by considering the extent to which, by combining the good practice from the US with those successful elements of the UK model, school police partnerships can move forward and embrace the notion of school-base police officers in a positive light. This article examines the role of school based police officers in the light of comparative research, which looked at police roles in schools in the UK and the US. The research in the UK was conducted over a period of one year at a secondary school in London1 and was essentially action-research based. The research used a variety of data collection methods, including surveys to staff and pupils as well as focus groups and semi-structured interviews. A diary was also kept which recorded the interactions of the officer with various members of the partnership on a daily basis and the way in which this shaped their relationship.

Reference:

Briers, A. N. (2003). School-based police officers: What can the UK learn from the USA?. International Journal Of Police Science & Management, 5(2), 129-142.