I.INTRO

A .Conservatives believe that by getting tough there will be a reduction in serious crime. The focus in this chapter is on “unleashing” the police

B. There are two strategies to increase crime fighting effectiveness of police

1.Intensive police patrol (e.g., increasing the number of police, intensive “crackdowns” or focus attention toward specific crimes and/or locations)

2.Providing police with more power (e.g, removing constitutional restraints on obtaining evidence and confessions)

C .Innovative programs include CCTV, community-oriented, and problem-oriented

II.MORE COPS ON THE STREET

A. More police appeals to the public due to the belief that patrol deters crime, but the questions to be considered are whether adding more cops increases the deterrent effect and whether different police strategies improve crime-fighting

B. The Police and Crime

1.There are two sides to the deterrence process

i .Putting cops on the street is more complicated than most people think

ii .Must look at what people perceive and how they react to police

2.The standard measure of the level of police protection is number of officers per 1,000 people which varies enormously across states with widely divergent crime rates

3.Police/population ratio is meaningless, since it does not tell us how officers are utilized

4.The important question is what police do when on the street; adding more cops to an inefficient department is just throwing money at the problem

5.Studies have found mixed results regarding correlations between the number of police and the crime rate

C. Hiring More Police: The COPS Program

1.The Community-Oriented Police Services program is the largest and most expensive federal supplemental investment in anti-crime and was launched out of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, which promised 100,000 more police on the streets

2.Great deal of controversy over the COPS program: Did the program actually result in 100,000 more officers on the street? Did those additional officers help reduce crime?

3.COPS funded three types of grants directed at hiring new officers, technology and innovative grants which lead to estimates of 69,000 to 90,000 additional officers

4.A national evaluation of the COPS program found that COPS-funded officers reduced crime in large cities, but that crime reductions were associated with hiring and innovative grants, not technology grants

D .Cost-Effective?

1.A cost-benefit analysis of the COPS program found that it cost $19,400 to reduce each violent crime in a city with 350,000 people paying $1 per resident

2.The cost-effectiveness of COPS is seriously questioned

3.A program must be effective, consistent with legal standards and practical, but COPS does not appear to be something we can realistically afford

E.  Proposition 6: Adding police officers, in combination with community policing programs, may produce modest reductions in crime but is not cost-effective

F .The Deterrent Effect of Patrol: Lessons of Kansas City

1.The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (1972-1973) tested the core principle of modern policing, that visible police presence deters crime

2.The South Patrol District was divided into proactive beats receiving additional patrol, reactive beats receiving no routine patrol and control beats with the normal levels of patrol while other variables were controlled for

3.The experiment found the level of patrol had no effect on either crime or citizens perceptions and fear of crime; people did not noticed differences in levels of patrol

4.The experiment did not prove that patrol had no effect on crime, but that more police patrols did not reduce the criminal activity

5.The phantom effect where people have the impression that more police are actually around seemed to be operating

6.The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment (1978-1979) varied levels of foot patrol and found that while this reduced citizen fear of crime and increased attitudes toward police, it confirmed the KS City findings because crime rates were unaffected

G .Understanding Deterrence and the Police

1.More patrol may not have reduced crime because deterrence theory requires that the treatment communicates threat of apprehension and causes people not to commit crime

2.Deterrence theory breaks down in the real world where police patrol is spread so thin that people may not perceive different levels of patrol

3.Offenders may not perceive police patrol as a meaningful threat considering the rather low clearance rate, invincibility of teens and fatalism of experienced criminals

4.Patrol is more likely to suppress crimes like robbery, burglary, and auto theft but less likely to suppress crimes like murders, assaults and rapes

H. Proposition 7: Increasing the level of traditional police patrol will not reduce crime

III.THE ALL-SEEING EYE: CCTV

A.CCTV involves two strategies

1.The presence of cameras will deter crime

2.Video recordings will provide evidence that will lead to arrests

B.CCTV is essentially a technological extension of police patrol and used in particular locations (e.g., banks, stores)

C. The question remains on the effectiveness of CCTV and its deterrent effect

1.Used far more extensively in England than in the U.S.

2.Evaluations by Welsh and Farrington provide mixed results on the effectiveness from positive and negative to no effect at all

D.CCTVs are most effective in reducing property crimes in parking areas when combined with other improvements (e.g., better lighting)

E. Proposition 8: Closed circuit television (CCTV) is not an effective tool for reducing violent crime or property crime, except for specific locations

IV.POLICE “CRACKDOWNS” ON CRIME

A.     A crackdown is a short burst of intensive law enforcement, involving many arrests, directed toward a particular area or a particular crime

1.Serves as a classical example of “get tough” policing

2.One antidrug crackdown was Operation Pressure Point (OPP) where 240 officers flooded an open-air drug market and made a high volume of arrests

i .An evaluation revealed several problems such as a lack of controls for displacement, drug dealers adapting to the crackdown, the fact that cost-effectiveness was not evaluated and implications of police misconduct were not detailed

ii .The drug problem actually worsened dramatically after OPP due to the arrival of crack, but the point is that many arrests do little good due to the ease with which arrested drug offenders are replaced

B.A major problem with traditional crackdowns is that they are unfocused and rely completely on police

V.FASTER RESPONSE TIME

A. People believe that if police got to crime scenes faster, crime would be reduced as potential offenders would be deterred

B. Faster response time does not produce more arrests because police are called to few crimes in progress, in many cases the victim can identify the suspect because they are acquainted and because victims do not call police immediately

C. Faster response time makes a difference in a small number of cases like rare commercial robberies

D. Proposition 9: Faster response time will not produce more arrests or lower the crime rate

VI.RESEARCH-BASED POLICE STRATEGIES

A. While police experts agree traditional strategies (e.g., increasing police, crackdowns, and decreasing response time) will not reduce crime, they agree police innovations (e.g., problem oriented police and “hot spots”) are effective

B .Carefully planned and geographically focused police activities can be effective

C. Problem-Oriented Policing (POP)

1.Careful planning using the SARA model (scanning, analysis, response, assessment

2.Draws heavily on the concept of hot spots

3.Partners with other non-policing agencies

4.Involves some civil remedies

D.SMART in Oakland

1.A Specialized Multi-Agency Response Team (SMART) program employed problem-oriented policing strategies in response to drug hot spots and found it reduced the level of drug activities in the target area while diffusing benefits to surrounding areas

i. SMART is distinguished from traditional police crime-fighting approaches because it changes police activity, narrowly focuses on hot spots and enlists other non-criminal justice agencies to address associated problems

E .Hot Spots in Lowell and Jersey City

1.Hot spots of crime and disorder were identified

2.Traditional POP tactics (e.g., increased police enforcement efforts, clean up trouble spots and working with community groups to address issues) were utilized

3.Results demonstrated a reduction in the targeted crime for the community and the surrounding neighborhoods

4.Bottom line: it is not a matter of more policing, but smarter policing – research-driven and focused

F. Proposition 10: Carefully planned and focused problem-oriented policing strategies can be successful in reducing crime and disorder

G. Zero-Tolerance and COMPSTAT in New York City

1.Major crime reductions by 2000 in NYC credited to increase in the size of NYPD, zero-tolerance policing strategies, and adoption of COMPSTAT management tool

2.Skepticism over whether these developments led to New York’s crime reduction rest on the fact that other cities enjoyed comparable reductions without any of the noted changes, special features of NYC (e.g., confronting concentrated crime areas, city density, and strict gun laws) may have contributed to its effectiveness, and the declining popularity of crack reduced violent gun crimes
 
 

VII.MORE DETECTIVES

A. Myths and Realities of Detective Work

1.Media perpetuates myths about detective work

2.Detectives spend most of their time writing reports, not chasing suspects, and the low clearance rate of 20% attests to this fact

3.Most arrests are made by patrol detectives because the victim or witness knows the offender or can provide a good lead

4.Solving crime depends more on information about a suspect than the number of detectives; detectives solve some crimes, but they are rare and celebrated

5.Better training will not increase the clearance rate, unless there is some evidence to begin with, but incompetent detectives can lose cases

B. The Myth of Fingerprints

1.These are rarely a critical factor in solving crimes since usable prints are difficult to obtain

2.Information about a suspect solves most crimes, not fingerprints and blood

C. The Myth of DNA Sweeps

1.Greatest success with DNA is in exonerating the mistakenly convicted

2.DNA sweeps are ineffective in solving cases, because there must be a clear suspicion about a suspect; there are also 4^th Amendment questions

D. Targeting Career Criminals

1.Repeat Offender Program (ROP) devoted 60 officers to targeting those they believed were committing 5 or more crimes a week and surveilled for arrest

2.ROP became intensified warrant enforcement and productivity was less than a control group leading to questions of cost-effectiveness

E .Proposition 11: More detectives, or other changes in detective work, will not raise clearance rates or lower the crime rate

VIII.ELIMINATE THE “TECHNICALITIES”

A. Conservatives believe courts have handcuffed police through procedural rules that limit their power to investigate and solve crimes allowing criminals to beat the system and avoid punishment

B .Repeal the Exclusionary Rule

1.In 1961 the Supreme Court established in Mapp v. Ohio that evidence seized in searches violating the Constitution was inadmissible in court

2.Purposes are to protect rights of individuals against police misconduct, maintain integrity of judiciary and deter police from misconduct

3.Critics charge that the exclusionary rule has limited the ability of the police to gather evidence necessary to convict criminals.

C.The Exclusionary Rule and Crime Fighting

1.The exclusionary rule has little impact on crime fighting

i .Police solve more crimes with suspect leads than physical evidence

ii .Impact is confined to drug possession, weapons possession and gambling where physical evidence is important, not robbery

iii. Few defendants use the exclusionary rule and fewer succeed

iv. Even when motion to exclude evidence succeeds the defendant may not go free as they may be convicted on other charges

v. Judges vary in their willingness to invoke the exclusionary rule

D. Proposition 12: Repeal or modification of the exclusionary rule will not help the police reduce serious crime

E. The Positive Impact of the Exclusionary Rule

1.It has improved the professionalism of police work, but individual departmental response depends on existing professionalism

2.Supreme Court adopted a good-faith exception in United States v. Leon (1984) that allows for honest mistakes

3.Problems: complicates search-and-seizure cases and opens the door to appeals; it encourages police incompetence; and it will not increase convictions because few are lost due to the exclusionary rule

F. Abolish Miranda

1.Miranda v. Arizona (1966) ensured a suspect’s 5^th Amendment protection against self-incrimination by advising suspects of certain rights

2.Miranda in Operation

i. It only has to be given before questioning and suspects can and do waive their right and agree to talk to police

ii. The net effect of Miranda is a loss of convictions in 3.8% of all cases

iii .Other estimates are even lower, since the conviction was dropping before Miranda

iv. The best study found 78% of suspects waived Miranda rights showing Miranda was no barrier to successful police work

v. Factors that contribute to waiving and confessing: The low clearance rate means police have some evidence when they make an arrest, some suspects feel guilty and others hope to get a better deal in plea bargaining

vi .Felony suspects are typically young, poorly educated and illiterate

3.Modifying Miranda

i .A public safety exception to Miranda was created in New York v. Quarles where the officer does not have to advise of rights if safety is threatened

ii. This exception is not likely to results in more arrests or crime reductions due to the already limited impact of Miranda

G. Proposition 13: Repeal or modification of the Miranda warning will not result in more convictions.

What are the pros and cons of DNA sweeps? 

Discuss the impact of S.A.D.D

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

DNA sweeps also known as DNA dragnets or mass DNA collection involve collecting DNA samples from a large number of individuals within a particular area or community usually for the purpose of identify... View the full answer