Applying Models and Innovations in Policing to a Community Problem
You are an expert consultant assisting the City of Whoville. The city has been experiencing a spike in crime due to an area referred to as the Pit. The Pit is a large field, approximately of an acre in size, privately owned, but not maintained by anyone. The Pit is located across the street from a liquor store, located between four public schools (two elementary, one middle and one high school) and a large neighborhood, a homeless shelter is three blocks away, three churches within four blocks, and a hospital a mile away. The neighborhood is racially diverse and has a mix of younger and older residents. A significant number of whose children attend these nearby schools. The Pit has become a gathering place for homeless people, the chronically mentally ill, drug dealers and prostitutes to hang out where they drink, use drugs, and when the weather permits, create an encampment to live in.
The people congregating in the Pit have caused a significant increase in call volume to the Whoville Police Department. Old furniture has been moved into the area to facilitate a more comfortable gathering place for the homeless there. The area has become littered with empty liquor bottles, drug paraphernalia and used condoms. There are daily medical calls to the Pit for overdoses and assault victims; assaults frequently coming from edged weapons. Many children that live in the adjacent neighborhood need to walk through the Pit to get to their schools on the other side. The people loitering in the Pit frequently harass the children, including registered sex offenders that are currently homeless, in addition to the children witnessing the undesirable behaviors. The party store across the street is utilized as a place to beg for money and purchase liquor. The street between the Pit and the liquor store is a busy street and traffic is frequently disrupted by drunk, stumbling people crossing between the two locations, including an increase in pedestrian traffic accidents. Disorderly behavior frequently spills over into the street area further disrupting traffic.
The Whoville police have 80 sworn officers serving a population of 60,000 residents in approximately 20 square miles. The majority of the officers (50) are in the patrol unit with an additional 10 officers serving in the detective bureau and the balance performing supervisory and command roles (8 Sergeants, 2 Lieutenants and one Captain). While at one time the community had over 100,000 residents and a vibrant manufacturing base and associated businesses supporting the workers in those factories and local residents, those jobs (and residents) have left the region. The community demographics below indicate Whoville is a shell of what it once was in its glory days.
The department touts itself to the public as doing community policingwhich has often been characterized by the Chief, command staff and patrol officers (in private) as just another PR (public relations) gimmick. The Chief prides himself on his managerial prowess citing how more efficient and professional the department has become during his 8-year tenure–which has survived two mayoral terms. The department received a community policing technology grant from the Department of Justice to purchase in-car computers and cameras. Over the years, the department has been very sensitive to both media, political and community criticism about the increased crime rate, to which the department has responded by emphasizing quicker response time to calls for service, limiting the amount of time officers can spend on calls to 15 minutes without supervisory approval and the establishment of the CRCPU (Community Relations Crime Prevention Unit) consisting of four officers and one school resource officer who served as the departments liaison to the school system.
The community has a range of social service agencies serving this community including a homeless shelter, a domestic violence shelter, and a number of faith-based organizations who also provide services to indigent members of the community. There are also regional state parole and probation offices housed in the downtown area. A state psychiatric hospital in the community closed 25 years ago, but funding for community-based services to this population (which was drawn from across the State) never followed these patients into the community where many decided to live. Current community mental health services are similarly lacking. The department does not provide officers any formal training on handling these populations but does provide officers with pamphlets and contact cards for some of these social services which primarily operate on business hours (9-5 pm) and typically not on weekends.
The majority of the officers are young (under 25), new to the job and unfamiliar with the community as Whoville is seen as an undesirable work location. That said, these officers who work on patrol know more about the community than their command staff because they are the ones working the street. Consequently, morale among patrol officers is quite low as they feel no one ever asks them what the department could do better to help the community. That said, officers are evaluated individually and as a shift by monthly performance measures such as number of calls taken, arrests and tickets issued each month. The department has experienced an increase in officer turnover, absenteeism, tardiness and officer grievances toward management. The department is a predominantly white (90%) and male (95%) department and one recent investigative newspaper article about a police-involved shooting in the community characterized the department as having a virulent police subculture that is steeped in the code of silence.
The City Council is considering different approaches for combating the problem; Community Policing, Problem-Oriented Policing, Broken Windows Policing and Evidence-Based/Intelligence-Led Policing. As the expert consultant it is your job to select which approach you feel would best combat the citys problems with the Pit and present it at the next City Council meeting for discussion. In your paper you are to detail the pros and cons of your selected approach, as well as briefly explain why you did not select the other approaches. You may only use the course readings to support your statements.
The demographics of your city are detailed below. You may not need all of the following information, but it is included to provide you with the most accurate picture of your city.
Socioeconomic Information
Average median household income $28,899
Households below the poverty level 39.0%
Racial/ethnic makeup of community 36% white, 28% Hispanic, 34% black, 2% Asian
Average age of citizens males 29.0, females 33.5
Single mother households 15.0%
Married couples w/ kids 25.1%
Married couples w/o kids 17.7%
People w/ less than a high school education 49.2%
People that do not speak English 6.6%
Neighborhood composition; rental homes 53%, owned & lived in 24%, vacant 33%
Crime Statistics
Violent crime rate 1336 /100,000 residents (U.S.: 381/100,000)
Homicide 23/100,000 (U.S.: 5/100,000)
Rape 97/100,000 (U.S.: 43/100,000)
Robbery 160/100,000 (U.S.: 86/100,000)
Agg. Assault 1055/100,000 (U.S.: 247/100.000)
Property crime rate 2150/100,000 residents (U.S.: 2199/100,000)
Larceny Thefts 1302/100,000 (U.S.: 1595/100,000
Burglary 689/100000 (U.S.: 376/100,000)
Auto Theft 159/100,000 (U.S.: 229/100,000)
Specific concerns of citizens
Fear of violent crime
large homeless population
a significant mentally ill population
prostitution
drinking and drug use/sales
graffiti
rapes
assaults
large number of vacant houses that are used by homeless, drug users and prostitutes
20% of house rentals are used as halfway houses
Community is lacking:
Money; city is running at a financial deficit
Positive police/citizen relations
Social efficacy
Paper Requirements:
Typed– double spaced with 1-inch margins on left/right and 1-inch margin top/bottom (standard default for most Word docsbut double check).
5-7 pages: though I do accept moreso no need to get creative with margins or font. Create a cover page with your Name, Course Information, Assignment Title and the date the assignment is due. Pagination of the document must NOT include the cover page. You may use the bibliography format of your choosing (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc).
Please note, title page and bibliography are not included in page count.
Use a 12-point sized font: 11 pt is for cramming within the limit; 10 pt and below is microscopic and verges on the preposterous; 14 pt raises concerns that you are having a different sort of writing problem and 16 pt should be restricted to title page only. Get the pt?
You are expected to use course reading material (and only course material) as to support your statements, but keep quotes to a minimum: no more than three for the paper. Use your own wordsit is better to state in your own words what an author is saying, rather than paraphrasing in ways that not only make it clear that you are using the authors words, but that you really dont know what the author is writing.
Be sure to proofread, or better yet have someone else proofread your assignment for grammatical and typographical errors.
ONLY USE POLICE IN AMERICA SECOND EDITION BY STEVEN G. BRANDL BOOK (NO OUTSIDE RESOURCES)
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