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Evaluation of Proactive Policing Effectiveness

Info: 7513 words (30 pages) Dissertation
Published: 13th Dec 2019

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Tagged: Criminology

Evaluating effectiveness of proactive policing; Are changes needed?

Introduction

There have been numerous changes within the criminal justice system and policing. The beginning of policing followed a reactive mechanism that followed a responsive-based form of law enforcement. After continuous setbacks and unsuccessful outcomes, an improvement was needed in which the United States turned to Proactive policing, particularly in larger cities. This style of policing involves the officers to perform behaviors that serve as crime deterrents. The following chapters will examine these two methods of policing, with primary emphasis on the effectiveness of proactive policing. The main two questions that will be answered within this paper is; Is proactive policing effective? And if it is effective what can be improved? Chapter one discuss the history of policing and how it came to be in the United States; it will also mention the reactive policing which was also known as random patrol and how police officers were called to scenes rather than preventing crimes from occurring. Chapter two describes the transformation from reactive policing to proactive policing. An in depth discussion of different proactive policing methods is discussed within chapter three. Lastly chapter four references possible improvements, if any, can be done to proactive policing.

This study about proactive policing is important because the main concept of this tactic is to bring the community and the police officers protecting them closer. It allows the people to see the way policing has evolved and the improvement the police departments make to better protect the areas they serve, especially in big cities. Some police officers can agree with this statement, for example Ashley from NYPD states;

“I enjoy my job. Like any profession, there are things that I don’t agree with, and/or people that I clash with. However, I absolutely love the long hours, the adrenaline rush, the training, and the ability to make a difference in a few lives. (whether that’s taking someone off the street, or helping a victim) Also getting to know a lot of good people while walking my beat. Being an officer has changed my views on life and humanity and that is both good and bad. I was introduced to how the world really works and have seen the best and worst of people. However, I wouldn’t trade those experiences in for anything (Lum, 2013).”

Ashley feels this way because the training and tactics taught to her allow her to interact with the community and help deter crime and prevent crime from happening. She is not the only police officer who made comments such as her own. Many more police officers would say they love their job and interaction they have with the community and they prefer to walk the beat than sit in their vehicles.

Due to the change in policing tactics from reactive to proactive crime has decreased dramatically. Even though forty percent of police officers believe part of their duties are still reactive to this day (Moore, 2015). Those who consider their policing procedures to be proactive over reactive, they are three times as likely to be lenient with minor offenses (54%) and twice as likely to do with rural offenses (38%), (Moore, 2015). This is because proactive policing is more about suppressing criminal offenses before they happen and reaching out to the youth before they become delinquent.

Within the history of policing we will examine the way the United States adopted proactive policing into its culture to better serve the community. History will also show how policing came to be through

Chapter one: History of Policing

Policing is an important part of our culture in the United States. Even though we did not create the concept of policing, we followed the format of England’s policing strategy. Henry Fielding, John Fielding and Sir Robert Peel were the founders of the structures of Policing and are also looked at as the “Fathers” of Policing (Lyman, 1964). There were many unites created such as the foot patrol, mounting unit, Bow Street Runners. Each of these units used reactive policing, which later became proactive for many reasons.

Community volunteers were the first kind of policing styles there were, which they only served one year terms and then released. There jobs consisted of staying watch and awareing the community of danger that was coming toward them. Most of the time they stood guard was during the night hours, hence the name night watchers. Henry Fielding, however was not satisfied with just night watchers. So he created the Bow Street Runners in the city of London in 1748 (Walker & Katz, 2012).

Bow street Runners were constables and thief takers to collect suspects and carry out investigations through out the city of London to bring them to trial. These men were paid with stipends and rewards for the suspects brought in. Which lead to his brother taking over because Henry Fielding passed six years later.

John Fielding took over the Bow Street Runners for his brother and added to the policing system in 1754. John processed to add a mounting unit which protected the highways as they went through the city from robbery (Lushbaugh, 2012). He also added created the foot patrol unit, which walked the streets of the city of London (Bow Street area). After adding the units, he than added 300-400 Bow Street Runners at one time (Potter, 2013). This increase in workers lead to having to keep records of the work being done and producing a filling system. The things that recorded and filed were victim’s names, if they received help from the Bow Street Runners, the crime that was committed, details and description of anything stolen and trail information. This also brought together the Bow Street Runners and the Bow Street Courts together. Sir Robert Peel advocated with the Fielding’s system of Policing. So he proposed it to the parliament any times before getting it approved, when Sir Robert Peel excluded the city of London. His police force would now be enforced all over the country.

Sir Robert Peel decided to make this force not only a night force or just a day force, but a twenty-four-hour operation. He wanted to make sure people were able to distinguish the police officers from the military services, so he assigned a uniform to all employees and the selected color was blue. They all also received a badge with distinct numbers on each of them. They also only carried night sticks for protection, no lethal weapons were allowed and it was emphasized to be respectful to any civilian under any circumstances. These men were 3,000 strong and were paid a bit over a civilian workman. This was the structure that mimicked in the United States when crime increased uncontrollably.

Within the big cities in the United States such as Philadelphia, Boston and New York many riots occurred. So the London Metropolitan Policing system was adopted and other small cities followed (Lushbaugh, 2012). There were many issues in the beginning, starting off with the city government ran the police departments, which soon lead to the corrupt system. To get into the police department with in England you had to go through a rather strict standardized hiring. Not everyone can qualify, but in the American large cities anyone can buy their way into the police department. All you had to do was pay off the politician at the time. Due to this corrupt way of managing, the police officers did not receive any training to conduct their job correctly. Many people that owned businesses such as saloons, brothels and gambling facility would pay the police officers on foot patrol to turn a blind eye and to not disturb them (Lushbaugh, 2012). Also due to the lack of telephones the community was unable to call the police officers when they needed them, so the the officers would continue being corrupt. They would not pay any attention to investigations nor prevent crime. They would simply walk the streets to show their presents and ignore vice while occurring in front of them. This needed to change, so proactive policing came about.

Proactive policing was produced to help deter crime from these areas and areas just like it. The point of proactive policing is when the police officers and their agencies use data to help them determine where most crimes occurs and crack down harder to prove the those from occurring again. This also allows the police officers to be seen in areas to reduce the fear of crime being committed in the area and open communication lines between the pubic and the police officers. This will also help to deter crime. Proactive policing, however did not come into the communities easily.

Chapter Two: The change from Reactive to Proactive Policing

The drug epidemic became a major war to fight in the 1980’s. This began the turning point from reactive policing to proactive policing in a few different ways. The Kansas City Experiment helped clarify errors occurring by the police officers in the police department. Crack Cocaine also hit the streets of large cities in a major way. One particular movie that better represented this drug epidemic during this error was, Scarface.

The Kansas City Experiment was conducted from October 1, 1972 and continued for a full year until September 30, 1973 (Kelling, Pate, Diekman, & Brown, 1974). The purpose of this experiment was to evacuate the foundation of the police department. They wanted to see if the traditional patrolling style was more effective than the new proactive patrolling style. The way this experiment took place was, they took a total of ten beats and put half to continue their traditional patrolling style. Than the other half was to use the proactive policing style. The answers the researchers wanted to answer were, does proactive policing deter more crime, does it reduce fear of crime within the community and does it change the attitude toward police officers (Kelling, et al., 1974). At the end of the experiment the researcher gathered information from six different sources to construct a conclusion. These six sources were as followed, victimization survey reported crime report, arrest data, survey of local businesses, attitudinal surveys and trained observation (Kelling, et al., 1974).

The findings of this study shows that crime deterrence did not have a noticeable change. The experiment also did not decrease the fear of the community and it did not change the attitude of the community toward police officers (Walker & Katz, 2012). During the experiment the city did not realize the experiment was even taking place during that one year. However, because of this experiment the police department launched a proactive program called the Interactive Patrol Project (Kelling, eat all., 1974). Which means that police officers are to get out of their patrol cars and interact with the community. The reason for this project was because while the study was taking place the researchers noticed while doing their ride along, they observed that sixty percent of the police officers did not use their time productively while patrolling. They just sat within their patrol vehicles and waited for a service call. This experiment in Kansas City Police Department was a prime example of the insufficiency of the other police departments and this effected the war on drugs in major cities.

The drug war began in the 1989’s. The drugs of choice were heroine, Crack Cocaine, morphine and opium. At first these drugs were brought into the United States for different
commercial reasons, such as heroine for treating respiratory illnesses, crack Cocaine was brought as an ingredient in the soda Coca-Cola and morphine was used to reduce pain. Out of all of these drugs, Crack Cocaine was the major influence of them all.

Crack was brought into the United States in powder form in large amounts. Due to this abundance amount of drugs coming in, the prices of the drug decreased dramatically by eighty percent (Turner, 2017). Due to this drop in price drug dealers would convert the powder into crack Cocaine rocks and sell them in solid form. The way they made a lot of money was by selling it in rock form and selling them in small amounts to profit more with less drugs. A study shown that four point two million to five point eight million people were crack addicts during the 1980’s (Turner, 2017). This drug came from South America, a majority from Columbia. The first place it was shipped to was Miami, Florida and the Caribbean’s. This is how Miami was built, through drug money and the Cubans refuges. These drug deals would teach their children about their “business.” When these children became teenagers and knew how to convert the powder into rocks or Cocaine, they became to distribute drugs in all the major cities. These major cities were New York City, Detroit and Los Angeles.

Due to the high demand for these drugs, small and big time dealers would compete with one another for the same costumers. This meant an increase in violence on the streets for the police officers to handle. Because of this crack Cocaine and violence became linked to one another and they both dramatically increased from 1981 to 1986 (Lushbaugh, 2012) . Certain crimes such as murder, robbery, man slaughter and aggravated man slaughter (Turner, 2017).

This was the war on drugs that Ronald Reagan highly prioritized in the United States. This is the time the federal government passed anti-drug laws and set aside funding’s to help fight the war on drugs. The Anti-Drug Act of 1986 was the first law set for mandatory minimum sentencing for dealers convicted of possession of cocaine. Which started at five years and depending on the amount of drugs, life in prison (Sandoval & Gillard, 2013).

Scarface was a big representation for the way drugs played a role within the policing community. Tony Montana was a fictional character; however, the concept of the movie was real. Many wealthy drug dealers smuggled Crack Cocaine into the United States and sold it on the streets profiting millions of dollars. Which is how Miami, Florida was built. They would also buy protection for the police officers in the area with bribery. This was neither reactive nor proactive policing, but it was a representation of corruption of police officers. They also show a great deal of coercion within the movie which was done by Tony Montana, with the community around him. If they police were conducting proactive policing, the community wouldn’t have had fear of Tony and would see police officers consistently enough to know they can rely on them. However, because the character Tony corrupted the police there was never any help.
They did in scene where Tony first gets into the drug scene for the first time showing reactive policing by the Miami police department. After the drug dealer dismembered Tony’s friend and after Tony killed the guy in broad day light is when the police officers head to the scene. They answered a service call rather than driving the streets and walking a beat. This is a prime example of reactive policing and as shown it does not deter crime. This movie shows that reactive policing and the drug war has not been efficient enough to control crime nor try and prevent further crime from occurring.

For this reason, proactive policing and the strategies needed to try and prevent crime take action in policing styles such as problem oriented policing, hot spot policing, stop and frisk, broken windows policing in New York City and community policing.

Chapter Three: Proactive Policing

Proactive policing has many components to the tactics it uses to deter crime. One of them being problem oriented policing or POP. This is more of a strategy based program instead of a action based program. There are some programs like this, such as broken windows theory. This shows if we help prevent small crimes, serious crimes will not occur. Many other styles of policing are more hands on such as stop and frisk, hot spot policing and community policing. These allow the police officer to communicate and show presents around the neighborhoods they are protecting.

In the 1980’s when problem oriented policing was introduced many people believe it was the answer to all problems in policing tactic flaws (Boba & Crank, 2008). Herman Goldstein’s thought process was, if police officers would minimize their work load and focus solely on the problem of the community and develop ways to solve that issue, that would help prevent future crimes from occurring (Walker & Katz, 2012). It was used to better prevent crime from occurring. There were four steps to this program. One was to scan the area involved to seek out the problems that may occur and future problems that will arise. When they identify these sues within the community they than analysis the problem. To do so they go through different data bases to make sure their response to the issue will be appropriate and accurate. The third step is to conduct the response, which will solve the problem at hand. Lastly they evaluate the response to see if in fact the problem is resolved. This type of policing is used all over the world and is the most excepted policing style there is (Boba & Crank, 2008). Not only does the local policing department use this strategy, but also the federal government agencies use it as well. This program has been working so well that community oriented policing (COPS) funds the program (Svensson & Saharso, 2015). Sixty percent of local policing departments with more than one hundred police officers use problem oriented policing as a “go to tactic” during their everyday duties (Svensson & Saharso, 2015).

The purpose of problem oriented policing was to reduce the fear of crime, violence and property crime, variety of disorders in communities, youth homicide and drug dealing (Weisburd, Telep, Hinkle & Eck, 2010). One of the first experiments conducted was the Newport News, Virginia in 1980’s. It showed that the worst low income housing complex was high in crime because they lived in conditions that allowed this criminal behavior to occur. So the police department sent out workers to clean all the garbage up and fix some of the hazers that were in the area. They also set up meeting with government agencies to help continue to clean up this house complex to deter future crime from happening (Walker & Katz, 2012). Another experiment was conducted in Jersey City, New Jersey, which tested the problem solving policing. It supported that problem oriented policing decreased the property crime, violence and showed that Problem oriented policing is effective in some ways (Boba & Crank, 2008). Problem oriented policing is used within Hot Spot policing due to high rise of crime in that part of the community.

Hot spot policing is a strategy used to map out where most crimes are occurring in a particular area. Law enforcement agencies collect and analyze criminal data to pinpoint exactly where the problem areas are within the community. This allows the police departments to better target areas necessary to prevent more crimes from occurring.

Studies have looked into the way this technique may help police officers better prevent crime. The things Eck and Weisburd (1995) viewed and researched Hot Spot policing was looking at four different sections of it. These topics were facilities, which consist of where the crimes may be committed such as churches, bars, restaurants and apartment buildings. Than they look into the features of these facilities. If these places have easy accessibility, whether or not the place has guards or security and if it has any goods within it that an offender may want. Offender’s mobility refers to the obstacles the offender may come into contact with while committing the crime. And lastly the target selection, which is why the offender choose the place. Usually it is due to low risk, high gain rule of thumb that helps an offender decide to commit the crime.

Experiments were conducted to test the strategy of hot spot policing and if it is effective on deterring future crime in a particular area. The Minneapolis Hot Spots Patrol Experiment was one that followed right after the Kansas City Experiment. Within the experiment of Minneapolis the researchers focused on putting police officers in the high crime areas, also known as Hot Spot policing. The main goal of this experiment was to determine whether police presents would deter crime in Minneapolis. The one difference between the Kansas City experiment and the Minneapolis experiment was Kansas City police officers were spread out evenly throughout the city to determine the outcome. The Minneapolis experiment strictly inserted police officers into Hot Spot of the area. The reason for this is because it is already proven that putting police in a problem area deters crime.

Many proactive policing strategies were state wide rather than just focused on one city, until the broken windows theory emerged. This theory primarily focused on one particular city, New York City.

Many police departments adopted the broken windows theory of policing over the past couple decades. This theory states that if police officers can control minor crimes or disorders, bigger and more serious crimes will not occur. This theory can be found under many names, one of them more popular than the others, “zero tolerance.” The two founders of this policy was, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, when they wrote about it in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine. They spoke about if lower level offenses were tolerated with in the community, more serious was soon to follow. When they speak of smaller minor crimes, they mean littering, broken windows, abandon houses, public intoxication.

The perfect example of this, within the article written by Kelly and Wilson, they speak about Zimbardo’s experiment with two motor vehicle. He placed two cars that were exactly the same in two different areas. The first car was placed in the Bronx, New York and the second was in California. Within a matter of ten minutes the car in the Bronx was vandalized by a family of three, mother, father and son. They stole the radiator and battery out of the vehicle. That same day within twenty four hours of the vehicle being abandoned, all of the valuables were pretty much stripped. The car that was left in California went untouched for a whole week, abandoned. Until Zimbardo smashed a part of the car with a sledgehammer. Soon after people began to vandalize the vehicle as well. The surprising part of this experiment was the people who ripped up the upholstery, broke the windows, tour off body parts, and allowed their children to use the vehicle as a play ground, were clean cut respectable white people. According to (Harcourt, 1998)
that says, if the property is already messed with, than it is okay to continue to vandalize it. In some places it is not the case, it sometimes takes for one person to vandalize a property than others join in. Broken windows shows people do not care for others property.

This causes people of good nature to leave these neighborhoods leaving behind the bad. So police officers and their agencies needed to have an action. Mayor Rudy Giuliani decided to implement this zero tolerance policy in New York City. This implement brought major change to the city. The policy reduced crime rates dramatically. The way of life increased and improved ever since the policy came into action (Teacher, 2013). The mayor stated,

“since 1993 to 1997 the number of felonies dropped by 44.3 percent. A 60.2 percent drop from murders and non legitimate homicides, 12.4 percent drop in forcible rape, a 48.4 percent drop in robbery and a 45.7 drop in burglary.”

Which he than went on to say that New York City dropped the most in criminal activity in all of the United States. He stated,

“My management reports indicate that New York City accounted for 32 percent of an overall drop in the FBI Index Crime, 29 percent drop in murders and a 44 percent drop in larceny/ theft as of 1998.”

Many interviews were conducted to test this proactive way of policing. They wanted to see if the the statistics is worth the “humiliations” of being stopped and frisked by the NYPD officer. Well many officers believe it is worth it because they have evidence that supports that twelve hundred and thirty-three guns were found during a stop and frisk from the year 2003 (Walker & Katz, 2012 ). That supports the theory that stop and frisk prevents crime from occurring by seizing these guns.

Stop and frisk was not produced to harm the people it was being conducted too. The officers do get training. There are procedures that need to be followed and limits the officers have to follow. This way of proactive policing is a success according to Joseph Esposito, retired chief of the NYPD;

“Again I go back to the point of how many crimes did we prevent. How many times do we make that criminal perhaps, if it is a criminal, think twice and say you know what, I can’t steal the car tonight. I’m going to go home and go to sleep because the cops are on to me. That’s the part we can’t measure. That the untold story that we don’t get out enough. How many crimes have we prevented because of stop and frisk.”

Again exactly what chief Joseph Esposito quote stated, we can never full investigate nor can we create statistics on how many crimes we deterred. However, though the things seized and people arrested nine out of ten times the police officers do catch a perpetrator and stop a future crime from occurring because of the stop and frisk policy (Glasser, 2011). Now the training associated with the stop and frisk goes as followed. The officers do get extensive live training to handle the situations of stop and frisk properly. The training takes place at department’s Rodman’s Neck facility, where a live situation is played out with all environment distractions. This allows the police officers to learn to handle the stresses of other factors to properly conduct the search. Usually this training takes place right out of the academy. The reason for this is because they will most likely be the ones walking the streets of New York City and stopping suspicious people. This training also handles 911 service calls that involve domestic disputes between two people. The officers are well trained and equipped with the necessary tools to do their job in a respectful and lawful manner. Community policing is a relatively new strategy of policing. However, it is an effective way of police officers to do their job. It is recognized as a peace keeping style of policing to their communities. Also it gives a large amount of accountability on the police officers themselves. According to (Cordner, 1995) Freedman states;

“Community policing is a policing and strategy aimed to achieve more effective and efficient crime control in the communities, reducing fear of crime, improving quality of life, improving police services and police legitimacy, through a pro active reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions.”

This statement is the main reason for community policing. If we give a more proactive responsibility on the community and the police officers, crime with decrease. Community police looks to give a positive attitude toward police officers. And also strives for the police officers on patrol to communicate more with the public. Which gives the police officers more of a responsibility on their neighborhoods. This strategy of policing was also a smart way of policing (Ponsaers, 2001). The reason for this strategy being smart is because it allows police officers to create bonds and connections with the community, which helps the police departments with future investigation, if needed. Community policing reinforces the law informally to handle social control, which prevents crime. Also like all other pro active policing styles community policing, as stated in the quote, improves the quality of life, which solves the problems of the neighborhood.

Community policing is associated with many aspects of everyday living, such as disorder in the area and people’s attitude towards the police. Also like hot spot policing and problem oriented policing, this program/strategy is designed to decrease the fear of crime and community relations (Ponsaers, 2001).

Different elements of community policing are foot patrol and the mounting unit. These elements not only fight the crime committed with in society, but also have a rather broad way of viewing policing. This helps to better assist the community and the duties of an officer. This open access to the police officers who walk their everyday beats reduce the use of service call as well (Cordner, 1995). The reason for this is because they have direct connection with the officers. This style of policing is not as harsh as the other styles of policing. Community policing does not crack down on small crime. It is just a style of policing which helps the contact of police officers and the community and communicate with one another.

Due to these communication lines open between the public and law enforcers, stop question and frisk was introduced. This strategy of policing allows the police officers to stop a person who may look suspicious and question them. This is a way to prevent crime from occurring and protect the community.

The way the police officers would conduct the strategy is simple, they would look at the crowds of people walking by them. They would observe everyone and if some one gave them reasonable suspicion that something is going to happen or they were carrying a weapon they were allowed to stop the individual and question them. When this strategy first came about the officers were not allowed to frisk them unless they saw a bump on the persons waist, that could indicate a possibility of a weapon or the level of suspicion raised after a certain point (Cordner, 1995). That is the only time they were able to frisk the individual.

There were few complaints from the public about proactive policing. Of course the tactics and the people conducting them are not perfect. However, these police officers in the larger cities are just doing their jobs so everyone is safe and they get home safe every day, but there are a few errors that occur.

Chapter Four: Implications

Pro active policing is an effective way of policing. It shows to help crime control and be more interactive with the community, unlike reactive policing. However, nothing is ever perfect. There are some improvements that can be made, but that does not strip the credibility of the research done to support pro active policing is effective.

A improvement that can be made are police departments need to monitor their police officers better, while on duty. The reason this is an implication is because there are always a number of civilian complaints coming into the stations across New York City. The most common complaints are use of excessive or unnecessary force, abuse of authority and offensive language while conducting proactive tactics (Johnson, 2013). In 2016, the CCRB (civilian complaints review board) had one thousand five hundred and fifteen on going investigations and on average there are three hundred and forty five complaints that enter the police departments in New York City every week (Johnson, 2013) . If the police officers would like to build better connections with the communities and these complaints to decrease the management need to over look their law enforcers.

An example of excessive force would be the case of Eric Gardner on July 17, 2014, in Staten Island. In this case, there was excessive use, yes. A illegal chokehold was conducted to Eric Gardner during his arrest. However, this was not the first time Gardner was in the police officers radar. This six foot, three hundred and fifty pound man was known by all police officers that walked a beat in that area in Staten Island. His wrap sheet showed more than thirty arrest and this was the second time he was being arrested for selling loose cigarettes. The store owner in which he sells in front of was the one who called the police officers in prior incidents. This time the police were called to break up a fight and he was there “breaking apart the fight,” but was caught selling the loose cigarettes again. They stated on CNN News, the police officers gave him opportunities prior to dispose of the cigarettes and leave the area. However, the prior occasions does represent pro active policing and there was just a mistake that occurred during this incident was use of excessive force. As the PBA stated within an interview, if he would have complied with the police, he would have been living today.

Again there are always imperfections that can be fixed, nothing is ever perfect. However, pro active policing and tactics used to conduct the duties everyday and keep the community safe are proven effective. Eric Gardner was just one of the few cases, where it did not end well. Many cases such as his sent people into an uproar, however, when police officers wake up the morning of their shifts they do not intend to kill, hurt or violate anyone while doing their duties as a police officer.

Conclusion

Through history policing has impacted the lives of millions of people everyday. The tactics used to conduct police officers duties allow them to keep the city safe and deter crime. The mechanism used to do so is proactive policing, which was not introduced to the United States until the 1970’s when reactive policing was sufficient enough to decrease the crime rat in large cities. Many of the studies and information provided shows enough material to support that proactive policing, with its flaws, deter crime in large cities. Yes, there may be changes needed to better handle situations, however that does not discredit the facts provided. Experiments such as the Kansas City Experiment and policing like hot spot policing, problem-oriented policing, community policing, stop and frisk, broken windows theory are all ways to deter crime through proactive policing.

Kansas City Experiment exposed proactive did not have much difference within the city on Kansas area, however it did start a program which brought the police officers closer to the communicate in which they serve, the interactive patrol project (Kelling, eat all., 1974). The reason for this project to start is because the sixty percent of police officers sitting in their vehicles most of the day, got out and interacted with the community. The Minneapolis experiment was very different because it tested the theory of hot spot policing. There was a difference within these two experiments which showed a different outcome for the question, is proactive policing effective? The police officers where sent to high crime areas in which they deterred crime, made the community feel safer and changed the attitude to toward police officers. That was also the key conquest of problem oriented policing.

Problem oriented policing was created to reduce fear of crime, reduce crime on property, drug dealing and violence in communities. There were two experiments done, one in Newport, Virginia and the other in Jersey city, New Jersey. In Newport they looked into low income housing and the condition of the living environment. It showed that while there were garbage all over the place and hazard conditions crime would grow. When they cleaned the garbage up and took care of the hazards that put the families at risk, future crime would deter. In Jersey city problem oriented policing supported the hypothesis of deterring crime, reducing fear, violence and property crime. Stop and frisk was another way to reduce the crime levels in large cities.

In order to deter crime in the streets of these large cities stop and frisk was designed. This allowed police officers to stop people in the streets that might be suspicious. This however did not start of with the frisk aspect to it. It was only stop and question when it first came into action in the 1980’s. The only time a police officer was allowed to search the person was when someone gave them a reason to with the level of suspicion they had at the time. It was a little more harsh way to deter crime and may have had its flaws, however it did deter crime in New York City and police officers were trained well to handle the situation. Another New York City proactive policing tactic was the broken windows theory.
This theory supported that if the environment in which people lived was ruined and violence wasn’t handled with consequences, crime would rise. This theory tested that hypothesis by leaving two cars in the two different areas, both with the hood of the car raised and no license plates. Immediately one was vandalized and continued to be and the other was untouched for a week, until the researcher vandalized it first than again it was immediately token apart. This shows that if one does a crime, everyone else may feel that it is okay to do the same. Proactive policing aims to prevent this type of conduct from proceeding. Police officers walk their beats to show presents in each community. This is another style of policing called community policing. Community policing is focused on preventing disorder of any kind on the streets on their cities.

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