Summarizing Four Articles - Essay Example

Similarly, reducing the abuse and use of drugs cannot solely be achieved by the efforts of the department of health alone, but requires the integration of the political players, the public health and those in the public policy to establish an integrated approach that can be applied to face the problem of drugs (Tarantola, 1). The national drug problem cannot also be addressed through the establishment of good drug treatment and rehabilitation services, since even though such efforts might help to address the problem of those who are already addicted to drug use, the approach does less to prevent the use of drugs by those who have not yet started using drugs (Reuter and Pollack, 341).

The combined efforts of the police and the researchers in social crimes is an important concept towards addressing social crimes such as vandalism, drug and alcohol use, owing to the fact that such combined efforts serve as complimentary efforts that makes identifying and alleviating social crimes much easier, than when the police department is left to address the crimes on its own (Baker and Wolfer, 47). According to the article, “Community Governance an Organized Approach to Fighting Crime”, by Joe Reiss, the police department on its own cannot be able to fight social crimes effectively, while the adoption of the community policing strategy either, may not be too helpful (Reiss, 8).

The City of Anaheim in California is a good example of how the integrated efforts of the police, community policing and other city departments can help address social crimes. In this city, the combined efforts of the police, community preservation department, the public works department, the utilities department and the office of the attorney, reinforced by the community policing efforts made it possible to reduce the social neighborhood crimes by almost 80% in the 2000s (Reiss, 9). Through increased coordination and