Priorities and Structures of Policy - Admission/Application Essay Example

?Answers There are various priorities and structures by which policies are made. There should be complete evaluation of the performance of the police agency. This can be done by evaluating the work distribution by the agency, structure of the internal authority, extent of citizen access and also the quantity of inputs like police cars, officers and radios. Through activities like patrolling and investigating, these inputs can be converted into outputs which should also be evaluated. Arresting is the output in case of a police agency and its consequences should be viewed to evaluate the agency. The result of arresting of criminals can lower the crime rate and this can affect the citizen perception of safety. Several other factors are also considered for policy making process. Characteristics of police officers affect the type of activities they will adopt. It has been seen that highly educated officers work more efficiently than less educated officers. After evaluating all the factors, the agency can determine their work policy. (Ostrom, Parks, Whitaker & Percy, 381, 382, 385) In city X, the police directly went to the crime area to evaluate the situation. This can be done only when the input is high, for example, in this case the number of officers is high. By remaining undercover, they are able to make large number of arrests which inevitably reduces the crime rate and strengthens the trust of the public on the police. 2. Citizens make calls to the police department for assistance or help during emergency. There are phone operators for police and they translate the demands of the citizens into official inputs. They categorize the problems of the citizens and decide how much police response is needed to a certain call. In many cases the operators do not need to take action on behalf of the citizens. In some cases the caller only asks the operator to note down certain information. In other cases, the operators inform the callers that police would take action but do not tell that unit would be sent (Antunes & Scott, p.172). Discovery crimes are those that are discovered after the crime has been committed. In these cases the criminals get ample time to escape even before the police is informed. Involvement crimes are those where the offender directly confronts the victim. (Spelman & Brown, p.61) There are three major reasons behind the delay of citizens in calling the police. The citizens first confirm that there is actual crime involved before informing the police. To confirm, they need to observe the situation or telephone another person for information. The citizens take other actions to deal with the crime. They take actions like going away from the area of crime, calling someone for assistance, chasing the offender or attending their own injuries. The third reason is that they find it difficult to call the police because they want to avoid consequences for situations which are more suspicious that actual crime being involved. (Spelman & Brown, pp.95-129) 3. Differential Police Response is a method by which delivery of police service is increased to the community. This is done by clearing, dispatching or deferring calls for service. This method is used to save time by reducing the number of service calls. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 12) Police effectiveness lies in the activities of the agency. The main goal of the agency is to control crime in the community. For this they use three traditional methods. First, they try to put fear into minds of the criminals to deter them from committing crimes. Second, they imprison the offenders for a long period to prevent them from doing any harm to the public. Third, in many cases the offenders when caught are sent to rehabilitation centers so that they can redeem themselves. There is another function of police and that is rendering help to the people who are in crisis to assure them of their safety. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 7) Efficiency is about police organization and management. The resources of the police include equipments, facilities and personnel. The primary task of the agency is to allocate the resources efficiently among various divisions and deploying the personnel geographically and functionally. Commands should be centralized or decentralized keeping in view how much result can be achieved from minimum costs. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 13) 4. The issue of time and staff resources was dealt with in the Kansas City preventive patrol experiment. Through this experiment various patrol strategies and their effects on crime and society were tested and how new approaches to patrol were evaluated. It was assumed that the police had limited capabilities to deal with the crime and as a result of this it was needed to revise the expectations of the society from the police. Many preliminary findings were reported from this experiment. One such finding was that there was no need for patrol officers. This finding was criticized by the citizens. Crime can be dealt with if the police work together closely and for that increasing the number of police are needed. The experiment showed that time and staff resources exist within police departments to act as solutions to problems. With these resources new patrol and policing strategies must be developed (Kelling, Pate, Dieckman & Brown, 40, 41). The focus of the experiment was on the strategies of patrol force and statistics found before and after crime. The models that were employed to estimate frequencies of preventive patrol show that intensities of patrol in Kansas City were not large enough to encompass those in other cities. Another demonstration was that patrol visibility in depleted areas is quite large due to responding to service calls. The experiment also proved that travel distances into the reactive beats need not be increased (Larson, 267). 5. From a study conducted in San Diego in 1977 and a recent study in Kansas City it was found out that two one-officer cars reach a scene of an incident faster than one two-officer car. This result of the study is confusing because when two cars are dispatched, at least one car is further from the scene of the incident and should be requiring extra time to travel the extra distance. This is a continuing controversy and there are factors for and against it. One-officer cars allow more officers to be distributed in the same area because each officer has smaller area to patrol and so has to travel shorter distance to respond to any call. In addition to this, availability of more than one car ensures that one car is nearest to the location and will respond in time. However, in some areas in San Diego two officers are still sent. It was found out that a back up car took an extra of 7.2 minutes to respond. (Kessler, 49, 50) Officers and policy makers consider many factors before deciding on the staffing of patrol cars. They have to decide how many patrol cars and officers are to be put in a beat. Then they have to decide if all calls can be serviced by one or more officers. Then there is also the question of whether one officer should start servicing the call or whether he should wait for the assisting car. (Kessler, 51) If one-officer car is assigned to a particular area, then four things can occur and they are 1) the officer in the area should be available to respond to a call, 2) the officer is unavailable and another officer from an adjacent areas responds to the call, 3) all officers from the area and adjacent areas are unavailable and so an officer from diagonal area responds to the call, 4) No officers are available and the call will have to wait for the first available officer. Same things can occur for calls which require two officers and they are sent in one car. But if separate cars are sent, then two officers each from different areas can be available or else one or zero officers can be available. In the latter case the call will have to wait for two officers to arrive. Therefore the response time is calculated on the basis of the availability of officers. (Kessler, 53) The implications from the studies that prove two one-officer cars respond faster than one two-officer car are that technological explanations for response time is not as important as human motivation. Very often it can be found that an officer in a beat is unavailable at the time of call and because of this non binding behaviour of officers, technological innovations can have little effect. Whether one-officer or two-officer car should be used depends upon the programs implemented and the nature of calls. (Kessler, 61) 7. The ability of investigators to solve crime has been explained by Eck with three hypotheses. The first one is circumstance-result hypothesis and it suggests that results of investigations are often beyond the control of the police. Presence of witness and physical evidence decide the outcome of investigations, but if conditions are not favorable, then arrest cannot be made. Patrol officer plays an important role here to determine whether the conditions are favorable. The second one is effort-result hypothesis. This one suggests that patrol officers and investigators play a key role in solving crimes. Finding witnesses, interrogating the victim, gathering evidence are some activities that help the investigator to solve a crime. This hypothesis also confirms that police action helps towards successful investigations. The third one is triage hypothesis and according to this, investigative activities are divided into three groups. The first group comprises those cases which cannot be solved without the reasonable amount of investigation. Under the second group falls those cases which solved by circumstances and the required actions are to arrest and interrogate the offenders. Those cases which may be solved with investigative effort, but cannot be solved otherwise come under the third group. (Eck, 26-28, 31, 32) Brandl and Frank support the triage hypothesis of Eck. They define the relationship between detective effort and criminal cases. In cases of burglary and robbery, if there is moderate information of suspects, then arrest can be made with proper investigations. However, where there is no proper information of suspects, effects of investigation is not significant. (Brandl & Frank, 163) 8. According to the Rand study, the success of an investigator depends on the “information the victim supplies to the immediately responding patrol officer”. If there is lack of information which will help in identifying the offender, then the offender cannot be arrested. Such information should be presented at the time when the crime is reported. This study implies that “unique identification” is mostly not available. (Skogan & Antunes, 224) There are two processes by which the information flows from the victim to the system. One is reporting of crime by the citizen and recording of the incident by the police. It is a common issue that the police do not accurately record all the complaints that they get. Victimization surveys demonstrate the frequency of unreported crime. Due to non-reporting, huge quantity of potential strategies fails to come to the attention of the investigators like planning or manpower allocation. Due to non-reporting and non-recording of complaints, information of the criminals does not reach the investigators and as such arrests cannot be made. (Skogan & Antunes, 224) 11. The effectiveness of community policing depends upon the level of trust between the police and the public and efficiency of other agencies and officers. Community problems can be solved by decentralizing decision-making and creating network with other groups. Delegation of authority to the line personnel is needed. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 7) If focus is given on equity by an agency, then fundamental changes may not be made for improving the effectiveness of the police. The conflict between police and public can be reduced in various ways like hiring more minority officers, reducing the use of force, handling complaints from citizens and various other policies. If all public calls get exclusive attention and offenders are brought to justice, then a level of trust can be created between the police and the community. With a high level of trust, the police can use the support of the community to increase staffing and resources which will result in reducing inefficiency. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 5) Police effectiveness can be improved if officers are allowed to address problems directly rather than taking a report over telephone or by follow-up by a civilian employee. Interaction with the public is also necessary for effectiveness. (Eck & Rosenbaum, 18,19) 12. By zero tolerance policy, police officers have to impose traditional methods of law on offenders. The officers are not allowed to modify the law according to the extent of the crime or past history of the offenders. (Greene, 175) Under problem oriented policy every minute aspect of activities of police officers are scrutinized. This is done so that more efficient methods or strategies can be discovered to solve future criminal activities. This is the difference between problem oriented policy and zero tolerance policy. While the former deals with newer methods of dealing with criminals, the latter depends on old forms of punishments. (Greene, 185) Directed patrol means officers proactively investigate potential criminal activities and accordingly implement the existing laws and use existing resources. While directed patrol use methods according to the nature of crime, the zero tolerance policy implements only pre-existing methods irrespective of the nature of the crime. There are drawbacks in zero tolerance policy. Under this policy the police officers are more often charged for abusive conducts and so new civil rights are claimed. This reduces the level of trust of the civilians on the police. Majority of the complaints are not substantiated and as a result proper disciplinary actions cannot be taken. (Greene, 176, 177) 13. General attitude or support towards the police is defined as “that which continues independently of the specific rewards which the member may feel he obtains from belonging to the system. Specific attitude or support towards the police is defined as “input to a system that occurs as a return for the specific benefits and advantages that members of a system experience as part of their membership”. (Brandl, Frank, Worden & Bynum, 120, 121) There is substantial difference between the general attitude and specific attitude. The general attitude of the public is higher than the specific attitude. Specific attitude can affect the level of the general attitude over time. Both attitudes affect each other, but the specific attitude effect is stronger (Brandl, et al, 121). People who generally have unfavorable view about the police would normally assess their contact with the police unfavorably. Similarly, people who generally have favorable view of the police will also assess their contact with the police favorably. (Brandl, et al, 131) Owing to this persistent cycle, it might be difficult to change their attitudes. Read More