COPS Program Implementation - Anytown Anytime Freedom Shopping - Assignment Example

? COPS Program Implementation ANYTOWN ANYTIME FREEDOM SHOPPING (100-125) This paper addresses the creation of a project for eliminating the homeless camps that have been created in a portion of the shopping mall’s subterranean parking lots. With a gathering of homeless and destitute people who have nowhere to go, addressing this issue is the first step in establishing a safer environment for the shopping public at the Anytown Shopping Mall. The project will also include more police patrols, both in squad cars in the actual parking lots as well as foot patrols in the lots and inside the shopping mall. There is also a citizen’s patrol project which will help the police with monitoring areas where there may not be a patrol at that moment so help can be called in immediately. An outline and overview of the project is given in this paper as to how it will be implemented. Introduction This is a proposal memo to address the problems at the Anytown Shopping Mall in our city which has had a 75% increase in crime and robberies over the years 2009 to 2011. In light of the fact that it is determined that homeless people have set up camps in parking lot areas where there is very little lighting installed, and that there have been numerous robberies conducted in parking lot sections, the Anytown Police Department is designing a project to help with cutting down crime and restoring a safe environment for our citizens to be able to shop and work safely in, and around, the Anytown Shopping Mall. It is our plan to bring back businesses to this area as a number of the shopping mall businesses have left recently because of the unsafe conditions for both workers and customers (Class information 2013). The community-oriented policing program being created is called ANYTOWN ANYTIME FREEDOM SHOPPING program which will address several issues: eliminating transit camps in parking lots, a system of patrols that covers all sections of the parking area and in the mall as well, a protection system for workers and customers of the mall and finally, a determination of what public works projects must be developed, such as a new lighting strategy, for all areas of the parking infrastructure (Class information 2013). 1. The social forces that exist for this problem are that there are numerous homeless people who are camping out in the poorly lit areas of the shopping mall’s parking sections, particularly in underground parking. This creates an unsafe hazard for those workers who must come in early and leave late at night (Craven 2009). For shoppers, the danger is the high chance of being robbed, particularly when carrying packages. Aside from the obvious dangers from robberies, muggings, and potential car jackings, the areas where there are camps are very unsanitary, particularly as there are no restrooms (Dempsey & Forst 2013). It is unclear at this time whether the homeless also go into the shopping mall, when it is open, in order to use the restroom facilities. Preparation 2. The first steps in preparing for the program is to have a meeting, or several meetings, with shop owners in the mall in order to hear what incidents they have encountered, which would help in designing the plan of action (Craven 2009). This would also include those businesses which have left the area and finding out specifically what issues they had as regards conducting business in the mall. In addition to the meetings, it is also important to assess from crime reports where crimes in that area have occurred the most and what type they are (Hunter & Barker 2011). Once this information has been developed, then more strategic planning can take place. 3. The social and special interest groups that should be involved in this process are the business owners in the mall, the shopping mall administration officers, any current security teams that are already in place, as most malls have their own team, and also the city manager and district representative. It is important to have reflections from all the above people and to have them know what is going on, particularly if there must be a request of city government funds to implement the program (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). 3.A. In particular, the city manager and/or the district representative should be included in the meetings of the shopping mall community and the police so that when the time comes to get funding for the project, they will have a full understanding of the problems involved and can speak eloquently in favor of getting funding for the project (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). The shopping mall administration and the business owners are obviously important as well because of the insights they can give regarding actual problems and specific crimes examples which have caused problems for them and their businesses ( Hunter & Barker 2011). 3.B. The inclusion of all the people listed above, including officers who might be included in patrols and the administrative side of the police department, all have a place in giving information that will help with designing resources for solutions to the problem at hand. City politicians can obtain necessary funding, shopping mall administration and shop owners, including past owners, can provide needed information about ongoing issues, and the police department administration, including patrol officers, can provide information, based on their own knowledge of what might work best (Cordner & Scarborough 2010; Craven 2009; SARA 2013). Gathering Information 4. The most important information to gather is to understand, first, the type of criminals who are targeting the shopping mall businesses and customers. This includes demographics such as race, age, gender, social and economic status, and where the specific crimes are taking place (SARA 2013). Certain crimes might be taking place at dusk or evening when the last stores are closing down on the east side of the shopping mall. This means that patrol officers might want to add concentration of numbers in both the parking lots and in the hallways where many of these customers travel to get to their parking spaces (Craven 2009). Organizational Review 5. The impact that the COP program might have on the daily operations of the police department might require an additional group of officers who can specifically conduct patrols on foot in the mall and also in teams in the parking lots (Dempsey & Forst 2013). There will also have to be patrol squad cars in the parking lots, moving up and down the parking lanes to ensure protective coverage of any customers and workers going in or out of the shopping mall (Craven 2009). This will require additional hiring of officers or a creation of an overtime budget, funding for patrol cars and the gas and maintenance involved, equipment outlays for walkie talkies, cell phones and/or laptops or iPads for communication purposes, and any other stocking that will be required to conduct the job efficiently (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). A project leader must be selected who conducts the daily operations and assigns patrols, along with two officer reports, one who handles all the budgeting and the other handles direct personnel availability. A third report might be created for someone who can pull daily reports and assessments of what is happening in the shopping mall community on any given day, which includes crime assessments, events being conducted in the mall, such as a store opening or holiday festivities, and does overall spot analysis on what is required for that day (Cordner & Scarborough 2010; Hunter & Barker 2011; SARA 2013). 6. In terms of the organizational culture of the department, the coverage of the shopping mall must be reflected by the police department in deploying officers who represent a major portion of the business and shopping clientele, so as to provide a sense of community with the overall project and its perception by the public to the department’s patrol team. Therefore, if the shopping mall is in a high-density Hispanic area, there would be many more officers who also speak Spanish, aside from English. This allows for easy communication between the officers and the public as they shop in the malls. If the public see the police as being similar to them, they will confide more easily and often in providing information about something or someone they saw as being suspicious (SARA 2013). The Community 7. Community members, consisting of shop owners, the shopping mall administration, heads of any local ethnic organizations, will be involved in all meetings pertaining to operations of the program, be a part of any strategic development meetings and outcomes, and also be required to provide a daily update of events to the police department that have occurred around the shopping mall and in the parking areas as well (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). Local governmental divisions concerned with homeless issues and with the ability to provide temporary shelters and service for the poor, will also become a part of the program so that they can help to relocate many of these people as they are removed from the parking lot camps (SARA 2013; Hunter & Barker 2011). One of the first steps in the program is to clean up the old guard shack and move it to a more viable position in the parking area. In addition, it will be determined if more guard shacks should be built in several other strategic areas which would give more eyes-on-the-public outcome for the police as well as any citizen patrols that might be involved. The program will also look at implementing citizen patrols in areas such as the mall walkways and even consider walking out with mall patrons to their cars so that they are visibly protected. Citizen patrol members will all travel in pair so no one is ever left alone in a dangerous position. This part of the program may be part of a security team implemented by the mall administration who will have the ability to conduct interviews and also do background checks of those hired to be part of the mall patrol. This is in addition to the police patrols implemented by the law enforcement department (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). 8. Any members of multicultural organizations, which will include religious denominations, churches, mosques and synagogues, will also be asked to attend meetings as the plans for the program are put into place. This will be essential in cases where any of the homeless, who are camped out in the parking lots, are of a certain ethnicity. In cases of language problems, a contact from a cultural group may be on reserve to help with translations if there is a need for such tools (Craven 2009). 9. Media relations will include the inclusion of media personnel towards the latter stages of building the project, just before the program, after it has been funded, will get under way. Additionally, updates for successful implementations of the program and how it is progressing, relative to statistical outcomes and reports, will also be presented to the media on a regular basis (Hunter & Barker 2011). 10. It is very important to include the media in the latter stages of development of the program so that they can help ‘sell’ the positive messages of the program to the public. This is also important in helping to bring back consumer business to the shopping mall and also to encourage businesses to open up and lease store space in the mall as well. Additionally, this also makes the local government, as well as the local police department of Anytown look good and shows that the citizens’ needs are being looked after in terms of public safety and reduction in crime (Craven 2009). Implementation 11. In the first step of the program being implemented, the homeless who are camped out in the parking lots must be removed immediately and put into homeless shelters and also receive services to help them exist in the community. This will have to come under the auspices of the human welfare division of the city administration where names are taken of everyone who has currently been living there. Should they continue to come back and try to camp out in those areas, they will be removed again, given warnings, and if needed, be imprisoned (SARA 2013; Cordner & Scarborough 2010). The next step will be the need to clean up the area and the shopping mall administration must hire, or come up with a cleaning crew, which will continue to clean the parking lots over time, even after the first initial and substantial cleaning project is completed. This is essential to the appearance of a well-looked after area that shoppers will feel safe and happy in and will also promote business when citizens feel their vehicles will be safe from theft and other crimes (SARA 2013). At about the same time as the first step is being taken, police patrols will begin in those areas deemed to be the most vulnerable to incidents of crime against shopping mall citizens. There will be both foot patrols in the shopping mall itself as well as easily-identified citizen patrols who will escort citizens to their vehicles when needed (SARA 2013; Craven 2009). 12. Initially, it will be the police department involved in the first steps of the implementation as it pulls together preliminary information for the course of patrol routes, which will also be based on needs of shop owners in the shopping mall. This is specific to areas that may need more patrolling than others, such as those closest to exit doors in the mall. Also, parking lot exit doors will be monitored when shops or stores have those that lead into subterranean parking sections (SARA 2013; Craven 2009). At the same time, the homeless will be removed and the cleaning crews will come in to sanitize the area. New lighting fixtures will also be installed in those areas as well as in other sections of the parking lots that require more illumination for better observation from a number of viewing points. Therefore, those initially involved are police, shopping mall administration, mall shop owners, city manager and district representative, representative from the Department of Human Welfare, and representatives of the citizen patrols. 13. The particular activities that need to be in place are police patrols and removal of homeless campers, citizen patrols and the cleaning crews. Shortly thereafter, when the area is clean and the homeless removed, the lighting installation crews can move in and add all the fixtures. Once that is completed, new police shacks can be added in at strategic areas in the parking lots. It is also considered that the police may also take over a non-leased area in the mall in order to allow for shift changes and also for the public to come in if they need help (SARA 2013; Craven 2009). Preliminary Evaluation 14. Preliminary monitoring of all parts of the program implementation will be under immediate review on a daily basis, and patrol adjustments made as deemed necessary. The first professional review should occur after the first week in order to pick up on anything that might not be working (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). This also allows for any adjustments in the budgets, if more has to be spent in one area than another. In the first weeks of implementing any program, there is always a period of adjustment to accommodate any weaknesses in the program (Craven 2009). Daily reports from all the police patrols must be turned in so that any inadequacies are taken care of immediately. Evaluation and Monitoring 15. After the first month of weekly monitoring and evaluation, the information and statistical returns can be extended to a bi-weekly overview of the program. Meetings can continue to be held every morning and every evening with the different shifts of police patrol teams, and also the project manager can work with daily reports from the citizen patrols, who must report to police and to the shopping mall administration (Cordner & Scarborough 2010; Craven 2009). 16. The program can be assessed on a daily basis through reports and feedback from the police teams, citizen patrols, shop owners and the shopping mall administration. Also, statistics can be gathered from any of the police department’s databases to monitor how crime events might be moving downwards (Craven 2009). 17. It is important to help the homeless find new quarters to live in and this must be the job of the Department of Human Welfare (DHW) in the city administration division. Without this help, the homeless may try to come back and set up again. While the economy might be strained right now, it is essential to get these people help and the DHW must do its part to get people taken care of and put in homeless shelters (Cordner & Scarborough 2010). 18. The challenges for the homeless population is the fact that they have nowhere to go and it will be essential to provide a bed in a homeless shelter along with access to daily food so they are not back out on the street again (Craven 2009). 18.A. This is, again, the responsibility of the DHW to take care of the homeless. It can be arranged that the police will pick the homeless up and deposit them at various locations, set up to accommodate those with nowhere to go (Craven 2009). 19. In case of a terrorist attack, the police must mobilize to get people out of the mall, such as in cases of a bomb threat or a shooting. With a heavy police presence from additional backup called in, people will feel protected as best as the police can provide. There should always be exit doors which can be easily accessed in times of need, such as a terrorist attack and the shopping mall police teams will help to keep everyone calm and orderly while exiting the mall (Hunter & Barker 2011). Conclusion A project of this magnitude includes a number of people from different groups in the city and must be planned every step of the way in order for it to be successful. Contingency plans must always be in place for the unexpected events that can occur such as terrorist attacks, fires and shootings. Having a strong police presence is essential to everyone’s safety. Resources Cordner, G.W. & Scarborough, K.E. (2010). Police Administration. (7th ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing. Craven, K. (2009). Foot Patrols: Crime Analysis and Community Engagement to Further the Commitment to Community Policing. Community Policing Dispatch (COPS) Online. Retrieved from Dempsey, J.S. & Forst, L.S. (2013). An Introduction to Policing (7th ed.). Independence, KY: Cengage Learing. Hunter, R.D., & Barker, T. (2011). Police – Community Relations and the administration of Justice. (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. SARA. (2013). Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. CPOP Online/SARA. Retrieved from < http://www.popcenter.org/about/?p=sara> Read More