Effectiveness of Overt Police Patrol Is As a Means of Reducing Crime - Essay Example

Effectiveness of Overt Police Patrol Is As a Means of Reducing Crime Crime is considered to exist in every society. But the variations in crime rates in different countries and cities are barely due to the effectiveness of the police force of the locality. The police have a few responsibilities which are common throughout the world. These duties involve: Controlling crime - controlling the level of crimes taking place. This aspect includes investigations and patrolling the streets to avoid crimes from occurring. Maintaining order- using authority to avoid people from disturbing the public's peace. Providing services to the community thanks to their 24-hour availability. 1 Thus it is evident that the police must always be a visible force so as to hinder crimes from occurring in the first place and to provide assistance to the civilians as soon as they require it. The role of police these days has evolved into "service-men" rather than "crime fighters". Studies indicate that most calls received by the police are for services rather than for reporting actual criminal activities. Thus "Neighbourhood Watches" are rising more in number and popularity as people living in a community support the local police in maintaining order in their locality and provide assistance to police when they need it in carrying out investigations and such. The most important task that a policeman does is Patrolling his specific sector. The purpose of patrolling is to observe, inspect and provide security to those people who are living under that jurisdiction. The patrol officer is responsible for his district and is held accountable for the actions taking place in his district. Patrolling is the most visible aspect of policing. It can be both overt and covert in nature. The overt patrolling involves visible cops in uniforms with all the basic items a "cop" carries. They have marked vehicles and are easily differentiable from the civilians because of their get-ups. The covert police patrol force use unmarked vehicles and inconspicuous garments which help them monitor and observe the people in a secretive manner. Patrol officers are the bridge which join the police agency with the common people as these officers are on the front ranks and know the people as they interact with them on their rounds. The officers are however the lowest paid and often receive less respect than their posts and important function deserve. Today, the four basic functions of patrolling are: Crime prevention (proactive deterrence), order maintenance (security), social services (community welfare) and of course law enforcement (reactive deterrence). 2 The effectiveness of patrolling has long been under dispute. Whether patrol officers have been able to reduce crimes in their locality and been able to apprehend criminals before the crime actually took place is a study which many police stations and law enforcement agencies wish to determine. The overall cost of patrolling is high as the fuel consumption and mental spare-time of the policemen are both wasted. A patrolling officer must fight boredom and must be fully aware of what is happening around him or else his purpose is useless. But this problem plagues many police officers and they have difficulty in applying their full 100% concentration on their duty. The effectiveness of overt patrolling can be observed comparing various studies conducted by the various legal departments over the world. The assignment will highlight various studies which took place to observe the effectiveness of overt patrolling and covert patrolling. A study was conducted in the state of Victoria. In the rural regions the occurrence of crashes of vehicles going over 100 km/hr was observed and a study was conducted by K. Diamantopoulou & M. Cameron 3 to observe the effect of overt and covert traffic patrolling and whether any specific style of patrolling would help in reducing the number of accidents in the region. Their study showed results that the best solution to the problem was to use covert style of patrolling as individuals were uncertain as to whether they were being observed or not and would slow down in the fear that an unmarked police car would stop them. Another solution found was that a combination of both covert and overt was effective as people were reminded about the police's presence by the overt patrolling officers and would still respect the laws of the road even when the overt patrols weren't there thanks to the presence of covert patrols. The study concluded that these measures would only be successful if the patrol force would implement the punishments and fines and would take action against the offenders. If the laws weren't enforced then neither the presence of overt patrols would reduce the number of accidents taking place. Another observation was that a sense of awareness on the part of the potential offenders was necessary. The people should know that the patrols were there and that action could be taken against them. If even a hint of the presence of the patrols was provided then the effectiveness of the combination of covert and overt patrol proved more successful. The overall effectiveness of overt policing can be gauged however with the visibility of so many armed units dealing with terrorism. Keeping in mind the past events, to discourage the terrorists and potential suicide bombers instead of using covert tactics the police in London and all other major countries have initiated the Overt Patrolling style as the dominant police style of maintaining order. In France it is uncommon for the people to see the heavily garbed police patrolling the streets to undermine any chances of rioting or any such other disturbance of peace. 4 An article in the Eastwood & Kimberley Advertiser gauges the success of Overt policing tactics. The South Nottinghamshire Police was able to cut down crime by 18% by implementing a mixed strategy of better crime prevention methods, increased community policing and more effective overt policing. 5 This provides useful info about another supporting measure that could be used to aid the overt patrols carried out by the police. Neighbourhood watches and community support is just as necessary in crime control then as the police action itself. The neighbourhoods supporting the police are much more likely to be able to see a reduction in their crime then as compared to those communities were police are provided less support. This is due to the fact that patrols need to know the exact info as to when or who has committed a crime so as to make them more aware of the troublesome people of the community and what time they go about their actions so that the police could be there to thwart them. Unless the police know the exact time and place and the people involved their job becomes much more difficult. Neighbourhood support and community support can help provide this information to the police officers patrolling the region and can help them become more vigilant. The people residing in the neighbourhoods know the people of the community better than the patrol officers and know the minute details of the crime such as time of occurrence and people involved. However a study conducted by the Kansas City, Missouri in the 70s provides the most detailed results as to the effectiveness of overt, covert and a combination of both styles of patrolling. The city was divided into 15 police districts into 3 groups. One group retained normal amount of patrol force. The second group was assigned two to three times more patrol forces (Overt patrolling) and the third group only responded to crime when contacted by the citizens. These three groups covered all three aspects of patrolling and were observed that which yielded the highest decrease in crime rates. The study proved that the presence or absence of the patrols did not seem to affect the major types of crimes taking place and that the rates of crime remained pretty much the same. It was also noted however that the people's perceptions of the police did not also change with the absence or presence of the police. These studies proved that the effectiveness of patrolling is not dependent on the overt nature of patrols or the covert nature of the patrols. 6 Then how come the police emphasizes on their presence in any locality and their absence in others The police uses the two various techniques to approach different situations in a manner which would result in the most feasible manner. When narcotic dealing has to be addressed police usually uses a highly extensive undercover operation to gather evidence and material against offenders. The covert technique is more feasible in that situation because if overt techniques were applied then the drug dealers would dispose of their stores and there would be no evidence to incriminate them. Overt technique is preferred in cases where preventive measures need to be taken to deter criminals from committing the crime in the first place. Various techniques to improve the effectiveness of the patrol have been introduced over time. Whereas the successfulness of "Responding when called" approach of patrolling, where the patrol officer responds after getting a summons from the citizen, is highly debatable a successful technique employed by the police force the world over is the Directed Patrol technique. This is a combination of overt and covert teams of police working towards the apprehension of criminals related to their specific assignment. These task forces have specially designed missions; such as narcotics, arms and ammunitions, and burglaries. They keep a look out for those specific crimes and don't clutter their functioning with dealing with all sorts of crimes. This method has proved to be highly successful in curbing crimes related to burglaries and auto thefts. Another approach is the previously mentioned community policing. It is similar to the Directed patrol but differs with respect to the civilian input being provided. Since it doesn't matter as to which technique is employed by the police, the police often uses these techniques to gain public support. Overt policing was noticed after the September 11 attacks and the London Transit system. The overt style of patrolling provided the people with a sense of security and pride in their police force. Even though the results of overt policing on terrorist activities is inconclusive, overt policing is effective in helping maintain a sense of safety in the civilians. 7 Discussing the effectiveness of the style of patrolling is complicated as studies provide mixed results. The factors which do affect the patrol's effectiveness are the perimeter of the patrol's jurisdiction, the length of the patrol time, the number of patrolling officers and the response time of patrols. These factors provide a much better result as compared to the study of the overt patrolling tactic. Though if the style of patrolling is to be discussed then overt patrolling alone will not yield in decrease in crime rates and neither will singularly covert style. A combination of both techniques should be employed with the support of neighbourhood watches and society support. References 1. Dantzker, M.L. (2005). Understanding Today's Police, Published by Criminal Justice Press, 2005 2. Diamantopoulou, K. & Cameron, M. (2002). An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Overt and Covert Speed Enforcement Achieved Through Mobile Radar Operations, 2002, Monash University Accident Research Centre - Report #187 3. Eastwood & Kimberley Advertiser (2008). Crime cut by 18%. Retrieved on April 14, 2008 from http://www.eastwoodadvertiser.co.uk/news/Crime-cut-by-1837.3974315.jp 4. Griffiths & Verdun-Jones (1994). Canadian Criminal Justice. Harcourt Canada, Limited; Second Edition Edition. pp. 70-71 5. Metro Magazine (2005). "Wide Awake to the reality of Terrorism". September/October 2005 6. Siegel, Larry J (2002). "Introduction to Criminal Justice". Pp 180. Thomson Wodsworth publishing. 2002 Read More