Zero Tolerance Policing and its Role in the Modern UK Policing Strategy - Research Paper Example

ZERO TOLERANCE POLICING Zero Tolerance Policing and its Role in the Modern UK Policing Strategy Lecturer: Abstract This term “Zero Tolerance Policing” is simply referred to as Positive Policing by the UK Government. The main purpose of individuals in this department is to fight against any act of criminal activities of whatever scale. In the overall sense, it means bringing to book any offender regardless of his or her position of authority. To achieve this, the department of Zero Tolerance Policing should be made independent so that it may be free from any external interference by “the invisible hand”. In the United Kingdom, this policy has been widened to even cover the internet misuse and sexual harassment that were initially not covered. This concept of Zero Tolerance was founded in the year 1994 from what was known as the “broken window theory of crime” which had the same objective of doing away with social ills just as the zero tolerance (Cox & Wade, 1998, p.22). Through the establishment of a Zero tolerance policy, everyone would be a subject to the set laws and regulation, and the idea that had been long used to treat socials problems as if they were criminal offense would be part of history. Before the full enactment of this concept, justice was being practiced unfairly and a crime would only be defined as so if committed by others (members of the society in a lowers class) but the other portion of the society in higher social classes walk free. “Dealing with only those crimes committed by the poor and omitting the white collar crimes has never, and will never achieve much in the fight against crime” (Robinson, 2002, p41-75). Such an idea is what shook the United Kingdom to the realization that led them to embrace modern methods of fighting against the vise [Zero Tolerance Policing]. The U.K administration reasoned that it was a lot more easy to prevent the escalation of crime in the society that to put a stop to it. This stand prompted them to adopt the zero tolerance strategy which provided for the fight of smaller crimes with an equal magnitude just like the other bigger crimes...since it is these small isolated crimes that if left unattended to will mutate or rather develop into the high profile crimes. The criminal statistics of England and Wales indicate that, in a period of fifty decades (1950-2000), recorded criminal cases rose from 500-5500. Further reports in (Newburn, 2003, p.3) show that there was a 23% decline in public confidence with the police from 1992-2000 (Newburn, 2003, p.3).This new direction that zero tolerance policing has taken must therefore factor in these two concerns and work towards improving the relationship. This research paper will look at how the government of UK has faired so far with its strategy of zero tolerance policing since its inception, and what the government has so far achieved. The paper will also go further to analyze the viability of the concept in fighting the high profile criminal acts of the 21st Century. The Case of U.K on Zero Tolerance Policing The Zero Tolerance Policing in the United Kingdom is under the docket of CID, headed by a Director Superintendent. The concept has received a lot of political support but is quiet unpopular among some of the U.K police force. Some of the Police Departments who advocate for the program argue that it was this new concept that had resulted into the drastic fall of crime as evident lately in New York (Sherman, et al.1997, p.51). Because of such positive reports, it has become widespread in the major cities especially in New York and those of North America. In the United Kingdom, it is mainly used in Middlesbrough, Strathclyde, Hartpool and Landon. A report that was released in February 2009 (Summers et al. 2009.) showed that criminal activities has switched bases, currently, more and more youngsters are getting involved in crime than before. The report further revealed that more than 50,000 teens in the United Kingdom are gang members. This one, as can be seen is a staggering number and therefore calls for a change of approach of zero tolerance policing. The program therefore has been forced to shift its goals hence has led to the establishment of a number of Gang Prevention Zones (GPZ) in hard hit areas. The GPZs are coordinated by the Social Justice Department. The state supported the decision to strengthen the zero tolerance programs owing to the Summers reports that also claimed that over 27 teenagers who were murdered in London the previous year (2008) were all victims of gang crime. The report exposed the bitter truth of the existence of hard core criminals in UK and the possibility of having “broken societies” in the country. To stamp out criminal acts from the societies therefore, it is suggested in (Maguire, 2007, p.9) that there has to be a coordinated move among the parties involved. That is, the Victims, Witnesses, Offenders and the Law enforcers have to work as a unit so that they can control and bring to order any emerging key issues...a stable social setting is that society where moral regulation and moral rules are the factors are held in high esteem and are the only factors used to define people’s rights and obligations within that set up. He supported his sentiments by reasoning that, through the weakening of the moral obligations, people would be tempted to deviate into some socially unacceptable behaviors that will definitely lead into social disorganization as evident in the UKs “broken society”. Maguire gives a clear review on the different topics touching on criminology and the justice process, for example those related to racism, gender discrimination, crime media coverage, and statistics on crime. He adds that criminology is one sector that has in the recent past received major fragmentation with subsequent expansion. This fact leaves the only viable solution to help salvage the society which was at the point of disintegrating into extinction to strengthening the fight against these criminal gangs by employing more stringent rules in zero tolerance policing. The program was drawn to cover the use of other narcotics even to a much lower level, for instance, for drivers the alcohol sugar level was lowered to as little as 0.08%. The overall effect of implementing zero tolerance policing on drug crimes has lead to an almost a drug free society in the streets of UK, thanks to the establishment of the national drug policies (Fagan and Franklin,1998, p.1283). The program has also on top of other things so far encompassed quiet a lot of juvenile arrests and domestic violence offenders. Zero tolerance has though been reported to be discouraging community policing, but in its attempt to scale down incidences of repeated arrests, drivers under the influence of alcohol are great and proving fruitful To reduce the reported incidences from rising, there needs to be a public awareness on the importance of zero tolerance in the country, so that the citizens can be made aware of the intolerable acts, attitude and behavior in the society. To achieve a good and long term effect in the fight, the U.K state revived the fight against other related crimes like domestic abuse where women were the chief targets. One critic once said that, “The UK state has failed to completely stem out violence against women in the past...the decision by the male perpetrators to abuse power to this effect has complicated the fight against crime further…” (Tonello, 2007, p5). But this revelation by Tonello does not indicate that the zero tolerance programs will now be washed under the carpet and laid to rest; the fight is on and if the latest reports are anything to go by, it will continue till all the social evils are cleared from the UK society. Another zero tolerance advocate, Newburn, wholly supported the concept of zero tolerance policing in the United Kingdom. He justified his support by giving a comprehensive report based on the recent positive changes that came as a result of the approach given to the program. He argued that the transformation and changes of the roles of the police in the fight against crime has achieved much, mainly because of the professional approach by which the Law enforcers give it. The police force has been of late made to include quiet a good number of leading academicians and other vital experts. Two years ago Ms. Jacqui Smith, who was in charge of coordinating the zero tolerance policing program announced that she will never stop until she makes the UK streets free from drugs, burglary and other anti-social behaviors in her Labor Day Celebration address on the Bournemouth. She also added, and I quote, “Let me be clear on this...police officers will have new powers to posses licenses from dodgy premises”. (Summers et al. 2007, p.1). And true to her words, a trend of zero tolerance has been witnessed to be fully effected on smaller incidences of petty cases of breaking into homes, snatching of bags since these are the acts that feed or rather fuel the illegal acts. On top of this bank of goodwill, the program received a major boost from the home secretary who made a public announcement on the creation of a new kitty worth tens of millions of pounds in aid of police patrol teams and acquisition of fingerprint machines to help uproot criminals from the local communities (Snider, 2004, p155). “There is a great residual faith in this institution” (Newburn, 2003, p.1)...The increased expenses on the police spending are presenting great shortcomings to their operations, therefore the decision by the government to boost the funds available for their use was a great plus to the organization. “The political leaders believe that increasing expenditure of the police will be effective in crime control”. (Baker, 1992. quoted in Newburn, 2003, p2). Other recommendations that were put forward to be implemented by the law enforcers in the United Kingdom include the following (Snider, 2004, p.158-184):-Making public the crime rate figures so that they can get the public support the initiation of zero tolerance policing, sharing all the outstanding expenses incurred from crime fight among all the branches of law enforcers so that resources may not stand between them and the fight against crime, reviving the previously foiled attempts to secure consensus between the enforces and the domestic terror legislation, employing more confiscated methods in fighting against gun and gang culture within the society and lastly heightening charges on rapists. Government Support to the System The UK government set up a fund drive to help in the process, the money drawn from this was meant to be used for the acquisition of equipment for efficient service delivery of the police. Such equipments included hand-held computers and movable weapon detectors. The minister in whose responsibility the security matters fell onto had to embark on a way of giving the public the exact figures of the security situation in the country. The minister in charge was to avail to the public the data so that the public could expel any speculation on the security situation. On the other hand, the government increased the number of sexual assault referral centers by twice their original number in order to encourage victims to report such incidences. It is an open secret that people will find it easier to report sexual related crimes in hospitals than to the police stations...such people apart from being sure that the participators will be pursued by the law, are also aware that there health will be prioritized and any outstanding risks would be avoided. They will receive medical care as well as counseling services. The UK government has planted trained staff in selected hospitals so that in case a criminal related case has been reported, the staff will know how to treat the victim to avoid tempering with evidence that may prove vital in getting the criminal. These referral hospitals are spread all over England and Wales. It has been a great leap towards achieving a lasting stability to a society which was at the verge of breaking from the numerous of petty and high profile crime. What is evident now in the UK is a set of communities that has its occupants free from evil, tolerant to one another, accommodative to strangers and visitors, and more importantly, a society where fairness, respect and responsibility is the order of the day (Dennis and Erdos, 2005, p.161-183). If this trend continues, then Britain will be sure of a secured future, thanks to the zero tolerance in policing. Zero Tolerance Criticism Not all has gone down well with the Zero Tolerance Policing. Critics of this program have come up, with most of them drawn from the Civil Society Groups as well as the Human Rights Activists. They are claiming that the security forces are applying heavy handedness in carrying out the process. The two groups faulted the decision of the policy drivers to make penalties on petty offenders more severe, to a point where it could amount to death over a petty theft case (Fabrizio, 2007, p.7). The legislature and the police force on their part argued that by putting the penalty higher than the committed offense, it will make the perpetrators shy away from committing the criminal activities for fear of being caught by the law...because if that happens, whatever suffering they will go through will override what they could have derived from the proposed crime. Other critics drawn from other sectors of the society who do not belong to any organized group have it that, the reason why crime rate has fallen in the aforementioned places was not because of zero tolerance, but because of the fact that it was instituted at a time when most of the hard core criminals had been sent to jail, hence leaving just a hand full on the streets, so automatically, crime rate had to go down. Such individual critics added that there argument could be justified by the reduction of crime even in areas where zero tolerance was not being practiced (Eck and Maguire, 2000, p207-250)...meaning it is not the sole reasons why crime rate has going down, but there are also some other forces that are contributing to this. They therefore concluded that the reason for the decline was due to the combined effort of the police and the judiciary, and did not lie solely on zero tolerance policing program. Some scholars defined zero tolerance as the concept that offers the police an inflexible repression of offenses that are deemed minor, particularly those committed by the poor. The critics that argued from this angle had it that justice was being discriminative along social classes. A notable argument posted by the critics though is found in (Robinson, 2002, p.206), where the author states that by applying the zero tolerance concept, the police are going against the national Code of Conduct. Conclusion To be blank, we have to admit that the state of the criminal acts have really gone down if we go by the latest reports that have been received relating to the security situation in all the countries where Zero Tolerance has been being practiced. Reports reveal that since the year 1993, the rate of major crimes has gone down in UK by about 39% while that of reported murder cases has subsidized by over 49% (Sherman L et al., 1997, p.65). If only these reports show the exact situation, then it can be asserted that the concept of zero tolerance has achieved much of its objectives. And if the current trend maintains, then the whole world will be sure to see crime only existing in the history books. To be more particular, in the UK, the program achieved an outstanding result by cutting the crime rate by 20% within a span of only 18 Months and a further fall of two percent in three months. The latest statistics show a total of 38percent reduction within 28 months (Sherman L et al. 1997, p.80). From the crime reports emerging from different states, one thing is certainly apparent, that, the concept of zero tolerance policing is only proving to be effective in densely populated areas which are characterized by a lot of petty crimes and a heavy presence of the police. But on the contrary, it has proved ineffective in dispersedly populated areas. The officers charged with the duty of stopping all kinds of crime have to step up their work and see that the figures being released concerning the slow reduction of crime have to be lowered further. For any nation to influence people to comply with the rule of law, the following four principles have to be encouraged among the people; complete participation in the society, strong attachment to the opinions of members if the society, commitment to the decisions made and finally a strong belief in the social values. The officers are therefore advised not to be clinging only on the idea of stumping out crime from our societies; they are also required to cultivate the spirit of positive attitude and collective responsibility. With this one effectively done, then we are sure that no person will get himself or herself involved in any criminal act...in turn there will be a balanced and stable society. We do admit therefore that the Zero tolerance strategy employed in the UK has been a great success, but there is still room for improvement, a lot more can be done to reduce the crime rate further. References Cox S. & J. Wade. (1998). “The Criminal Justice Network: An Introduction”. New York: McGraw Hill. p.22-27. Dennis Norman and Erdos George. (2005). “Cultures and Crimes: Dealing with Diversity: Libertarianism and Multiculturalism p.169-183. Eck E. John and Maguire R. Edward. (2000). “Have Changes in Policing Reduced Violent Crime”: Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 207-265. Fagan Jeffrey and Franklin Zimring. (1998). “Declining Homicide: A Tale of Two Trends”. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 88 (4) pp. 1277-1324. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ by Deborah Summers, Patrick Win tour and Alan Travis Retrieved on 22-02-2009. Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan and Robert Reiner. (2007). “The Oxford Handbook of Criminology”. Oxford University Press. P.7-11. Robinson, M. (2002). “Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice”. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. p.41-75. Sherman L et al. (1997). "Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesnt, Whats Promising.", p 51-89. Snider, Laureen. (2004) "Zero Tolerance Reversed: Constituting the Non-Culpable Subject”: University of British Columbia Press, and Montreal: Laval University Press. p.155-184. Tim Newburn. (2003). “Handbook of policing”. William publishing p.1-14. Tonello Fabrizio. (2007) “Zero Tolerance: A great failure”. Published b Il Manifesto. p.5, p7 Read More