Evaluating the Impact of Zero Tolerance Policing - Essay Example

Evaluating the Impact of Zero Tolerance Policing Metropolis police service intends to introduce a zero tolerance policing policy in an attempt to cut crime. A zero tolerance policy forbids police officers from exercising discretion and imposes automatic Introduction Zero tolerance policing describes the law enforcement approach, which was started in United States in an effort of dressing the rising crime rates (Punch, 2007, p. 1). This project therefore seeks to discuss the impact of zero tolerance policing, in an area where Metropolis Police Service intends to introduce the strategy in an attempt to alleviate crime rate. Attention will be given to what zero tolerance policing encompasses and the theoretical context underlining the topic. The project will also touch upon the several aspects where the strategy is acclaimed, for instance the first application in New York, United States and its effectiveness in reducing crimes, also the approach widespread to the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, in order to, effectively discuss the impact of the approach if it is implemented by the Metropolis Police Service, questionable results of its application in New York and other relevant areas will be discussed. Presented will be a critical review on the effectiveness of the Zero Tolerance Policing using the available research and literature guide, also a theoretical framework behind the project. Concluding will be a recommendation given through a comprehensive study of the evidence collected through the methodological choices made and the data analysis techniques selected on the impact the approach will have to the city of Metropolis once it is implemented by the police service. Aims and objectives of the research Research problem The discussion on the impact of Zero Tolerance Policing is essential due to the rising concern of whom the approach specifically targets as a crime reduction strategy, specifically focusing on the underclass and the minorities in the society that has deteriorated community relations and has contributed to mistrust towards the police. Moreover, there are deep concerns that the approach fails to address underlying causes of crime that makes it essentially counterproductive in regard to a crime reduction strategy. Aims Therefore, to address some of these issues, the projects will aim at addressing several case studies of Police departments that have implemented the strategy and the outcome they got, in an effort of evaluating the impact Zero Tolerance Policing it will have to the society once Metropolis Police Service implement the strategy. Despite the greatly weighted counter-productive perspective to this discussion, the project also will aim at recommending alternative strategies to effective crime reduction from acknowledging the approaches’ weaknesses and strengths in offering a beneficial strategy for policing in the society. The main aim of the recommendation to the Metropolis Police Service will have the idea of giving them alternative law enforcement strategies that would gain better results, in a case, where they would consider the positive side of the Zero policing and apply it with another approach involving intervention with policing in the society Research questions The project will aim at addressing the following question: 1. What are the strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities associated with Zero Tolerance Policing once it is implemented? 2. What is the impact the Zero Tolerance Policing approach will have to the various factors in the society for instance social factors? 3. What are some of the Zero Tolerance Policing aspects that could be changed to ensure smooth adoption in areas where the approach have been or want to be implemented? Literature review This section of the literature review will discuss the past research on the issue of the implementation of the Zero Tolerance Policing approach. Some of these literatures will be important in providing a clear background of the approach and its impact to the society. For example, recent research by Arroyo and Juárez (2007, p. 415-420), has shown that the crime has been alleviating in New York and the cities that implemented the approach. For example, in the year 1990 to 2009, the homicide rate in New York alleviated by 82% and 56% in several other cities including United Kingdom (Punch, 2007, p. 13-15). Though a number of reasons have been put forward to explain the decrease in crime in New York, for example stabilization of drug markets, population changes, and increased rates of imprisonments. Bratton (2005, p. 472) claims that, the Zero Tolerance Policing and its strategic content contributed to the drop of the crime rate and the substantial impact it had to the society. The scholar also states that the approach was better, smatter, and more assertive policing in partnership with the criminal justice and the society. On the other hand, ‘Broken windows’ is a theory explained by Kelling and Wilson (2005, p. 460-463) as it is in connection with Zero Tolerance Policing approach. This theory will be important in relating the approach to some of the factors contributing to the failure and success of the strategy. For instance, the scholar provides an overview of the literature of the broken window, here the theory suggests that low-level disorder should be tackled quickly, or else the problems will greatly escalate. Meaning that, if the low-level disorders are not addressed, serious crimes might arise. However, research has failed to show convincing evidence of the lasting sequence of events originally put forward in the theory. Nevertheless, some commentators have argued that conflation of the broken windows theory and community policing has enabled police become omitted to their model to practice zero tolerance policing whilst claiming to implemented community policing (ROSS, 2012, p. 97-98). In addition, Dixon (2005, pp. 483-484), explains how New York implemented the Zero Tolerance philosophy in conjunction with the CompStat model in addressing the physical and social disorder of the city. The scholar explains how the approach played a significant role in reducing the occurrence of criminal behavior. On the other hand, Punch (2007) asserts that, effective public policy and practices needs to be based on scientific evidence. He argued that an evidence-based practice approach would exist in every other field only devoted to the advancement of the society, but should not be the standard for the development of crime prevention approaches such as Zero Tolerance Policing. Nevertheless, McLaughlin (2006, pp. 466-467) contends that policies in criminal justice are driven by subjective evidence, thus what results are programs with undetermined potential for effective crime prevention. In addition, he claims that, by assessing the existing scientific knowledge on the effectiveness of Zero Tolerance Policing and presenting this information in an understandable form, the present volume would aim to change how the national, state, and local crime policies are developed and implemented. Theoretical Framework Zero tolerance policing is alleged to reduce crime rates by acting as a deterrent for future crimes. The approach does this by enforcing law at the lowest level and removing people who theoretically, will become involved or in one way or another encourage more serious crimes. In order to assess the effectiveness and the impact zero tolerance policing strategies, an effective approach is to analyze whether the strategy is representative of time and place (Jones, & Newburn, p. 106-108). This means, is the zero tolerance policing implemented in New York feasible to implement as a law enforcement strategy elsewhere, for instance, in the case study of Metropolis? Additionally, several demographic factors that could affect the implementation of the Zero Tolerance Policing and the impact it would have to the society such as the population, cultural context, criminal justice, or the crime rates. The main fundamental limitation in the implementation of Zero Tolerance Policing strategies outside of New York it is the legalities that exist in the country. For instance, in Metropolis, the implementation of the approach would have serious challenges since the police are prohibited from pursuing and investigating crime, therefore, implementing the approach would violate statutory rights. In addition, if the city lacks full demographic characteristics of crime, then the strategy would not be utilized if the implementing management lacks the knowledge of what aggravating factors are causing crimes to be committed (ROSS, 2014, p. 97-98). Therefore, the project will aim at bridging this gap, thus will help the Metropolis Police Service in understanding Zero Tolerance Policing and the impact it will have to the society putting all factors in consideration. Epistemology In this study, the epistemological assumptions of the pragmatism paradigm will be illustrated in the research study, in the sense that the researchers will use exploratory interview with the participants in each of the selected areas. It will also involve using semi-structured scripts that will be designed by the researchers meaning that they will structure the questionnaires and the interview questions on how they will need the information. The participants in each research area will respond to similar questions as the other respondents in regard to the impact the impact the strategy will have to the society putting into consideration all other factors, this is to ensure there is standardization of responses. Lastly, the researchers will also use secondary data from other police crime data in several areas, and some of the past research that might give statistical data, problems associated, and the recommendation drawn from the results thy got. Methodology In this research case study, conducting mixed methods research comprising of qualitative and quantitative techniques will be relevant and most effective method of ensuring primary data is obtained. The qualitative and quantitative data will be obtained through survey research, evaluation research, and field research, this is because they gather reliable data helpful in the research (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 263). Survey research will comprise of questionnaires and simple semi-structured interviews with some of the participants in the selected areas of study. Therefore, approximately 100 people will be selected in each area of study to answer the questionnaires, and approximately 5 people to do the semi-structured interviews. This will reduce situations of ambiguity in their responses. These two methods will provide detailed responses on what mostly the society would feel if the strategy was implemented in the area. Generally, the semi-structured interviews with the participants will capture naturalistic responses on the way they would feel if the approach was implemented in the area, even though it would be rigid in a sense that it will provide almost the same responses as the questionnaires. In this case, n interview guide will be important for the interviewer, where it will be outlining specific detail concerning some of the issues affecting the topic (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 275). On the other hand, questionnaires will comprise of open and closed questions, where closed questions will require the participants to respond to yes or no questions to reduce ambiguity in the responses they provide. These two methods will aim at laying a common ground of the research in some of the areas that would be affected by implementing the strategy in Metropolis by diversifying the questions in aspects expected to be affected by adopting the strategy. The other method that will be used in the research will be the narrative review technique. The narrative review encloses several studies and is often comprehensive in assessment. This technique summarizes the conclusions drawn from various research resources and draws conclusions based upon the researcher’s own interruptions. However, this technique has a drawback, in a way that some of the conclusions drawn by the scholars are bias; therefore, the researcher may conclude a false interruption of a targeted intervention’s effectiveness (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 283). In this case, it will be important to the research since it will provide a wide range of data on several states that have adopted the strategy. In relation to that, a systematic review will be used in order to review conclusions of reports, observations, surveys, or of data already collected. The review uses precise techniques for locating, apprising, and synthesizing evidence from preceding evaluation studies and they are reported with the same level of detail that characterizes high quality reports of original research. These two methods will be relevant to the research in understanding some of the methods that other states used in ensuring that the implementation of zero tolerance was effective. Analysis In the analysis of the data, either secondary or primary data, descriptive analysis will be used, since the technique has the ability to compare the newly and previously collected data. Descriptive analysis involves the statistical or quantitative analysis of the results of prior research studies or the collected data through questionnaires (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 328). Given the reliance upon the statistical analysis of data, required are an appropriate number of studies, similar in nature and grouped together. Regardless, quantitative approach can be highly useful in assisting the researcher in unearthing the efficiency of the topic in study. Nevertheless, the descriptive analysis has a limitation, which is time consuming and its inability to synthesize complex patterns of effects founds in individual studies and in the diverse questions designed in the questionnaires. However, this will be important in the research in analyzing the variety of distributed questionnaires (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 341). Ethical Consideration Concerning the research, permission has been granted to the researchers to send out questionnaires to the citizens in areas affected by high crime rate in Metropolis. In this case, permission from the local government to carry out a research on the impact of implementing Zero Tolerance Policing in Metropolis will be needed. However, in terms of gaining access, the biggest limitation will be obtaining police crime rate data of different areas; this is because some of the police departments do not have compiled statistics of crimes in their areas of jurisdiction (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014, p. 54) On the other hand, consent is not a particular issue in the research as the areas in subject, since it can be obtained from the participants before the interviews take place or before the questionnaires are distributed to them. Therefore, for the consent to be validated the participants will be made aware of what they are consenting to, therefore, information that would be likely to affect a participant’s willingness to participate should not be deliberately withheld. In addition, a consent form will be provided to the participants before the interview, which will be outlining the purpose of the research and their right as participants including their responses will be kept in a way that it will not reveal their identity to anyone outside the project. Furthermore, participants will be advised that they can refuse to answer any question they will feel uncomfortable with in the questionnaires. Primarily, this research will be compliant with all the ethical guidelines set out by the Social Research Association Conclusion The study has been designed to evaluate the impact the Zero Tolerance Policing will have once the Metropolis police Service implement the approach in high crime rate areas; this will be made possible by evaluating different reaches from different areas that have adopted the approach. Given the complex nature of the policing strategy, these sections will provide recommendations on whether the strategy should be implemented based on the results of the research. In addition, potential compilations associated with the strategy will be include, also an adverse impact on the police-society relationship, possible disproportionate consequences of low socio-economic and minority groups, and increased potential of crime caused by apprehending records that hinder the search for employment. Whilst the questionnaires will provide general information on the impact the approach will have in the Metropolis, a narrative method will provide a comprehensive assessment in the previous developed research on the Zero Tolerance Policing strategy. Moreover, the research will provide useful information on the strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities associated with the strategy to, other police departments who might opt to implement the strategy. However, the research will nevertheless be useful for the Metropolis Police Service in that it will not only monitor the effectiveness of the strategy but it will also, though realistic evaluation be in an effort to pinpoint some of the issues associated with Zero Tolerance Policing strategy that can be resolved to improve it. References Arroyo, Juárez, M. (2007). Evaluating the Zero Tolerance Strategy and its Application in Mexico City. In Cornelius W and Shirk D (eds) Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico. University of California, San Diego: University of Notre Dame Press, 415- 437. Bratton, W. (2005) Crime is Down in New York City: Blame the police. In Newburn N (ed) Policing Key Readings. Portland: Willan Publishing, 472-482. Dixon D (2005). Beyond Zero Tolerance. In Newburn N (eds) Policing Key Readings. Portland: Willan Publishing, 483-508. Kelling G and Wilson J (2005) Broken Windows. In Newburn N (eds) Policing Key Readings. Portland: Willan Publishing, 460- 471. Maxfield, M., & Babbie, E. (2014). Research methods for criminal justice and criminology. Cengage Learning. McLaughlin, E. (2006). Zero Tolerance. In McLaughlin E and Muncie J (eds) (2001-2006). The Sage Dictionary of Criminology. 2nd edition. London: SAGE Publications, 466-467. Punch, M. (2007). Zero tolerance policing. Bristol, UK, Policy Press. ROSS, J. I. (2012). Policing issues: challenges and controversies. Sudbury, MA, Jones & Bartlett Learning. Read More