Community Crime Profile Survey with Questions
The small community of Hasbrouck Heights, NJ is the one square mile home to a comparatively tiny population of approximately 7,600 people, including myself. I live on a residential street of this small suburban town where a great threat of danger and harm has never really been associated with its name. The crime rate on the city-data.com crime index is a minute 35.6 when compared to the U.S. average of 330.6. In the year of 2002 Wood-Ridge did not experience any murders, rapes, or robberies, and only 1 assault, 35 larceny counts, and 7 auto thefts. This is the main reason why all parties who were surveyed either felt very safe or somewhat safe living their lives in this neighborhood and believe crime has either decreased or stayed the same. All parties surveyed also rated the following services from acceptable to excellent: ambulance, cable television, electric utilities, fire, gas, phone, and police. Then when surveyed about police more closely the answers only varied from good to excellent, with most answers in the excellent range. I found this survey relatively easy to perform. My town issues a small phone book of all persons living in town and I drew names at random and surveyed whoever was willing to offer their time. I surveyed five people ages 18-29, one person age 30-39, seven people ages 40-49, six people ages 50-59, and two people over 69 years of age. Seventeen of these people were male and only four were female, 100% of which was Caucasian. Two parties resided in apartments, while nineteen lived in a house. Eighteen families owned the residence they lived in and three rented, and obviously 100% of them have telephones in their homes. Of the parties surveyed, thirteen had full-time jobs, three were self-employed, one was a student, one was unemployed, and three parties were retired. The five most predominant problems exemplified from this survey were the amount of youths that are hanging out on the streets, the use of alcohol, along with the use of drugs, traffic violations, and vandalism. Throughout this summary, these problems will become more detailed with possible solutions requiring efforts from a majority of the community, including the PTA, church organizations, local media, and everyday people that take part in this neighborhood.
The...
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...1 Don’t Know -- 1
Police:
Excellent -- 12
Good -- 8
Acceptable -- 0
Poor -- 1
Don’t Know -- 0
POLICE CONCERNS
Evaluate current performance of the police in each of following areas:
Quickness in Responding to Calls: Successfully Satisfying Your Call:
Excellent -- 13 Excellent -- 13
Good -- 6 Good -- 6
Acceptable -- 1 Acceptable -- 1
Poor -- 0 Poor -- 0
Don’t Know -- 1 Don’t Know -- 1
Willing to Work With Neighborhood: Vehicle Patrols:
Excellent -- 12 Excellent -- 12
Good -- 5 Good -- 6
Acceptable -- 3 Acceptable -- 2
Poor -- 1 Poor -- 0
Don’t Know -- 0 Don’t Know -- 0
Foot Patrols:
Excellent -- 10
Good -- 3
Acceptable -- 6
Poor -- 2
Don’t Know -- 0
VOLUNTEER WORK
Does your neighborhood have a crime watch program?
Yes -- 0
No -- 4
Don’t know -- 17
If not, would you like your neighborhood to have a crime watch program?
Yes -- 13
No -- 6
Don’t know -- 2
Do you/would you participate in a crime watch program?
Yes -- 13
No -- 2
Don’t know -- 6
Does your neighborhood have a neighborhood association or community group?
Yes -- 0
No -- 17
Don’t know -- 4
Do you/would you participate in the association or group?
Yes -- 13
No -- 6
Don’t know -- 2
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is information that is gathered by the U.S Census Bureau. Unlike UCR this information is not given by law enforcement officials, but by a household survey that is conducted about twice a year. When the survey is being commenced they place the crimes into two different categories; person crimes and property crimes. NCVS has four objectives when obtaining information; “(1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected typed of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas.” (NACJD)
A strong example of this would be the recent exploits at the Woodstock 99 music festival.
Such sources involved inquiries from the community including victimization surveys, departmental data, questionnaires from neighborhood residents and business owners, police encounter evaluations, surveys regarding police response times, participant observer surveys, and questionnaires regarding victimization. Pre-experimental data were also obtained for comparison purposes such as crime data, traffic data, arrest data, and response time data (Kelling et al.,
In contemporary society, there are various methodologies for collecting data (Linden 2012). That being said, there are pros and cons to each that are based on reliability and validity; where reliability is consistency of the statistics, and validity is a measure of how accurate the results are in accordance with the research topic. This ties in with how this paper will explore the Uniform Crime Report system (UCR); a measure of crime that is used the most. UCR statistics reflect the crimes that are reported to the police throughout the country. victimization and self-report surveys, which are statistics that reinforce the findings revealed by the UCR, will also be explored. Lastly, the issue of media coverage of crime news will be examined.
The sample size and exclusion of individuals, such as under 16’s or those in group residence, creates bias and an untrue reflection on population as crimes they experience are not taken into consideration (HO, 2013).
In the article Victims and Offenders in Two Crime Statistics Programs: A Comparison of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), (herein after NCVS and NIBRS will be called “systems” when referencing the statistics of the nature of the crimes), the comparison of the two reporting systems for crimes are similar. These two reporting systems are a visual representation of the crimes that are reported. They do not account for crimes that are not reporting or crimes that are reported after the date. They report crime only when there is an official report, such as one by the officer that comes to the scene of the crime to take statements from the individuals. NCVS and NIBRS are only report burglary, larceny, aggravated assault, and vehicle theft. They do not report on more serious crimes such as rape or murder.
Unlike many students who go to the Apache Junction campus at Central Arizona College, I live much farther out in then Apache Junction. I currently live in Gilbert Arizona. According to NeigborhoodScout, “Gilbert is a relatively large town located in the state of Arizona. With a population of 214,264 people and 44 constituent neighborhoods, Gilbert is the seventh largest community in Arizona.” (Location Inc, 2014) So, with a substantial amount of residents that live in Gilbert, one might think that there would be more crime in the area. But in actuality, that is not the case. According to NeighborhoodScout, Gilbert has one of the lowest crime rates in the state of Arizona. The rate of violent crimes in Gilbert, Arizona is 0.96 crimes per 1,000 residents. This crime rate is much lower than the crime rate of the state of Arizona, which sits at 4.29 crimes per 1000 residents. It also sits lower then the national median rate for violent crimes, which is 3.9 crimes per 1000 residents. When it comes to violent crimes, there have been only been 5 murders, 19 rapes, 59 robberies, and 122 assaults. The chance of someone becoming a victim of a violent crime in Gilbert is about 1 in 1045 chance, compared to the state of Arizona, which is 1 in 233 chance. When it comes to the rate of property crimes, Gilbert once again ranks lower then the State of Arizona and lower then the national median. The rate of property crimes in Gilbert is 15.80 crimes per 1000 residents. Which is lower then the state of Arizona, which sits at 35.39 crimes per 1000 residents, and lower then the national median of 28.6 crimes per 1000 residents. In Gilbert, there have been 726 burglaries, 2496 thefts, and 164 motor vehicle thefts. The chance of becoming a victim of a...
If one looks deeper into each side, they can see that these stereotypes are not always true. One big stereotype people have about “the hills” and “the flats” is that the “flats” are more prone to violence than the “hills” because of the exposure to a more difficult lifestyle. However, there are numerous counts of violence and hate that has not been accounted for or heard of in a multitude of neighborhoods. According to FBI.gov, there are 365 violent offenses per 100,000 persons in the United States. In addition, these violent crimes have an impact on those who have seen or experienced it. This number includes robberies, domestic violence, and assault and gang activities. According to a scholarly journal published by Sciencedirect, around thirty
For decades, researchers have tried to determine why crime rates are stronger and why different crimes occur more often in different locations. Certain crimes are more prevalent in urban areas for several reasons (Steven D. Levitt, 1998, 61). Population, ethnicity, and inequality all contribute to the more popular urban. Determining why certain crimes occur more often than others is important in Criminal Justice so researchers can find a trend and the police can find a solution (Rodrigo R. Soares, 2004, 851). The Uniform Crime Reports are a method in which the government collects data, and monitors criminal activity in the United States (Rodrigo R. Soares, 2004, 851). They have both positive and negative attributes that have influenced
The text provides some evidence to support this theory in Table 14, ”Index rankings of reported crimes in police incorporating the neighborhoods.” This chart shows Projectville ranked highest in every category except motor v...
Burglaries, robberies, and shootings, all of which may leave victims or innocent bystanders severely hurt or dead, are now frequent enough to concern all urban and many suburban residents. Living in a dangerous environment places young people at risk of falling victim to such malicious and aggressive behavior observed and learned from others. Social institution such as education, family, religion, peer groups, etc., play a major role in the influence of crime in the urban neighborhoods that Anderson describes. As said in the essay, "although almost everyone in poor inner-...
Sampson, R., Raudenbush, S., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
According to Rachel Boba, “Crime analysis is a law enforcement function that involves systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends in crime and disorder” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime analysis).The information on these patterns can assist law enforcement agencies in the deployment of resources in a more effective manner; it can also help detectives to identify and catch suspects. Crime analysis also plays a role in improvising solutions to crime problems, and developing crime prevention strategies. There are various types of technology that is used in crime analysis. Crime analysis relies heavily on computer technology, and over the past fifteen years there has been a significant improvement in computer hardware and software that has led to tremendous developments in this field. One form of hardware that is used by Crime analysts to complete most of their work is Desktop personal computers, laptop computers are also used by crime analysts for fieldwork and presentations. Other forms of hardware that are used include color laser printers that can produce high-quality documents quickly, plotters which are printers that can produce large poster size color maps, scanners, and digital cameras, these specific types of hardware is mostly used by police departments when analyzing crime.
To conclude, Community policing represents a major development in the history of American law enforcement, but the extent to which this approach is a success and dominates contemporary policing remains a source of debate. In my point of view, community policing is good for communities. It has challenged the traditional concept of the police as crime-fighters by drawing attention to the complexities of the police role and function. In addition to the police officer hard work; citizens can also make a difference and contribute to make neighborhoods a better place to live. For instance, citizens can hold community meetings to talk about concerns and agree on solutions help organize healthy activities for children in your neighborhood, join or starting a neighborhood crime watch program, and talk to your community police officers and share information and concerns.