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Crime in Relation to Sustainability
When discussing the sustainability of a community, we must consider the economic, social, and environmental well-being of the community and how these affect present and future residents. The social aspect of community sustainability relates to the rise and fall of crime rate, volunteer effort, and the number of people running for offices that represent the community. The economical aspect relates to the number of good paying jobs, the poverty rate, and the ability of people to find homes that they can afford. In the community of Dallas I grew up in, there was a problem with controlling the distribution and consumption of illegal drugs. Drugs in a community can affect the social and economic well-being of a community by increasing the crime rate and the poverty rate in a community. In order for the community to prosper and be able to sustain, present and future, we need more police involvement in the community. If more police became involved in the community, criminals participating in illegal activities would either be scared away or forced to change their habits. More police involvement in the community would also make residents more comfortable with their safety and the safety of their loved ones.
Drug traffickers often use violence as a means to scare, intimidate, or prove a point. In a community that involves drug use and drug trafficking, residents no longer feel safe in the community. Drugs are related to crimes in many ways. It is a crime to use, make, possess, and distribute drugs; but drugs are also related to crime because of the effects they can have on the user’s behavior. Drug users under the influence of an illegal drug are not always conscious of the effects their behavior can ...
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...s Association, “More Policing Does Matter – Recent Findings from Objective Empirical Research”http://www.majorcitieschiefs.org/pdf/news/more_policing_does_matter.pdf
October 2007.
Martin, Marcus. "Research Compilation." . The Williams Institute, Dec. 2006. Web. 19 Oct. 2011..
Sherman, Lawrence and David Weisburd, “General Deterrent Effects of Police Patrol in Crime Hot Spots: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” Justice Quarterly 12 (1995): 625–48.
Shi, L. “Does Oversight Reduce Policing? Evidence from the Cincinnati Police
Department After the April 2001 Riot”,
University of
Washington, 2005
Wilson, James Q., Kelling, George E., “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood
Safety”, Atlantic Monthly, March 1982
Because of budget constraints, the study only used one beat to collect data on the effects of increasing police patrol. Even though money was an issue, the experiment could have yielded better data by repeating the experiment multiple times to see if the data they collected would be reliable. The experiment also took place during the winter. The report of the study even noted that there was some evidence that crime activity levels declined, just as street activity does, because of colder weather. Although the design of the study contained weaknesses, some of the methods used by the researchers worked well for this type of study. One of the strengths of this experiment was the different methods used to acquire illegal guns in the beat. By using a variation of ways to seize illegal weapons in the “hot spot,” it allowed officers to increase their chances of finding more illegal guns. Using different methods of search also could have led to greater number of potential offenders to know that officers were looking for illegal weapons and refrained from offending. Another strength of the study includes the relatively inexpensive method to try to answer their hypothesis. Increasing police patrol is one of the more inexpensive methods and it did manage to decrease the number of gun crimes and homicide in the
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
In this essay I propose to evaluate two perspectives of social control which will be right realism and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and their views on crime and social order. Right realism is a theory on why crime happens and CPTED tries to minimize the opportunity of crime.
Drugs seem to be an issue everywhere. Just like alcohol, the drug trade is not a primary issue for one race. Drugs serve a heavy impact to all those involved. Drugs are not just reserved to those that use them, but also to the manufacturers and distributors of the drugs. An excerpt from Anderson (1990) involves a former dealer describing the drug culture. He states, “The way I see it, there’s top dogs, middle dogs, and low dogs. The top dogs are the guys with the money, dudes with the cars…the middle dogs are the ones who sell drugs for the top dogs…and they sell it to the low dogs” (p. 7). However, it does not stop there. Drugs also affect the family and friends of those involved. Many residing within areas centered on drugs often times express feelings of anxiety and fear. Wacquant (2007) states that petty theft, drug use, the resale of stolen goods, vandalism, and alcoholism are the most visible form of delinquency (p. 208).
Hot spot policing is based on the idea that some criminal activities occur in particular areas of a city. According to researchers crime is not spread around the city instead is concentrated in small places where half of the criminal activities occur (Braga chapter 12). Also, many studies has demonstrated that hot spots do show significant positive results suggesting that when police officers put their attention on small high crime geographic areas they can reduce criminal activities ( Braga, papachristo & hureau I press). According to researchers 50% of calls that 911 center received are usually concentrated in less than 5% of places in a city (Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger, 1989; Weisburd, Bushway, Lum, &Yang, 2004). That is the action of crime is often at the street and not neighborhood level. Thus police can target sizable proportion of citywide crime by focusing in on small number of high crime places (see Weisburd & Telep, 2010). In a meta-analysis of experimental studies, authors found significant benefits of the hot spots approach in treatment compared to control areas. They concluded that fairly strong evidence shows hot spots policing is an effective crime prevention strategy (Braga (007) .Importantly, there was little evidence to suggest that spatial displacement was a major concern in hot spots interventions. Crime did not simply shift from hot spots to nearby areas (see also Weisburd et al., 2006).
Braga, Anthony A. Crime Prevention Research Review No. 2: Police Enforcement Strategies to Prevent Crime in Hot Spot Areas. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2008.
In 1939 Criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland proposed his theory of Differential Association in his Principles of Criminology textbook. Differential Association theory states that criminal behavior is learned behavior. Sutherland along with Richard Cloward, and Lloyd Ohlin attempted to explain this phenomenon by emphasizing the role of learning. To become a criminal, a person must not only be inclined toward illegal activity, he or she must also learn how to commit criminal acts. Sutherland’s differential association theory contends that people whose environment provides the opportunity to associate with criminals will learn these skills and will become criminals in response to strain. If the necessary learning structures are absent, they will not. Sutherland relied heavily upon the work of Shaw and McKay, Chicago school theorists, in high rates of juvenile delinquency. Sutherland's theory of differential association still remains very popular among criminologists due to its less complex and more coherent approach to crime causation. It is also supported by much evidence.
Some people argue that the drug users aren’t the heroin victims. One writer notes, 'The parents of the user who steals from them, abuses them, physically, emotionally and mentally, the siblings who suffer the loss of care and love but who also get abused and used by the user, the kids of the user who learn that the parent's desire for smack is greater than the desire to be a parent,' are the real heroin victims (Fitzgerald, 2000). This problem therefore effects not only the user but the society living around them as well.
With different types of violence happening in all aspects of human life, and our perpetrators seemingly getting younger it brings to bear the question what role substance use has in crime. Crime comes in many forms, for example Cyber Bulling, Assaults, Intimate Partner Violence to name a few.
Some people are likely to generalize about the causes of drug related crimes and say that they are simply related to people who do not do any good for our society. However, in certain instances drugs can be used as a source of income for people and they commit crimes in order to facilitate that goal (Nurco, 1998). These people have no way out of their drug lives and therefore may not necessarily choose this life style but are brought up into it.
...haviors he so wishes to comprehend are those whom he labels as The Cocaine Kids. Now that examples of these drug sellers’ behaviors have been provided, the criminological theories that can explain such behaviors have been made visible to the unseen eye. Criminological theories including the theory of Differential Association, the Subculture of Violence Theory, and the Social Learning Theory can be viewed as methods for developing a knowledgeable understanding of how and why such behaviors introduced individuals to the drug-selling world, kept them submerge deep within it, and allowed for them to leave it.
Only an act that is defined by the validly passed laws of the nation state in which it occurred so that punishment should follow from the behaviour
Goldstein tripartite model of drugs and crime defined all three drug violence connection factors as pharmacological violence, economically compulsive violence, and systemic violence. Pharmacological violence refers to acts of violence resulting from the influence of a particular drug. Economic compulsive violence is associated with efforts to obtain money to finance the high cost of drug use. The systemic violence occurs from the activities of drug dealing from the practice of organized and purposeful crime.
The policy process is a long process that involves many steps and participants that deal with issues related to crime. Once the issues have been addressed and the policy has been created the policy then governs the criminal justice system. Some of the participants involved with the policy process are federal, state, and local government. The federal, state, and local governments all have roles in the development and implementation of the criminal justice system. Some of the roles of the federal and state governments are similar and others differ.
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.