The goals of any crime prevention plans are often viewed as the expected consequences of the plan. However, inevitably unintended consequences are also created with its implementation. The New York Police Department as part of the broken window theory focused mostly of quality of life and zero tolerance strategies to decrease criminal activities. The zero tolerance strategy implemented, allowed police officers to stop, question and frisk people in New York City. While this method increase arrests for drug offenses, and in some cases outstanding warrants arrests were made. It created isolation with the communities and people opted out of reporting criminal offenses to the police. Furthermore, pursuing minor offenses targeted the young, homeless and …show more content…
However, targeting a particular group of people for minor offenses weakens this bond and deters people from reporting criminal activities and cooperating with the police. While the crime prevention plan showed a reduction in criminal activities in one area, it is very important to consider that this reduction could be the result of relocation of criminal activities. The increase presence of police officers or guardianship in a neighborhood will decrease its criminal activities but can result in increased criminal activities in another. The “quality of life” portion of the crime prevention plan greatly improved the lives of some New Yorker’s with the reduction in criminal activities. As people were able to ride the subway and walk the city without the fear of being victimized. However, the zero tolerance strategy that created the stop, question and frisk increased arrests for minor offenses and decreased police-community relationships. This created police scrutiny among the average New Yorker’s while leaving other criminal activities to become rampant in other areas of the city (Sternbenz,
They find the stops "show few significant effects of several SQF [stop, question, and frisk] measures on precinct robbery and burglary rates."
Topic II. Furthermore, the criminal justice system brought up new ideals with the Broken Windows theory.
The factor of racial profiling comes into play as federal grant programs award police for rounding up as many people as possible. This very tactic was demonstrated by the CompStat system in New York City and further expounded by Victor M. Rios’s analysis of the themes over-policing and under-policing. These themes focus on how officers, police certain kinds of deviance and crime such as, loitering, or disturbing the peace, while neglecting other instances when their help is needed . Rios also stresses how the accumulation of minor citations like the ones previously mentioned, play a crucial role in pipelining Black and Latino young males deeper into the criminal justice system. Rios implies that in order to decrease the chances with police interaction one must not physically appear in a way that catches the attention of a police or do anything behavior wise that would lead to someone labeling you as deviant . Unfortunately, over-policing has made it difficult even for those who actually do abide by social norms because even then, they have been victims of criminalization . However, since structural incentives like those that mimic CompStat are in place, police simply ignore constitutional rules and are able to get away with racial profiling, and thus interrogate, and search whomever they please. Since these targeted minorities acknowledge the fact that the police are not always present to enforce the law, they in turn learn strategies in order to protect themselves from violence that surrounds them. Young African American Americans and Latino youth thus become socialized in the “code of the street”, as the criminal justice system possesses no value in their
Part One The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment: An Introduction According to Kelling, Pate, Dieckman, & Brown (1974), patrol is the “backbone” of police work. This belief is based around the premise that the mere presence of police officers on patrol prohibits criminal activity. Despite increasing budgets and the availability of more officers on the streets, crime rates still rose with the expanding metropolitan populations (Kelling et al., 1974).
Kelling created Broken Window Policing to maintain clean and organized neighborhoods in order to decrease possible crimes. Kelling designed the theory using vague language, which allowed for multiple interpretations when designing broken window policing. Instead of reducing crime rates, this policy over criminalized small crimes. The results of broken window policing did not meet Kelling’s expectations, which resulted in him blaming the negative results of the policy on bad policing. But the negative outcomes of the policy did not arise from just bad policing; Kelling’s broken window policing opened the door for discriminatory practices, and fed the prison system. Not only is the policy problematic, but it has not lead to a decrease in crime
Kovandzic, T. V., Sloan III, J. J., & Vieraitis, L. M. (2004). "Striking out" as crime reduction policy: The impact of "three strikes" laws on crime rates in U.S. cities. JQ: Justice Quarterly, 21(2), 207-239. doi:10.1080/07418820400095791
Fine, Michelle, et al. "“Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies Of Surveillance In Public Places." Journal Of Social Issues 59.1 (2003): 141-158. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Jan. 2016.
Police: Breakdowns that allowed corruption are still uncorrected, study finds. The chief concedes that mediocrity became a way of life at all levels of the department. The Los Angeles Police Department failed time and again to take steps that might have headed off the worst corruption scandal in its history, according to a sweeping self-indictment prepared by the department's own leaders. In a letter accompanying the long-awaited Board of Inquiry report into the corruption centered in the department's Rampart Division, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks called the scandal a "life-altering experience for the Los Angeles Police Department" in which corrupt officers took advantage of lax supervision to carry out criminal acts. "We as an organization provided the opportunity," Parks wrote.
9. Sherman L., Gottfredson D., MacKenzie D., Eck J., Reuter P., Bushway S. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. A Report to the United States Congress. College Park, MD: University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1997.
...e of the risk for offenders or reducing the attractiveness of potential targets has the great impact on criminal and disorder activities. According to the authors these approaches are part of the interventions of hot spot because they include things like razing abandoned buildings and cleaning up graffiti. However, the increase of misdemeanor arrests of offenders contribute to the crime control in hot spot but not as much situational efforts does (Braga and bond 2008). Authors stated that situational crime prevention strategies are essential for addressing crime in hot spots rather than the aggressive order maintenance of arrests in high disorder places. In other words, if police officers only make arrest in hot spot this will not effectively reduce crime because they need to develop a more complex approach to deal with high crime areas ( Braga & Weisburd , 2010).
Racial Profiling or stop and frisking highly occur in the state of New York. The New York City’s Police Department stop and frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, privacy rights, and illegal stops. The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast 84 percent of the stops are black and Latino. People say that stop and frisks are reasonable because they help reduce crime and protect citizens, but stop and frisks do not reduce crime rates and do not keep people safer. There has never been a research that has proven the effectiveness of New York City’s stop and frisk tactic, and the small number of arrests, summonses, and guns recovered demonstrates that the practice is ineffective. Crime Statistics also do not support the claim that New York City is safer because of...
Then all of a sudden, instead of going up and up and up, the crime rate began to fall. And fall and fall and fall some more. The crime drop was startling in several respects. It was ubiquitous, with every category of crime in every part of the country. It was persistent, with incremental decreases year after year. And it was entirely unanticipated, especially because the public had been anticipating the opposite...
This field of study is uncertain to affirm this kind of assumption. But all this discussion about Broken Windows Theory leads us to reflect why not try to prevent crime instead of act after the crime has been committed? The main idea of Kelling and Wilson was applied in this specific case of NYC’s subway and had been successful. The idea that the police have to work more engaged in a community is good for all sides. The ideal of prevention should be more disseminated in all branches because focus on roots of the problems. The main point for these strategy is do not wait until serious crimes occur to intervene, extremely opposite this, it is necessary deal with disorder behavior early and this form contribute with the development to all
There have been many contributors when it came to tackling anti-social behaviour and preventing crime however, the most influential contributors are Wilson and Kelling. They came up with the theory of broken window which will be further explain in this essay. This essay will outline the broken window theory, as well as explain what is meant by broken window. Finally it will give examples that exemplify the broken window theory. (Maguire, Morgan and Reiner, 2012)
The new philosophies of problem-oriented policing and community-oriented policing have started numerous discussions. Throughout time, researchers have questioned whether or not problem-oriented or community-oriented policing is the most effective approach in reducing crime, disorder and the fear of crime. Researchers have built on quite an extensive amount of literature, in the quest of discovering the effectiveness of both policing methods. However, while researchers have argued that both policing method have proven to be efficient in reducing crime, fear and disorder, these researchers have also argued that both methods have the potential to fail if not implemented suitably (Weisburd, Telep, Hinkle and Eck 2010; Scott 2006; Sciarabba 2009, Kerley and Benson 2000; Mirsky 2009; Rubenser 2005).