Crime Control Methods

Introduction 

While crime prevention approaches aimed at thwarting the occurrence of crimes, the focus of crime control is on supervising, monitoring as well as incapacitating individuals who have already engaged in a crime. Historically, crime control in the US has been relying on legislative measures together with several mechanisms of incapacitation, surveillance, and restraint. The increased interest in crime control measures reflects the desire of citizens as well as the state and federal governments’ desire to tackle the crime menace. However, some of the crime control initiatives have come with adverse effects and unintended consequences. Worrell (2006) highlights this fact, pointing out that some methods appear to be failures. The current paper discusses five crime control measures and why they have failed. The measures are 311 phone line, random patrol, hiring more detectives, abolishing plea bargaining and DARE program. 

311 phone line 

Many residents of urban areas usually call 911 whenever they want to report a crime, an emergency or obtain information. However, non-emergency calls to 911 have been reported to bring about backlogs that delay police, fire and other emergency services. This problem led President Bill Clinton to request the Department of Justice (DOJ) to come up with a system that would help relieve 911 systems of unnecessary calls (Holzer, 2011). This was pursued by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), making a request that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designate the number 311 as a nonemergency help number. 311 was established as the number for non-emergency local government services in 1997. The first city to implement the system was Baltimore, Maryland. In its assessment of the system, the city authorities reported that it brought about several benefits including reducing the time needed to answer 911 calls by over 50%, reducing the number of abandoned 911 calls and a reduction in the time 911 operators were busy with calls by 18% (Holzer, 2011). 

According to Holzer (2011), 311 help lines establish a single point of access between citizens and the local leadership. The 311 systems play a major role in when it comes to responding to the needs of citizens. Apart from eliminating endless call-forwarding mazes, they also help reduce “not my job” responses from employees of the local governments who are not well-equipped to attend to the different non-emergency issues raised by citizens. Holzer (2011) points out that given the direct interaction between 311 operators and citizens, the operators became the citizen’s advocates within the local governments. However, the system is not perfect and several failures have been reported. Over the years, the number of people making 311 calls has significantly increased. Brustein (2005) reports that as of 2005, the number of calls to 311 had grown almost three times, with the number receiving nearly the same number of calls as 911. This significant increase has, in turn, resulted in the slowing of the speed of services characterized by increasingly lengthy hold times. To deal with the many calls made through 311, many cities have expanded their systems, employing more operators, a fact that has seen the budgets of 311 systems increase over the years. As such, another failure of the 311 line is its high cost that eats into a significant portion of most municipalities’ budgets. 

Random Patrol 

Random routine patrol involves police officers going within a community when they are not on an assignment from a supervisor or radio dispatcher. The strategy is based on the idea that the physical presence of law enforcers in public areas results in a deterrent impact on crime and that given the general public’s fear of crime, the presence of police officers discourages criminals from going about illegal activities. Dempsey and Forst (2015) state that tradition has held that random patrol establishes a sense of law enforcers’ omnipresence and would deter crime since criminals will not engage in outlawed activities if the police are within the vicinity. According to Dempsey and Forst (2015), the random patrol is used given the belief that it makes it possible for police officers to apprehend criminals while in the act of committing their crimes. Gaines and Miller (2016) report that every other police department in the US conducts random patrols within their jurisdiction using vehicles. Apart from automobiles, random patrols are also conducted on foot, bicycles, and motorcycles. Foot patrols account for 53% of random patrols while bicycle patrols take 32%. 16% of random patrols in the US are conducted on motorcycles while boat patrols and horse patrols account for 4% and 1% of the random patrols respectively (Gaines and Miller, 2016). 

The effectiveness of random patrolling has come under increased scrutiny by police researchers ever since the 1970’s Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment. This study sought to investigate the impact of different types of random patrol on crime and public opinions. The findings revealed that increasing or decreasing random preventive patrol had no significant impact on crimes, public opinion, police response time as well as the general effectiveness of the police. Apart from being ineffective in preventing crime, the random patrol has also proved to be less effective in apprehending offenders. Rogers (2009) reports that random patrols restrict police officers to reactive patrol mode which in turn limits their contact with the public He compares assigning police officers random patrols to put a sailor on a boat that has no rudder, stating that random patrols have no direction as well as point of reference. In addition to that, the random patrol is said to discourage police officers from engaging in minor investigations as well as initiating positive conversations with members of the public. 

An ideal strategy that could be better than random patrol is targeted preventive measures in strategic areas where most crimes occur. One such approach is directed patrol. Unlike random patrols, directed patrols identify a target area of an urban center and aim at preventing a specific type of crime or range of crimes (Gaines and Miller, 2016). This approach is highly favored by law enforcement experts and researchers who think that the approach allows for more efficient utilization of police resources (Gaines and Miller, 2016). Evidence from some studies also shows that targeted patrol has great potential to positively impact public perceptions (Rodger, 2009). 

Hiring More Detectives 

Investigation of crimes by detectives has been one of the key approaches to crime control and prevention in the US starting from the 1950s. There has been a dramatic improvement in the technologies utilized by detectives starting from the early days, but the primary work and basic role of detectives have not undergone any significant change. Cordner (2016) reports that most police departments assign between 10 to 20 percent of their personnel to detective functions and that the said functions usually follow preliminary investigations that are conducted by patrol officers. As such, such investigations are usually referred to as follow-up or reactive investigations. Hoover (2013) states that starting from 1970 all the way to 2000, the status of detectives was on a steady decline within both the profession and public domains. One key factor that contributed to the decline was the rise of community policing in which the focus was turned on the role of patrol, with investigative units being rarely involved in the problem-oriented policing. Hoover (2013) opines that despite television programming glamorizing the role of detectives, the status of detectives within the professional ranks has still been on the decline. He points out that the trend has been and continues to be towards investigation as an assignment as opposed to being a rank. Normally, decentralized investigators have to report to a patrol commander, with one of the recent developments being the detectives drawing periodic patrol shifts with the aim of keeping them in touch with what goes on in the field. 

Hoover (2013) reports that measuring the productivity of detectives is quite difficult, with one of the most frequently recommended measures being clearance rates. However, this approach is limited by the fact that clearance rates vary by the standards utilized for clearance, type, and size of jurisdiction as well as the type of crime. Indeed, the number of studies that would help reveal how effective detectives are in crime control are limited. The main shortcoming of hiring detectives in crime control is that they tend to be reactive, often being assigned to make arrests after crimes have taken place. A better alternative to hiring detectives would be to deploy technologies such as public surveillance cameras. Apart from allowing for proactive responses, such technologies facilitate faster identification and apprehending of criminals (Kille and Maximino, 2014). 

Abolishing Plea Bargaining 

Travis and Edwards (2016) state that a huge number of convictions come about as a result of negotiated plea of guilty. They describe plea bargaining as the process in which a prosecutor negotiates with a defendant, with the defendant pleads guilty to some charges in exchange for some of the charges being dropped. This is usually done in a bid to lower a charge to a less serious crime. Kennedy (2012) reports that the main driver for plea bargaining is the notion of a locally applicable market rate for certain offenses, stating that such rates are usually in both definition and practice, below statutory maxima. Previous reports indicate that well-over 90% of convictions have come about as a result of plea bargaining (Travis and Edwards, 2016). However, there is some section of people who feel like plea bargaining should be abolished. Fine (1986) is one such researcher who calls for abolishing of plea bargaining as it results in demoralizing of the victims of crimes as well as the society and might even encourage people to commit more crimes. According to File (1986), plea bargaining also weakens the respect and deterrence for the law since it tends to extort guilty pleas. 

While abolishing of plea bargaining promises to ensure that people get charged for all the crimes they commit, each other defendant will have to go on full trial in order to be convicted. This, in turn, would result in a significant increase in the case volumes that the justice system has to handle (Draughn, 2014). The huge volume of cases would call for the establishment of more courts, hiring of more judges, court clerks, jury pools as well as prosecutors. This will result in more expenses and might prove quite costly to sustain the court system. The huge backlog of cases due to the need to fully prosecute the defendants will also result in delayed justice. Courts will most likely take a lot of time to arrive at decisions even for less complex cases (Draughn, 2014). The best alternative to abolishing plea bargaining is carried out some reforms. One possible reform is to eliminate plea bargaining for some forms of crimes such as those captured on tape to name but a few. 

DARE Program 

The DARE Program was launched in 1983 and is currently used in more than 80% of school districts in the US and over 50 other countries around the globe. Goldberg (2010) reports that the program started as a joint program between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles school Districts. The program normally involves police officers going to classrooms to enlighten elementary school children about personal safety and drug use. Students are normally asked to come up with critical essays about drug use after such sessions and asked to publicly pledge their opposition to the use of drugs. Those who support the program point out that youth are able to retain information learned and carry the said information into their later years. However, several studies into the effectiveness of the program have revealed that the program reduces drug use in the short term, but after 1 year after the program comes to an end, there is no difference in drug use (Goldberg, 2011). 

Fisher and Lab (2010) also report that unlike other educational programs aimed at crime prevention and control, DARE has been extensively studied. They report that findings from different students have led to a number of consistent conclusions, the most common one being that the curriculum has short-term beneficial effects on the learner’s k knowledge of drugs as well as their attitudes towards drugs. In addition to that, most of the studies have established that the program usually does not have any significant impact on drug use behavior and the potential for adverse effects is also high. An alternative to the DARE program would be social norms marketing techniques. This an approach to behavior change that incorporates lessons from disciplines about behavior. The main idea behind these techniques is that students’ perceptions about the attitudes and behaviors of their peers usually have a significant impact on their own behaviors and attitudes (Hanson, 2017). However, these perceptions often tend to be inaccurate. Social norms marketing has over the past few years proved to be effective in lowering the use as well as abuse of alcohol among young students (Hanson, 2017). 

Conclusion 

Crime control initiatives on supervising, monitoring as well as incapacitating individuals who have already engaged in a crime. Historically, crime control in the US has been relying on legislative measures together with several mechanisms of incapacitation, surveillance, and restraint. Some of the approaches used to control crime include 311 phone line, random patrol, hiring more detectives, abolishing plea bargaining and DARE program. Despite having their unique advantages, there are also several failures associated with each of the above approaches. For 311 phone line, its failures include increased costs and slowing services as a result of the ever increasing number of people seeking to use the service line. For random patrols, different studies have established that increasing or decreasing random preventive patrol had no significant impact on crimes, public opinion, police response time as well as the general effectiveness of the police. Apart from being ineffective in preventing crime, the random patrol has also proved to be less effective in apprehending offenders. Hiring more detectives, on the other hand, is limited by the fact that they tend to be reactive, often being assigned to make arrests after crimes have taken place. For the DARE programs, its main shortcoming is that it is only effective in the short term and does not result in any significant behavioral changes in the long run. 

References 

Brustein, J. (2005). 311’s Growing Pains . Retrieved from http://www.gothamgazette.com/open-government/2897-311s-growing-pains 

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Dempsey, J.S & Forst, S.L, (2015). An Introduction to Policing . New York: Cengage Learning 

Draughn, M. (2014). What if we eliminated Plea Bargaining? Retrieved from https://windypundit.com/2014/10/scott-greenfield-fails-think-like-economist/ 

Fine, R. A. (1986). Plea Bargaining: An Unnecessary Evil. Marq. L. Rev. , 70 , 615. 

Fisher, B. S & Lab, P.S (Ed.). (2010). Encyclopedia of victimology and crime prevention (Vol. 1). Sage. 

Gaines, L.K & Miller, R.L. (2011). Criminal Justice in Action: The Core . New York: Cengage Learning 

Goldberg, R. (2010). Drugs across the spectrum . Cengage Learning. 

Hanson, J.D. (2017). Drug Abuse Resistance Education: The Effectiveness of DARE . Retrieved from http://www.alcoholfacts.org/DARE.html 

Holzer, M. (2011). Public Administration: An Introduction . New York: M.E. Sharpe 

Hoover, L. (2013). Police Crime Control Strategies . New York; Cengage Learning, 

Kennedy, D. M. (2012). Deterrence and crime prevention: Reconsidering the prospect of sanction (Vol. 2). Routledge. 

Kille, L, and Maximino, M (2014). The effect of CCTV on public safety: Research roundup . Retrieved from https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/surveillance-cameras-and-crime 

Rogers, S.L (2009). Proven Strategies for Effective Community Oriented Policing . Looseleaf Law Publications 

Travis, L., & Edwards, B. (2016). Introduction to criminal justice . New York: Routledge 

Worrall, J. L. (2006). Crime control in America: An assessment of the evidence . Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.