One of the greatest crime waves in modern US history took place in the 1990s mainly propelled by the dealing of crack cocaine. Drug addiction and dealing are among the problems that law enforcement faces since it acts as a catalyst and propellant for other forms of crimes. When drug dealing is taking place in a privately owned apartment, the problem is exacerbated by two main issues. First, the laws of search and seizure are complicated when apartment buildings are concerned due to laws relating to the sanctity of private property, probable cause rules, and protection of privacy. Further, the presence of drug trade in a neighborhood provides a major incentive for other forms of crime such as violence, prostitution, and burglary (Staley, 2017). The difficulty to apprehend perpetrators and the propensity to encourage secondary crimes make drug dealing in private apartments a major policing problem.
By definition, SARA refers to scanning for the existence of a crime, analyzing the problem and its bearing factors, responding to the problem and finally evaluating the impact of the response to the problem (Hoover, 2014). Three main SARA approaches have been undertaken in resolving the referenced problem, each with a certain level of success. The first choice is enlisting the services of the landlord or the private authority that manages the property (Eck & Weisburd, 2015). The second approach is to target the landlord and by extension target the drug dealers or have the landlord get rid of drug dealing within the property. The final approach is to target the drug dealers themselves more so in situations where the privately owned properties are no longer in the active control of any landlord and have been rundown.
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When drug dealing happens in a properly managed residential apartment, the drugs are as much a problem to the owners of the property as they are to the community at large. The property owners are willing to collaborate with law enforcement in tackling the problem even as they provide valuable information relating to the same (Eck & Weisburd, 2015). However, in some instances, the property owners may be part of the problem or simply negligent. Finally, many of the cheaper caliber drugs such as crack cocaine are dealt in an old residential building whose owners have abandoned since they do not seem economically viable to repair (Staley, 2017). After the scanning and analysis stage, law enforcement can tell which of the three categories the properties fall under. The category determination will then inform the kind of response necessary to tackle the problem.
The high amount of information necessary for the SARA approach to fight crime can be aided greatly by CompStat. CompStat is a philosophy that embraces comparative statistics to identify spikes in crimes and establish how best to intervene and mitigate in them. CompStat uses the collection of vast amounts of data and data analysis as a means of law enforcement (Cronkhite, 2013). From the perspective of SARA, CompStat can be a useful tool to identify the kind of crimes that would reflect drug dealing in a neighborhood and establish if the dealing could be taking place in an apartment. Similarly, the data will reveal whether the landlord is a liability or asset to law enforcement in fighting the crime and also how to intervene in the situation (Hoover, 2014). Evaluation of the impact of the intervention can also be arrived at through CompStat. Based on the above, CompStat is an invaluable tool in modern crime-busting .
Drugs dealing in a private apartment carries with it several challenges for law enforcement that necessitates an innovative approach such as SARA with the use of CompStat. The combination of the two innovative processes will not only reveal the kind of crime taking place but also how to resolve it. The dealing of drugs is a precursor and forerunner for other criminal activities hence the need for proper intervention. SARA provides both the proper intervention and a means to actively evaluate if the approach taken is effective so that the intervention also applies as an extenuation .
References
Cronkhite, C. L. (2013). Law enforcement and justice administration: Strategies for the 21st century (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Eck, J. E., & Weisburd, D. L. (2015). Crime places in crime theory. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.362.1293&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Hoover, L. (2014). Police Crime Control Strategies London UK: Cengage Learning
Staley, S. (2017). Drug policy and the decline of the American city . New York City, NY: Routledge
