Problem Oriented Policing free essay sample

Science is one of the most marvelous advancements in today’s society due to the analysis and research that has been done to accompanied brilliant minds. Analysis is essential for advancement, whether we are referring to economical topics, medical, or social developments. Analysis and research is the cornerstone of every valuable development. Problem oriented policing fosters the principles of analysis, bisection of the problem and cures to its causes, all within the rams of human discretion. Problem oriented policing was developed by Professor Herman Goldstein, who taught at the University of Wisconsin, located in Madison. The first initiative to problem oriented policing was tested in Madison police headquarters in 1979(Eck 119). The development of problem oriented policing as the new way of policing led to the development of SARA, which was develop in Newport News, Virginia in 1987 by John E. Eck and William Spellman (Braga 134). Problem oriented policing stresses a hand full of proactive models of combating crime in our communities. But throughout the course of the years the one thing that police innovations have showed us is that every innovation comes with strengths and shortcomings. Nevertheless, problem-oriented policing has been an influential and trendy form of policing in our contemporary era. In the article Is Problem-oriented Policing Effective in Reducing crime and Disorder? DavidWeisburd and his colleagues mention the popularity it has had with our federal agencies â€Å"The U. S. federal agency, the Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS), adopted POP as a key strategy and funded the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing (popcenter. org) and developed more than 50 problem-specific guides for police† (pg. 141). The Problem-Oriented Policing center it was created to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to access information to prevent crime more easily. The POP center is non-profit, and developed by universities, police practitioners, and researchers. The website offers valuable information ranging from analysis tools, teaching aid, important research studies outcomes, and guidelines. Most of the problem oriented policing guidelines require the police officers concentration on high-call locations. It also requires the police to be connected with other government and private agencies, in order to tackle crime from the root of the problem, agencies must come together. The use of mediation and negotiation skills from the officers is also very important, since now they would be dealing differently than they are used to dealing with crime. A more discriminate use of powers and procedures from the officers, as well as using civil law to control public nuisances, offensive behavior and conditions contributing to crime. Problem oriented policing has a more hands on approach about the community problems, the officer would have to use his/her common sense to deal with everyday job situations. Problem oriented police argues that enforcing laws without scanning and analyzing the problem will not help the community prevent that specific problem. In other words, in a debate of policy versus common sense, the common sense should win. John E. Eck in his article Science, Values, and Problem-oriented Policing: Why Problem-oriented Policing? beautifully describes problem-oriented policing’s main approach â€Å"It shifts policing to a scientific approach to preventing crime and away from the routine application of the law† (117). Creativeness is one of its main components, officers using the problem-oriented policing model should not treat every situation as a routine procedure. Officers should ask questions in order to properly address the community problems. This gives the officers discretion for every case, but not with first analyzing the problem. As John Eck mentions â€Å"If police focused more on what they were supposed to accomplish -addressing problems officers could be provided with meaningful guidance in how to use their discretion, this reducing the chances of inappropriate actions† (120). The main idea is to enhance the police experience by moving away from incident-driven policing and identifying the problems that lead citizens to call for assistance. Ultimately leading to the intervention in the mechanisms that cause the problems So how can the police officers, our police officers, acquire such expertise? Through SARA, these are the clean straightforward guidelines to the problem oriented approach. SARA stands for scanning which would be the process of accumulating knowledge to identify patterns and, then the core of the problem. Analysis, which is the process of further investigating the nature of the problem and its causes; part of the analysis may also have the victim or target in mind, such as victimization in the past. Analysis can also have the location in mind, is this location a hot spot? meaning is this location high on crime offenses. Or most importantly analysis can also analyze the offender, is this a repeat offender? and why is he committing this crime. Analyzing can go as swiftly as just asking more questions than an officer would usually do. Response, a very important element in problem oriented policing, this is where the implementation of a planned strategy takes place in order to deal with the problem. Sometimes this responses involve the community and other private businesses within public meetings to address a community problem. And finally an assessment, and evaluation of the impact of the responses that were implemented, this allows to understand what worked and what did not, and what else could be learned. SARA has been useful in its simplicity to describe the basic elements of problem oriented policing. First, it challenges the officers to scan the problem, crime, and situation. In this scanning process the officers are encouraged to use their informal knowledge to help with the cause, by informal knowledge, meaning information they might acquire through community ties, or information about a specific subject they might know or be specialized about. By scanning, the police can identify the problem that is affecting the community. Some of the ways they can scan for problems as well as response to them is through community meetings, asking the community for their input. But unlike community policing, the community is not necessarily needed for SARA to occur. That is the versatility of problem oriented policing, it is not necessary to have a great relationship with the community to deter crime. Which is incredibly important in urban areas, where the sense of community is quite limited, and crime is high and difficult to stop. They can also identify a recurring problem by the number of 911 calls coming into the police department about a certain issue. This can give them an insight into the lifes of the residents of that community, what are the problems that they are facing, who are the victims, who are the perpetrators and other specific details that can help in the process of analysis. The officers then analyze the identified problem; this is where most of the police officers fall short. Anthony A. Braga and David Weisburd understand and mention this limitation in their article Problem-oriented Policing: The Disconnect Between Principles and Practice â€Å"While problem oriented policing has blossomed in both concept and practice problem analysis has been the slowest part of the process develop† (134). The analysis step in problem oriented policing is designed to determine questions as complex as; why is this specific place or individual being targeted? Also, why is this perpetrator committing this type of offense? We need to remember that problem oriented policing has to be extremely specific when analyzing a problem. Paying attention to small details is necessary for a problem-oriented police officer. The analysis process is crucial to reveal targets for police intervention. However, the police might not be fully equipped to handle the analysis procedure that is needed for that specific problem. After all, human activities are complex and require of plenty analytical approaches. And police officers were not trained with this research expertise. Most importantly, most police officers are quite content and Some officers simplify their analysis process, failing to ask more questions and be creative; others might just skip the analysis process completely. However, John E. Eck argues that even if SARA is not implemented in the most adequate way by the officers â€Å"findings from numerous studies show that even a little analysis makes detectable improvements in police effectiveness† (Eck 124). In other words, every little bit counts, problem oriented policing is not doing any harm by asking their police officers to stop and think before they auto-pilot in their procedures. The response is then closely related to its previous analysis; the response in problem oriented policing should not be a periodic response. The response in a problem oriented situation should be done in the discretion of a police officer with an unrestricted ideology. A spontaneous approach is necessary to develop a solution for the cause of the problem, not just the problem. However, some police officers might be frustrated with a certain problem, this pushes them to react with less innovative responses and utilize monotonous procedures to end the problem, but not the cause. Anthony Braga mentions this shortcoming â€Å"The response for many problems usually relies heavily upon traditional police tactics† (140). Assessment is the last step of SARA, this means stepping out of the problem-oriented box, and examining the impact that the police intervention has done to the root of the problem. This is obviously necessary to ensure that the police goals have been achieved. Also, it ensures that the resources handed to the police by their citizens and government agencies have been used effectively. Michael S. Scott in his article Getting the Police to Take Problem- Oriented Policing Seriously made an interesting comparison, which can also serve as a simple description of Problem Oriented Policing â€Å"The use of the term ‘problem’ in the context of policing would be understood in much the same way the term ‘disease’ is understood among health professionalsâ€Å"(51). Problem Oriented policing is as simple as using a little of common sense but as complex as a disease. Whether problem- oriented policing works or not depends on how the police officers and units are performing the task. It is true that the rhetoric steps is far different from reality, but as mention earlier â€Å"POP is one of the most important and widely implemented police innovations of the last two decades. The small group of studies in our review allows us to come to a solid conclusion regarding the promise of POP, but it does not allow statistical conclusions regarding the types of approaches that work best for specific types of problems† (Weisburd, David et al. 164). That is because there is no way to implement a simple test to describe problem oriented policing benefits or shortcomings. The effectiveness of problem oriented policing cannot be taken into an evaluation, due to the fact that is so complex. It is hard to examine a program that has such broad objectives. Improvements are still to be made, a more realistic approach to problem-oriented policing can be implemented, perhaps a simpler form of the SARA steps. But until then, problem-oriented policing has a good structure for that proactive utopian way of policing every community wants.