United States has the highest rate of confinement of prisoners per 100,000 population than any other Western country. Analyze this phenomena and discuss actions that you feel are necessary to combat this problem.

The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate of any nation worldwide. For example, greater than 60% of nations have incarceration rates below 150 per 100,000 people (Walmsley, 2003). The United States makes up just about five percent of the world’s population and yet it houses 25% of the world’s prison population (Walmsley, 2009). In 2008 there were more than 2.3 million people held in United States prisons and jails, a rate of approximately 754 inmates per 100,000 people (Sabol, West, & Cooper, 2009). So if we only count adults in the population that translates into a one in 100 American adults is locked up. Russia is the only other major industrialized nation that comes close with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. Other countries have much lower incarceration rates. For instance England’s rate is 151/100,000; Germany’s rate is 88/100, 000; and Japan’s rate is 63/100,000 people. The median rate of incarceration among all nations is about 125/100, 000 people which is about a sixth of the American incarceration rate (Sabol, West, & Cooper, 2009).

However, this was not always the case. Before the 1970s, the United States had an incarceration rate that had been in the range of 100 inmates per 100,000 people for decades. Thus, the current incarceration rate represents a significant increase in the use of imprisonment in the United States starting in the decade of the 1970s.

Even though incarceration rate in the United States is the highest in the world there has been a decline in the rate over the last several years. For instance, from the years between 2000 to 2008 (even though the all-time high incarceration rate was in 2008) the growth of the prison population in the United States was less than a third of the rate during the 1990s (1.8% compared to 6.5% per year; Sabol, West, & Cooper, 2009). There are probably several reasons for the recent decrease the rate of incarcerations including a decline in both violent and property crime rates and the economic state of the nation. Also when states face a financial crisis they can cut costs by reducing the number of people incarcerated and opt on early release programs. Nonetheless, the high number of incarcerations in the United States remains a serious issue.

There are several social, political, economic, and cultural factors particular to the United States that have been used to explain the high rates of incarceration. Some of these factors, such as relatively lower financial spending devoted to social welfare programs than other countries may play a factor in the higher rates of incarceration; however, it appears that the most explanatory feature of the incarceration rates is the considerably greater reliance on incarceration’s use as a sanction in the United States relative to other countries.

For example, the crime rate in a country is a factor that is most commonly believed to be related to numbers of incarcerations, and this makes sense on the surface. Many suggest that the incarceration rate in the United States is high because it has higher crime rates relative to other countries. However, crime statistic comparisons between different countries are difficult to conduct because the definition of crimes that are worthy of incarceration can vary between countries. Overall the total crime rate of the United States is similar to that of other highly developed countries with the exception being homicide rates which are substantially higher. Violent crime rates in the United States are high relative to other nations but they do not appear to be exceptionally high. Robberies in countries like England and Australia are reported to be higher in some surveys than corresponding rates in the United States (Gideon, 2011). The United States has relatively less nonviolent crime than countries like Canada and England. It does not follow then, that homicide rates alone are responsible for the exceptionally high incarceration rates in the United States because homicide is a relatively rare crime and Finland also has a relatively high homicide rate compared to other countries but also has a low incarceration rate compared to other nations (Guetzkow & Western, 2007).

Related to the above, victimization data is another method that can be used to assess whether the United States has more crime than other countries. The International Crime Victimization Survey (Van Dijk, van Kesteren, & Smit, 2008) indicates that overall crime is more common in England, Wales, and the Netherlands than it is in the United States. Moreover, victimization rates in the United States are very similar to those in Canada; however, the incarceration rate in the United States is five to six times greater than it is in Canada. Therefore based on official crime rats and victimization data it does not appear that the United States is greatly different from other nations with significantly smaller rates of incarceration. It does not appear that the overall crime rate in the United States can satisfactorily explain the high incarceration rate.

It was mentioned earlier that perhaps the United States does not spend or engages in less spending on social welfare programs and this leads to greater income inequality in the United States. Perhaps these factors might contribute to higher incarceration rates in the United States. According to data reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2008) two nations that spend generously on social welfare programs and have fair levels of overall income equality, Germany and Finland, also have the low incarceration rates. It would likewise be reasonable to believe that higher levels of unemployment would contribute to higher incarceration rates; however the data indicate that Finland and Germany had significantly higher unemployment rates, whereas the United States had relatively low rates of unemployment among democracies. Moreover, looking at areas like the amount of money spent on public education (where the United States is higher than other nations) and the differences in spending on social programs it becomes clear that the United States does not differ so significantly from most other nations to justify the large discrepancy in incarceration rates.

Many have reported that race is an important factor in the American incarceration prison rate. For example, African-Americans are much more likely to be imprisoned than other ethnic groups in the United States, but this does not represent a distinctive phenomenon of United States prison demographics. It is also known that minorities in Canada, Britain and Australia are disproportionately represented in prisons and the ratios are similar to or larger than those in the United States (Western, 2007).

Blumstein and Beck (1999) recognizing the substantial increase in the incarceration rate in the United States found that the vast majority of the incarceration rate increase in the United States was attributed to changes in sentencing and correctional policies (88%) rather than an increase in crime, economic conditions, or other reasons. While the incarceration rate in the United States experienced significant growth from 1987 to 2007 (a 114% increase in incarceration rates) other countries such as England (61%) and Australia (73%) also increased incarceration rates during this period at a slower pace. In contrast, some nations demonstrated stable levels of incarceration (e.g., Germany only a three percent increase), whereas others saw their incarceration rates decline (e.g., Finland’s rate decreased by 19% during the same period; International

Center for Prison Studies, 2008). The difference in incarceration rates is attributable to policy differences between the United States and other countries over this period.

The United States has a significantly higher incarceration rate than other countries because of its reliance on incarceration as a sanction compared to other alternatives. According to the United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems this reliance on incarceration is a the contributing factor to the discrepancy between the United States and other nations (Aromaa & Heiskanen, 2008). The data indicates that imprisonment is the most commonly used sanction in the United States over the years 1995-2004, whereas most other countries, particularly other Western democracies, primarily use fines as a form of punishment.

A general principle of the penal policies in many of these other nations is that imprisonment should be avoided as far as possible, used only as a last resort, and sentence lengths should be as short as possible. Since the 1970s greater than half of all sentences in countries like Finland and Germany consisted of fines as an opposed to imprisonment (Walmasley, 2003). In Scotland 60% of convicted defendants received a fine, while 13% received a custodial sentence (Scottish Executive, 2007). According to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (2008) English courts do not appear to rely as heavily on fines as do other countries. For instance, in England in 2006 only 17% of those convicted of a crime received fines; however, the percentage of those convicted receiving a prison term was relatively low (24%). However, 78% of sentences imposed by United States federal courts in 2005 involved incarceration, whereas 3% of sentences involved only fines and in 2004 70% of convicted felons in state courts were sentenced to incarceration. Essentially, in the United States people are more likely to be sentenced to prison for federal and drug offenses than other countries and these sentences are lengthier in duration. A person sentenced in the United States for burglary will serve about 16 months in prison, whereas in Canada they will serve about 5 months and in England about 7 months. In England only 12% of prisoners, compared to 41% in the United States have been sentenced to 10 years or more. Six percent of prisoners in England convicted of drug offenses serve prison sentences of 10 years or greater compared to 27% of those in the United States (Graziadei & Lynch, 1994).

So people who commit nonviolent crimes in other parts of the world are less likely to receive prison time for their transgressions and certainly are less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks. As mentioned above the efforts in the 1980s to combat illegal drugs could play a major role in explaining long prison sentences in the United States as well. For instance in 1980 there were nearly 40,000 people incarcerated in America for drug crimes. In 2008 there were nearly 500,000. If incarceration rates were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States; however, American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher (Aromaa & Heiskanen, 2008).

Thus, the reason why the United States has a higher incarceration rate than other countries does not lie in a significantly overall higher crime rate or a society that fosters inequality on disadvantaged individuals, but instead on judicial policies of handing out jail sentences for crimes not punished by incarceration in other countries and handing out longer terms of incarceration than other countries. On average, seven out of ten defendants convicted in United States courts between 1995 and 2000 received some form of incarceration as part of their sentence, whereas for other countries the corresponding rate was less than one in ten.

Other countries facing similar issues have managed to significantly reduce their rates of incarceration. Lappi-Seppala (2001) discussed the case of Finland, which in the 1950s boasted an incarceration rate of about 200 prisoners per 100,000 people. While this incarceration rate is significantly smaller than the current rate in the United States, in the 1950s it was nearly twice that of the United States and was three to four times larger than surrounding Nordic countries. There were three possible factors that explained Finland’s high incarceration rates: (1) a cultural climate in which the severity of a crime was not judged similarly relative to other Nordic countries, (2) a more rigid penal system with higher minimum penalties, and (3) severe sentences for relatively common crimes such as driving under the influence of alcohol. These factors are very similar to the current zeitgeist of the United States.

Lappi-Seppala (2001) believes that changes in all these three aspects of the Finnish court system and culture were responsible for decrease in incarceration rates; however, the most crucial factor that served as a vehicle for change was the shift in the ideological perspective of policy makers. There was an outspoken political criticism targeted at coercive treatment and the restriction of liberty which eventually assisted in redefining criminal justice policy. The traditional aims of the criminal justice policy were replaced by the goals of minimizing the costs, the adverse effects of crime, and crime control as well as the fair distribution of these costs among the offender, society, and the victim. This new attitude led to reforms in the criminal justice system. Some of the reforms Finland instituted included reduced penalties for traditional property crimes, the expanded use of noncustodial alternatives for offenders, and the development of new sentencing guidelines designed to reduce the number of incarcerations. Previously there were high minimum penalties and strict sentencing guidelines for many forms of theft that incarcerated a large number of offenders in Finnish prisons (Lappi-Seppala, 2001). The new attitude resulted in considerable legislative changes being made regarding the sentencing of those convicted of theft and of drunken driving offenses between 1970 and 1991. A legislative reform enacted in 1972 redefined serious forms of theft introducing a new guidelines for penalties that resulted in a substantial decrease in the percentage of convicted offenders of larceny and other forms of theft as well as a decrease in sentence lengths of those who were convicted of these offenses. Reforms to drunk driving offenses focused on using noncustodial alternatives instead of unconditional sentences of imprisonment resulting in a substantial decrease in those incarcerated for drunk driving (70% in 1971 to 12% in 1981).

Another important change in the Finnish sentencing practices was the introduction of community service for convicted offenders as an alternative to imprisonment. Community service as an alternative sentence for offenders of certain nonviolent crimes was used in lieu of short terms of imprisonment (Lappi-Seppala, 2004). First the court would determine a sentence for a convicted offender using the traditional sentencing criteria. In the case of an offender being sentenced to imprisonment the court was given the leeway to decide whether to commute the prison sentence to community service. In order for that to happen there typically three conditions that had to be met. The first criteria was that convicted offended would consent to perform community service in lieu of imprisonment. Second, the court would have to reach a decision that the offender was actually able to carry out the requirements of community service. Finally, a review of the offender’s history must indicate that there is nothing in the prior criminal history of the person that would disqualify the use of community service in lieu of incarceration. There were several “test” years before community service orders started being used nationwide in 1994. Community service orders have largely accomplished their intended goal of reducing incarceration rates in Finnish prisons and since 1994, approximately 30% of convicted offenders sentenced to a prison term received a community service order instead. Finnish incarceration rates dramatically declined despite relatively stable crime rates using these criteria (Lappi-Seppala, 2004).

The example of how Finland was able to lower its annual incarceration rate by instituting relatively simple policy changes is applicable to the United States. Both the current criminal justice United States and the system in Finland in the 1950s share certain basic features and the United States could use the Finnish example as a model of how to reduce its prison population. Implementing similar changes in the United States would require additional decreased penalties for minor drug offenses and nonviolent crimes. The implementation of substance-abuse rehabilitation along with lengthy community service options and probation terms for drug offenders and those convicted of minor theft and other nonviolent crimes would assist in decreasing annual incarceration rates in the long run. The United States could also decriminalize many petty offenses and instead treat them as administrative or civil infractions punishable by fines only, decriminalize petty drug offenses in a like manner, and discourage jail sentences of less than six months duration. In addition to reducing the burden of incarceration, community service options could fill a much-needed niche in society and be a part of the rehabilitative process for these offenders by giving the purpose, structure, opening up contacts for them, and in some cases teaching them useful skills. The restructuring of sentencing guidelines to narrow ranges of incarceration could also make for a more equitable distribution of justice to convicted offenders.

References

Aromaa, K., & Heiskanen, M. (2008). European institute for crime prevention and control. In crime and criminal justice systems in Europe and North America,

1995 — 2004. Retrieved June, 16, 2011, from http://www.heuni.fi/43087.htm.

Blumstein, A., & Beck, A.J. (1999). Population growth in United States prisons, 1980

1996.

Crime and Justice, 26, 17 — 61.

Gideon, L. (2011). Corrections in an era of reentry. In L. Gideon & H. Sung (Eds.)

Rethinking corrections: Rehabilitation, reentry, and reintegration, (1-19).

Thousand Oaks: Sage

Publishers.

Graziadei, H. & Lynch, J. (2004). United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. In Profile of inmates in the United States

and in England and Wales, 1991. Retrieved June, 16, 2011, from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cjusew96.pdf.

Guetzkow, J, & Western, B. (2007). The political consequences of mass imprisonment.

In J. Hacker, S. Mettler, and J. Soss (Eds.) Remaking America: Democracy and public policy in an age of inequality, (228-242). New York: Russell Sage

Foundation.

International Center for Prison Studies. (2008). In World Prison Brief. Retrieved June,

17, 2011, from http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/law/research/icps.

Lappi-Seppala, T. (2001). Sentencing and punishment in Finland: The decline of the repressive ideal. In M. Tonry & R.S. Frase (Eds.), Sentencing and sanctions in western countries (pp. 92 — 150). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lappi-Seppala, T. (2004). Penal policy and prison rates: Long-term experiences from Finland. Helsinki: National Research Institute of Legal Policy.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2008). OECD. Statistics

from A to Z. Retrieved June, 17, 2011, from http://www.oecd.org/document/0,3746,en_2649_201185_46462759_1_1_1_1,00.

html.

Sabol, W.J., West, H.C., & Cooper, M. (2009). Prisoners in 2008 (NCJ 228417).

Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Van Dijk, J.J.M., van Kesteren, J.N. & Smit, P. (2008). Criminal victimization in international perspective, key findings from the 2004-2005 ICVS and EU ICS.

The Hague: Boom Legal Publishers.

Walmsley, R. (2003). Findings 188: World Prison Population List, 4th edition. In UK

Home Office. Retrieved June, 20, 2011, from http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188v.pdf.

Walmsley, R. (2009). World prison population list (8th Ed.). London: International

Centre for Prison Studies.

Western, Bruce. 2007. The prison boom and the decline of American citizenship. Society 44, 30 — 37.

Question 2: You are a lieutenant in a medium size police department. The chief has decided to reorganize the department moving from a traditional semi-military structure to one that emphasizes team policing. The chief has directed that you act as change agent for the structural change and request that you provide her with a discussion of the issues involved in making the change including a needs assessment, overcoming resistance to change, selling the change to the officers in the department, and managing the change.

Given the current status of the department there are several overarching goals that we want to concentrate on in reform. These goals should involve the community, the community’s attitude towards the department, the community’s attitude towards crime, the current members of the department including all officers, and the continued reduction in crime. Given that the immediate goals are:

1. To increase the public’s confidence in the ability of the department.

2. To gather community resources and the department together to solve problems.

3. Decrease the overall fear of crime.

4. Hear and act on citizen concerns.

5. Impact specific problems related to crime problems.

6. Reduce redundant calls for service.

7. Educate the community about the department.

8. Partner with the community to solve problems (Rochefort, Rosenberg, & White, 1998).

The current needs assessment will outline the status of the department, gaps in its functioning relative to its ability to serve the community and propose a team/community policy as a solution.

The current status of the departmental structure indicates a traditional approach to operations and servicing the community. The current structure of the department is similar to what O’Connor (2004) defined as a “tall, hierarchical, quasi-military bureaucracy.” A “tall” organization is one with many ranks between the top and the bottom and operates based on a defined chain of command. A “hierarchical” organization indicates that the greatest amount of the power in the organization resides with a few individuals. “Quasi-military” implies that military-style characteristics are being applied, albeit not fully (Dantzker, 1999). Bureaucracies operate on procedures that are designed for efficiency, but minimize personal interaction and discourage individual decision-making and idea generation (Bennis, 1966). Current paramilitary/bureaucratic characteristics of the department include:

1. A central command structure that relays orders to lower levels.

2. A defined hierarchy and marked differences among ranks.

3. The use of language and terminology similar to the military. This includes the use of commands and orders.

4. Impersonal relationships between people, especially with those not in the organization itself such as members of the community.

5. Strong enforcement of rules regulations and discipline which transfers over into relationships outside the organization.

6. The implementation of a system of procedures for work-related situations to the discouragement of individual creativity.

7. By their nature these types of organizations foster a resistance of the system to challenges to its authority, structure, and to change.

The current organization is a result of past notions of law enforcement that have assumed that crime control is the sole responsibility of police. Historically, this attitude was emphasized during the so-called “professional period” of the policing movement in America which developed out of a reaction to police corruption. However, with this police “professionalism” also came a distancing of police from the communities that it served. This distancing led to a loss of valuable intelligence from the community as well as a distancing of the personal contacts that lead to trust and positive relationship between the community and its law enforcement agency (Wilson & McLaren, 1977).

These current policies create a chasm between the police and the community. The current paramilitary organization creates a type of “us” (police officers) versus them (community members) and leaves the department isolated from the public that they serve relying on personal as opposed to communal authority. Thus the department has lacked the communal attachments necessary for effective citizen-police interaction. The police are viewed as impersonal, reactive instead of proactive, and ineffective in controlling crime. There is a gap between what the police department’s function should be and how it current functions. Moreover, this “us vs. them” attitude sometimes is apparent within the department itself between different ranking officers and officials.

The current assessment of the department indicates that there are several areas of concern that need to be addressed:

1. Make the department more effective in dealing with neighborhood crime and disorder.

2. Deal with longstanding criticisms from the community of the police being ineffective, inefficient, and insensitive.

3. Institute changes that make the department more civilly and legally accountable to the community.

4. Foster community involvement in crime control and prevention.

The disparity between the department’s ability to communicate and work in conjunction with the community can be resolved by a structure that emphasizes a community policing. Only by partnering with the community can the department repair the lines of communication with the community, develop trust, and develop rapport with the citizens of the community.

According to Friedmann (1992) there are three general areas of concentration when converting to a community or team policing paradigm. The current needs assessment will follow these suggestions. The three components of change are: (1) changes within the police department (2) cooperation from outside agencies and (3) the considering the needs and resources of the community.

1) Changes within the police department

If the goal of the department is to develop better bond with the community it serves it will need to develop into an open system as opposed to the closed paramilitary system it currently is. The policing will be adopted force-wide and not relegated to special units.

This will require:

(A) A decentralizing of the department to allow better deployment in the community and more effective use of officers and response to citizens.

(B) A flat rank structure that will allow officers perform their duties without aspiring for command positions. This will be met with some resistance by the traditionalists in the department.

(C) Civilians will be placed in supporting and liaison positions to bring closer ties with the community and to give officers more time to perform police duties.

This will allow for more communication between the community and the department and foster a sense of cooperation between the community and the department.

(D) Internal communications will be exchanged at all levels including lower levels. This will break the paramilitary chain of command and also improve information flow. Such a move will allow citizens and officers in the field to communicate more effectively and will foster a sense that the community can make a difference.

(E) Supervision should improve interaction between all levels of communication between supervisor-community-officers. There are three lines of communication and that means that there are six different possible scenarios: Community-supervisor-officer; community-officer-supervisor; officer-supervisor-community; officer-community-supervisor; supervisor-officer-community; and supervisor-community-officer. All levels of communication will be utilized in this plan.

(F) Officers will have more discretion in their ability to make decisions which will encourage greater flexibility in both law enforcement and non-law-

enforcement circumstances.

(G) Deployment of officers will include preventive, community-oriented, and the traditional reactive deployment. It is imperative that police are involved in long-

term preventive activities as well as law enforcement activities.

(H) Recruitment policies should emphasize greater educational levels and recruit more person-oriented, service-centered, arbitration-oriented officers.

(I) Training will focus on interpersonal skills and become more oriented towards the community. The performance evaluations of officers should emphasize activities that are community-

oriented.

2. Outside agency cooperation

Cooperation with other agencies should not be limited to department heads but should be encouraged at all levels. All agencies (social services, probation departments, prosecutors, etc.) including the police should be aware of the needs of the community and how they work in concert to meet those needs. All agencies should have information about the availability of resources and create a climate that rewards cooperation between them and minimizes any friction. It would be possible to develop a board-of-directors type group of agency heads to coordinate functions and improve better delivery of services. Such an agency would be hands on as well as administrative. The creation of such a board could save time in decision making, but again cooperation should not be limited to the board alone.

(3) The community

The community should be allowed substantial input to increase community knowledge. Communities can assist in the mapping of crime, profiling of community populations, networks, problems, needs and available resources. Greater reliance on communal institutions such as families, schools, church, and civic associations will make participation in crime less acceptable. Proactive planning by community leaders and a climate supportive of far reaching coordination of community oriented activities will foster cooperation between the community and the police department.

As the project develops the formation of teams of police officers to patrol particular areas of the community will be implemented. These teams will become acquainted with their areas and be primarily responsible for them. Team composition will be determined as the project develops but will consist of a supervisor (this position could be a rotating one) and several officers, depending on the size and demographics of the area. Of course several groups will be developed for each area. Patrols will be a combination of foot, bicycle, and motorized. Patrols will work closely with the community and other agencies in crime control, prevention, and enforcement.

Of course there will be resistance to such a drastic change in departmental policy. Resistance to change is a major issue in life (Watson, 1971). Google the term “resistance to change” and you will get over 15 million entries. There really is no reason to believe that police departments are any more resistant to change than are any other organizations that have become accustomed to doing things in a strict manner for years. Resistance to change is a major stumbling block for corporations, small businesses, school systems, the military, government, and in all facets of our individual lives. The best way to deal with change is to expect resistance, have a formalized plan, familiarize those involved, and ease in (Lawrence, 1969).

In one of the earliest discussions of organization change Coch and French (1948) defined the major issues for resistance to change in organizations. These included: the individual personal predisposition to change; fear of the unknown; a climate of mistrust; fear of failure regarding change; loss of professional status and/or job security; peer pressure; disruption of the cultural traditions in the organization and/or group relationships; personality conflicts; lack of tact by the administration and/or poor timing; workers not fully seeing the benefits of the proposed changes. All of these will need to be considered as the department changes its tradition.

It is very important to consider the attitudes and feelings of others during the transition period. There will be reactance and feelings will be hurt no matter how we try and sugar coat things. One issue we need to address is the perception that officers will have they are going to be told that what they have done for many years was wrong. We first need to emphasize that this is not the case. Rather than to admonish and abandon tradition, the new group/community policing program seeks to expand the reach of time-honored law enforcement methods. This is not a replacement but instead is an enhancement of the system that is currently in place. Law enforcement officers will always have the responsibility to protect life, property, and will remain responsible for immediate resolution in crisis situations.

We need to consider the magnitude of the changes we are implementing. This change that the department seeks requires us to change the entire organizational culture, leadership and management structure, labor relations, planning processes, how we evaluate the performance of our staff, our transparency of operations, the geographic assignment of officers, the alignment of our fiscal resources, our recruitment and hiring practices, training, and information gathering systems. The objective of these changes is to create an organizational infrastructure that can best support proactive operations intended to prevent crime. But it is a huge and stressful undertaking We will need to promote an awareness of the need to change, a desire to participate and support the change, the knowledge of how to change, the ability to implement the change on a day-to-day basis, and use reinforcement to keep the change in place.

Any change or new enhancement is difficult to put into practice, especially given the cultural resistance that exists in law enforcement. We should be prepared for resistance and we will make mistakes along the way. The foundation for the current change will include all employees no one will be singled out. These are the steps we will take to confront the resistance that we are bound to experience.

1. Everyone will be involved. It is extremely important not to send the message that the new community policing project is something that applies to a select few.

This includes the involvement of community, citizens, and other departmental employees as well.

2. Emphasize the enhancement aspect of change. We need to reinforce the notion that change does not mean that previous policing efforts were useless or wasteful.

All the traditional police skills will still be needed; officers are now learning new skills to enhance what they already know.

3. We must remember to be patient. Things will not happen overnight and we do not mandate immediate change or acceptance. It has taken years for law enforcement agencies to get the way they are currently, and it will take many years to change what is already in place.

4. We need to be consistent. During times of change people look for inconsistencies and use them as justification for resistance.

5. Once we implement changes we should not try to change everything at once.

We will start at the top levels and work down. Officers cannot be expected to change if their superiors have not changed.

6. Expect and address resistance. It is normal that the new enhancements will bring resistance. We will prepare for it and address it from the start.

References

Beito, L.R. (1999) Leadership effectiveness in community policing, Bristol: Wyndham

Hall Press.

Bennis, W. (1966). Beyond bureaucracy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Coch, L. & French, J.R. (1948). Overcoming resistance to change. Human Relations,

1, 512-532.

Dantzker, M. (1999). Police organization and management. Boston: Butterworth

Heinemann.

Friedmann, R.R. (1992). Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects.

New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Lawrence, P.R. (1969). How to deal with resistance to change. Harvard Business

Review, 47(1), 4-6.

O’Connor, J. (1974). The fiscal crisis of the state. New York: Macmillan.

Rochefort, D.A., Rosenberg, M., & White, D. (1998). Community as a policy instrument: A comparative analysis. Policy Studies Journal,

26(3), 548-568.

Watson, G. (1971). Resistance to change. American Behavioral Scientist, 14(5), 745-

Wilson, O.W. & McLaren, R. (1977). Police administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Question 3: As chief of a medium size city in the United States, you are aware that the citizens in your community have a lower than expected opinion of the effectiveness of the police department. Design a research proposal that will provide for a randomized public survey in an attempt to understand the nature and extent of the negative public opinion. Include in your plan a sample survey instrument that would be used in the research. Include in your plan, proposed hypotheses and how these hypotheses will be tested.

Statement of the Problem

There have been several recent letters to the local papers complaining that the police are not doing an adequate job of controlling crime in the city. Several recent editorials in the same papers have criticized the police department for its handling of several routine issues as well and this has fuelled more letters to the papers. This has resulted in some minor controversy regarding the department. It is recognized that poor police community relations leads to tension between both the officers and the community that can result in decreased job performance by officers, poor cooperation from citizens, and an overall increase in crime (Radelet & Carter, 1994). Therefore the following research will attempt to uncover the nature and extent of the public opinion of the department’s effectiveness and attempt to discern the public’s perception of how to resolve this dilemma.

Brief Review of the Literature

When there are good police — community relations, the police have a better understanding of the public’s concerns, citizens are more disposed to report crimes, provide tips or intelligence to law enforcement officers, are more inclined to serve as witnesses, and are more willing to participate as jury members (Radelet & Carter, 1994). As a result police also become more proactive, thus preventing crimes before they occur as opposed to simply reacting to calls for service.

When there are poor police — community relations, the police typically will demonstrate a lack of understanding community problems, goals, and desires. The community, especially citizens who are experiencing high rates of crime, poverty, or homelessness, will perceive the police as an out-of-touch force that does more harm than good. When this occurs, police departments primarily assume a reactive mode of response to problems (Mawby, 1965).

However, Miller et al. (2004) following an investigation of attitudes towards the police in New York City found that citizens’ opinions of the police are generally positive and stable over time in the absence of major shifts in police policy or media scandals. This is also true of levels of consumer satisfaction among those having voluntary encounters with the police. This stability exists even in the face of some notable variation in news coverage of the police. There have been no major scandals or policy shifts in the department recently.

Miller et al. also found that people reporting negative experiences of contact with the police will have lower levels of confidence in the police, but those whose family and friends have had similar negative contacts also have less confidence. The opposite was not found to hold: positive experiences with the police are not associated with substantially higher levels of confidence in the police, either among the individuals experiencing contacts or among their friends and family. Miller et al.’s findings offer important two implications:

First, the management of media coverage might not have a profound impact on public opinion toward the police department, except in the presence of major scandals. Focusing on improving the quality of everyday police-public interactions may be more effective, at least in the absence of major scandals.

Secondly, working to reduce the number of negative encounters police have with civilians may be important for improving public relations and maintaining positive opinion of the police (Peak, 1992). Miller et al. reports that using early warning systems that identify officers who develop patterns of unprofessional behavior would be one way to achieve this goal. Depending on the outcome of the data analysis this is a viable option.

Previous survey research has also demonstrated that most people are satisfied with the way the police perform their duties. However, not all groups hold equally positive opinions (Radelet & Carter, 1994). Previous studies consistently found that African-Americans tend to evaluate the police more negatively than Caucasians; younger people evaluate the police more negatively than older Americans; and males evaluate the police more negatively than females (see Reisig & Parks, 2002 for a review).

Current Research Goals

Rather than dismiss the current reports the department has designed this study to attempt to ascertain the extent of recent negative public opinion publicized in the local media. There are several working hypothesis based on this literature review and the current understanding of the problem that can be tested. In addition, other information concerning the public’s perception of the functions of the police can be ascertained. Current general hypothesis for the study are as follows:

1. Is the overall public opinion of the positive?

2. How does public opinion of the police department vary by demographic factors such as ethnic background, age, and gender?

3. Do individuals who have encountered negative experiences with the police have a significantly lower opinion of the police than people who have had positive experiences or no experiences at all? Do these same individuals differ significantly in their attitude from the overall opinion? How do these opinions differ by the time span since the negative encounter?

4. How does the public view cooperation between the police and themselves?

5. Does the public view crime control as solely under the purview of the police or do they see themselves as responsible as well?

A number of other hypothesis can be examined from the data regarding demographic influences on the above variables as well as community attitudes towards crime, the handling by the department of non-crime issues, racial profiling, how the community gathers information, and so forth. The current paradigm, if successful, can also serve as a model for future investigations regarding the effectiveness of interventions designed following the analysis of the data and assist in maintaining ongoing positive relations with the community.

Data Collection

In order to avoid potential contamination, sampling biases, or other confounds to the data collection process the department will engage the services of an outside professional sampling company with the only requirement being that the surveyors follow a random sampling procedure (Heckman, 1979). We would request a stratified random sampling procedure by geographic location to ensure that certain demographic groups such as ethnicity and age are properly represented in the sample (Stuart, 1962).

Data Analysis

Data entry and data analysis will likewise be performed by an outside company to avoid any bias in the interpretation of the results (Rosenthal, 1966).

Survey

The survey should be comprehensive and at the same time not too lengthy. Questions should be phrased in simple and direct language avoiding confusing and double-barreled questions (two questions phrased as one; Gregory, 2011). A Likert scale will be utilized for most of the question as these are to analyze and allow sufficient variance in the interpretation of survey data (Likert, 1932). The proposed survey follows. A pre-test run of the survey with 10 subjects indicated a mean completion time of ten minutes (I actually did this). A sample copy of the survey follows:

Thank you for agreeing to complete this survey. It takes about 10 minutes to complete. Your cooperation is appreciated and extremely important in helping the police department to serve you better. All of your responses are completely anonymous. Do not put your name anywhere on the survey. Please read each question carefully and try to answer all the questions. If you have never completed a survey like this before a sample question is provided for you:

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Disagree Agree

1.

I feel happy today

1 2-3-4 5

To answer this question you simply circle the number that best corresponds to how you feel today. If you strongly disagreed with the statement you would circle the number 1; if you agreed you would circle the number 4 and so forth. The survey starts on the next page:

A. Listed below are a number of statements related to the police in this city. Circle the number that best corresponds to the level of your agreement with each statement.

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Disagree Agree

1

The prevention of crime is the joint responsibility of the community and the police.

1 2-3-4 5

2

Lowering citizens’ fear of crime should be just as high a priority for this department as cutting the crime rate.

1 2-3-4 5

3

Most people do not respect the police.

1 2-3-4 5

4

The police response time to calls in my area is too slow.

1 2-3-4 5

5

The relationship between the police and the people of this city is very good.

1 2-3-4 5

6

The police do not understand the problems of the citizens in this city.

1 2-3-4 5

7

Most people have no idea how difficult a police officer’s job is.

1 2-3-4 5

8

Police officers should work with citizens to try and solve problems.

1 2-3-4 5

9

Police officers should remember that enforcing the law is by far their most important responsibility.

1 2-3-4 5

10

Police officers should avoid too much contact with citizens.

1 2-3-4 5

11

Citizens know more about what goes on in their area than the officers who patrol there.

1 2-3-4 5

12

The citizens in my area have reason to be distrustful of the police.

1 2-3-4 5

13

The minority communities in this city complain unfairly about racial profiling.

1 2-3-4 5

14

The general community in this city complains unfairly about police abuse of authority.

1 2-3-4 5

15

The general community in this city complains unfairly about racial profiling.

1 2-3-4 5

16

Police officers should try to solve non-crime problems in their patrol area.

1 2-3-4 5

17

Currently, it is too easy for a citizen to file a complaint against a police officer.

1 2-3-4 5

18

The police do a good job of controlling crime in my neighborhood.

1 2-3-4 5

19

Police know better than citizens which police services are required in an area.

1 2-3-4 5

20

The police are generally respectful of citizens

In my neighborhood.

1 2-3-4 5

B. Below are 15 statements. Rate each statement on how well you believe that the police are able to perform it.

Very Negative Neutral Positive Very

Negative Positive

1

Promoting good police-community relations

1 2-3-4 5

2

Obtaining support from business merchants

1 2-3-4 5

3

In being courteous to citizens

1 2-3-4 5

4

In delivering a full range of police service

1 2-3-4 5

5

Prevention of crime

1 2-3-4 5

6

Knowledge of activities on the beat

1 2-3-4 5

7

Works well with juveniles

1 2-3-4 5

8

Rapid response to calls for service

1 2-3-4 5

9

Effectiveness in handling non-criminal street

Activity

1 2-3-4 5

10

Reducing citizen fear of crime in the Community

1 2-3-4 5

11

Communicates well with citizens

1 2-3-4 5

12

Cost effectiveness: “giving the public its money’s worth”

1 2-3-4 5

13

Effectiveness in clearing up traffic problems

1 2-3-4 5

14

Maintains a clear presence

1 2-3-4 5

15

Does not threaten citizens

1 2-3-4 5

C. Have you had any contact with the police? (circle)

Yes No

If the answer was yes how long ago was this contact? (Circle)

Less than a month 1-3 months

3-6 months 6-9 months

9-12 months More than 12 months

If the answer to the above question is yes then how would you rate your experience with the police? (Circle)

Very

Negative

Neutral

Positive

Very

Negative Positive

Please continue on to the next page…

D. How much effort do you believe that the police department currently devotes to the following activities?

None Small Moderate Large

Amount Amount

1

Working with citizen groups to resolve local problems

1 2-3 4

2

Promoting police services to the public

1 2-3 4

3

Assisting persons in emergencies

1 2-3 4

4

Helping settle family disputes

1 2-3 4

5

Getting to know juveniles

1 2-3 4

6

Understanding problems of minority groups

1 2-3 4

7

Explaining crime prevention techniques to residents

1 2-3 4

8

Checking buildings and residences

1 2-3 4

9

Responding to calls for service

1 2-3 4

10

Handling special events

1 2-3 4

11

Researching and solving problems

1 2-3 4

12

Coordinating with other agencies to improve the quality of life in this city

1 2-3 4

E. How much effort do you believe that the police department should devote to the following activities?

None Small Moderate Large

Amount Amount

1

Working with citizen groups to resolve local problems

1 2-3 4

2

Promoting police services to the public

1 2-3 4

3

Assisting persons in emergencies

1 2-3 4

4

Helping settle family disputes

1 2-3 4

5

Getting to know juveniles

1 2-3 4

6

Understanding problems of minority groups

1 2-3 4

7

Explaining crime prevention techniques to residents

1 2-3 4

8

Checking buildings and residences

1 2-3 4

9

Responding to calls for service

1 2-3 4

10

Handling special events

1 2-3 4

11

Researching and solving problems

1 2-3 4

12

Coordinating with other agencies to improve the quality of life in this city

1 2-3 4

Please continue on to the next page…

F. How active are you in the following?

Not Somewhat Very

Active Active

Reporting crime

1 2 3

Working with the police to solve problems

1 2 3

Working with others to prevent crime

1 2 3

Reporting suspicious activity

1 2 3

Protecting yourself from crime

1 2 3

G. How active are your neighbors in the following?

Not Somewhat Very

Active Active

Reporting crime

1 2 3

Working with the police to solve problems

1 2 3

Working with each other to prevent crime

1 2 3

Reporting suspicious activity

1 2 3

Protecting themselves from crime

1 2 3

H. Consider the problems that you believe characterize your neighborhood. How frequently did the following sources of information contribute to your recognition of a problem?

Never Sometimes Often Almost

Always

Citizen report

1 2-3 4

Community meeting

1 2-3 4

Community survey

1 2-3 4

Supervisor at work

1 2-3 4

Co-worker

1 2-3 4

Personal observation

1 2-3 4

Councilperson

1 2-3 4

Other city department/agency

1 2-3 4

Neighbor

1 2-3 4

Local Radio

1 2-3 4

Newspaper

1 2-3 4

Local Television

1 2-3 4

Information from the following items will help us describe our group of respondents.

Please circle the appropriate response for each of the items below.

1. What is your gender?

a. male

b. female

2. What is your current age?

3. What is the highest level of formal education you have completed? (Circle only one)

a. High school diploma or GED

b. Some college but no diploma or degree

c. Associate Arts degree

d. Bachelor’s degree

e. Master’s degree or beyond

4. How would you describe your racial or ethnic heritage?

a. Black or African-American

b. Latino or Hispanic-American

c. Asian-American

d. White or Caucasian

e. Other

5. What is your marital status?

a. Single

b. Married

c. Divorced

d. Living with partner

e. Widowed

6. What is your occupation?

7. What is your approximate yearly income?

a. Less than 20,000

b. 20,000-40,000

c. 40,000-60,000

d. 60,000-80,000

e. 80,000-100,000

f. greater than 100,000

8. Have you ever been arrested?

a. Yes

b. No

9. Have you ever been convicted of a crime?

a. Yes

b. No

10. Do you have relatives working in a police department?

a. Yes

b. No

If so what department?

11. Have you ever worked on a project identified as a community policing project at this city’s Police Department or elsewhere?

a. Yes

b. No

12. Do you live in this city?

a. Yes

b. No

Thank you for your cooperation. Please feel free to include any comments below regarding the survey.

END OF SURVEY

References

Gregory, R.J. (2011). Psychological Testing: History, Principles, and Applications (Sixth

Edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Heckman, J. (1979). Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica, 47,

153 — 61.

Likert, R. (1932). A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes. Archives of Psychology

140, 1 — 55.

Mawby, J.B. (1965). Police corporate communications, crime reporting and the shaping of policing news. Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, 56 (1) 124-139.

Miller, J., Davis, R.C., Henderson, N.J., Markovic, J. & Ortiz, C.W. (2004). In Public

Opinions of the Police: The influence of friends, family, and news media.

Retrieved June 21, 2011, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/205619.pdf.

Peak, K. (1992). Improving citizen perceptions of the police: “Back to the basics” with a community policing strategy. Journal of Criminal Justice, 20 (1), 25-40.

Radelet, L.A. & Carter, D.L. (1994). The police and the community (Fifth Edition).

New York: Macmillan College Publishing.

Reisig, M.D., & Parks R.B. (2002). Satisfaction with police: What matters? Research

for Practice, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice

Rosenthal, R. (1966). Experimenter effects in behavioral research. New York: Appleton-

Century-Crofts.

Stuart, A. (1962). Basic ideas of scientific sampling. New York: Hafner Publishing

Company.

Question 4: According to many researchers, the public in general views law enforcement as having the primary responsibility for curbing gang activity. Is this view faulty? Justify your conclusions and provide suggestions for actions that law enforcement or the public may take to curb gang activities.

The definition of a “gang” by law enforcement typically refers to a group of people who through organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage share a common identity (Taylor, n.d.). Gangs can consist of as few as three members and in current milieu the term denotes a criminal organization or criminal affiliation. Typically then, three or more people who share a common sense of identity and who band together at least in part for the purpose of committing crime are viewed as a gang. This existence for criminal purposes distinguishes a gang from other types of organizations.

Gangs have existed in large American cities since the early 1800’s and are now a nationwide issue. For instance, gangs were traditionally considered an urban problem but gang migration from urban communities to suburban and even rural areas in the 1980s and 1990s has left gangs fully entrenched in many communities across the nation. It is interesting to note that many notable gangs initially formed as organizations for political and social reform during the 1960s but later shifted their focus from reform to criminal activity for profit. Gang activity has flourished by engaging in drug trafficking and other illicit activities in major cities began and then expanded their networks into suburban communities. As many gangs attempted to expand they often were met with resistance by local gangs. This resistance resulted in gang warfare and homicides in suburban communities (NAGA, 2009).

Gangs of all types will most often have a negative effect on a neighborhood. Gangs, gang violence and gang wars typically utilize a great deal of a community’s law enforcement and police resources because of the sheer number of people involved, lack of witness cooperation and types of crimes connected to gang activity. Higher-level gangs (gangs that are highly organized and have complicated business dealings to keep them running) that are investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation often force the agency to make use of some potentially hazardous and very expensive resources like high-tech surveillance, paid informants, undercover agents, and witness protection programs.

The presence of gangs or gang activity can also bring down the property value of neighborhoods from the violence and vandalism involved with gang life. In addition gangs tend to “mark” their territory and the presence of graffiti will be detrimental to any community. Investors who could potentially benefit the community may shy away from places where they feel that their properties and resources will not be used for fear of gang crimes. Gang activity can affect smaller businesses as well. Gangs can also drive up prices of local groceries and commodities via their intimidating schemes that force businesses to pay them sums of money in exchange for protection, or through vandalism, shoplifting, and increased insurance costs.

Once gang activity surfaces in a community it can destroy the quality of the neighborhood. The presence of gangs can lead to neighborhoods to deteriorate physically and socially. This deterioration will often commence with mild evidence of a breakdown such as accumulating of litter, notable public consumption of alcohol and so forth and later escalate to acts of vandalism, increasing crime, and then declining property values, more street violence, and so forth. Therefore, gang activity in a neighborhood is not just an issue for the police. Everyone in the community must get involved. Gang activity is a widespread cultural phenomenon that negatively affects society in multiple ways. Neither the law enforcement alone nor the citizens alone are able to address these issues without the cooperation of each other. It is important for all community members and organizations to assume a sense of shared responsibility to curtail gang activity. The police and residents need to work in conjunction with one another to maintain the integrity of the neighborhood. This entails an active maintenance of the neighborhood, the use of crime prevention techniques and devices such as neighborhood watches, and consistent reporting of suspected criminal behavior to the police by citizens to help to deter gang activity. While many citizens believe that the gang problem is an issue for the police the empirical evidence suggests that the best approaches involve several agencies or groups handling a number of facets of local gang problems and focusing on suppression, intervention, and gang prevention (Spergel, 1991). Moreover, as discussed in question number two of this exam, community policing is a more effective way for law enforcement and communities to solve the issues of crime and crime prevention. This would also apply to gang activities.

To curtail gang activity one of the first places to start is in the home. Prevention may be the best response to potential gang problems and the best protection program against gang involvement begins with a supportive family environment. Young people with a history of abuse, neglect, or families with a history of domestic violence may have children that are at a greater risk for becoming involved in gang activities (Ralphsa, Medinaa, & Aldridgea, 2009). Moreover offering a wide range of readily available, productive, and fun activities for young people can reduce the likelihood of recruitment into a gang. Activities such as sports, community activities, and other activities that keep young people occupied while providing a sense of belonging, feelings of accomplishment, and increase self-esteem are a vital part of gang prevention. Parents should be able to understand why young people join gangs. There are a number of reasons: Gangs are perceived as being “cool” or gangs are “family.” Parents providing support and that are involved with their children can better address these temptations. Other reasons include availability of drugs, security (due to fear and intimidation), problems at home, peer pressure, gangs can bring a sense of authority over others, other family members belong to gangs, and acceptance (Valdez, 2009). Most of these reasons to join a gang can be circumvented by a supportive family environment.

Parents need to understand that children and adolescents with good skills to deal with other people (good communication skills) are much less likely to be recruited and to join gangs or to be involved in other delinquent behaviors. Parents can help build self-confidence and respect for others by practicing themselves and encouraging in their children:

1. Honest communication. As mentioned above communication is important and children should learn to express feelings such as anger, love and fear constructively. They must feel safe and believe it safe for them to express these feelings without being ridiculed or punished.

2. A sense of personal responsibility is crucial. Parents need to accept the consequences of their actions and teach their children to be responsible for their actions. Young people need to learn patience and understand that even if they do not get something right at first, what counts is that they try hard and learn from the experience.

3. Teach the ability to make decisions and let children make appropriate decisions. Teach children to think of many possible solutions to a situation.

4. Foster a sense of cooperation. Children that feel alone or have no place to turn are targets for gang recruitment. They must learn to cooperate, negotiate, and empathy or learn put themselves in another person’s shoes.

5. Both parents and children need the ability to give and receive unconditional love. This fosters acceptance, tolerance, and respect.

While parenting and good parent-child relationships are the most effective gang control methods, gangs can still infiltrate the community. Not every parent will be able to keep their children from being vulnerable to gang recruitment. There are other considerations for community that is already occupied by gangs or having difficulties with gang-related activity. Communities cannot leave the battle against gangs just to the police. Citizens really do need to mobilize and develop an action plan in concert with law enforcement agencies in order to combat gang influences and gang activities in neighborhoods. The most successful programs for curtailing gang-related activities do not rely solely on law enforcement agencies. For example, The Bureau of Justice Assistance outlined a comprehensive gang initiative plan in 1997 that included law enforcement, community organizations, and the private citizens in the management of gang-related problems (U.S. Department of Justice, 1999). The approach, the Comprehensive Gang Initiative model, was based on three major principles:

(1) The model was adaptable. The model was capable of being applied to a variety of gang-related issues.

(2) The model was flexible. Modifications to the plan could readily be made in response to changes within gang or other circumstances.

(3) The model entailed a multifaceted approach that involved government and private agencies and supported direct community participation in intervention efforts.

The Comprehensive Gang Initiative model attempted to address gang-related issues via a four stage of the problem-solving process known as SARA (scanning, analysis, response, and assessment). SARA solves a problem by first identifying it, then uses numerous sources of information to examine the issue at multiple levels, proposes a number of different solutions, implements a response, and conducts an evaluation or assessment of the process. The overall process is best handled at multiple levels and by different groups in order to cover the overall picture. Thus, not only law enforcement agents are important in the process but since the response affects the community citizens should also provide input at all levels. Final responses should focus on offenders, victims, third parties involved, and/or tools used to create the situation. Therefore, the victims and other parties affected by the problem and the solution need to take an active part in the entire process. The scanning phase provides the explanation of the issue and the information collected during the analysis stage facilitates the selection of the most effective responses. The assessment stage provides useful feedback on how the well the response has solved the issue, so again more than just law enforcement agents need be involved. The Comprehensive Gang Initiative model is a method for overcoming the barriers faced by agencies and other groups that are trying to address gang-related issues in the community.

Another initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deal with gang issues is the Weed and Seed, a community-based strategy approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization. The strategy involves a two-step method: law enforcement and prosecutors “weed out” violent criminals (gang members) and then public agencies and private organizations “seed” much-needed human service programs in the community with other members. The Weed and Seed initiative offers a community-driven strategic planning approach to gang activities and community rebuilding. In order for it to be successful the program requires collaboration between law enforcement officials, members of the community, social service organizations in the community, and of course local government officials. Thus a community effort is needed in order to make this and other programs like it function.

Thus, a mobilized community offers the most promising way to deal with gang problems. The community mobilization process can be successful only it is committed to the resolution of the issues with gangs and has developed a set of close relationships, pertinent goals, and plans of action based on the agreement of the problem and what action needs to take place. The goal of the community mobilization to act against gang activity is to reorganize community structures so that the resources of the community are developed to address the gang problem. Since gang activity is pervasive and touches all aspects of the community the development of informed consistent relations and cooperative procedures among and within organizations including the community members, private businesses, local government, and law enforcement can result in more effective social control and social support and more effective targeting of the problem. Criminal justice agencies, community-based organizations, and local grassroots organizations must be involved in policy development and program implementation dealing with gang-related issues. Moreover, the involvement of diverse neighborhood groups in gang neighborhoods is crucial. Local leaders must be recruited and developed if later ethnic or social class conflicts are to be avoided in the programs that are developed by the community. This is extremely important so that gangs are not viewed as vigilantes pitted against an unjust and biased establishment.

The fundamental purpose of law enforcement is to protect the community from criminal activities. This protection is achieved through a combination of suppression and/or prevention. The police need to address gang problems directly and deal with the gangs in a manner consistent with the scope and seriousness of the problem and their available resources. This may or may not mean the organization of a specialized gang unit but might result in the creation of a gang detail or designate one or more officers as gang specialists. Other possibilities include assigning a crime analysis unit or officer to identify chronic or serious gang offenders and then requiring patrol officers in areas of high gang action to focus their attention on these individuals.

Primary prevention techniques involve keeping youth from being recruited into gangs. Secondary and tertiary methods deal with gang members or at risk members. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice promotes Spergel’s (1991) Comprehensive Gang Model as an all-inclusive community-wide response to gangs and gang activity (Burch, & Kane, 1999). This model consists of the following five strategies, which are representative of secondary and tertiary gang prevention. Looking at the strategies we get a sense of why communities and private citizens should not view gang control as purely a police issue. These strategies provide a means for both community and law enforcement to work together. The five strategies are:

(1) Mobilizing community leaders and residents to plan, strengthen, or create new opportunities or linkages to existing organizations for gang-involved or at-risk youth.

(2) Use outreach workers to engage gang-involved youth.

(3) Providing or facilitating access to academic, economic, and social opportunities.

(4) Conducting gang suppression activities and holding gang involved youth accountable.

(5) Facilitating organizational change and development to help community agencies better address gang problems through a team problem-solving approach that is consistent with the philosophy of community oriented policing.

Finally, primary prevention models have also been used in schools with some success. In recent years, schools have become a crucial venue for the prevention of delinquency and for gang recruitment prevention programs. For instance the typical middle school provides more than 14 different types of violence, drug, and other social problem prevention programs to adolescents (Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1999). One gang-specific prevention program that has received considerable attention is the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program. The Police Department in Phoenix Arizona introduced this school-based program back in 1991 to provide students with the skills and knowledge to resist the temptation to join or become involved with gangs (Humphrey and Baker, 1994). Fashioned after the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, the G.R.E.A.T. program provides students with conflict resolution skills, cultural sensitivity information, and the negative aspects of gang life. G.R.E.A.T. has spread all the way through the country and it has been integrated into school curriculums in all 50 States. Parents and other community members could come involved in these and other school programs in order to limit gang activity. Moreover, community leaders could develop new programs or update existing ones with the help of parents, social workers, teachers, and law enforcement agents.

The war on gang activity is not just a law enforcement issue. If communities leave it solely to law enforcement agents the war will be won by the gangs who are able to operate on multiple levels and some gang leaders can still dictate orders while imprisoned. Parents, communities, and law enforcement need to work together to effectively combat gangs just as they do with any other serious issue.

References

National Alliance of Gang Investigators’ Association (NAGA). (2009). National gang threat assessment 2009. In National gang threat summary. Retrieved June 20,

2011, from http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs32/32146/index.htm#National.

Burch, J. & Kane, C. (1999). Implementing the OJJDP comprehensive gang model fact sheet. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Gottfredson, D. & Gottfredson, G. (1999). What do schools do to prevent problem behavior and promote school safety and how well do they do it? Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation,

Washington, DC.

Humphrey, K.R. & Baker, P.R. (1994). The GREAT program: Gang Resistance

Education and Training. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 9, 1 — 4.

Ralphsa, R., Medinaa, J., & Aldridgea, J. (2009). Who needs enemies with friends like these?

The importance of place for young people living in known gang areas.

Journal of Youth Studies, 12 (5) 483-500.

Spergel, I.A. (1991). Youth gangs: Problem and response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Taylor, T.I. (n.d). Oxford bibliographies online. In Gangs, peers, and co-offending.

Retrieved June 20, 2011, from http://www.oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/view/document/obo-

9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0028.xml.

U.S. Department of Justice. (1999). Bureau of justice assistance. In Addressing

community gang problems: A model for problem solving. Retrieved June 20,

2011, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/156059.pdf.

Valdez, A. (2009). Gangs: A guide to understanding street gangs. San Clemente:

Lawtech Publishing.

Question 5: What types of crime control policies might be based on:

(a) psychological understandings of criminality?

(b) sociological understanding of criminality?

(c) biological understandings of criminality?

Justify your conclusions.

It actually difficult to completely separate the three categories completely as it is generally accepted that all three of the above factors play a role in the expression of behavior. Moreover, psychological science consists of several disciplines including biological psychology and social psychology, so psychological principles could be applied across all three domains. However, there are some general principles associated with each of the above three paradigms that would be associated with some specific crime control policies. This results in admittedly narrow definition for each of the categories but it does simplify the answers herein.

(A). There a many different psychological models of criminal behavior ranging from early Freudian notions to later cognitive and social psychological models. I cannot review them all here. Instead, there are several fundamental assumptions of psychological theories of criminality that we will follow for this paper (Mischel, 1968):

1. The individual is the primary unit of analysis in psychological theories.

2. Personality is the major motivational element that drives behavior within individuals.

3. Normality is generally defined by social consensus.

4. Crimes then would result from abnormal, dysfunctional, or inappropriate mental processes within the personality of the individual.

5. Criminal behavior may be purposeful for the individual insofar as it addresses certain felt needs.

6. Defective, or abnormal, mental processes may have a variety of causes, i.e., a diseased mind, inappropriate learning or improper conditioning, the emulation of inappropriate role models, and adjustment to inner conflicts.

The last assumption of the psychological model would suggest that a variety of different causes or reasons exist for criminal behavior and that general principles targeted at the individual would be effective for crime control. However, the model also assumes that there is a subset of a psychological criminal type, defined currently as antisocial personality disorder in the DSM-IV and previously defined as the sociopath or psychopath (APA, 2002). This type of criminal exhibits deviant behavior early in life and is associated with self-centeredness, a lack of empathy, and a tendency to see others as tools for their ends. Controls for these individuals would be more extreme and general public policies may not be stringent enough to curb the behavior in this small subset of criminals.

Given these six principles to establish psychological explanations of criminal behavior we can suggest first that traditional imprisonment, fines, and other court sanctions are based on operant learning models of behavior for crime control. Operant learning models are based on the utilitarian concepts that all people wish to maximize pleasure and minimize pain or discomfort. Skinnerian-based social psychological theories of reinforcement and punishment are influential in this model of criminal control although the idea of punishment for crime has a much longer history (Jeffery, 1990). Technically speaking, punishments are any sanctions designed to decrease a specific behavior, thus fines, jail sentences, etc. are all forms of punishment. However, Skinner himself recognized that punishment was generally ineffective in behavior modification and that reinforcement worked better (e.g., Skinner, 1966). Nonetheless, punishments and sanctions for criminal behavior are based on behavioral psychological principles.

Because harsh forms of punishment do not appear to significantly decrease recidivism rates, other psychological principles have been applied. In terms of cognitive behavioral psychological principles, rehabilitation and relearning, retraining, or educational programs for offenders are forms of psychologically-based methods to control crime. These methods are based on the cognitive behavioral methods of teaching an alternative functional response in place of a formally dysfunctional one as opposed to simple punishment. These programs can take place in prisons or outside of the prison and have long been demonstrated to be successful (e.g., Mathias, 1995). So any form of retraining, reeducation, or reentry program is based on psychological principles of criminality and reform. Many of these programs appear to be especially beneficial for drug and alcohol offenders. Likewise, any form education such as the DARE program and recent efforts to curb bullying in schools are based on these methods.

In line with other psychological methods are policies aimed at maintaining a visible presence of law enforcement and methods to maintain self-awareness of people in tempting situations. Such methods are preventative. For instance, it has been a well-known social psychological principle that situations that diminish self-consciousness and self-awareness lead individuals to being less restrained, less self-regulated, and more likely to act without considering the consequences of their actions (e.g., Diener, 1979). The simple act of placing mirrors in stores can increase self-awareness and decrease shop-lifting. Likewise, the presence of visible law-enforcement can cut down on substantially crime. Making sanctions and the consequences for crime well-publicized and available to the public is another psychological method to control crime in this vein.

Various forms of criminal profiling are based heavily on psychological principles and represent an effort to either apprehend existing criminals or to identify persons at risk for certain behavior (Holmes & Holmes, 2008). More recently there have been efforts to develop methods to identify individuals at risk for certain forms of deviant behavior including criminal activities based on personality and social variables. These psychological variables can be indentified in the school or at the home at an early age and include such disorders as learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, and others. Since many individuals with these problems often go on to demonstrate criminal behavior or have legal problems later efforts to identify and treat this issues are forms of psychological crime control policies (APA, 2002).

Thus, methods of crime control policies based on psychological principles target the individual and attempt to reform or prevent criminal behavior from that perspective. Any policies requiring therapeutic intervention, retraining, or education are psychological in nature. Any policy designed at preventing crime by targeting individuals such as raising consciousness, promoting self-awareness, or identifying individuals at risk are also psychological. Likewise, psychologists have long recognized that the best predictor of future behavior is the individual’s past behavior (Mischel, 1968). So policies that are specifically designed to deal with repeat offenders are also based on psychological principles of criminality.

(B). Sociological principles and psychological principles of criminality are intertwined and technically not independent. As with psychological theories there are numerous sociological formulations of the cause and control of criminality. For purposes of this paper we will define sociological notions of criminality as:

1. Attempting to connect the issues of the individual’s criminality with the broader social structures and cultural values of society, familial, or peer group.

2. How the contradictions of all of these interacting groups contribute to criminality.

3. The ways these structures cultures and contradictions have historically developed.

4. The current processes of change that these groups are undergoing.

5. Criminality is viewed from the point-of-view of the social construction of criminality and its social causes.

Traditional sociological theories proposed that crimes was a result of anomie, a term meaning “normlessness” or a feeling of a lack of social norms, a lack of being connected to society. The term was made popular by Emile Durkheim (1897). Durkheim originally used the term to explain suicide, but later sociologists used the term to describe the dissociation of the individual from the collective conscience or the criminality resulting from a lack of opportunity to achieve aspirations or by the learning of criminal values and behaviors. Therefore criminality results by the failure to properly socialize individuals and by unequal opportunities between groups. Durkheim believed that crime was an inescapable fact of society and advocated maintaining crime within reasonable boundaries.

A feature of sociological theories is that ssociety “constructs” criminality. Thus, certain types of human activity are harmful and are judged so by society as a whole. But it is also true that there are other behaviours recognized by society as “criminal” that do not result in harm to others and are therefore criminalized without sufficient ground, these are the so-called “victimless” crimes. These include drug use, prostitution, etc. Therefore according to this view if carried to its extreme 100% of the members of a society are lawbreakers at some point. One of the sociological policy methods of crime control would be to advocate for decriminalization of these victimless crimes or at least a vast reduction in their penalties (Schur, 1965).

An important sociological control would be to increase legitimate opportunities for advancement and obtainment of goods and wealth in areas where these do not exist. Sociological controls targeted at this goal could originate in higher State and Federal levels of government as well as local levels of government and would include programs designed to guarantee equal opportunities to all individuals. Thus, social programs ranging from soup kitchens, job training, educational funding, urban renewal projects and so forth would be in line with sociological policies to control crime (Merton, 1968). Other related sociological controls for crime would consist of organizing and empowering neighborhood residents with projects like neighborhood crime watches, providing law-abiding role models for children in schools and in other venues, providing parental support for working parents, and establishing community centers in downtrodden areas to allow people to learn and engage in positive activities.

Social programs aimed at socializing children properly and providing support for single family homes are also examples of sociological methods to control crime. There are a number of these programs including career academies (small learning communities in low-income high schools, offering academic and career/technical courses as well as workplace opportunities).

Finally, sociological policies to control crime would advocate stronger and harsher penalties for serious crimes such as murder, rape, are more effective law enforcement. Again, sociologists accept the reality that crime is a social phenomenon that will not disappear no matter how many interventions are enacted to control it. Sociologists note that of every 100 felonies committed within the United States, only one is sent to prison. A vast number are unreported and of those that are reported only a small portion goes to trial. If a justice system is to work properly it must be able to rely on its law enforcement system and judicial system to bring to justice and prosecute serious offenders. The purposes of imprisonment include punishment, rehabilitation, deterrence, and selective confinement. All of these should be utilized where appropriate for the individual (Hester & Eglin, 1992).

C. Biological theories of criminality basically purport that criminal behavior is the result of some flaw in the biological makeup of the individual. This physical flaw could be due to (Raine, 2002):

(1) Heredity

(2) Neurotransmitter dysfunction

(3) Brain abnormalities that were caused by either of the above, improper development, or trauma.

Biological theorists would also endorse stricter penalties and better law enforcement techniques for crime control, but there are several methods of crime control that are specific to the biological theories of criminality. I will discuss these briefly here.

Psychosurgery: Brain surgery to control behavior has rarely been applied to criminal behavior. Certainly much more common between the 1930’s to the late 1970’s there were over 40,000 frontal lobotomies performed. Lobotomies were used to treat a wide range of problems from depression, to schizophrenia. However, while widely discussed as a potential treatment for criminal behavior a perusal of the literature could not find a court ordered case for a lobotomy as a sentence for a convicted criminal Lobotomies were also used for people who were considered an annoyance because the demonstrated behaviors characterized as moody or they were children who were defiant with authority figures such as teachers. The lobotomy involves separating the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain either surgically or in the case of the transorbital lobotomy with a sharp ice-pick like instrument that was inserted in the eye socket between the upper eyelid and the eye. In this method the patient was not anesthetized, not even children. The psychiatrists hit the end of the instrument with a hammer to disconnect the nerves in the frontal lobe of the brain. Afterwards behaviors were changed, but at a high price as you can imagine. Today the lobotomy has fallen out of favor due medications used to control behavior, although some view the use of medications as equivalent to a lobotomy (e.g., see Breggin, 2008). Psychosurgery appears to be an option that will most likely not be put into use due to the stigma associated with it.

Chemical methods of control: The use of pharmacological treatments to try to control crime has been ongoing in two major areas: chemical castration for sex offenders and pharmacological interventions for drug or alcohol addicts. However, addicts can stop the medication and return to use. Sex offenders are closely monitored and there is some evidence that this policy has been efficacious. Sometimes mentally ill people in the criminal justice system been ordered to take medications to treat their mental illness. Other pharmacological interventions to control crime seem plausible and are being investigated, but do not appear to have been widely used.

Others: Deep brain stimulation is used for some disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, but has yet been investigated for criminal behavior. Biological theorists have advocated changes in diet to deal with criminality (Burton, 2002) and better relations between parents. There is also the famous genetic XYY combination that was once thought to be a marker for a criminal type, but as it turned out these individuals were found to be less intelligent or more likely to have learning difficulties as opposed to being criminal types. While there are many studies indicating a connection between antisocial personality disorder or criminal behavioral and heredity, there are no policies being implemented to advocate for selective breeding, genetic testing etc. For criminals. I do not yet envision a policy of genetic testing for criminals as the variables are not stable enough in order to predict with set of gene combinations are predictive of a biological criminal type (Rutter, 2006) although this is certainly a possibility.

If the biological model of criminality has any significant effect on policy outside the use of chemical castration for sex offenders, it would be the policy that certain forms of criminal behavior or certain individuals may not be rehabilitated and the advocacy for harsher and stricter imprisonments or even executions are viable methods of control in these instances. The issue for the community is how can we recognize a significant biological contribution to criminal behavior since genetic testing is unreliable and there are no other physical markers of criminality. It seems that currently in the absence of very harsh crimes like murder and rape, one must be recognized as a repeat offender before we can acknowledge a possible innate tendency towards criminality. By that time the damage, often irreparable, is done. Perhaps the answer lies in stricter probation and parole practices for first-time offenders. However, this policy is expensive and tax payers may not support it. The policy mandating convicted sex offenders to be monitored over their lifetime and certain restrictions placed on them is a result of the acknowledgment of a biological predisposition to engage in this crime and therefore traditional forms of treatment or remediation do not appear to be effective. Similar policies might follow with habitual criminal offenders based on the biological theories of criminality.

References

American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2002). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th Ed.). Arlington, VA: Author.

Breggin, P.A. (2008). Brian disabling treatments in psychiatry: Drugs, electroshock, and the psychopharmaceutical complex. (2nd Edition) New York: Springer University

Press.

Burton, R. (2002). The Irish institute of nutrition and health. In Diet and criminality.

Retrieved June 17, 2011, from http://www.iinh.net/health_and_nutrition_articles/diet_and_criminality.htm.

Diener, E. (1979). Deindividuation, self-awareness, and disinhibition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(7), 1160-1171.

Durkheim, Emile (1897) [1951]. Suicide: A study in sociology. New York; The Free

Press.

Hester, S. & Eglin, P. (1992). A sociology of crime. London: Routledge.

Holmes, R.M., & Holmes, S.T. (2008). Profiling violent crimes: An investigative tool

(Fourth Edition). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.

Jeffery, R.C. (1990). Criminology: An interdisciplinary approach. New Jersey: Prentice

Hall.

Mathias, R. (1995). Correctional treatment helps offenders stay drug and arrest free.

NIDA notes, 10 (4).

Merton, Robert K. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.

Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley.

Raine, A. (2002). The biological basis of crime. In J.Q Wilson & J. Petrsilia (Eds.)

Crime:

Public policies for crime control. Oakland: ICS Press.

Rutter, M. (2006). Genes and Behavior: Nature-Nurture Interplay Explained. Boston:

Blackwell.

Schur E. (1965) Crime without victims. Englewood: Cliffs.

Skinner, B.F. (1966). The phylogeny and ontogeny of behavior. Science, 153, 1204 —