Hollywood detectives and realities of detective work
The Hollywood detectives are investigative bureau tasked with providing functional leadership for the detective operations. They provide a system of criminal investigations which comprehensively entails investigative services and crime scene investigations, for instance, robberies, sexual assaults, domestic violence, abuse cases and homicides. The detective work is an elaborative investigative process which is aimed at unraveling some critical information sorted by law enforcement agencies. The process ensures that crimes are solved within a framework in which every individual within the police agency contributes towards the course of seeking a particular information (Dupont 372).
Solving crimes against a person Vis a vie crimes against property
Crime against a person are easy to solve as compared to solving crimes against property since they particularly encompass a wide range of criminal offenses involving a threat of bodily harm, bodily harm, and other actions done to an individual against his/her will. This category of criminal offenses are easily executable since the process of gathering evidence to such defense of probable cause is less involving whereas building a justifiable defense for crimes against property is a tall order.
Problems of undercover police work
First, the undercover employees (UCEs) are exposed to physical harm or even death due to lack of immediate identity to the public and even other police officers who do not realize that they are working undercover. As the UCEs try to protect their undercover identity, they can become victims of circumstances (Marx 84). For instance, in Los Angeles, an UCE was shot to death by members of a community group while buying heroin in a mission to investigate information on drug dealers and user.
Secondly, undercover cops work in an environment of compromised integrity. An UCE can get himself participating in criminal activity. Such a risk of involvement in actual criminal act can be dangerous in drug investigations. An undercover agent might justify the sale or ingestion of controlled substances as a way of maintaining his/her criminal persona making him/her loss a sense of integrity.
Tactics of Supply Reduction Strategy of Drug Enforcement
Law Enforcement
The law enforcement tactics target every level and part of the supply chain in order to prevent drugs importation across the borders.
Regulatory compliance
This strategy ensures continuous update of the list of drugs for regulation and monitoring drug abuse trends to determine any possible inclusion of other drugs and substances.
Hot spots policing
The hot spots policing provides a framework for dealing with critical drug prone areas.
Judicial and legislative standards
These are measures to ensure formulation of a legal framework to drugs and substances regulation.
Broken Windows Theory
The Broken Windows Theory is built on the premises that at the community level, crime and disorder are always inextricably linked, in some kind of developmental sequence. Police officers and social psychologists tend to agree on the fact that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, all other windows will soon be broken (Kelling and 319). This is proved true in the run-downs as well as neighborhoods. Windows-breaking usually does not happen on a large scale due to the fact that some areas are populated by window-lovers while others are inhabited by determined window breakers; rather, a single unrepaired broken window signifies that no one cares, and therefore breaking more windows costs nothing.
Major obstacles in the implementation of CAPS Program
The problem of defining Chicago Community
The definitional problems associated with the concept of “Community” posed a greater obstacle in the implementation of CAPS Program. The problems range from the geographical to social groups as designated to form the so-called communities. The community of Chicago experiences gross inequalities, intolerance, rigid status groups alongside contradictory social relations like race, gender and class concerns which hindered effective implementation of the CAPS Program.
Local politics
A key area of concern with regards to the implementation of CAPS Program is the use of consultative committees or the community crime committees to give effect to the principles of community involvement. This has been a great impediment as maintaining and composition such groups in Chicago became a problem due to social polarization (Goodnight 362). Moreover, they simply provided for a forum for co-opting sections of minority groups to an apparent consensus.
Zero-tolerance policy
Zero-tolerance policy differs from other police strategies in a number of aspects:
The zero-tolerance policy ensures that the law enforcers deal with misconduct on a case-by-case basis, giving consideration to the circumstances of the entire event, the specifically involved individuals, and the repercussions for the general safety of the community in question.
Secondly, the policy specifically offers regulatory standards within schools for the juveniles to provided harsh punishments for those students who have made some mistakes in order to ensure a safety and conducive learning environment incorporating the changing disciplinary systems in the educational settings.
Key Characteristics of Community Policing
Community policing requires that the police department reforms their relationship with the local communities. This calls for the police to change their behaviors and attitudes towards citizens and the entire police work.
Community policing, at its core, fundamentally challenges the basic assumptions which have shaped the framework of enforcing law and order within communities. The law-enforcement approach through community policing emphasizes on the independence of police agencies with a well-coordinated professional perspective that the citizens and the police are co-producers of police services (Goodnight 418). That is, the police and the citizens are jointly responsible for the reduction of crime rates in ensuring an improvement of the quality of life in the local neighborhoods.
In addition, community policing ensures that the local police provide citizens with a formal access to the department’s policy and decision-making process. The system encourages the neighborhood residents to voice their concerns to the police, while it is the responsibility of the police to attentively address the raised concerns.
Basic points of the CAPS Program
The CAPS Program is funded on-the-shelf Corps programs which are available within Chicago to enhance a smooth working relationship between the community members and the police with an aim of reducing occurrence of crimes.
The CAPS Program is a Corps cost-share partnership involving the federal government and the local government with a limitation of a budget expenditure depending on the authority’s use.
The CAPS Program does not require a congressional appropriation for every project.
The program promotes comprehensive collaborative planning.
The program encourages multipurpose projects, for example, ecosystem restoration, crime reduction with divergent aspects of community policing.
Major differences between traditional, incident-based policing, 911 –driven and problem-oriented policing.
The traditional law enforcement system gave emphasis on the independence of the police force from the communities which they are designated to serve, the close relation between the work of police and fighting crime, the essence of individual police officer’s professionalism and the dispassionate treatment of all the citizens (Dupont 253). On the other hand, the problem-oriented policing entails identifying and making insightful analysis of the particular crime and disorder concerns with an aim of developing appropriate response strategies. The incident-based policing ensure that for every crime incident getting to the hands of law enforcement agencies, there must be adequate data collected about the incident. The data should include the types and the nature of the particular offenses in the incident, value and types of the property in question, characteristics of the offenders and victims, and the characteristics of the individuals arrested in connection with the crime.
Works cited
Dupont, Ellen. The United States Justice System. Broomall, PA: Mason Crest Publishers, 2003. Print.
Goodnight, Lynn. The Problems of the United States Justice System: What Changes Are Most Needed in the Procedures Used in the United States Justice System. Lincolnwood, Ill: National Textbook Co, 1983. Print.
Kelling, George L, and Catherine M. Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Print.
Marx, Gary T. Undercover: Police Surveillance in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. Print.
