PERF: Chapter 4

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PERF Chapter 4

• Proactive Investigations Evaluation

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Traditional Approach

• Reactive approach
• Respond only when called
• Activity based on calls for service or arrests
• Success based on arrests, timed responses

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New Philosophy

• Now proactive responses favored
• Target crimes that have predictable nature
• Burglary rape follow predictable patterns
• Police use a variety of mechanisms to target
  crime
• Generally quite successful

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Crime Targeting

• Police useto target crime
• Market organization (fencing, carjacking, stolen
  merchandise)
• Geographic organization (decoys, undercover cops,
  stakeouts)
• Criminal organization (drug gangs, gang
  activities)

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Examples

• Vegas police use drunk decoys to act lost or
  stumble around the strip as proactive targeting
  of would-be-robbers
• Police becoming more proactive in criminal
  enterprises where there is no easily available
  victim they place officers in the role of victim

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Baretta

• Opening credits Baretta dressed as elderly lady
  with large purse
• Easy victim unable to properly defend herself
• Purse snatcher grabs purse
• Baretta yanks suspect off his feet, arrests him
• Today this same scenario is played out but now
  there is organized philosophy behind it

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Strategy

• Proactive police actions are sometimes best when
  facing crimes with many unknowns or are
  politically charged
• Rape
• Many unknowns (cause, affects)
• Police use decoys, stings

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Targeting

• Police target offenders in many instances of vice
  crimes
• Prostitution
• Target prostitute, not john
• Politically charged womens groups voice
  concerns over sexism arrest the woman, when it
  is the man who is wanting to commit the actual
  crime

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Problems

• Political atmosphere minority communities,
  womens groups, various interest groups
• Often police know the market, geographic, and
  criminal organizations but try and translate this
  knowledge into a positive policing stragety is
  VERY problematic

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Experience

• Police administrators rely on experience as their
  guide what has worked in the past
• Resource management, allocation, and availability
  is also a problem - , time, manpower

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Profit Driven Crime

• When targeting profit driven crime police can
  never really be certain of the long term impact
  of their actions
• Arresting or imprisoning drug kingpins might be a
  small victory but what is long term consequences
• Pablo Escobar did it REALLY curb the drug
  trafficking into North America?

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Victimless Crimes

• The purpose of using proactive models is to
  combat crime problems for which there are no
  complainants or so few that police actions base
  don those complaints would leave problem
  untouched
• Gambling, prostitution, drug markets
• As long as these do not occur in peoples
  backyards there are few complaints

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Iceberg Principle

• Proactive strategies rely on the police acting as
  complainant
• Iceberg police and us only see the tip of the
  crime problem
• Most of the problem lies unseen, hidden from
  police and majority of citizens
• Most of the time the urgency of a crime operation
  depends on the polices perspective what is the
  flavor of the day

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Parameters

• Proactive responses very difficult to measure (or
  operationalize)
• What is the measure of success?
• Long term impact tough to determine
• Proactive research began around 1965-1967 with
  Presidents Crime Commission
• Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)
  created

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LEAA

• President LBJ wanted way to research police and
  crime all the while bypassing the police
• Civil rights violence hinted at larger problem
  with police LBJ wanted to bypass police to see
  if there really was a problem with police
• Loads of research - little of it evaluative

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Building On Existing Research

• Bulk of research into proactive policing
  strategies has focused on retail provision of
  goods
• Gambling, sex, drugs
• Easier to operationalize, measure
• These types of crimes generally more open and
  more public and political outcry

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Modern Research

• If police force certain crimes back underground
  it can give impression of success
• Researchers have tried to conduct research into
  economic foundations, internal dynamics, and
  internal structures of criminal organizations
• Difficult and dangerous!!

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Organized Crime

• O.C. criminal entrepreneurs who organize and
  manage illicit enterprises
• Removed spatially and/or organizationally from
  street level commerce
• Dons, kingpins, cartel leaders, bosses
• The degree of organization doesnt seem as
  important as presence of managerial staff and
  support

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Less Organized Crime Problems

• Robbery and burglary targeted by police
• Police have targeted specific individuals with
  criminal history
• Police have used units to spy on areas
  frequented by robbers or burglars
• Bars, pawns, fencers

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Market Principle

• Police also use fencing operations to seek out
  criminals with property for sale
• According to market principle if police target
  the fences, the market will dry up
• Criminals will have no place to sell stolen
  property
• Problem criminals can rely on fences they know
  personally despite police actions

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Impact Measures

• Innovation has been implemented in effort to
  increase productivity
• Shifting officers to peak periods of criminal
  activity
• Redesign of patrol beats more officers in high
  problem areas
• Detectives and officers work together (decrease
  competition, make work more efficient)

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Assess Productivity

• Difficult to properly assess police efforts
• No comparison, as the volume of illegal but
  consensual transactions is unknown
• Increasing arrests not the answer there is
  still no baseline, rarely is there a complainant,
  cant arrest everyone
• Waste of resources to increase arrests but have
  little impact on number of criminal incidents

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Eradication vs. Regulation

• Most vice control aimed not at eradication but
  regulation
• Vice crimes will not disappear but if they can be
  regulated better everyone is happy
• Police do not want these crimes occurring in
  broad daylight in public places
• Corruption of vice officers has been posited as
  one factor in law productivity of police fforts

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Corruption

• Brings with it a variety of additional problems
  for police
• Low productivity
• Low morale
• Illegitimate reward system
• Makes police appear ineffective
• Bad PR

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Research Issues

• Criminal enterprises organized similarly to legal
  ones
• Make money
• Criminals want stability, minimized risk
• Unlike legal enterprises criminal precautions can
  be deadly
• Joint risk share through cooperation with other
  criminal groups
• Bribe police
• Keep victims quiet
• Control competition whacking

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Maximizing Profit

• Support people in criminal enterprises very
  important external to actual operation
• Out of main hierarchy
• Uncle Tommy
• Allows family to maximize profits, while
  minimizing risk
• He operates outside of primary chain of command

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Change in Police Stragey

• Over time police efforts have switched from
  smaller criminals to mid level suppliers or
  managers
• Theory is if primary trafficker is removed then
  flow of goods (drugs) will stop
• Cut of the head and the body will die
• BUT, as the big boss leaves another just comes to
  take his (her) place

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Evaluating Tactics

• Evaluations of proactive police tactics can help
  suppress critics
• Quell concerns about civil rights
• Help police cope with conflicting demands of
  communities
• Help police administrators find more effective
  strategies

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What Is An Evaluation?

• Evaluation a systematic attempt to determine if
  a specific intervention caused a change in a
  social problem
• Police do same thing as evaluation researchers
  they focus on crime, drugs, violence instead

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Evaluations

• 3 possibilities when considering evaluations
• Intervention could be implemented as planned but
  have no impact on problem
• Intervention could be implemented in a way other
  than was planned and have desired impact on
  problem
• Intervention could be implemented in a way other
  than was planned and have no impact on problem

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Cause Evaluations

• Impact evaluations are designed to demonstrate a
  causal link
• 3 elements
• Correlation
• Temporal order
• nonspuriousness

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Evaluating Evaluations

• Characteristics of an evaluation that will
  provide evidence of the 3 elements
• Design must allow some variation in the
  intervention
• Design should allow the evaluator to clearly
  determine when intervention occurred and when
  changes occurred
• Design should rule out all other possible causes
  of change