This chapter discusses various strategies and techniques used by police to prevent and solve crimes. It covers proactive and reactive crime control strategies, and how police work to prevent crime through routine patrol and specialized units. The chapter also examines how police apprehend criminals through citizen reporting, the investigation process, and challenges in measuring effectiveness. Special investigative techniques like undercover work and informants are addressed. Policing of drugs, gangs, career criminals, guns, hate crimes, and terrorism are also summarized.

1. Police in America
Chapter Nine
The Police and
Crime
McGraw-Hill
© 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

2. The Police and Crime

Crime Control Strategies
 Proactive versus Reactive
• Proactive: Anticrime strategies initiated by the police
themselves, not citizens requesting service
• Reactive: Anticrime strategies used by police when
responding to a civilian’s request for service
 General versus Specific
• Directed at the community at large vs. directed at particular
crimes, places, offenders, or victims




Particular crimes
Specific places
Specific offenders
Specific victims
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3. Crime Control Assumptions


Citizens are co-producers of police services
Police and other social institutions are
interdependent
 Communities, families, schools, labor markets,
workplaces, other criminal justice programs

Measuring effectiveness requires meaningful
definitions and reliable data
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4. Preventing Crime
 Routine patrol is primary crime prevention
activity
 Specialized crime prevention units
 Meet with citizens to discuss crime prevention
options
 Work alongside neighborhood groups
 Educating youth about crime, drugs, and
gangs
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5. Apprehending Criminals
 Second major crime-fighting responsibility
of police officers
 Citizen Reporting of Crime
– Citizens act as “gatekeepers” of the criminal
justice system
– Patrol officers rarely discover crimes in
progress
– Some victims do not report crimes because
they do not think the crime is important
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6. Reporting and Unfounding Crimes
“Unfounding” a Crime: Failure of a police
officer to complete an official crime
report when a citizen reports a crime.
 Reasons for Unfounding a Crime

 Citizens do not understand the criminal law
 Insufficient evidence
 Abuse of officer’s discretion
9-6

7. Criminal Investigation

Myths About Detective Work




Work is exciting and dangerous
Detectives are heroic, courageous and skillful
These myths create unreasonable public expectations
about the ability of police to control crime
The Organization of Detective Work
 Located in separate unit of department
 Considered a high-status assignment to be a
detective
 Offers great opportunity to control one’s work and
exercise initiative
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8. The Investigation Process

The Preliminary Investigation

1. Identify and arrest suspects
2. Provide aid to victims
3. Secure crime scene and prevent
loss of evidence
 4. Collect relevant physical
evidence
 5. Prepare preliminary report




Arrest Discretion
 Interview witnesses
 Canvass crime scene
 Discuss the case with patrol
officers
 Interview suspects
 Check records and NCIC files

 Based on the following factors:
3. Victim request of arrest
Reality of Detective Work
 Not glamorous or exciting
1. Strength of evidence
2. Seriousness of crime
Follow-Up Investigations
 Superficial, routine, non-productive

Case Screening
4. Victim and suspect are strangers
 Based on seriousness of crime and existence
of evidence
5. Suspect is hostile
“ Case solvability factors”
 Caseload varies: nominal, workable, and
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actual

9. Measuring the Effectiveness of
Criminal Investigations

The Clearance Rate




Traditional measure of success in a criminal investigation
Only 21% of all reported Index crimes are cleared Nationally
Unreliable since it is based on only reported crimes and data
can be manipulated
Defining an Arrest
 Legally arrested: deprived of rights by legal authority
 Behaviorally arrested: asked by police officer to stop, told they
are under arrest, or physically restrained by officer
 Subjectively arrested: when an individual believes he/she is not
free to go
 Officially arrested: when officer makes an official report of arrest
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10. Success and Failure in Solving
Crimes
 Three main case solvability factors:
 Case Structural Factors
• Related to the crime committed
 Organizational Factors
• Lack of resources does not keep clearance rates
low
 Environmental Factors
• Characteristics of the community the police work in
• Officers have no control over these factors
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11. Success and Failure in Solving
Crimes Continued
 Officer Productivity


Some officers make more arrests than others
Quality of arrests differs as well: many arrests
do not lead to a conviction
 The Problem
of Case Attrition
 Only ½ of felony arrests result in conviction
 Detectives and officers typically express little
interest in why this happens and how to fix it
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12. The Use of Eyewitness Identification,
Criminalistics, and DNA in Investigations

Eyewitness Identification
 Typically unreliable due to problems with human
perception and memory

Criminalistics
 Technical specialists in crime lab analyze evidence,
etc.

DNA
 All DNA samples forwarded to the FBI and put into
the National DNA Indexing System
• Stores forensic data and convicted offender index data
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13. Improving Criminal Investigations
 Changes in community policing
 Structural changes
• Headquarters changed to beats and precincts
• Assigning investigators to particular areas
 Procedural changes
• Greater intergovernmental communication
• Assistance from other criminal justice orgs.
 Functional changes
• Role and responsibility changes for investigators
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14. Special Investigative Techniques

Undercover Police
Work
 Deliberate deception
that may promote a
habit of lying
 Befriending criminals
• May erode the
standards of policing
 Less supervision

Informants
 Used especially in
victimless crimes
 Criminals who
possess special
knowledge
 Potential problems
because police must
give something in
return for access to
that information
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15. Policing Drugs

Drug Enforcement Strategies
 Supply reduction strategy
•
•
•
•
Buy and bust
“Trading up”
Long-term undercover work
Drug crackdown: intensive enforcement effort
 Demand reduction strategy
• Drug education programs

Minorities and the War on Drugs
 African Americans arrested more frequently than
whites, although usage is about the same

Demand Reduction: The D.A.R.E Program
 Operating in 70 percent of all public school systems
9-15

16. Policing Gangs and Gang-Related
Crime
 Gang Suppression
 The police gang unit: specialized unit
 Has at least one sworn officer whose job it is
to engage in gang control effort
 Gang Prevention: G.R.E.A.T. Program



Gang Resistance Education and Training
Operates in all 50 states
Study showed that it was not very effective at
preventing students from joining gangs
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17. Policing Career Criminals
 Career Criminals: People believed to be
committing a high rate of offenses
 Repeat Offender Programs
 Targeting suspected high-rate offenders for
surveillance and arrest
 Targeting those with outstanding warrants
 Case-enhancement programs to provide
information about offendor histories
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18. Policing Guns and Gun Crimes



Victims are most likely to be African American,
American Indian and Hispanic
Men are twice as likely to be victims compared
to women
Gun Suppression
 Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN)
 Kansas City Gun Experiment
• Targeted a high-crime precinct with problem-oriented
policing and directed patrol
• As a result, gun crimes fell 49%
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19. Policing Hate Crime
 Hate Crime
– bias motivated crimes
 The Scope and Nature of Hate Crime





50.8% racial bias
18.4% religious bias
16.6% sexual orientation bias
13.2% ethnic/national origin bias
Five main characteristics of Hate Crimes
• Higher level of assaults against persons than crimes generally
• More violent
• Attacks preceded by series of confrontations that escalate in
severity
• More likely to be committed be group perpetrators
• Likely to be committed by someone the victim knows
 Police Response to Hate Crime
 Creation of specialized bias crime units
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20. Policing Terrorism

The Scope and Nature of Terrorism
 Terrorism: “The unlawful use of force or violence
against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
government, the civilian population, or any segment
thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Domestic Terrorism
 Planned and carried out by Americans on American
soil

Foreign Terrorism
 Terrorist activities coordinated and perpetrated by
foreign persons or countries against the U.S.
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21. Responding to Terrorism
 In the wake of September 11
 Department of Homeland Security created
 Increasing number of U.S. Coast Guard and
Customs Service personnel
 FBI Office of Intelligence
 FBI Counterterrorism Watch
 Local police first to respond in a terrorist event
• But issues between federal law enforcement
agencies and local police arise due to refusal to
share critical information
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