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...hat are in positions to assist in reducing crime, and assigning officers for longer periods of time in a specific location to create a relationship with citizens are just a couple of ways community policing can be implemented. In the early months of 1994 the NYPD began holding Crime Control Strategy meetings. These meetings became better known as Compstat meetings. These meetings made officers and the department more responsible for their actions but also provided them with a greater portion of discretion, and resources. The rapid decline in major crime in the year past showed the success of this strategic control system. According to the compstat process there are four basic principles of crime reduction: Accurate and timely intelligence, effective tactics, rapid deployment of personnel and resources, and relentless follow-up assessment. “Over the course of the past several decades, police executives in many agencies favored and implemented an increasingly centralized model of organization and control With the rise of the so-called ‘professional model,’ police agencies created a host of specialized units to deal with specific (and often temporary) problems, while executives attempted to retain tight control over the direction and scope of officers’ activities. This attempt at specialization of police functions was predicated upon prevailing management theories which emphasized rigid organizational and supervisory structures as the key to efficiency” (Compstat process). The department because of this division of the two groups had no focus and different agendas became apparent. Over the past several years, the day-to-day decisions in the NYPD have been placed more squarely on the shoulders of the precinct commanders rather than the higher-ups in the organization. This departure from traditional ideology of police management recognizes that in order to reduce crime the middle-management must be given more power and delegation. “Since April 1994, the Department has developed and introduced eight crime control and quality of life strategies and has published and disseminated eight police strategy documents. The eight strategies are: Getting guns off the streets of New York, curbing youth violence in the schools and on the streets, driving drug dealers out of New York, breaking the cycle of domestic violence, reclaim the public spaces of New York City, reducing auto-related crime in New York, rooting out corruption; building organizational integrity in the NYPD, and reclaiming the roads of New York (Compstat process). Each week all of the statistics gathered from officers in all 76 precincts of New York is forwarded to the compstat unit and analyzed by their computers and that is how the compstat reports are made each week. Today the main focus of police departments is community-oriented with the hope to bring both the community and the police together in a connected effort to prevent crime. The success or lack of success in this type of organization is the fact the community as a whole in not working together. The police do not deal with only one community either, rather, they have to contend with multiple overlapping communities of different origins that constantly interact with one another, sometimes causing conflict. I do not believe that there will ever be and end to crime completely, it would be ignorant and naïve to believe so. I also think no matter what type of model the police try to use to prevent crime it will only slow the criminals down until they adapt and conform causing the need for another model to be initiated. Crime is a part of the human society and in my opinion the police can only hope to contain it, not end it. Works Cited The compstat Process Barker Thomas, Hunter Ronald D., Mayhall Pamela D.; Police-Community Relations, sixth edition, 2004 Prentice-Hall Inc Barlow David S., Brandl Steven G.; The Police in America, 2004 Wadsworth Publishing. Crank John, Kuykendall Jack, Roberg Roy; Police and Society, second edition, 2000 Roxbury Publishing Company. Walker Samuel; A Critical History of Police Reform, 1977 D.C. Heath and Company. Between the middle of the eighteenth century to the 1920s, local policing was dominated by politics. This era was known as the political era. Discretion possessed by officers during this era was significant, and was used to handle minor violations with personal issues as well. The suspects family and its status, along with the treatment the officer received by the suspect, former violations, and the nature of the offense was all taken into consideration by the officer on the scene(Crank41). Early American police departments received their authority from local politicians. “The relationship was often reciprocal: political machines recruited and maintained police in office and on the beat, while police helped ward political leaders maintain their political offices by encouraging citizens to vote for certain candidates, discouraging them from voting for others, and, at times, by assisting in rigging elections”(Barlow7). Police function of this time period dealt with crime prevention, and riot control. Police departments were very decentralized with various precincts run by managers and local politicians. Officers were generally recruited from the same ethnic background as the local politicians, and lived in the same neighborhoods in which they worked(Barlow8). Due to technological restraints the majority of officers walked beats and dealt with crime personally at the street level. The close relationship between officers and the community, and officers and politicians lead the way to corruption. Officers were bribed to turn a “blind eye” to certain activities, and rigging of elections in favor of certain politicians was rampant. Officers were know to use excessive force when dealing with suspects. Lincoln Steffens a critic of this era once said, “Many a morning when I had nothing else to do I stood and saw the police bring in and kick out their bandaged, bloody prisoners, not only strikers and foreigners, but thieves too, and others of the miserable, friendless, troublesome poor”(Crank44). The second era, the Reform Era lasted until the 1970s. Politics and police no longer went hand in hand. The intimate relationship between the two came to an end and changes were brought about to completely isolate politicians from holding any clout. “August Vollmer, police chief of Berkeley, California, and future founder of the American Society of Criminology, would spread the message across the nation that police officers needed to have higher education, extensive training, professional integrity, and a clearly defined organizational structure to regulate their activites”(Barker63). Police departments became autonomous, military style organizations in urban governments stopping crime and criminals became the main focal point of police departments in the reform era, and criminal policing was to apprehend, and deter offenders. Community policing was not recognized by police officers as being affective but more of a hassle. “A common line in police circles during the 1950s and 60s was, ‘if only we didn’t have to do social work, we could really do something about crime”(Barlow11). The great depression during the 1930s was a turning point for police reform. In 1934 Bruce Smith was asked to answer the question of how the depression had affected the police. He stated that “the depression encouraged police administrators to review with a critical eye the facilities placed at their disposal and encouraged adoption of new devices and procedures”(Walker141). “Community policing is a new philosophy of policing, based on the concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay”(Barker66). Regulation of discretion and the conduct of police began to emerge in the community era. The police once again directed themselves back into the community and with more discipline. Police administrators began to experiment with various ways to deliver their services to the community. The public was once again let back into the fold and cooperation was reestablished. Working with specific factions of the community that are in positions to ...