Police Studies) Community-Oriented Policing and Victimless Crime:

¶ … Police Studies)

Community-Oriented Policing and Victimless Crime:

Street-Level Drug Trafficking

The high rates of individuals who are arrested, on probation, incarcerated, or on parole throughout our nation have led some critical criminologists to advocate for the decriminalization of so-called victimless crimes. Victimless crimes include nonviolent crime such as gambling, prostitution, and illegal drug possession and drug sales. Although these activities may appear consensual or self-inflicted at first glance, this conduct creates victims indirectly because it presents larger threats to overall community security. The most pressing threats arise from drug use and trafficking, as these behaviors are a catalyst to gang activity, intimidation of law-abiding citizens, robberies, assaults, murders, and other forms of violence and community degredation. Indeed, drug users are disproportionately represented among the most active and dangerous offenders, and violence associated with the trade easily spreads to the general population (Moore & Kleiman). The question for law enforcement then is, what is the most effective strategy for dealing with the widespread social problem of street-level drug trafficking?

In general, law enforcement interventions may involve proactive policing, emphasizing and order maintenance, or reactive policing, emphasizing crime control. Every police department utilizes both types of enforcement to a degree. Community-oriented policing may utilize a blend of both approaches, but tends to focus less on arrest and incarceration, and more on preventative measures, as a way to control crime. The bulk of evidence on policing has shown that the community-oriented approach can lead to dramatic reductions in violent crime, as it involves coordinated efforts among police departments, community organizations, and local government and social service agencies. Effective community policing consists of aggressive, proactive strategies with both crime-fighting and order-maintenance goals, where police are deployed on an ongoing basis, engage in daily contact with neighborhood residents, and maintain direct connections within communities in order to prevent crime from occurring in the first place (Zimmer).

Although community-oriented policing is effective in dealing with traditional criminality such as violence, "victimless" crime such as drug possession and sales pose tougher challenges for law enforcement. Nonetheless, some studies on community-oriented policing programs have shown highly successful, resulting in lower drug trafficking rates, better rapport between police and community members, improved economic and social well-being and enhanced quality of life in communities, and increased morale for individual police officers.

For instance, Operation Pressure Point, a 1984 program directed at pervasive drug markets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, involved intensive community-oriented policing efforts that consisted of both soft and tough tactics. The NYPD joined forces with the Housing and Transit Police established an imposing presence in the community, including the subways, sweeping the streets on foot patrol dispersing vagrant crowds, issuing tickets, conducting searches of suspicious individuals, and making arrests. Mounted police rode through parks clearing out known dealers, and the canine unit was used to empty abandoned buildings turned into drug warehouses. Buy bust operations and surveillance measures were also implemented. In addition, OPP forces discouraged involvement in the drug trade by communicating, interacting, and detaining users and dealers on an ongoing basis, and keeping abreast of the changing stealthy schemes by dealers.