Crime prevention strategies and effectiveness

How Community Policing Promotes Social Justice
Introduction
As Howell (2010) points out, youths “join gangs for protection, enjoyment, respect, money, or because a friend is in a gang” (p. 1). In the city of Cincinnati, gang activity among young people is on the rise, and City Council has expressed concerns over how to address this issue. The city of Mesa, Arizona, recently completed the Mesa Gang Intervention Program (MGIP), which focused on crime prevention among youths. This program primarily focused on the law enforcement aspect of the juvenile criminal justice system; however, it incorporated help from case workers, community leaders, probation officers, and youth workers. The program was a major success. As Mesa and Cincinnati are relatively similar in size, it is recommended that Cincinnati get serious about juvenile crime by implementing its own Gang Intervention Program modeled on MGIP. This paper will show why this program makes sense for Cincinnati and what the relevant literature reveals to support it. It will also propose a funding strategy, identify anticipated outcomes, and assess how crime prevention affects social justice within the local community.
Summary of the Jurisdiction
The city of Cincinnati has five districts and most of the gang-related activity occurs on the East side of the city. To reduce the amount of juvenile crime and to prevent gang-related crime in the city, the jurisdiction can focus its attention on law enforcement interventions that adopt a community-oriented approach to building bridges. The East side has few opportunities presently for juveniles in the way of enhancing education, having positive outlets for development and growth, and potential for upward movement. This lack of opportunity is a limitation that the city needs to address, and by addressing it through the strategy of crime prevention the city can effectively kill two birds with one stone.
Comparison to Other Similar Jurisdictions
Mesa, Arizona; Columbus, Ohio; and Louisville, Kentucky are similar jurisdictions. Cincinnati has a population of 350,000 people. Mesa has a population of 500,000. Columbus has a population of 800,000; and Louisville has a population of 600,000.
Using the SARA model and the Problem Analysis Triangle, one can see that the type of subject under discussion are ethnic or minority youths who join gangs during their adolescence and who end up involved in criminal activity, in juvenile delinquent centers, and later on in prisons as adults. The SARA model (Scan, Analyze, Respond, and Assess) shows that gang activity leads to violence in the community: murders, armed robberies, drug dealing, theft, vandalism, and rioting. Business owners, residents, and the homeless are all impacted. The aim of gang intervention programs like the one in Mesa is to address the youth gang problem at the individual and Project-area levels and reduce delinquency-related gang problems in the city (Spergel, Wa & Sosa, 2005). The problem is confirmed by the escalation of homicides, reported gang activity by minors, increases in vandalism, armed robbery, assaults, and thefts, and increases in drug trafficking. The same issues were apparent in Mesa prior to the intervention and are still apparent in Columbus and Louisville (Spergel et al., 2005). The rise in gang-related juvenile crime in Cincinnati has seen an ongoing trend since 2010, following the gentrification of the city’s Over-the-Rhine district, which saw minority populations pushed out of their neighborhoods into the East side. The East side has few recreational parks or services for youths and is much more impoverished in general than the rest of the city.
Analysis of the problem shows that the conditions that lead to increases in gang-related crime among juveniles consist of lack of social bond, lack of education, lack of home life stability, lack of alternatives, and lack of employment (Carson & Esbensen, 2019). The data required for analysis includes: police reports for Violence offenses, Drug selling offenses, Property offenses, Sex offenses, and Other offenses, and overall level of arrests for youths (Spergel et al., 2005). In the past numerous interventions have been performed. The Mesa intervention was one: it was a 5-year Program utilizing a case-management approach, involving a team of gang police, probation officers, case managers and outreach youth workers. The Mesa Police Department acted as lead agency and collaborated with the Maricopa Juvenile and Adult Probation Departments, the Mesa School District and United Way social agencies, and received strong support from the Mesa City Council (Spergel et al., 2005). The intervention aligned with the theory of social disorganization, which posits that “the cause of crime can be found in the environmental conditions within impoverished areas” (Listwan, 2013). Overall, the intervention was successful: Participating youth reduced their level of arrests 18% more than did the comparison youth, over a four-year program period compared to an equivalent four-year pre-program period; and the program area also experienced a 10.4% greater reduction in selected youth-typical crime incidents relative to an average of such crime incidents over the three comparison areas (Spergel, Wa & Sosa, 2005).
The response to this information should be for the city to engage in more community outreach, provide more educational seminars in schools, and authorize more street foot patrols that allow officers to better get to know the community and for the community to get to know its officers. There should not be a divide between the community and the police. Communities should know their police officers like they do their neighbors and vice versa. If gangs are to lose their appeal for young people, police officers need to lead the fight against gang activity by showing young people that there is a brighter future available and a way to get there. Police have to work with case workers, youth workers, community leaders, churches, schools, recreational leagues, and local businesses to bring a new culture to the communities that have been hardest hit—like the East side.
To assess this plan it will require using a measure like that used in Mesa. The MGIP used an S/W Gang Involvement Scale, which provided a way to measure the effects of the program in terms of the youth’s degree and context of gang involvement, at different points in time, which could result in delinquent behavior. Key elements to its success were the coordination of community leaders, organizations and law enforcement agencies. Their combined and committed effort made the difference. To measure outcomes over five years, logistical regression analysis was used, and a total of 10,933 services, 11,893 direct worker contacts and 3140 coordinated worker contacts were provided by project workers to program youth. The Mesa police kept records on all these contacts, overseeing the entire program and assisting with their presence in the community with community policing.
Appropriateness of the Crime Prevention Strategy
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has found that to prevent youths from joining gangs, “communities must strengthen families and schools, improve community supervision, train teachers and parents to manage disruptive youth, and teach students interpersonal skills” (Howell, 2010, p.1). Each of these objectives can be found in the crime prevention strategy proposed herein.
How the Strategy Addresses Social Justice Issues of the Community
Because many of the youths who join gangs in the city are ethnic and racial minorities, there is the sense that they have not enjoyed the same kind of economic, social and political privilege as youths of majority populations. This strategy brings more privilege to these marginalized populations and provides them with the kind of opportunities for support, for alternatives to gang structures, and for growth and development. It thus acts as a social justice intervention because it brings the idea of equitability to the streets and uses all available resources to divert youths away from gangs and gang-related violence to more positive activities, like sports, education, trade skills development programs, and work. Without such a strategy as this, many of these youths would never have such opportunities come their way (Listwan, 2013).
Effectiveness of Programs and Anticipated Outcomes
The effectiveness of various programs, such as the Scared Straight program, restorative justice and alternative sentencing programs has been documented by researchers in the past (Aguiar & Leavell, 2017; Daly, 2016). Social learning theory posits that behaviors are learned from observing them in others (Elliott & Fagan, 2017). Young people learn to vandalize by seeing it in media or among other peers: it is not a behavior that organically occurs to one otherwise, unless one is applying strain theory, social bond theory or life course theory. The solution therefore is to educate young people in a more noble way so that they learn to value their community, respect the property of others, including monuments and statues, even if they do not sympathize with what those monuments represent. They should be taught that history is part of their inherited culture and that even if there are sins in the past it is still wrong to vandalize and smash. Addressing the issues of family and stability are also important, if one is going to apply life course or social bond theory or strain theory. Crime prevention solutions like scare tactics such as the Scared Straight program can help as well. Likewise, strategies like restorative justice and alternative sentencing can help young people who commit these crimes learn from their mistakes (Aguiar & Leavall, 2017; Daly, 2016).
However, the key to the success of the MGIP strategy is that it addresses the trajectory of criminality and puts youths on a better and more positive path. Instead of relying on scare tactics or waiting for them to already get sucked into a path of crime and hoping that restorative justice can bring them back, the beauty of the MGIP program is it focuses on the creation, establishment and maintenance of a culture that can help young people avoid gangs, obtain the confidence they desire, and put them on a better trajectory to succeed in life. It allows officers to show that they care about the community’s youth, and it creates more opportunities for these youth to learn skills, tools, and knowledge that they can use to obtain something more than a low-skilled job or a street hustle career like what gangs offer.
Still, the goal of increasing the number of effective interventions can be achieved by 1) Employing rigorous, quasi?experimental designs when randomized control trials (RCTs) are not feasible, 2) Using “adaptive” research designs to evaluate multi?component interventions and policies, and 3) Using emerging methods such as Social Network Analysis (SNA) to evaluate social context interventions. Based on earlier research and readings, current prevention programs like Scared Straight, alternative sentencing and restorative justice are ways to help achieve these ends. However, they might be changed in the future based on these goals by ensuring that they are tested using quasi-experimental designs when RCT is unavailable or not feasible. But RCTs should be feasible in most cases and since it is the gold standard in research they should be conducted for Scared Straight, alternative sentencing and restorative justice to measure their impact (Daly, 2002; Petrosino, Petrosino & Buehler, 2005). Though researchers have evaluated these programs and noted their effectiveness, none of them have performed RCTs and so that is needed.
The impact of diversity in future crime prediction strategies, especially within law enforcement agencies that have little credibility with their communities today, can be measured by using better testing like RCTs. Multi-component interventions can also help to increase diversity and SNA can help as well. This chosen goal positively can impact social justice for all groups because by increasing the number of effective interventions through better testing, use of multi-component interventions, and SNA, the whole of society can be transformed into a more equitable community. It will be more balanced and the marginalization of oppressed populations can be reduced. There will be fewer resources wasted on ineffective programs and more resources used for programs that are proven to work. The more that successful programs receive funding, the more benefit there is to the community as a whole. Interventions that are needed can be implemented and tax payer dollars are spent in a productive manner that reduces crime.
Funding Strategy
The funding strategy for this program would be to apply for federal grants, such as the grants available in Ohio for community benefit programs of up to $25,000 for a range of programs and services that meet the needs of local residents, such as environmental, health and human services, education, faith-based activities and other needs. The city council can also earmark funds for more community-based policing. The majority of the funding, however, will best come from tax relief for local businesses and organizations that want to assist the city police in providing alternatives and opportunities for East side youth to help them escape gang related activities: these include sports, use of gyms, basketball tournament hosting, trade and skill development, case worker assistance, and so on. Funding thus becomes grassroots and organically grows through tax relief incentives.
Conclusion: How Crime Prevention Affects Social Justice in the Community
In conclusion, crime prevention like the sort proposed herein would allow for social justice to flourish in the Cincinnati community. At present, social injustice has prevailed for the sake of private investors who have profited from rising property values in Over-the-Rhine. The population living there prior to revitalization has been moved to the East side, and the East side is now experiencing higher gang related crime numbers. There are too few opportunities for youths on the East side to find themselves, build confidence, learn skills and develop their potential. The city police can help pave the way to a brighter future through community policing, but they need help from community leaders, case workers, youth workers, churches, local businesses and schools to create alternatives for young people who might otherwise end up in a gang and then in juvenile delinquency and then in prison. The MGIP program has shown that crime prevention strategies work. For social justice, a similar strategy should be implemented here.
References
Aguiar, C. M., & Leavell, S. (2017). A statewide parenting alternative sentencing program: Description and preliminary outcomes. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 87(1), 78-93.
Carson, D. C., & Esbensen, F. A. (2019). Gangs in school: Exploring the experiences of gang-involved youth. Youth Violence & Juvenile Justice, 17(1), 3-23. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1541204017739678
Daly, K. (2016). What is restorative justice? Fresh answers to a vexed question. Victims & Offenders, 11(1), 9-29.
Howell, J. (2010). Gang Prevention: An Overview of Research and Programs. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/231116.pdf
Listwan, S. J. (2013). Introduction to juvenile justice (2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118513217
Petrosino, A., Petrosino, C. T., & Buehler, J. (2005). “Scared Straight” and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 1(1), 1-62.
Spergel, I., Wa, K., & Sosa, R. (2005). Evaluation of the Mesa Gang Intervention Program (MGIP). School of Social Service Administration, The University of Chicago.