Organizations Resolving a Social Problem

Resolving a Social Problem: As mentioned in the first assignment, one of the main social problems in the modern society is crime, which is basically defined as an offense against public law. Since it is a major social problem, crime has significant effects on victims, the society, and social institutions. Crime is a multi-faceted social problem because it involves personal responsibility as well as social, cultural, and political aspects that contribute to it.

It is also a social problem that should be understood from a social context because it does not occur in a social vacuum. Due to the social nature of crime and its impact on the society, there are several organizations that seek to address this social problem. These organizations range from governmental agencies to community-based organizations with different ways for addressing the problem. Some examples of organizations committed to this social problem include National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) and Crime Prevention Coalition of America.

Objectives of these Organizations: The mission of National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) is to promote dignity and compassion for individuals harmed by crime and crisis ("Nova Overview," n.d.). Therefore, the organization is committed to addressing the social problem by focusing on victims of crime and victims of crisis. National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) has been operating as a private, not-for-profit, and charitable organization since it was founded in 1975. NOVA seeks to accomplish its objective through values such as compassion, collaboration, accountability, and passion.

Crime Prevention Coalition of America is a non-partisan association of over 400 federal, state, national, and community-based organizations that come together to sponsor citizen action to prevent crime. This organization was established in 1980 and is made of youth development organizations, law enforcement agencies, municipalities, community-based groups, representatives from federal and state governments, and state crime prevention organizations. The organization's initiatives in addressing crime are based on several principles on what the social problem is and what preventing crime requires.

Crime Prevention Coalition of America believes that preventing an offense is everyone's job, is associated with solving social problems, is more than security, is cost-effective, and is a duty of all governmental levels and agencies. The organization also believes that prevention of crime requires education, ongoing assessment and enhancement, a central role in law enforcement, customizing to local needs and conditions, and collaboration and cooperation by every element of the community.

Major Ways that Each Organization Addresses the Social Problem: National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) and Crime Prevention Coalition of America use different ways of addressing the social problem of crime. As previously mentioned, NOVA's means of addressing the social problem include programs for victims of crime and those for victims of crisis. On the contrary, Crime Prevention Coalition of America use various ways or strategies including developing and implementing a crime prevention action plan and creating new or enhancing existing crime prevention programs ("About," n.d.).

Under its victims of crime initiative, National Organization for Victim Assistance helps these individuals to deal with the trauma associated with being a crime victim. This process involves recognition of the fact that all crime victims experience loss regardless of whether they are survivors of violent offenses or monetary crime victimization. The organization's process of helping victims deal with the trauma is based on the fact that no individual has the right to judge the effect of a particular loss in the life of a victim.

This basis for helping crime victims to deal with trauma is attributed to the concept of social justice in addressing social problems. This concept postulates that every individual has the right to access favorable working conditions and receive adequate protection. Therefore, if an individual is a victim of crime, he/she needs an environment where people do not judge the impact of his/her loss but recognizes that being subjected to crime is a traumatic experience with considerable loss.

The approach is also based on the sociological concept of objective reality, which is the potential harm that a person may experience by undergoing such an incident. Generally, the most common type of harm that crime victims experience is emotional or psychological trauma as a result of the loss from the offense. NOVA seeks to address this social problem by creating ways for crime victims to either overcome the emotional trauma or learn how to cope with it.

The second way that National Organization for Victim Assistance deals with this social problem is through programs that focus on victims of crisis. Similar to crime victim initiative, programs for victims of crisis addresses the psychological trauma emanating from experiencing such situation. During this process, the organization tries to identify common reactions and uncommon reactions to the situation.

Once the type of reaction has been identified, appropriate measures are developed and established to focus on coping with physical health and abilities, spiritual connections, emotional and mental ability, and family and community support. In cases where the trauma reaction persists to an extent that it hinders coping and functioning, the organization refers the victim to mental health institutions and professionals. The sociological concept used by National Organization for Victim Assistance under victims of crisis strategy is an individualistic perspective or micro view.

This perspective basically treats and evaluates an individual as a single entity. The use of this concept is demonstrated in the analysis of an individual's trauma reactions on whether they are common or uncommon. The sociological concept of social justice is also used as a major perspective in addressing the issue of crime through the victims of crisis programs. In contrast, the first way used by Crime Prevention Coalition of America is creating and implementing a crime prevention action plan.

The action plan or initiative is used to enroll individuals, businesses, community groups and organizations, and governments to establish crime prevention strategies, programs, and tactics. Notably, these initiatives are founded on the successes of the National Citizens' Crime Prevention Campaign. This process is characterized by the identification of member task groups that focus on certain issues of concern to the specified member organizations. Consequently, they result in stronger responsibility among the association's member organizations to foster prevention-focused reporting on crime.

The development of the action plan can be attributed to the sociological concept of system perspective, where social problems are understood in light of the existing social structure. The system perspective addresses a social problem by examining the short-comings of the existing and dysfunctional social structure. In order to develop effective strategies, this organization relies on reports of the existing member organizations regarding the effectiveness of the existing structure in dealing with crime.

The strategy is also based on the symbolic interaction theory, which is a sociological theory that postulates that social problems are brought by interactions.