Responding To and Preventing Crime

within a Community Policing Framework Chapter

Responding to
and Preventing
Crime within a
Community
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley
Policing
Framework

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Learning Objectives
• Define targeting strategies, community
service approaches, and crime prevention
programs
• Provide examples of primary prevention
programs, secondary prevention programs,
and tertiary prevention programs
• Describe how environmental design can
prevent crime

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Learning Objectives
• Provide examples of the strategies for
reducing opportunities for crime and social
disorder
• Discuss the effectiveness of and limits on
crime prevention programs
• Discuss the mediation and conflict
resolution strategies used by patrol officers

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Four Principles of the
Safer Communities Approach
• Community is the focal point of effective crime
prevention
• Community must identify and respond to
short- and long-term needs
• Crime prevention efforts should bring together
individuals from a range of sectors to tackle
crime
• Strategies for preventing crime should be
supported by the entire community
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 Chapter

National Crime Prevention Strategy

NCPS
• Administered by Public Safety Canada
• Programs
– Community police stations
– Police storefronts
– School liaison officers
– Anti drug programs
– Anti bullying programs
– Sports/recreational programs with police
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Proactive Targeted Strategies
• Rely on the use of patrol for the
apprehension, deterrence, and
incapacitation of criminal offenders
• Strategies used include:
– cover patrol
– repeat offender targeting
– saturation patrol
– roadblocks
– repeat complaint address policing (Mastrofski 1990)
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 Chapter

Targeted Strategy Patrol

• Traditional – random and incident
driven.
• Targeted Strategy
– To achieve visibility
– Pursue proactive policing
– Provide for rapid response

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Tactical or Directed Patrol
• Saturating high-crime areas – “hot spots”
with police officers, or targeting individuals
involved in specific types of criminal activity
– Hard crime calls: hold-up alarms, shootings,
stabbings, auto thefts, thefts from autos,
assaults, and sexual assaults
– Soft crime calls: audible break-in alarms,
disturbances, drunks, noise, unwanted
persons, vandalism, prowlers, fights, and
physical injuries
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 Chapter

4 Common Characteristics
• Patrol based on analysis of crime data
• Officers use uncommitted time for
purposeful activity
• Have specific instructions directing
activity
• Officers are proactive and may seem
aggressive
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

The
Effectiveness
of Tactical or
Directed
Patrol

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

The
Effectiveness
of Tactical or
Directed
Patrol

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
The Problems of Tactical or
Directed Patrol
• Develop strategies to alter the role and attitude of
police officers from reactive to proactive
• Convince officers that their current call loads
allow for directed patrol projects
• Analyze crime patterns, trends, and patrol officer
workloads and activities
• Deal with diminished police resources, which
inhibit the ability to implement tactical or directed
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patrol
Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Community Service Approaches
• “Focus on protecting, aiding, and mobilizing
members of the community in dealing with
crime, disorders and the underlying factors
contributing to these problems” (Mastrofski 1990)
• Strategies include foot patrols, community
police stations, and
• Organizing the community to become involved
in addressing problems of crime and disorder

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Foot Patrol: Back to the Beat
• Reduce the fear of crime but not actual rate
• Increase feelings of personal safety among
community residents
• Reduce calls for service
• Increase officer familiarity with
neighbourhoods
• Increase officers’ perception of job safety
– greater job satisfaction
– higher morale than officers in patrol cars
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Bicycle Patrols
• Police officers on mountain bikes are deployed into
areas of high crime and social disorder
• First urban uniformed bike patrol established by the
Seattle Police Department in 1987
• Benefits of bicycles:
– Can be maneuvered into areas where cars can’t
– Bicycles are silent
– Result in over twice as much contact with the public
when compared with automobile patrols
– Bicycles are covert; not typically associated with
4 - 15 police officers on patrol for crime and disorder
Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Other Modes of Patrol
• Helicopters
• Snowmobiles
• Motorcycles
• Boats
• Mounted Patrol
• In-Line Skates

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Team Policing
• The same group of police officers work the
same set of shifts on a continuous basis
• Geographic stability of patrol through
permanent assignment of teams of police to
small neighbourhood areas
• Maximized communication among team
members assigned to a specific area
around the clock, seven days a week
• Maximum interaction and communication
between team members and the community
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Objectives of Team Policing
• Capitalizing on the strengths of individual
team members
• Improved police–community relations
• Reduced crime and disorder problems
• Improved police officer morale
• Improved officer productivity

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Community Police Stations and
Storefronts
• Popular in Canada and often staffed by a
mixture of uniformed police personnel,
civilian staff, and volunteers
• Some evidence to suggest that community
police stations may result in more positive
evaluations of the police by community
residents
• Appear to have little impact on crime rates

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Crime Prevention Programs
• Situational Crime Prevention Strategies
– Reduce availability and attractiveness of
opportunities to commit criminal activity
• Crime Prevention through Social
Development
– focuses on addressing the root causes
of crime

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 Chapter

For Crime to Occur

• A suitable target (person, location,
object)
• Lack of suitable guardian to prevent
crime from happening
• Presence of a motivated offender

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 Chapter

Guardian
• Police patrol
• Security guards
• Neighbourhood watch program
• Door staff
• Vigilant staff and coworkers
• Friends and neighbors
• CCTV systems
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Primary Prevention Programs
• The most common type of crime
prevention
• Directed toward property offences
• Designed to identify opportunities for
criminal offences and to alter these
conditions in an attempt to reduce the
likelihood of crimes being committed

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Primary Prevention Programs
• Operation Identification
• Neighbourhood Watch
• Citizen Patrols
• Media-Based Programs
• Crime Prevention through
Environmental Design (CPTED)
• Problem-Oriented Policing (POP)

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

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 Chapter

Problem Oriented Policing (POP)

• Scanning – identifying the problem
• Analysis – determining the cause,
scope and effect of the problem
• Response – developing a plan to
address and solve the problem
• Assessment – determining whether the
response was effective.
• SARA
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Secondary Prevention Programs
• Focus on areas that produce crime and other
types of disorder
• Seek to identify high-risk offenders
• Based on crime-area analysis
• Strategies include:
– Neighbourhood dispute resolution
– Diversion of offenders
– Various school-based crime prevention
initiatives and intervention programs for youth
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Secondary Prevention Programs
School Programs
• Developing positive relations with teens,
improving youth attitudes toward the police,
and security for the school and students
• Elementary presentations tend to focus on
safety issues, including “stranger-danger”
and bicycle safety

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Tertiary Prevention Programs
• Designed to deter, incapacitate, and
rehabilitate offenders
• Focus on intervening with youth and
adult offenders to reduce the likelihood
of further criminal behaviour
• The majority of programs are conducted
within the criminal justice system and
generally do not involve police

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Other Approaches to Preventing
and Reducing Crime
• Crime Prevention through Social
Development (CPSD)
– Attempts to eliminate some of the
underlying factors that contribute to crime
– Approaches include initiatives to reduce
poverty and increase the availability of
proper housing, employment, educational
opportunities, and adequate recreational
facilities
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Increasing Police Legitimacy
• Efforts by police service to ensure that
citizens are treated fairly and to explain
their role and activities through personal
contact
• Common strategies to increase police
legitimacy are police–community
meetings and door-to-door visits by
police officers

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
“Broken Windows” Approach
• A metaphor for neighbourhood
deterioration
• At times, if a window is broken in a building
and not repaired, in very short order all the
windows would be broken
• It appears that no one cares enough about
the quality of life in the neighbourhood to
bother fixing the little things that are wrong
• Triggers further neglect and results in the
progressive deterioration of the entire
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Technology in Crime prevention: Closed-
Circuit Television (CCTV) Systems
• Technology such as CCTV systems are
deployed in many businesses (e.g.,
shopping malls) as well as in public
spaces (e.g., on streets)
• “Street-focused” systems typically target
property crimes, such as theft, and violent
offences, such as shootings
• Research suggests CCTV systems may
be effective in reducing some types of
criminal behaviour
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
The Effectiveness of Crime Prevention
Programs
Assessment is difficult as:
• Research studies vary in their methodologies, in
the types of data gathered, and in the outcomes
measured
• Implementation is influenced by
– Diversion of offenders
– The priorities and resources of the police service
– The enthusiasm and commitment of the police
officers and community residents involved, and
– The specific attributes of the community itself
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
The Effectiveness of Crime Prevention
Programs
Other assessment issues include:
• Most of the research studies have been done
in the U.S., not Canada
• The slippery issue of crime displacement—
the possibility that offenders and their
activities have relocated

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Crime Prevention in Indigenous
Communities: Two Categories
1. Programs that are part of an overall crime
prevention strategy developed by senior
police administrators; implemented in
both Indigenous and non-Indigenous
communities
2. Programs developed by police officers at
the local community level in collaboration
with chiefs, band councils, and
community residents…the most effective
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Crime Prevention in the Cyber World
• Social media and the Internet are significant
aspects of contemporary society that need to be
secure and safe
• A cybercrime is a criminal offence involving:
– technology-as-target: computers and other
information technologies are the target of crime
(e.g., hacking)
– technology-as-instrument: the Internet and
information technology are used and are
instrumental in committing a crime (e.g., computer
fraud) (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2015)
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Crime Prevention in the Cyber World
• Police services are dedicating resources to fight
cybercrime and using a new approach to policing:
– Analyzing forensic data on computers and phones
– Tracing emails
– Executing search warrants for electronic material
– Assisting in the investigation of online threats of
violence or suicide and cyber bullying
– Identifying IP addresses
– Providing expert technical assistance
– Providing education to the public (Ottawa Police Service, 2017)
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

Assessing
Effectiveness

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

Assessing
Effectiveness

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

Assessing
Effectiveness

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

Assessing
Effectiveness

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4

Assessing
Effectiveness

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Chapter Summary
• Responding to crime and social
disorder by collaboration between the
police service and the community
• Strategies that can be used include
– proactive strategies
– community service approaches
– crime prevention programs

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Chapter Summary
• Community policing involves police work
that is reactive, proactive, and coactive (with
the community)
• Additional approaches include:
– preventing crime through social development
– creating programs that increase police
legitimacy, and
– supporting the increased deployment of
CCTVs
– developing strategies to fight cybercrime
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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Chapter Summary
• Determining the effectiveness of crime
prevention initiatives
• Crime displacement—the possibility that
offenders and their activities have merely
relocated, rather than crime having been
eliminated
• Resistance on the part of police services
and disinterest on the part of the
community to become involved

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Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Key Terms
• broken windows approach
• community service approaches
• crime displacement
• crime prevention programs
• crime prevention through environmental design
(CPTED)
• crime prevention through social development
(CPSD)
• foot patrols or beats
• hard crime calls
• National Crime Prevention Strategy
4 - 50 • police legitimacy
Responding To and Preventing Crime
within a Community Policing Framework Chapter 4
Key Terms
• primary prevention programs
• proactive targeted strategies
• problem-oriented policing (POP)
• public notification
• safer communities approach to crime
prevention
• secondary prevention programs
• soft crime calls
• tactical or directed patrol
• team policing
• tertiary prevention programs
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