Problem Solving - Law

Problem Solving - Law

Introduction

The chief of the Police department in Newport, Virginia in 1983 introduced the approach Problem-Oriented that focused on recurring crimes and felonies. This resulted in the development of the Four Step Problem Solving System Commonly Referred to as SARA; Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment, which is now often times used by Law Enforcement agencies.

Four Step Problem Solving System Commonly Referred to as SARA; Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment

The SARA model is a model used frequently by the law enforcement agencies. It includes four steps, which are Scanning, Assessment, Response and Analysis. This is a main component of the concept of community policing. The approach used to solve problems is a process that is methodical and reduces the affect crime and disorder has on a community. The technique of solving problems is applicable to all problems, for instance staff of a school can utilize it to design school safety plan, solves issues of discipline and other school oriented problems (Goldstein, 1990).

Components of the SARA Model; Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment

All the components are equally important and play their own crucial part in solving problems and finding solutions which is why they are used by Law Enforcement agencies. This process has been known to effectively reduce crime and rate of felonies committed. It solves crimes in a methodical way and lessens the effect crime has on people, the police department and communities.

Scanning

To have the ability to identify clusters of related incidents through a scan like review of the data available and the selection of the crime, from amongst problems that are competing to be priorities, for examination in the future. This process scans the issues concerning the police and the public, consequences of the issue for the police and community, setting the priority for the problems, development of wide goals, confirmation of the existence of the problem, figuring how often the issue occurs and has been around for how long and choosing problems for close examination (Diamond, 1993).

Analysis

This approach utilizes numerous sources of data for determining the cause of the problem, the responsible individual, and potential affected the location of the problem, where it occurred and how the problem formed. This approach requires identifications of patterns that define the conditions that are facilitating the disorder issue or crime. The included sources of data include data of the police, which includes (arrest records, incident data record, CAD etc.), the interviews to offenders and the victims, surveys of the environment, insurance information of the residents and business, etc. (Dillman, 1978).

This approach identifies and understands the conditions and event that proceed and accompanies the problem, identifies relevant data to needs to be collected, research of the problem type, inventory conducted of the problem that requires addressing, and the responses strength and limitations. Furthermore, the scope of the issue is narrowed down, resources are identified that could be off assistance to understand the problem deeply and creating a hypothesis that works as to why the ...