Analyzing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Two Approaches to Policing



Analyzing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Two Approaches to Policing

Gang aggression has impersonated a foremost difficulty for regulation enforcement in the last 20 years. Although general murder rates in the United States have turned down between the 1980's and the 1990's, youth murder rates, especially occurrences engaging firearms have expanded dramatically. In the past, the policeman would accredit blame for gang command to flats for example patrol, juvenile bureaus, community relatives, enquiries, and misdeed avoidance (Policing Gangs and Youth Violence 2003, pg. 17).

In the 1980's, many police departments established specialized units for gang control including what is known as the police gang unit. A police gang unit is a secondary or tertiary functional division within a police organization, which has at least one sworn officer whose sole function, is to engage in gang control efforts (Policing Gangs and Youth Violence, pg 17). Because of the rise and growth of gangs, law enforcement has shifted from traditional, to community and problem-oriented policing to address youth gang problems. In this paper I plan to give a brief insight on how some law enforcement agencies are attempting to use community and problem-oriented policing to address youth gang problems. I will discuss the methods used by different cities in the U.S. to prevent and control crime, and the effectiveness of these methods.

In the city of Boston, gang violence sent the homicide rate skyrocketing particularly in the 1990's. Although gang violence was really exposed to the public eye in the 1980's, Boston officials didn't acknowledge gang violence at this time. As a result, youth homicides peaked at 73 in 1990, which is almost triple, the average. According to researchers, this sudden increase in Boston youth homicide was strongly associated with firearms. Researchers discovered that between 1988 and 1995, 74 percent of youth victims were killed with firearms. In response to the upswing of violence, law enforcement began to take initiative by creating new policy and programs aimed at reducing youth violence, which was according to statistics, mainly caused by gangs. In 1990, the Boston Police department created a special youth violence prevention unit that was originally called the Anti-Gang Violence Unit, but was later renamed the Youth Violence Strike Force (YVSF). This unit was composed of top Boston police patrol officers and detectives. By assigning this elite unit of experienced officers to address the problem, the department made a commitment to both the community and the departments own officers to take the problem seriously. The YVSF wanted to deal with a broader range of youth violence specifically gun violence. Initially they were directed towards suppression, an arrest based strategy aimed at incarcerating gang members. Eventually they recognized the important role of firearms and youth violence, so the YVSF developed relationships with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to prevent gun trafficking and to disrupt the illegal firearms markets serving. By 1992 Boston police officers started working together with probation officers ...