In this paper information technology will be discussed and how it is optimized in police departments to reduce different crimes. It will also be compared to random patrolling on the streets and which one is more effective. The four basic functions of CompStat will be discussed and each function will be described. There are many tools in which police departments can use to respond to crime quicker. These tools involve information systems for example CompStat.
A good term for this is called “Social Desirability Bias” which means that you reply in a manner that is socially acceptable and desirable. The main purpose of this study is to allow the participants to describe the crimes in their own words instead of implying from observing participants. Honesty in these self-report studies help many different groups to better understand crime and criminal behavior. They use these reports to gather information to put them into statistics. The reports that are used are collected from the NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System) and NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) and published by FBI in their yearly UCR ( Uniform Crime Report.)
This is a map that is individual to the person where they will have routine routes of where they will walk/drive etc. Brantingham theory suggests that offenders are more likely to operate in areas ‘cognitively known’ to them rather than places they don’t, so can explain patterns such as burglary in certain areas. This theory explains where crimes are more likely to happen, but Clarke’s opportunity theory explains why certain victims are chosen and others aren’t. As it depends if the target is accessible so how easy it is to commit the crime such as no security cameras in a store will probably have a high percentage of stolen goods. Another factor is that it depends on how attractive the target is in that how much will the individual gain from committing the crime or how easily the crime can be implemented such as robbing from a bank will have a high risk factor.
Proactive patrol has been known to deter crime in areas where criminal activity is high. Providing proactive patrol can deter criminals from actually committing the crime but it does not always deter the crime from happening in the first place. Creating the awareness in a community there are police nearby does help deter the crime from taking place. In order for a police organization to be successful it would take both patrols to reach this goal. One without the other in my eyes would not work.
Today's police have an advantage over their counterparts of the 60's and 70's with the help of the invention of the computer, new processes, and new calculations being processed. Information stored in some form of database such as business code violations, burglaries, citations, demographics of age of residences, housing appraisals, utilities usage and many others aspects are used to create an educated guess on where police should focus their efforts on deterring crime. When predictive information is used appropriately this can bring about a great change to law enforcement such as was seen in Santa Cruz Police department that used the data to arrest five criminals. However, the adage of “Garbage in Garbage out” comes into play. Typically, a human handles all data entered into a database and there are always clerical mistakes with data entry.
License plate scanners make work easier and more accurate for police officers, probation officers, and local traffic police all over the United States. The question is, can they do so without victimizing every law abiding citizen that travels the road on a daily basis? Although license plate scanners are efficient for the criminal justice field, every day civilians consider them to be an invasion of privacy. In this paper there will be a detailed definition of license plate scanners and what they are used for, and where the problems arose with the expansion; the controversy that’s been taking place over the past few years will be discussed by explaining what license plate scanners are attempting to prevent, and clarifying how people feel about the scanners. Usage and Expansion It seems as though over the past few years, people have become experts at “beating the system”.
Other methods are based on facial, iris, voice, handwriting, and signature recognition. Fast and accurate identification enhances officer safety, detects criminals, secures facilities and information systems from unauthorized access, makes borders more secure, and prevents identity theft.” (National Institute of Justice, 2011) Biometric innovations are used in different sectors of the criminal justice system, such as FBI, police agencies, CIA, etc. The FBI is actually the leading sector in the usage of biometrics and biometric developments, they continue to strive and develop new ways to help in the war against crime. “The FBI has long been a leader in biometrics. We’ve used various forms of biometric identification since our earliest days, including assuming responsibility for managing the national fingerprint collection in 1924.
February of 1999 and man named Amadou Diallo was unarmed when he was fired at 41 times by police officers, and even saying that the mayor of New York City, at the time, still were acquitted, stating that “ Probably until the day I die, I will always give the police officers the benefit of the doubt” (Progressive, 2000, p. 19) There continue to be frequent reports of unjustified police shootings, with officers firing at unarmed suspects, fleeing from non-violent crimes, at the end of pursuits, during traffic stops or in other circumstances. In Kansas City 1998 a 13 year old black child, Timothy L. Wilson was driving a friends pick-up truck, and was shot dead at the end of a brief chase. All the officers cleared of any wrong-doing. California in 1999 during a narcotics raid SWAT fired at an elderly man, and no drugs were found during the raid. In Chicago in 1998 police officers shot and killed 71 people and in the same year 7 people were killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma (Amnesty International, 1999, p. 23).
Although this might be true, reporting the crime gives the police the opportunity to figure out what areas need more patrolling. Reporting the crimes also help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to create a data base for all crimes reported within the United States. The information collected
Moreover, the detail available in police files varied substantially, depending on the willingness of police officers to ask victims systematically for the specifics of crime events. The are many positive factors in conducting these surveys. First of all there is the advantage that the rich qualitative data is anonymous which protect the individuals being surveyed. Another positive factor is that the surveys are easy to administer and cheaper then other methods. These surveys are very nice because, they allow these respondents to explain there experiences in their own words.